From: Elizaphanian (Elizaphanian@members.v21.co.uk)
Date: Wed Dec 11 2002 - 23:51:29 GMT
Hi Matt, all.
Something I came across. Stanley Cavell is noted Wittgenstein scholar,
amongst other things:
( http://globetrotter.berkeley.edu/people2/Cavell/cavell-con3.html )
Cavell: ....for the past 200 years, let's say, philosophers have been
professors of philosophy. Kant is the philosopher that showed us that you
can be a professor and produce great philosophy. It wasn't clear before.
Descartes wasn't a professor of philosophy, Locke wasn't, Hume wasn't,
Schopenhauer wasn't, Spinoza wasn't. But you could say of them and of their
successors that they attempt to produce a system that answers the basic
questions of existence. That system, or something of the sort, has since the
17th century converged on questions of knowledge, rather than on the
questions of beauty or of goodness, though every philosopher has some view
of all of these things. Or, philosophers can undertake to question all
efforts to create a system of philosophy. But in my book, the compulsion to
systematization and the compulsion to question systematization are equal
human drives. And so I question both of them.
SC: Another way to test it is ... of course, we've all asked ourselves that.
When I asked my philosophy teachers, I found myself doing this day and
night, I said, "How do I know if I'm really doing this, if I'm really
responding in a way that means anything to these texts or that means
anything to anybody else but me?" And the awful and the wonderful thing is
there really is no answer to this question. A famous story for some of us is
that Wittgenstein, whom many of us do not doubt was an original and
important philosopher, asked this question of Russell, "Am I a philosopher
or am I a complete fool?" And Russell told him he wasn't a complete fool.
But there's still a prior question, which is why Wittgenstein asked it of
this person, and why this person was credible to him as an answerer. So, you
pick your shots.
~~~~~~~~~~
I thought that was rather good.
Sam
The actual outlook is very dark, and any serious thought should start from
that fact. (George Orwell)
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