[Wittrs] Re: My Chinese Encyclopedia: The Red Chicken Footnote
- From: "SWM" <SWMirsky@xxxxxxx>
- To: wittrsamr@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 08 Jun 2010 11:32:24 -0000
--- In Wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, "College Dropout John O'Connor" <wittrsamr@...>
wrote:
>
> You can look into W's argument for there being nothing outside of logic, for
> then we would have to think illogically, etc.
>
> I mean, if we aint logical, then we are all ... well, could anything even be
> said if that were the case?
>
"Ouch" "I love you" "Don't kill" "Where's Waldo?"
> 314. Here we come up against a remarkable and characteristic phenomenon in
> philosophical investigation: the difficulty-- I might say-- is not that of
> finding the solution but rather that of recognizing as the solution something
> that looks as if it were only preliminary to it. "We have already said
> everything.-- Not anything that follows from this, no, this itself is the
> solution!"
> This is connected, I believe, with our wrongly expecting an explanation,
> whereas the solution of the difficulty is a description, if we give it the
> right place in our considerations. If we dwell upon it, and do not try to
> get beyond it.
> The difficulty here is: to stop.
>
> -LW, Zettel
>
Yes, in some contexts that is the way we use language.
> What is the difference between [1 2 3] and [1 2 3 ...]?
>
Depends. One could say it's the way the notation of inscription is to be read.
The first allows for the idea that three numbers are the whole story, the
second, with its dots of continuation (a notational convention), that they
aren't. The first could be a way of presenting a descriptor that reflects the
combination of the three digits. The second, suggests not a descriptor but
merely the commencement of a counting series, etc.
> And of the "Wittgenstein paradox" of the PI?
>
Can you be more specific?
> And that you insist that "a+b=c" is true and not false (and do not care to
> recognize it as nonsense to even say of it)?
> --
> He lived a wonderful life.
> ==========================================
Are you referring to my response here? I did not "insist" that "a+b=c" is "true
and not false" but only that there could be contexts in which it would make
sense to say that, e.g., in cases where we already know what the variables
stand for or where we are speaking of a formula which is true, say, by
stipulation, i.e., if one learned a certain set of such statements as part of
learning some larger operation and then understood that the "a+b=c" formulation
must always be constructed so as to be true for the formula to work. And so
forth.
I am not wedded to the idea of "nonsense" nor would I characterize it in any
definitive way. What we mean by "nonsense" may vary in lots of ways. I can
think of five right off the bat:
1) non-sense as in lacking a referent or meaning while appearing to have one
2) being a claim that is obviously false or mistaken (factually or logically)
and yet held to be the case as though it weren't
3) being an instance of doggerel in the service of an artistic effort
4) being a mistaken combination of terms because of a confusion in the
grammatical rules of use
5) being expressed in a context for which the expression is obviously unsuited
SWM
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