From: hampday@earthlink.net
Date: Sat Oct 01 2005 - 08:09:03 BST
Matt --
> What I'm trying to suggest is that you just need to try a
> different tact with some people, like me. You need to be
> having a different kind of conversation with them. You
> sum up exactly our differences by saying incredulously,
> "Surely there is something to be said for the concept
> considered apart from the semantics."
> No, no there isn't in a Wittgensteinian view of philosophy,
> which both Sam and I explicitly hold, and I think is at the
> least implicit in Pirsig and part of why any self-described
> Pirsigian has trouble taking much of what you say about
> Essentialism seriously.
> We are on two very different pages here.
So you're a Wittgensteinian. It figures. He's the one philosopher I never
could fathom, and whose prodigious logical equations (if that's what they
were) were beyond my comprehension. I decided early on that whatever he was
trying to say was not important enough (to me at least) to try to understand
it.
While I appreciate your "staying out of the way" in my discussions of
Essentialism, I don't think it's possible that I can discuss philosophy with
someone of your mindset. Perhaps the best I can do is to learn why you (and
Sam Norton of all people?) have latched on to a mathematician/psychologist
who claims there can be no such thing as a theory. Yet, you say this is
"the real" you -- almost as if you had these views before ever reading
Wittgenstein.
> I think you're a Cartesian relic and you
> think I'm a frivolous nihilist.
> That's not the problem.
The problem is that I think you're anything but frivolous while, at the same
time, I'm unable to make sense out of what you say. (I can certainly
empathize with the struggle DMB is having in this regard.)
I've just reviewed a couple of on-line articles about Wittgenstein and am
amazed at how revered this German is in the philosophical community.
There's a review of his Tractatus in the Internet Encyclopedia, from which I
quote the major tenets:
"1 The world is all that is the case.
4.01 A proposition is a picture of reality.
4.0312 ...My fundamental idea is that the 'logical
constants' are not representatives; that there can be
no representatives of the logic of facts.
4.121 ...Propositions show the logical form of reality.
They display it.
4.1212 What can be shown, cannot be said.
4.5 ...The general form of a proposition is: This is how
things stand.
5.43 ...all the propositions of logic say the same thing,
to wit nothing.
5.4711 To give the essence of a proposition means to
give the essence of all description, and thus the
essence of the world.
5.6 The limits of my language mean the limits of my world."
Perhaps you will do me the favor of explaining some of these propositions.
For example, why 4.121 states that "propositions show the logical form of
reality" if Wittgenstein didn't believe in logical propositions, and
(4.1212), why "what can be shown cannot be said." If, as he asserts, "all
the propositions of logic say the same thing, to wit nothing," why, then,
does he also assert that "the essence of a proposition means to give ...the
essence of the world"? Isn't he contradicting himself? Or, are we to infer
that he means the essence of the world is "to wit nothing"? But then his
first premise was that "the world is all that is the case." In common logic
that would imply that the world is nothing.
I don't have any more intention of studying Wittgenstein than you have of
studying Essentialism. But if you can provide an explanation for the above
that makes any sense to me, I may gain some insight as to where you're
coming from and, possibly, how to frame my statements in a way that you can
better understand me. (I shall try to keep an open mind.)
As an alternative, maybe you could demonstrate (by quotes or you own
analysis) in what way you believe Wittgensteinianism "is at the least
implicit in Pirsig." It could explain why I'm having trouble understanding
him, too.
Incidentally, how many others out there in Qualityland are Wittgensteinians?
(Maybe the Tractatus should be added to the MD's required reading list.)
Thanks and good luck,
Ham
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