[Wittrs] Re: My Chinese Encyclopedia: The Red Chicken Footnote
- From: "College Dropout John O'Connor" <sixminuteabs@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: wittrsamr@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 29 Jun 2010 02:06:32 -0400
> You write:
> I don't have to quote when I am not claiming anything controversial about
> what he actually said (or challenging something someone else claims about
> something he said). Philosophy isn't about citing chapter and verse. It's
> about ideas and exploring them. If you think otherwise then we are clearly
> not talking about the same thing.
>
> I write:
> When you are not claiming anything controversial? If you haven't noticed,
> there is controversy in this thread. Back up your claims. If you think
> otherwise, you are not thinking.
>
You wrote:
What is in controversy are certain claims I have made and you have made. That
is, I questioned your claims re: certain positions which you have 1) asserted
are expressed by Wittgenstein in a certain way and 2) held by Wittgenstein as
his positions.
Recently we have been addressing your interpretation of his view of "nonsense"
and so forth. You have presented certain textual quotations which you then
proceed to interpret as supportive of your views.
I have offered 1) variant interpretations which do not support your view and 2)
some quotes from Wittgenstein's own preface to the PI that back up my claim
that he changed, in his thinking, from the old book to the new, that he
recognized that he had changed and that he articulated these changes in terms
of his recognizing "grave mistakes" in the earlier work (wherein you found your
evidence as to his view of "nonsense").
I had previously claimed that the later Wittgenstein took a broader view of the
notion, in sync with his later thinking about how language works. After all, he
not only noted that he had made mistakes in the earlier book, he offered a new
book that looked at things quite differently.
Therefore, I pointed out, that, when presented with two divergent
Wittgensteinian notions, one ought to favor the later if one is aware of
Wittgenstein's own movement from his earlier thinking.
My claim has to do with this:
The idea of nonsense as seen in the Tractatus is oddly restrictive and far too
narrow from the point of view of the later Wittgenstein. If nonsense is any
word or statement which has no referent, but may seem to (as in the Tractatus),
in the later Wittgenstein it will be seen to be lots of things, which may
include, but not be limited to, the Tractarian notion. (Though I think it would
also be arguable that his movement away from a picturing theory of language to
a tool box notion would also place the idea of useful but referentless terms in
question because these would seem to be examples of the kinds of linguistic
muddles he railed against in his later work, i.e., examples of taking language
"on holiday" -- this, by the way, is also to quote him though you often seem to
miss these briefer quotes I have included in my responses to you.)
Let's look at this a little more closely. You offered the claim that the first
sentence of the Tractatus is nonsense and so not discussable but, at least,
profound and worthy of intellectual deference. What is that sentence? "The
world is everything that is the case."
You likened this to the first line of words in Genesis.
Now I pointed out that while there is a similarity in tone and style of
delivery, there is not quite the similarity you claim for it. The first words
in Genesis purport to give us an account of how things came to be. The first
sentence in the Tractatus does not. As you correctly note, it has the form of a
tautology. That is, it tells us that what we mean by "the world" is everything
of which we can formulate a true sentence AND it tells us, further, that what
we mean by all those things of which we can speak truthfully is just the sum
totality that we refer to as "the world".
No one who thinks about it logically is going to challenge the truth of that
though, certainly, "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth" is
not a tautology in this sensse. After all, there could be other alternatives.
Maybe many gods did it. Or maybe no God did it, i.e., it just happened. Or
maybe it didn't happen because, in fact, there is no beginning, in this sense,
at all.
Now note, as well, that the first sentence in the Tractatus has a stipulative
element and this is because there are readings of the sentence which would NOT
be tautological. For instance "the world" can also be taken to mean this planet
Earth which, after all, is not the sum total of everything about which a true
sentence can be uttered. Moreover, "world" has still another meaning. My wife,
who happens to be religious, often refers to her world, meaning the milieu in
which she moves (i.e., the company of people who share her views, the range of
practices which she follows, the things she believes, etc.). On either of these
two uses, "the world is NOT everything that is the case."
So Wittgenstein's sentence is tautological, yes, but only in a stipulative way,
i.e., he is telling us that THIS use of "world" is what he has in mind and,
askign us to follow along from this use to see where it leads us in terms of
the logical implications. Where it finally leads us, he says at the end, is to
a way of seeing things which, finally, depends on no facts but only on an
understanding of the logic, a way of understanding that then implies that we
recognize that nothing factual has been said and that, therefore, one has only
explored that which is nonsense in the sense of being non-sense.
You want me to offer you quotes from Wittgenstein demonstrating that my
interpretation that the sentence in question is tautological and therefore
nonsense in the sense in which he understands nonsense in the Tractatus is NOT
nonsense in every sense of the use of "nonsense"? Why? I am not claiming he
said THAT. I am claiming that his later thinking leads us to that view. And I
am pointing out that he, himself, knowingly moved beyond his earlier ideas and
he explicitly told us he did and, further, that the ideas found in the
Investigations, which hinge on his exploration of word usages in different
contexts, apply to a word like "nonsense" as much as to other words.
The point is that his later approach to language vitiates the more narrowly
constricted view (as found in the Tractatus) that referentless terms are a
useful form of nonsense.
.................................................................
"When a sentence is called senseless, it is not as it were its sense that is
senseless. But a combination of words is being excluded from the language,
withdrawn from circulation. (Philosophical Investigations § 500)"
"If I have exhausted the justifications, I have reached bedrock and my spade is
turned. Then I am inclined to say: "This is simply what I do." (§ 217)"
"When I obey a rule, I do not choose.
I obey the rule blindly. (§ 219)"
"The human body is the best picture of the human soul. (Pt II, p. 178)"
"What has to be accepted, the given, is -- so one could say -- forms of life.
(Pt II, p. 226 of the 1968 English edition)"
.................................................................
> I wrote:
> > I am not interested in what textbooks say.
>
> you wrote:
> I am not giving you what textbooks say. I am giving you what I say in
> relation to the Wittgensteinian works we have been discussing here.
>
> No, you have been saying you are saying what Wittgenstein has said.
You wrote:
No, I am saying that the view of "nonsense" you are insisting on is finally
left behind by the later Wittgenstein based on his points about the nature of
language. In the Tractatus he took a view that language pictures the world,
that that is its function. Therefore claims of logic, which we make and
understand, finally play a different role than the main body of language, they
are supporting players as it were, without sense of their own. Hence the idea
that the propositions of the Tractatus are, finally, nonsense. Now obviously if
he meant "nonsense" in the common pejorative way he would have been making a
colossal joke, having first enticed us to follow along and then saying, at the
end, but what I have just told you is simply nonsense, a waste of your time!
But obviously he did not consider it a waste of the reader's time. Indeed he
thought and hoped it was an important work in philosophy and others told him
so, as well. So he was using "nonsense" in an almost polemical !
way, i.e., telling us that these statements tell us nothing about the world
because there are no referents which they point at in the world, but that hey,
they are a useful form of nonsense after all, thus suggesting that some
nonsense is better than other nonsense.
In his later years his thinking shows greater linguistic sophistication as he
no longer engages in efforts to depict truths of a sublime nature (a la the
Bible), that is, nonsense that really isn't. Rather he focuses on specific
linguistic usages, showing us how our words mislead us into making mistakes
that lead us to metaphysics. Of course, the Tractatus, for all its logical
form, is, finally, an exercise in metaphysics, endeavoring to describe for us
the limits of knowledge in terms of the limits of language, using a series of
logical statements and exploring their implications.
.................................................................
"The idea that in order to get clear about the meaning of a general term one
had to find the common element in all its applications has shackled
philosophical investigation; for it has not only led to no result, but also
made the philosopher dismiss as irrelevant the concrete cases, which alone
could have helped him understand the usage of the general term."
"For remember that in general we don't use language according to strict rules
-- it hasn't been taught us by means of strict rules, either."
"What should we gain by a definition, as it can only lead us to other undefined
terms?"
"But ordinary language is all right."
"The difficulty in philosophy is to say no more than we know."
^These are from the Blue Book.
.................................................................
> I said, back it up and take your time in the next post. It is the same day
> and you are not backing up your claims but defending your right to claim
> whatever as Wittgenstein's philosophy. It is
> absolutely your right to bullshit your way through this thread;
You wrote:
I'm sorry you think actually applying thought to the ideas in question is just
"bullshit". I suppose it can look that way to some. But I will point out once
more that you seem to have an idea of Wittgenstein as a saintly expositor of
some kind of arcane wisdom. Thus, you want chapter and verse. You don't seem
willing to discuss the ideas on their own terms. You want me to give you some
statement of Wittgenstein's denying what you claim he is saying while I am
telling you why your claim as to what he is saying is suspect! I can see this
is having no effect however.
As I recall, you once put up a statement by Wittgenstein in which he is quoted
as saying that a reference he had made to "nonsense" meant one and only one
thing, that there wasn't anything else he meant, that nonsense is nonsense.
You maintained that that quote demonstrated that Wittgenstein's position was
that there are no such distinctions as I offered. So let's go over that again.
Why not put up the same quote, with its source and a link, or other means by
which we can see it in context, and let's take if from there? It would be
interesting to place it in the context of the progress in his thinking and in
terms of the full issue he was addressing in the quote in question.
I would be more than willing to look closely at your quote and consider whether
or not it definitively demonstrates, as you claim, that Wittgenstein's
definitive position was that all nonsense is just the same and that he never
held any other view, never evolved his position, etc., etc.
.................................................................
"What makes a subject difficult to understand -- if it is significant,
important -- is not that some special instruction about abstruse things is
necessary to understand it. Rather it is the contrast between the understanding
of the subject and what most people want to see. Because of this the very
things that are most obvious can become the most difficult to understand. What
has to be overcome is not difficulty of the intellect but of the will."
"Philosophizing is: rejecting false arguments.
The philosopher strives to find the liberating word, that is, the word that
finally permits us to grasp what up to now has intangibly weighed down upon our
consciousness."
"The aim of philosophy is to erect a wall at the point where language stops
anyway." (Philosophical Occasions (also, The Big Typescript; Philosophy)
.................................................................
> I wrote:
> > I dunno why you say the things you do and act as if you have proved a
> > point;
>
> You wrote:
> If I make a claim and then support it (sometimes with quotes, when needed, as
> in the case of the text I provided here from the preface to the
> Investigations) then I suppose I do think I have proved something. Why would
> I not? Obviously I think X and if I give reasons Y and Z for thinking it, and
> claim that those reasons are supportive, then, having given them, I think I
> have shown why I'm right. If you respond with reasons to disregard what I've
> cited and those reasons make sense, then you may very well undermine my claim
> to having made my case. But just denying them and saying you think otherwise
> and/or citing some unrelated text from Wittgenstein as justification for
> thinking otherwise isn't sufficient to demonstrate that what I've offered
> doesn't do the job I've set for it.
>
> I write:
> Quoting an introduction is not philosophy. There isn't any philosophy in the
> introduction to the TLP, the PR, nor the PI. So, what are the things he
> corrected? If you cannot pronounce them, then are you not simply making
> assumptions? At the least, you are not
> adding to the debate.
You wrote:
The quote was offered in support of my point that Wittgenstein changed his
views, acknowledged errors in his earlier views, etc. And it amply demonstrates
that.
If you want quotes from the PI then read it. The point is to understand the
work, the things he was doing, claiming in it, etc.
Now I don't recall offhand what he had to say specifically about "nonsense" in
the PI nor do I need to go back and discover some sacred text that explicitly
makes the point I am making. I am saying that the method of doing philosophy in
the PI amply supports my response to you that "nonsense" may have a range of
meanings, that there is not just ONE meaning to the term that is always the
same!
Now maybe you or someone else reading along here can offer some useful quotes
one way or the other from the PI that we can explore. But my points were these:
1) The PI introduced a radically different way of thinking about philosophical
questions that diverged from the earlier Tractatus;
2) That that way implies that words like "nonsense" are not limited to one
meaning and one meaning only;
3) That therefore one cannot rely on some earlier notions of his, say as found
in the Tractatus, to understand what he thought about a word like "nonsense";
and
4) That, if one does, one is effectively disregarding his own statements about
his break with his earlier way of doing philosophy; which
5) If so, then one is failing to consider the work of the man in its fullest
development in favor of deifying his every word and phrase throughout his life
as being of equal and unquestioned merit -- though he, himself, had the good
sense to do otherwise!
.................................................................
"What I invent are new similes"
-LW
There is no point in speaking of 'theories' in regards to LW. The
picture/proposition simile and the game/language simile are not one and the
same, and, maybe I am simply being dull headed here, but I cannot see how
similes contradict one another. It is not that I deny he wrote the
introduction to the PI nor the PI, but that, if I were to point out some words
within the PI, it would be that he wanted the PI published alongside the TLP--
and I think THAT is significant. He obviously went from using logical syntax
to colloquial language, but the TLP defends colloquial language against any
ideal language. You insinuate that I believe Wittgenstein never changed and
that I am merely using one USE of the word NONSENSE. As per our differences of
opinion on what is nonsense, your definitions of nonsense have failed to
account for all the uses I have been making. In regards to Wittgenstein never
changing, I hope I never insinuated as much; but, as with all things, you start
at !
the beginning and build up. Have I not located the beginning? ;)
Obvious similarities can be made between the TLP and PI-- e.g. the cube that
can appear inwards or outwards and the duck-rabbit. There are certain
similarities and differences between these two pedagogues. But is the method
any different? And the picture/proposition and game/language similes are in
some ways similar and different. Maybe it is my dull head again, but could you
elucidate as to their similarities and differences as notes of comparison? If
so, then maybe we can speak of those mistakes; if not, maybe they can be made
somewhere else.
.................................................................
>
> I wrote:
> > if you think quoting in philosophy is religious fanaticism, then allow me
> > to refer you to philpapers.org; I've quoted Wittgenstein, Mark Twain,
> > Joseph Conrad, Ernest Hemmingway, etc. I may not be in college, but I
> > still know how to back up a claim; I can only hope that you don't fall into
> > the following category:
>
> You wrote:
> I have no problem with anyone offering quotes but the quotes should support
> one's case. I have not agreed that you have offered quotes here that support
> some of the claims you've made re: Wittgenstein's thinking and I have told
> you why. What you do with that is up to you.
>
> I write:
> You think the quotes shouldn't support the cases? What planet are you from?
> I have provided quotes that contradict what you have had to say about
> Wittgenstein (namely on the lack of need to differentiate kinds of nonsense);
You wrote:
I believe I responded to that but if you feel I haven't done so adequately,
please just re-post the quote, its source and (if possible) a link so we can
see it in context!
.................................................................
I wrote:
Well, I've found the quote. It is from the selected parts of the Yellow Book,
found in Ambrose' Wittgenstein's Lectures 1932-1935. In part two of the Yellow
Book, lectures aside the dictation of the Blue Book, near the end of remark 12
(top of page 64 for me):
"Most of us think there is nonsense which makes sense and nonsense which does
not- that it is nonsense in a different way to say "this is green and yellow at
the same time" from saying "Ab sur ah". But these are nonsense in the same
sense, the only difference being in the jungle of the words."
.................................................................
> I write:
> The only book Wittgenstein ever published was 100% nonsense. Of course he
> spoke nonsense and of nonsense. So do I. And so do you. And so does, like
> everyone. From C&V, paraphrased, 'It isn't that we mustn't speak nonsense
> but be aware of it'.(If you must, I'll grab the quote, but ,iirc, I posted
> that quote in our other thread.
>
You wrote:
Please repost. By the way, I think Culture and Value is a very iffy book. There
are lots of interesting parts in it that give us insight into his thinking but,
finally, they are just a bunch of personal jottings he made to himself in the
course of thinking various issues through, on the way to refining his ideas.
The remarks in Culture and Value are very uneven in quality and, besides, the
editors expunged the text so we will never know what the full text contained.
As to your comment about the Tractatus being "100% nonsense" note, again, that,
by his own admission, he made "grave errors" in that book and the PI was being
prepared as a means, at least in part, of correcting those errors. If the
thinking in the PI applied to the notion of "nonsense" is grasped, it will be
seen that at least one of the errors in the Tractatus he may well have had in
mind was that you could speak about the unspeakable by speaking around it in
terms of what, finally, had no sense in any ordinary sense of "sense".
.................................................................
"Don't, for heaven's sake, be afraid of talking nonsense! But you must pay
attention to your nonsense." -LW, 1947
C&V was the first book I purchased of Wittgenstein. I was rather ignorant of
Wittgenstein and his life and works at the time. I felt like I was ripped off,
but, after reading Einstein's "The World as I see It" I came to regard C&V as a
nice addition to my shelves. Sure, it is not scholarly but relevant to
understand the man.
"387. [I believe it might interest a philosopher, one who can think himself, to
read my notes. For even if I have hit the mark only rarely, he would recognize
what targets I had been ceaslessly aiming at.]" LW, On Certainty
.................................................................
> I wrote:
> > I hope I have made it clear that if I am to say anything about those
> > words, it is that they are nonsense.
>
> You wrote:
> Since you don't recognize kinds of nonsense, but do accept that we can speak
> nonsense, you essentially shut the door on further inquiry here by labeling
> these statements as nonsense. Perhaps that is all you want to do though?
>
> I write:
> Well, you can reread that quote from Zettel if you like. Or maybe the PI or
> something else by W. Yes, I am imitating Wittgenstein, albeit quite terribly.
>
Ah it was from Zettel. Yes now I recall! Do put it up again and I will get my
copy down and we can have a look. However, bear in mind that Zettel is a very
early compilation of his thoughts, roughly around the time of the writing of
the Tractatus, actually!
.................................................................
The quote I was referring to in these lines, the one from Zettel, was the one
on the difficulty in stopping. As for the authorship of Zettel, I believe it
was a 'compilation' he worked on his whole life, and its order was made from P.
Greach and the Editors of Zettel.
.................................................................
> You wrote:
> In fact the biblical phrase purports to tell us a story about how things came
> into being while the opening lines of the Tractatus announce a logical truth.
> There is a great disjunction there unless one decides to treat both
> statements as just "nonsense", and mean by this term that nothing more is to
> be said about either of them, in which case the disjunction in their meanings
> is merely to be ignored (there being, of course, no meanings now to be
> discovered!).
>
> I write:
> Have we not already been through this? I do wonder if you have read any
> Wittgenstein when you say something like this. Metaphysical statements, like
> "it is what it is" and more robust variants, are tautological. But you
> wanted to say something about logic?
>
You wrote:
The Tractatus has a logical form and it is the place where he introduced the
Truth Tables that became a part of the discipline of logic.
.................................................................
"How strange if logic were concerned with an 'ideal' language and not with
ours!" -LW, Philosophical Remarks p. 52
I asked a friend whether or not 5.101 was a picture of heaven and hell. It is
a picture of our language. The other question doesn't really have an answer.
.................................................................
> You wrote:
> You are asking us to accept the two statements as nonsense in both cases, the
> biblical phrase being a pronouncement from on high that may not be questioned
> because of its provenance; the opening statement of the Tractatus being a
> pronouncement from the true philosophical prophet which is also, presumably,
> beyond questioning.
>
> I write:
> Acceptance? Hardly. I would normally ask if you can see, but I don't think
> there is any point in asking that here. Nor adding that was one of
> Wittgenstein's questions without an answer.
>
You wrote:
As I said, you seem to have a religious approach to Wittgenstein: questions
without answers and so fort. Have you not heard that what can be said can be
said clearly?
.................................................................
Some things can be said, others shown. Show your wife the two books lined up
against each other; she could probably tell you what it means.
"The danger in a long forward is that the spirit of a book has to be evident in
the book itself and cannot be described. For if a book has been written for
just a few readers, that will be clear from the fact that only a few people
understand it. the book must automatically separate those who understand it
from those who do not. Even the foreword is written just for those who
understand the book.
Telling someone something he does not understand is pointless, even if you
add that he will not be able to understand it. (That so often happens with
someone you love.)
If you have a room which you do not want certain people to get into, put a
lock on it for which they do not have the key. But there is no point in
talking to them about it, unless you want them to admire the room from the
outside!"
-LW, Culture and Value page 7e, 1930
And, to lighten up the environment, I found this amusing:
"My wife gave him some Swiss cheese and rye bread for lunch, which he greatly
liked. Thereafter he more or less insisted on eating bread and cheese at all
meals, largely ignoring the various dishes that my wife prepared. Wittgenstein
declared that it did not much matter to him what he ate, so long as it always
remained the same. When a dish that looked especially appetizing was brought to
the table, I sometimes exclaimed "Hot Ziggety!" -- a slang phrase that I
learned as a boy in Kansas. Wittgenstein picked up this expression from me. It
was inconceivably droll to hear him exclaim "Hot Ziggety!" when my wife put the
bread and cheese before him."
--Norman Malcolm, in Ludwig Wittgenstein : A Memoir (1966), p. 85
Blessings,
John O
--
He had a wonderful life.
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