[Wittrs] [C] !!!Re: Re: Metaphysical Versus Mystical
- From: "J D" <ubersicht@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: wittrsamr@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 13 Jan 2010 23:42:13 -0000
SW,
> ... here's the basic problem as i see
> it for Tractarian Wittgenstein. It's the picture theory.
> Everything hinges upon it.
If "the picture theory" includes various other theses, such as those regarding
the nature of elementary propositions, then this is true. But vacuous. Of
course, everything hinges on the truth of a theory that is taken to include...
pretty much everything.
On the other hand, if "the picture theory" is construed more narrowly
(supposing that there's a way of presenting it that doesn't include the theses
about elementary propositions, objects, and so forth) then it's not to clear
that everything would hinge on that.
This sounds cliche, but consider
> the book's main point (as told by Wittgenstein)"
>
> "This book will, therefore, draw a limit to thinking, or
> rather ? not to thinking, but to the expression of
> thoughts; for, in order to draw a limit to thinking we
> should have to be able to think both sides of this limit (we
> should therefore have to be able to think what cannot be
> thought). ... The limit can, therefore, only be drawn in
> language and what lies on the other side of the limit will
> be simply nonsense" (27).
Such talk or drawing limits doesn't seem to obviously involve the picture
theory.
>
> Think about that. In order to know what can't be thought,
> we would have to be able to entertain it. We can't do that.
> Therefore, we can only draw the limit in language. KEY
> PREMISE: Because language's purpose is to mirror the
> world, it's only proper use is to picture reality (or
> perform logic upon picturing statements).
Yes.
>
> Once you take away the picture theory, the whole thing
> changes, yet still stays the same.
I could imagine someone attempting to draw such lines on the basis of something
other than the picture theory. For example, verificationism doesn't obviously
entail the picture theory.
That is,
> thinking/speaking are still balled up in important ways. You
> still can't really split that nut well (other than for
> discreet purposes in ordinary language). And because the
> new role for language is simply to be another kind of
> behavior (meaning is use), now, everything can be said.
Everything that can be said can be said. But that's obvious. Are there things
that cannot be said? What things? Well, presumably we can't say what those
things are. But then what could it mean to say, "everything can be said"?
> There's no requirement of silence.
There's no longer a self-refuting claim that there are things about which we
cannot speak, no.
HOWEVER, that doesn't
> make everything that is said WORTH saying. What determines
> this is grammar and the aesthetic in question.
What determines what is worth saying is presumably whether someone has decided
to say it.
Note however that Wittgenstein has not rejected the idea that certain seemingly
meaningful strings of words are in fact nonsensical. Some read in the
Tractatus a distinction between what can be spoken or uttered and what can be
said, treating "saying" as necessarily meaningful and "speaking" as consistent
with "speaking nonsense". Whatever the merit of that particular reading,
certainly we do distinguish between uttering sounds and saying something
meaningful.
>
> In both worlds, language still bounds the form of life.
How so?
An examination of the role "form of life" plays in various discussions suggests
that if anything, our form of life constrains our language (but even that would
be a thesis and Wittgenstein doesn't say such a thing), not the reverse.
And
> in both worlds, it is language is still the focal point.
Language is the focus, but our form of life and our ways of acting cannot be
neglected.
> Instead of language wedded to logic, it is now wed to
> grammar.
Actually, both "grammar" and "logic" have widened uses in the later work. But
I take you to be contrasting "grammar" (widely understood) with "logic"
(narrowly understood, perhaps as the formal logic of textbooks).
Once Wittgenstein saw that the aims of language
> were not what he originally envisioned, the central tenets
> of the Tractatus had to change,
As an historical matter, an emphasis on a wider conception of the aims of
language came relatively late, compared to the collapse of tenets like the
independence of elementary propositions.
but the mission of it really
> stayed the same.
The mission of drawing a boundary between sense and nonsense? I thought that
was tied to the picture theory and was rejected with it?
It is almost as if the Tractatus simply
> had to be recommissioned. It's the same project. It's the
> same goal. It just now serves the new instruments (the new
> understanding).
>
> Indeed, I see many things in the Tractatus that are still
> alive today. I see conditions of assertability all over the
> place.
But where do you see conditions of assertibility in the Tractatus?
And what I fundamentally see as the major error is
> simply the role that language is thought to play, and the
> resultant feature that logic had to play to keep language
> in order. One wants to say: the Tractatus is really a
> prequel of sorts. It's like what the Hobbit is to Lord of
> the Rings.
Interesting. But clearly, I have my reservations.
JPDeMouy
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