[C] [Wittrs] Re: Analytic and Tautological DISREGARD PREVIOUS
- From: "J D" <ubersicht@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: wittrsamr@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 14 Jan 2010 19:31:25 -0000
Neil,
>
> >> Incidently, an alternative definition of
> >> "analytic", as I am using
> >> the term, would be "true by virtue of empirical
> >> practices."
>
>
> > And I take this to amount to the something like
> Wittgenstein's
> > methodological propositions.
>
> Based on a google search for "methodological propositions",
> I would
> have to guess that we are talking past one another.
Could be.
Did you come across this:
(from PI pt. II)
One judges the length of a rod and can look for and find some method of
judging it more exactly or more
reliably. So--you say--what is judged here is independent of the method of
judging it. What length is cannot be
defined by the method of determining length.--To think like this is to make a
mistake. What mistake?--To say "The
height of Mont Blanc depends on how one climbs it" would be queer. And one
wants to compare 'ever more
accurate measurement of length' with the nearer and nearer approach to an
object. But in certain cases it is, and in
certain cases it is not, clear what "approaching nearer to the length of an
object" means. What "determining the
length" means is not learned by learning what length and determining are; the
meaning of the word "length" is
learnt by learning, among other things, what it is to determine length.
(For this reason the word "methodology" has a double meaning. Not only
a physical investigation, but also a
conceptual one, can be called "methodological investigation".)
and
(from OC)
314. Imagine that the schoolboy really did ask "and is there a table there even
when I turn round, and even when no
one is there to see it?" Is the teacher to reassure him--and say "of course
there is!"?
Perhaps the teacher will get a bit impatient, but think that the boy
will grow out of asking such questions.
315. That is to say, the teacher will feel that this is not really a legitimate
question at all.
And it would be just the same if the pupil cast doubt on the
uniformity of nature, that is to say on the
justification of inductive arguments.--The teacher would feel that this was
only holding them up, that this way the
pupil would only get stuck and make no progress.--And he would be right. It
would be as if someone were looking
for some object in a room; he opens a drawer and doesn't see it there; then he
closes it again, waits, and opens it
once more to see if perhaps it isn't there now, and keeps on like that. He has
not learned to look for things. And in
the same way this pupil has not learned how to ask questions. He has not
learned the game that we are trying to
teach him.
316. And isn't it the same as if the pupil were to hold up his history lesson
with doubts as to whether the earth
really....?
317. This doubt isn't one of the doubts in our game. (But not as if we chose
this game!)
12.3.51
318. 'The question doesn't arise at all.' Its answer would characterize a
method. But there is no sharp boundary
between methodological propositions and propositions within a method.
319. But wouldn't one have to say then, that there is no sharp boundary between
propositions of logic and empirical
propositions? The lack of sharpness is that of the boundary between rule and
empirical proposition.
320. Here one must, I believe, remember that the concept 'proposition' itself
is not a sharp one.
321. Isn't what I am saying: any empirical proposition can be transformed into
a postulate--and then becomes a
norm of description. But I am suspicious even of this. The sentence is too
general. One almost wants to say "any
empirical proposition can, theoretically, be transformed...", but what does
"theoretically" mean here? It sounds all
too reminiscent of the Tractatus.
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