[Wittrs] Re: My Chinese Encyclopedia: The Red Chicken Footnote
- From: "SWM" <SWMirsky@xxxxxxx>
- To: wittrsamr@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 29 Jun 2010 14:49:06 -0000
--- In Wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, "College Dropout John O'Connor" <wittrsamr@...>
wrote:
,snip>
>
> 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.
>
> .................................................................
>
599. To say, "This combination of words makes no sense" excludes it from the
sphere of language. But when one draws a boundary it may be for various kinds
of reason. If I surrond an area with a fence or a line or otherwise, the
purpose may be to prevent someone from getting in or out; but it may also be
part of a game and the players be supposed, say, to jump over the boundary; or
it may shew where the property of one man ends and that of another begins; and
so on. So if I draw a boundary line that is not yet to say what I am drawing it
for.
[Comment: Note the importance of the purpose or "game" in which the distinction
between sense and nonsense is being made. As I noted to you, he recognized many
types of nonsense BECAUSE words in his later understanding were much more than
merely referents referring to some particular thing. Context, the game,
matters. Meaning is the use the word is put to in the game. And meanings are
not some essential thing attaching to the word in all cases, discoverable by
our digging deeply enough to find the essential commonality of the different
uses. Rather, think of his idea of family resemblances.]
>
> "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)"
>
[Comment: And is "The world is everything that is the case" excluded from the
language, "withdrawn from circulation"? Do we not have a way to understand it?
Have you not told us it is a tautology? Haven't I pointed out at least three
different ways "world" (the subject of the sentence in question) could be used,
only one of which is a tautaology? Why do you think he took the time to write
such a different work as the Investigations, a work that treats language so
differently than he treated it in the Tractatus?]
> "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)"
>
[Comment: And this supports your view that Wittgentein claimed that there was
one and only one kind of "nonsense" how?]
> "When I obey a rule, I do not choose.
> I obey the rule blindly. (§ 219)"
>
[Comment: Again, same question as above. It's nice that you can find pithy
quotes in the Investigations. Anyone with access to the book can do that. The
question is to find pertinent quotes, of course, and not just grab them at
random because they sound good!]
> "The human body is the best picture of the human soul. (Pt II, p. 178)"
>
[Comment: Again, what is the relevance to what you have claimed and are trying
to establish based on his ideas? If I thought there was relevance to the
question at hand, that Wittgenstein held that there was one and only one kind
of nonsense and never changed his views on that (presuming he did, initially,
hold that view), then I would take the time to look at the context of the
remark by looking at the preceding and subsequent paragraphs. But since there
is no obvious relevance, and it looks like you are just pulling quotes that
seem to resonate with you, I see no point in doing that. But if you can show
the relevance I will consider that.]
> "What has to be accepted, the given, is -- so one could say -- forms of life.
> (Pt II, p. 226 of the 1968 English edition)"
>
[Comment: Again, where is the relevance? I thought you were going to come at
this with pertinent quotes that would oblige me to reconsider my views. Instead
you are just offering a scattershot of mostly irrelevant quotes, perhaps to
show me that you have access to and/or have read the PI? Well, John, I never
doubted that. Or denied it. What I doubted was your claim that Wittgenstein
held there was one and only one meaning of "nonsense" and did so throughout his
career, from his earlier writings to his later ones. THAT, on my view, is a
simply unsustainable claim and so far you aren't sustaining it by hurling
quotes from the PI at me which hardly relate to the issue at hand. It's not
enough to cite chapter and verse, John. The citations have to be relevant.]
> .................................................................
>
> > 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."
Precisely, John! No "common element", no single meaning of "nonsense"! ("I will
show you differences.") This is contrary to your position concerning the idea
that there is one and only one meaning of "nonsense" in Wittgenstein! What is
the source of this quote by the way? (Note that in his later period, the LATER
Wittgenstein moved from constructing logical scaffolding to exploring the
ramifications of concrete cases. It is a sea change from the earlier approach!)
>
> "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."
>
In other words, language is open ended, not fixed, subject to change over time
and use.
> "What should we gain by a definition, as it can only lead us to other
> undefined terms?"
>
And by "definition" what do you think he had in mind? (Source, by the way?)
> "But ordinary language is all right."
>
Yes. No more emphasis/reliance on ideal language a la Russell and the early
Wittgenstein (who was, of course, Russell's student).
> "The difficulty in philosophy is to say no more than we know."
>
> ^These are from the Blue Book.
>
Pages? You should take a look at the exchange Sean and I had a long while back
re: the Blue Book by the way. My point then (and now) was that the Blue and
Brown Books were transitional in Wittgenstein's thinking. Sean demurred as, I
presume, you will. Here is Rush Rhees, who edited these two books for the
volume in which they appear:
"Wittgenstein dictated the 'Blue Book' (though he did not call it that) to his
class in Cambridge during the session 1933-34, and he had stencilled copies
made. He dictated the "Brown Book" to two of his pupils (Francis Skinner and
Alice Ambrose) during 1934-35. He had only three typed copies made of this, and
he showed them only to very close friends and pupils. But people who borrowed
them made their own copies, and there was a trade in them. If Wittgenstein had
named these dictations he might have called them "Philosophical Remarks" or
"Philosophical Investigations". But the first lot were bound in blue wrappers
and thd second in brown, and they were always spoken of that way . . ."
"That was all the Blue Book was, though: a set of notes. The Brown Book was
rather different, and for a time he thought of it as a draft of something he
might publish. He started more than once tomakde revisions of a German version
of it. The last was in August, 1936. He brought this, with some minor changes
and insertions, to the beginning of the discussion of voluntary action -- about
page 154 . . . Then he wrote, in heavy strokes, 'Dieser ganze "Versuch einer
Umarbeitung" vom (Anfang) bis hierher ist nichts wert.' ("This whole attempt at
a revision, from the start right up to this point, is worthless.') That was
when he began what we now have (with minor revisions) as the first part of the
Philosophical Investigations."
"Philosophy was a method of investigation, for Wittgenstein, but his conception
of the method was changing."
"He speaks of coming to understand what people mean by having someone explain
the meanings of the words, for instance. As though 'understanding' and
'explaining' were somehow correlative. But in the Brown Book he emphasizes that
learning a language game is somehow prior to that. And what is needed is not
explanation but training -- comparable to the training you would give an
animal. This goes with the point he emphasizes in the Investigations, that
being able to speak and understand what is said -- knowing what it means --
does not mean you can say what it means; nor is that what you have learned. He
says there too (Investigations, par. 32) that 'Augustine describes the learning
of human language as if the child came into a strange country and did not
understand the language of the country; that is, as if it already had a
language, only not this one.' You might see whether the child knows French by
asking him what the expressions mean. But that is not how you tell whether a
child can speak. And it is not what he learns when he learns to speak.
"When the Brown Book speaks of different language games as 'systems of
communication (Systeme menschligher Verstanddigung), these are not just
different notations. And this introduces a notion of understanding, and of the
relation of understanding and language, which does not come to the front in the
Blue Book at all. In the Brown Book he is insisting, for example, that
"understanding" is not one thing; it is as various as the language games
themselves are. Which would be one reason for saying that when we do imagine
different language games, we are not imagining parts or possible parts of any
general system of language.
"The Blue Book is less clear about that . . ."
> .................................................................
>
<snip>
> 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."
>
How is this relevant to your claim that Wittgenstein held that there was one
and only one kind of nonsense and never varied from this view? Are you just
hoping to bury me in quotations. (Source, by the way?)
> "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."
>
Again, where is the relevance? What is the point of just pulling quotes you
like at random if they have no obvious relation to the claim you are ostensibly
trying to support?
> "The aim of philosophy is to erect a wall at the point where language stops
> anyway." (Philosophical Occasions (also, The Big Typescript; Philosophy)
>
A new one on me however, again, there is no apparent relevance here to what we
have been discussing so why are you offering the quote? Just to show you have
access to and have read some Wittgenstein? Well no one ever doubted you or said
otherwise. What is in question here is whether you have read him right!
> .................................................................
>
>
<snip>
> > 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.
>
I might add that there is certainly less point in quoting irrelevant remarks
from a philosopher than in quoting something relevant from the same philosopher
that was not intended as philosophical but only informational!
> 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
>
Okay. So?
> There is no point in speaking of 'theories' in regards to LW.
Again, so? Where do you think I have asserted that Wittgenstein spoke in terms
of theories, new or otherwise? (Are you just trying to throw everything you
know or can think of concerning Wittgenstein into the mix in hopes that
something will stick?)
> 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.
Don't you think it also SIGNIFICANT that he stated in the preface that he had
made "grave mistakes" in the earlier work and that the PI, to be rightly
understood, ought to be seen in contrast to the work in which he had made those
"grave mistakes"? Moreover, when he wrote the preface he only stated that "it
suddenly seemed to" him, four years earlier, that the two books could, maybe
should, be published together to enhance the understanding of the second work.
However, by the time he wrote the preface, it is clear from his words, that he
no longer planned that.
Now, since the book was published posthumously it cannot be supposed that he
had planned it and his executors and publishers then overruled him ex post
facto! That is, he knew when he was writing the preface (dated January 1945 --
he died in 1951 and the book was only published after that!) that the two books
were not to be published together. Therefore he obviously was complicit in the
decision not to conjoin them in a single volume and his preface cannot reflect
a plea that they should have been, merely a reflection on the possibility.
Moreover, anyone interested can pick up the two volumes and read them together
and, I'm certain, many Wittgensteinophiles have done just that! So there is no
impediment and never was to reading them jointly and Wittgenstein's statement
in the preface can hardly be a cri de coeur that they should have been
published as a single volume!
> He obviously went from using logical syntax to colloquial language, but the
> TLP defends colloquial language against any ideal language.
The Tractatus focuses on the logical relations of certain propositions and of
propositions in general. Nor is it written in "colloquial language". Moreover,
in the era in which Wittgenstein wrote that work he was a student of Russell
who was one of the fathers of the ideal language movement (the effort to
convert ordinary language to a logically perfect one). Russell, of course,
credited Wittgenstein's work in this period with inspiring him to formulate his
logical atomist philosophy (the idea that language has as its main objective to
mirror or picture the world, unit by unit, logical atom by logical atom).
Wittgenstein in the Tractatus follows the same procedure in addressing the form
of propositions and how they relate to the world.
> You insinuate that I believe Wittgenstein never changed and that I am merely
> using one USE of the word NONSENSE.
That's what you asserted. I have merely repeated it, not insinuated it. When
you proposed a claim about nonsense, that it was just to make tautologies, I
responded by telling you that there were many different kinds of nonsense and
gave you a number of examples, pointing out that this was consistent with
Wittgenstein's later thinking about language, i.e., that the meaning of most
words is their use, that the use is found in the context (the language games)
and that words often share meanings through family resemblances rather than
some essential element that they like terms have in common.
You replied that there is "no fucking later Wittgenstein" and that Wittgenstein
meant that nonsense was only nonsense and there was not other meaning to it. I
said this was inconsistent with the later Wittgenstein's thinking and suggested
he had changed radically from his earlier ideas to his later. You insisted
there was no such change of any significance, whereupon I suggested you were so
keen to deify the man that you were taking his many writings as various
manifestations of some kind of holy writ, as though he were a prophet come down
from the mountain to deliver the truth to the rest of us. And I said THAT is
contrary to any serious philosophy and that it would probably have upset him as
well had he ever imagined people would treat him that way.
> 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.
That is possible. If you are now prepared to recognize there are a range of
uses, that is good enough for me. My "definitions" were not delivered as from
on high or even as if I were Merriam-Webster's definitive dictionary. My
"definitions" were exploratory in the manner of Wittgenstein's later approach
to philosopy, i.e., to explore how we actually use the terms we rely on when
making particular claims, philosophical and otherwise.
As to "all the uses [you] have been making", so far it seems to me you have
only offered one, that what is nonsense is what is tautological, a meaning I
did not gainsay! Certainly on the early Wittgensteinian view (and arguably that
of the later), to formulate a proposition that has no referent outside itself
is to be nonsense as in non-sense (to lack sense, which, in the Fregean
terminology, which the early Wittgenstein was steeped in, is to lack meaning).
Now I'm not sure I would agree that to say "The world is all that is the case",
taken as a tautology as we have already discussed, is nonsense in any usual
sense of THAT term. But in the technical way the Fregean/Russellian
Wittgenstein meant in the Tractatus, I see how it could be. But then that would
just be one of the many specialized uses of "nonsense"!
> 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? ;)
>
Probably. Certainly the Tractatus is his earliest known published work.
> 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.
Yes, there are strands that connect them including the things that interested
him in both, his strategy of approaching matters through language, the role of
logic and some specific things like the idea of delimiting what one can
sensibly say.
> But is the method any different?
Yes, and remarkably so.
> 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 think it would be helpful if a few of us who are interested decided to take
up the Tractatus and go through it together on-line by way of doing precisely
what Wittgenstein recommended, i.e., read the Tractatus through the lense of
the Investigations.
> .................................................................
>
> >
> > 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."
>
Interesting. Thanks. Since it is recorded in a period contemporary with the
Blue and Brown Books which he actually reviewed and supervised, we ought to be
able to find an equivalent thought in one or both of these, no? I recall no
such quote off hand but perhaps you have read those two books more recently (or
someone else here has) and can provide some support from those more reliable
documents. Insofar as the Yellow Book (which I have never seen by the way!) is
represented as notes from lectures he gave, there is the usual problem of the
reliability of the "scribe". Is their evidence Wittgenstein had some
supervisory hand in the preparation of this document as he had in the Blue and
Brown Books?
I would also note, again, that the fuller context would help, i.e., is he
reported here as saying this in response to some specific question as to what
we mean by "nonsense" and whether some nonsense is more nonsensical than others
and, if he is, how does that accord with his claim that what he wrote in the
Tractatus was simply nonsense? If his view of nonsense was the same at that
time as when he gave those later lectures then isn't he saying that the
sentences in the Tractatus are just like "ab sur ah" which is to say
unintelligible? But if so, then why would he have thought it worth writing?
After all he could have simply produced a book of nonsense syllables! Of
course, he didn't. What he did do was to produce a book of logically related
statements/claims which, at the end he announced must be seen as nonsense once
one had understood him! So obviously it is already the case that the words in
THAT book had some level of meaning since they could be read productively from
beginning to end (where the gain for the reader comes in realizing that what
has been said changes nothing).
> .................................................................
>
> > 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
>
And yet above you have him, farther up, likening nonsense to word jumbles in
every case! Are you sure the notetaker got the meaning of his statements right?
What does the editor have to say in the preface?
Recall paragraph 599 where he says: "To say, 'This combination of words makes
no sense' excludes it from the sphere of language. But when one draws a
boundary it may be for various kinds of reason. . . if I draw a boundary line
that is not yet to say what I am drawing it for."
Already in this remark in the PI he is opening the possibility that different
assertions of nonsense will differ in various ways, e.g., in their purpose!
That is NOT consistent with the claim that:
"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."
Now in this very late quote you give us (1947) he is telling us not to be
afraid to talk nonsense. Do you think he only meant 'don't be afraid to jumble
your words'? But if not, then surely he was recognizing more than one type of
"nonsense".
> 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.
>
Yes, it is that.
> "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
>
Which notes do you think he had in mind? The ones he scribbled off or the ones
he agonized over and painstakingly reworked (such as the text of the Brown Book
or the Investigations)?
<snip>
> .................................................................
>
> 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.
>
>
I think I read somewhere that it is a very early compilation, roughly
commensurate with the period of the Tractatus but I am not 100% sure.
.................................................................
>
> > 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
>
That reflects the shift that he was then engaged in, away from the
Frege-Russell ideal language project to the later emphasis of his on ordinary
language and its sufficiency, even its superiority, to ideal languages.
> 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.
> >
>
It's easy to ask unanswerable questions. One just has to formulate them that
way. But what is gained?
> You wrote:
> As I said, you seem to have a religious approach to Wittgenstein: questions
> without answers and so forth. 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.
>
As we have seen in some of the excerpts I've posted nearby, there is certainly
a difference of opinion as to the role of the shown in Wittgenstein, both in
the earlier and the later.
As to your cryptic reference to the two books, I don't follow. 'What can be
said can be said clearly.' Since you chose to say something rather than simply
observe silence on the subject, why didn't you specify clearly what you had in
mind?
> "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
>
So is your point that he is telling us to disregard his preface to the PI there
(though he wrote it long before he wrote that preface -- could he have had THAT
preface in mind then do you think)?
SWM
>
> 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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