[Wittrs] Re: Wittgenstein and Post Modernism

  • From: Rob de Villiers <robbitgrey@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Wed, 16 Sep 2009 10:13:08 +0100

Sean,

I tend to very much concur with everything you say on this issue.

such as:

 post modernism as a philosophy would be as repugnant to him as, say,
idealism or solipsism or whatever.

Maybe I would go even further. Whenever  the Wittgenstein v's Po-mo question
comes
up I am put in mind of the following remarks of LW recorded by Drury:

"Now a book I like greatly is Sterne's _Tristram Shandy_.
That is one of my favourite books. You remember the incident
where they are discussing infant prodigies, and after several
have mentioned examples, one of the company caps the lot by
saying he knew an infant who produced a work on the day he
was born. Whereupon Dr. Slop replies that it should have been
wiped up and nothing more said about it. Now that you could
say about a lot that is written today. They should be wiped
up and nothing more said about them."

... and ...

"A bad philosopher is like a slum land-lord.
It is my job to put him out of business."

Of course many po-mos claim some degree of lineage from Wittgenstein.
I guess the only thing would be to identify (if at all possible!) some key
tennets,
tendencies, notions, arguments, dogmas or whatevers of post-modernism and
just see what we might make of them with our Wittgensteinian hats on ... and

with his help.   .... assuming the game to be worth the candle.

Rob.

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