[Wittrs] Re: merelogical
- From: Sean Wilson <whoooo26505@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: Wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sun, 30 Aug 2009 18:31:43 -0700 (PDT)
... let's do it this way. Imagine two sentences:
1. "The person inside of me thinks."
2. "The brain thinks"
Which would Wittgenstein be more hostile to? Quite clearly it would be 1. You
don't have a little man in the head. And it is talk like this that confused a
good deal of philosophical thinking for a long time. Expression 2,
however, only commits a similar kind of sin if it purports to divide one's
identity. If one means to say in expression 2, "my brain thinks and I do not"
-- then we have some trouble with the grammar. But so long as the grammar of
expression 2 does not divide identities, one would merely take it as a
reductionist statement of what "I" was when in the mode of "thinking." Hence,
so long as the person and the brain are not two separate things in the grammar,
there is no problem.
Compare: "the car is running" and "the engine is running."
In fact, if one's brain does not think, what in God's name can we put in that
sentence that would not raise the ire of Wittgenstein? Compare:
(a) "My brain doesn't think; my mind does."
(b) "My brain doesn't think, my inner self does"
(c) "My brain doesn't think, I do"
Note that each of these statements purport to divide one's self from the body
in some way. One could hurl the charge of metaphysics here. It's not that the
"I" or "mind" or "inner self" cannot be usefully deployed in language that is
the problem. It is the grammar that tries to extract these notions and
juxtapose them against the physical things that ordinarily constitute an
integral part of the conditions of assertability for such expressions. Can one
talk about an ethereal sort of thing outside of its shell (or inside it) and
not face rather serious objections?
What I want to say is that the grammar of these terms arise from the way the
form of life is experienced.
I think a true reading of Wittgenstein sees him against any sort of "identity
division" whatsoever. Putting the little man in the head is as problematic as
putting him outside the head. Given the way that the form of life is, the
person and the brain can only be the same sort of thing -- which means they can
only be talked about as if different units of analysis. And so if one says "the
brain thinks," and is not dividing identity, it merely means something like,
"the person thinks through his thinking-thing." And if one says "use your
inner self, not your brain," one can only have this mean something like "use
your deepest feelings and not cold logic."
Regards.
Dr. Sean Wilson, Esq.
Assistant Professor
Wright State University
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________________________________
From: Glen Sizemore <gmsizemore2@xxxxxxxxx>
To: Wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Sunday, August 30, 2009 12:24:16 PM
Subject: [Wittrs] Re: merelogical
In particular talking about the brain, or parts of the brain in the same terms
that one uses to talk about the whole person (i.e., saying things like the
brain decides, or believes, or understands, or sees, or thinks etc. etc. etc.
etc. etc. etc.). ... This is obviously absurd.
.
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