[Wittrs] Re: Wittgenstein's meaning is use.
- From: CJ <castalia@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 29 Sep 2009 15:38:30 -0400
Natalie,
I've addressed some of what I would say to you here in my reply to
Sean. But just to note, that in SCIENCE--and unfortunately that
community now includes those who call themselves psycologists, the
very nature of the advance is through the establishment of new
vocabulary and defining of new concepts to be used and the slipping
into retirement of the notions which become useless.
What the ordinary man or woman in the street says is fine by me. Long
live ordinary chit chat. But we must be vigilant and it is our duty as
those with an interest in philosophy to pay close attention to the
manner in which science like psychology eventually contaminates our
ordinary language (and indeed I believe that Wittgenstein's emphasis
on psychology was so important not because it was a therapy for the
ordinary person but because it was a way of umpiring or refereeing the
excesses of that population of self proclaimed "scientists" who call
themselves psychologists.
I appreciate your comments....and I appreciate your passion as well.
Christopher
PS1 The Dennett book on that "dangerous idea" of Darwins' is great.
To me, however, his consciousness book, although I never cease to be
impressed with how glib and articulate he is, is based on sinking into
the quicksand of one long and tragic mistake...........despite that
there is much evidence and argument within it that is informative.
PS2: As to "reality", well that is another matter entirely. The
notion of "reality", if you examine it closely, does not amount to
much it is pretty much an every day shorthand for referring to a
infinite assemblage. And just as "infinity" is problematic and has
its own esoteric considerations, so does the notion of "reality".
Indeed just as infinitiies are nestled within higher order infinities,
so is the notion of reality nestled within higher order notions of
reality. And just as infinite is a useful way of speaking when used
properly so is reality. But remember it took thousands of years
before folks had a clue of what "infinity" really meant.
One problem with "reality" is that we are tempted to include
'ourselves' the supposed "subject" within "reality" and then once we
position ourselves within this reality, the question of "experience",
"into us from the the outside" and in particular, causative experience
from outside us, somewhere out there in that presumed reality that
becomes available to us, so that it impacts somewhere inside us, where
we are positioned sufficiently within that reality to be subject to
its laws of causation. In fact famed Schopenauer sketch, reproduced in
the iInvestigations, of the eye in its relation to the visual field,
is a more appropriate model for how things can more usefully and
grammatically be spoken of than assuming the 'eye to be in the visual
field which arrays itself before it".
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