[Wittrs] Re: My Chinese Encyclopedia: The Red Chicken Footnote
- From: "College Dropout John O'Connor" <sixminuteabs@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: wittrsamr@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 23 Jun 2010 19:30:46 -0400
You wrote:
I think the Tractatus is superseded by his later work (the Philosophical
Investigations and its associated texts), as he expressly indicated in the
later work's preface. This is not to say there aren't common strands,
connections, and so forth. But he clearly felt he had made errors in the
earlier work and his later work appears to be an explicit attempt by him to
move away from those mistakes. We can see in the approach and words he used, in
the later work, just how far he moved away. Thus it's dangerous (in the sense
of misunderstanding him) to want to treat the two major works as being a single
opus or as revealing no change of significance (from the earlier to the later).
I write:
It seems to me I just showed you that the thesis that the TLP failed is a false
one. If anything, he simply had to die for it to make sense. And you put
bullshit in my mouth. Wittgenstein himself in the PI introduction said he
would have liked to publish the TLP and PI back to back (and, of course, he
never published the PI). Anyhow, I've read a lot of Wittgenstein, and I cite
the TLP, the PI, Zettel, Lectures, PR, the blue/yellow/brown books, etc. and
all you say is that is dangerous. Bullshit. You can't read too much. The
message is always the same; people don't read Tolstoy and say in Brothers'K he
means this and in WarnPeace he is like a different author. No man on the
planet gets treated like that, but maybe the Socratic Dialogs (because, of
course, you need to stay away from the unofficial Socratic Dialogs-- just like
you have to stay away from the unofficial Wittgenstein). Bullshit. I
obviously didn't come here to say what everyone else says, otherwise ther!
e would be no point in me speaking.
You write:
I know some students of Wittgenstein are enamored equally with both the
Tractatus (for its semi-mystical sense of a deep unveiling of a great mystery)
and the Philosophical Investigations (for its idiosyncratic and subtle methods
and its insights which share, with the earlier work, a common interest in the
significance of language and in showing what we cannot quite say). But I think
any effort at fusing the two works (beyond recognition that they have some
common elements) can lead to serious error, i.e., a deification of the man as a
kind of philosopher-saint in lieu of a deeper understanding of his insightful
way of thinking.
I write:
Whence did I star fusing the two? I quote Wittgenstein, a man. If he doesn't
make sense to you, start a club. You won;t be alone. But don't use this as a
defense. I have yet to see you quote the man in all these pages of us
discussing what Wittgenstein has said.
I wrote:
> There is no fucking latter Wittgenstein.
You wrote:
There most certainly is (though I would leave out the expletive). Unlike many
philosophers he has a clear break in his philosophical activity, roughly a
decade when he walked away from philosophy, after the Tractatus, thinking he
had resolved all issues in need of resolution. Gradually during this period he
came to see he hadn't, that there was something he hadn't put to rest, that he,
himself, still had things to say. By the time he returned to Cambridge, as Sean
has pointed out, he was already very much different in approach and thinking,
but he did not fully formulate the changes in his views for some time. As he
says in the preface to the Investigations, he had much to thank the
mathematician Frank Ramsey for, as well as the economist Sraffa, in getting him
to see more clearly his earlier mistakes. Since he did not have dealings with
these two until he returned to Cambridge, it's obvious that he was still in a
state of transition upon his return.
I write:
Well, when he expects to die any day and it never comes because no one
understands the book he wrote, and he keeps doing what he always has been
doing- teaching: what break are you referring to? I mean, if you only know the
TLP and the PI and 30 years of blank history, I guess I can see how you miss
the subtle stuff. But, again, there is a lot that W wrote; one thing he
published; and it is all good.
You wrote:
I don't disregard it. I regard it as a foundation, as the first steps he took
in his movement toward the later ideas of his mature years, ideas which
dispense with the approach and many of the concerns of the Tractatus. Read his
own brief remarks in the preface he provided in the Investigations to see what
I mean.
I said:
"Feel free to quote" is what I said. I've read the published intro, the
unpublished ones, the intros to the PR, and loads more. I never see W saying
"act as if I never wrote the TLP; although I solved all philosophical problems
in that book, I have moved on to bigger, better things." Because that is what
you say, not W. And I don't see how you draw those conclusions. Granted, the
man is cryptic, but I still miss the logic. That is why I asked for quotes.
You seem to know the PI well enough- take your time in making another post.
You wrote:
I said nothing about what he is always doing in every remark. I only made the
point that words have their meanings in their uses, that their uses are seen in
terms of what he referred to as "language games" and that to speak of "language
games" is to speak of contexts as in the context in which a word is deployed
(i.e., what purpose it serves, how it serves it, etc.).
I write:
You say everything is relative(according to W); I ask why; you say because
context is everything(according to W); I say, so doesn't that mean you need the
right context? And then you jump ship, avoiding the context of Wittgenstein in
favor of what the "philosophers" are doing, saying how everything is relative
to context etc.
You wrote:
What is needed here are specifics. The specific reference I was making was to
your claim about the "essence of a proposition". I noted he discarded reliance
on ideas like "essence" in his later work ('I will show you differences') and
"propositions" (in favor of talk about the actual statements we make
themselves.
He writes (p.xe):
"For since beginning to occupy myself with philosophy again, sixteen years ago,
I have been forced to recognize grave mistakes in what I wrote in that first
book. I was helped to realize these mistakes -- to a degree which I am hardly
able to estimate -- by the criticism which my ideas encountered from Frank
Ramsey, with whom I discussed them in innumerable conversations during the last
two years of his life. Even more than to this -- always certain and forcible
--criticism I am indebted to that which a teacher of this university, Mr. P.
Sraffa, for many years unceasingly practised on my thoughts. I am indebted to
this stimulus for the most consequential ideas of this book." (Preface to the
Philosophical Investigations, tr. G. E. M. Anscombe, Third Edition, The
McMillan Company, New York)
One disregards Wittgenstein's own assertion of his past errors and correctives
at one's intellectual peril. One comes to see the errors by reading what he has
to say in the Investigations and comparing his thoughts there to the claims
made in the Tractatus.
I write:
"grave mistakes"-- which ones? You say we need specifics and then you go
vague, trying to make W say things he doesn't. He has corrections to the TLP
is the PR (and probably PG). So what?
You write:
I know that there is a tendency among Wittgensteinophiles to want to treat all
his works as being of equal merit and weight but one can only do that in this
case by disregarding what the man, himself, said on the subject!
I write:
Like what? Did he say, burn the TLP? Or did he say, burn the manuscripts of
the TLP? Did he say disregard my earlier work, or did he say print my new work
along side it? Why did he publish so little? If he says, "Whereof one cannot
speak, thereof one must be silent" and all you know is what the man said, not
what he was silent about, then what can you say about it?
> I wrote:
> > Again, his lecture on ethics: should you find any reviews on this lecture,
> > they will undoubtedly come to diverse conclusions. But is then the point
> > of Wittgenstein that all is relative? No.
>
> You wrote:
> I agree that the answer is no. But that is not the same as thinking that our
> terms find their meanings in particular contexts, within the language games
> we are accustomed to play with them. The issue is that once we see that terms
> find their meanings in contexts, there is no issue of relativity. Within any
> given language game, the meaning is the way in which we deploy the term(s)
> according to the game's rules. And that is not relative even if it is
> open-ended (subject to ongoing alteration).
>
> I write:
> Wonderful! So what is the right context? Has it not been made abundantly
> clear?
>
You write:
One discovers it by paying attention to the many ways the word is used and
comparing that to the use in question. It's a method that he recommended and
practiced, not a doctrine declaring what is right and wrong in all cases and
for all times.
I write:
I smell some hate here. You are trying to say I am dogmatic, or supporting
some doctrine, or something of the sort. Like I think things are black and
white. But you are the only one saying "this is the correct Wittgenstein and
this is the incorrect one". Please, cease the petty BS. quote quote quote!
>
> > You wrote:
> > In his later phase Wittgenstein shifts famously from a focus on logic to a
> > focus on the grammar and it is certainly the case, given his discussions of
> > grammar as being given rules of usage deployed in different activities,
> > that he has something quite differnt in mind than classical formal logic
> > which informed his earlier work in the TLP.
> >
>
> > I write:
> > Wittgenstein himself said the TLP had an ethical point. You say it has a
> > logical focus. The TLP is no more concerned with classical logic than the
> > PI is with correcting grammatical mistakes like a schoolteacher.
> >
>
> You wrote:
> Wittgenstein wrote the Tractatus in a rigid logical form where each
> proposition supports the next, etc. He also famously invented the Truth
> Tables, an important logical tool, in that work. As to his claim that what he
> left out was what was most important and that was ethical, well, it's hard to
> see what that is from the affirmative claims alone. Presumably he meant to
> build a scaffolding that would give structure to our overall picture of how
> the world is, a picture which, when "rightly" grasped would lead one to
> certain choices in one's behavior. I think that aspect of the Tractatus
> simply failed. His later work, abandoning the method of the Tractatus,
> suggests to me that he saw that, too.
>
> I write:
> Well, you have not been paying much attention on these boards. I do have
> such difficulty in even spelling this out, but I guess it is not clear even
> then.
>
> The point of the TLP is Ethical.
You wrote:
So he said. But what did he have in mind by "ethical"? Was it relative to some
system or listing of standards or to a way of being in the world which, if
that, is not the ordinary use we make of a word like "ethical". Maybe
"spiritual" would be closer to that meaning.
I write:
What are you talking about? It is a hint. So are the following:
> It is one of two works, of which he did not author the other.
> Without the numbering, the book would be worthless. The Ethical is
> delimited uniquely by his book. He had a wonderful life.
>
You write:
So you assert. And so he asserted on his deathbed with regard to his final
message to anyone who might need to know how he viewed things at the end.
I write:
What are you talking about? I practically quote the guy and you say I am
making shit up. Read The Duty of Genius, by Ray Monk. And I dunno how he
viewed things in the end; he never seemed to keen on living long and being
prosperous as the early Wittgenstein, Latter Wittgenstein, Middle Wittgenstein,
and even the fourth Wittgenstein.
> 1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
> 1 The world is everything that is the case.
>
You write:
I think it's always a great mistake to treat Wittgenstein as some kind of
prophet or to equate any of his works, including the Tractatus, with some
sacred scripture. But that IS how religions get started I suppose.
> 2 And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face
> of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
> 2 What is the case, the fact, is the existence of atomic facts.
>
You wrote:
Note that the original Hebrew does NOT number its statements nor is it layed
out in logical form which was something introduced by the Greeks a good deal
later.
> 3 And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.
> 3 The logical picture of the facts is the thought.
You write:
This shows that the Tractarian Wittgenstein was very influenced by the tendency
of religion to deliver its message in didactic form, without argument or room
for debate. It's not unlike Spinoza's method of logically constructing his case
for a pantheistic universe, point by point. But, of course, Wittgenstein moved
away from this sort of thing in his later years in favor of a rather
free-flowing method of ruminating on cases, following the strands of the ideas
revealed from one case to another, to understand how they worked and what they
led to.
Though both books have an aphoristic structure with numbered paragraphs
delivering self-contained statements, their similarity ends there.
The numbered statements in the Tractatus are part of an overall system of
claims designed to show us how the world should be seen.
The numbered statements in the Investigations are several series of remarks,
loosely related in a number of different ways, covering a wide range of ideas
which historically concerned Western philosophical thinkers and which, through
case by case examination, aim to show how the ideas in question reflect
mistaken ways of thinking and speaking that we often fall into.
> 4 And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from
> the darkness.
> 4 The thought is the significant proposition.
>
> 5 And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the
> evening and the morning were the first day.
> 5 Propositions are truth-functions of elementary propositions.
> (An elementary proposition is a truth-function of itself.)
>
> 6 And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and
> let it divide the waters from the waters.
> 6 The general form of truth-function is: [ p-bar , xi-bar , N( xi-bar )].
> This is the general form of proposition.
>
You wrote:
And the Bible got it wrong about a firmament dividing waters from waters since
water is found in the forms of the seas of earth while beyond the sky (the
other side of the Bible's firmament) are not seas but something quite different.
Of course one could insist on redefining "waters" to include the seas and the
vast emptiness of outer space, but that would be rather pointless since then no
word used in the Bible may be taken to have the meaning we would otherwise
naturally give it in which case it would be beyond comprehension which, if it
is, means there's no point in reading it other than for the sounds it makes,
but if the sounds are what matter, then you need the sounds in the original
Hebrew because the English sounds would have no relation to the original text,
etc., etc.
> 7 And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the
> firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so.
> 7 Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.
>
> 8 And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were
> the second day.
>
>
>
> Not that I really have anything to argue here, but simply contend the failure
> of the TLP and of course something about context and grammar.
>
> One could compare the two lines and ask "What are the differences between
> this line 1 and this line 1?" And do likewise for the others. I might
> remark that the Greek word for light was not the one of our scientific
> concepts, but something more akin to understanding as it emitted from the
> eyes.
>
You write:
Except that the original Bible you are quoting was not written in Greek but in
Hebrew! (The actual Hebrew translates "and the evening and the morning, the
second day")
I write:
*an ellipse*
You wrote:
I find what you make of Wittgenstein's work, and the draw you feel towards his
ideas, interesting. But you really should desist from this tendency to deify
him.
I write:
What are you talking about? I wasn't aware that you were a Bible Scholar and a
Wittgenstein Scholar when I brought the first 8 lines into play. I was hoping
you could see what was being said (in silence) and still have high hopes.
But if I must criticize, it would be that W doesn't have ideas to express in
his works, but a method. If, in trying to relay this method and make it clear
I have come off as a poor imitation, I find that perfectly reasonable. But
what are you trying to do?
If you don't have an answer, how could you be graded? (or do PhDs count as high
scores?)
--
He lived a wonderful life.
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