If you listen to MU you'll all be screwed in the head. — Sam26
Anyway, those are my thoughts for what they're worth. — Sam26
The best book I've read that sums up Wittgenstein is K. T. Fann's, Wittgenstein's Conception of Philosophy. You can get it used for just a few dollars. It's sums up his philosophy from the Tractatus to the PI. — Sam26
As Wittgenstein remarks, the crystalline purity of logic (and, a fortiori, of the Tractarian eliminativism) rendered it no longer applicable to actual uses of language (Wittgenstein 1958/1999, §107). Instead of pursuing the former, Wittgenstein decided to return to the rough ground, to the philosophical problems of everyday language. Although this violates the principles of scientific philosophy, it allowed his work to have content that would have been lost with the Tractarian eliminativism. Thus, instead of throwing away the ladder after ascending it, Wittgenstein threw it away before climbing it, for in order to get to the rough ground, no ladder is needed. — William Manninen
The professor I studied under studied under Cora Diamond who is one of the proponents of the resolute reading. I'm definitely not a fan of the resolute reading, and that article explains part of the reason. — Sam26
Looking at the Routledge edition there is nothing much there that does more than the text itself. It is NOT a complex text at the start. Anything I have said is to reference the text and expand a little on what W says. For example I like the term “ostensive” as something to apply to non-verbal thought (I haven’t said this because it is irrelevant. — I like sushi
Seeing as you don't seem to have anything useful to add, — Metaphysician Undercover
It is going too fast. Plus a silly tit-for-tat which I wasted time reading didn’t help. — I like sushi
At the moment comments on 1-30 are welcome ... no doubt people will ignore this and plough ahead with pet theories. Maybe they’ll take the hint? Maybe more than two people will respond? Maybe people have been put off? — I like sushi
31. When one shews someone the king in chess and says: "This is
the king", this does not tell him the use of this piece—unless he already
knows the rules of the game up to this last point: the shape of the king.
You could imagine his having learnt the rules of the game without ever
having been shewn an actual piece. The shape of the chessman corresponds
here to the sound or shape of a word.
One can also imagine someone's having learnt the game without
ever learning or formulating rules. He might have learnt quite simple
board-games first, by watching, and have progressed to more and
more complicated ones. He too might be given the explanation "This
is the king",—if, for instance, he were being shewn chessmen of a shape
he was not used to. This explanation again only tells him the use
of the piece because, as we might say, the place for it was already
prepared. Or even: we shall only say that it tells him the use, if
the place is already prepared. And in this case it is so, not because the
person to whom we give the explanation already knows rules, but
because in another sense he is already master of a game.
Consider this further case: I am explaining chess to someone; and I
begin by pointing to a chessman and saying: "This is the king; it
can move like this, . . . . and so on."—In this case we shall say: the
words "This is the king" (or "This is called the 'king' ") are a definition
only if the learner already 'knows what a piece in a game is'. That is,
if he has already played other games, or has watched other people
playing 'and understood'—and similar things. Further, only under these
conditions will he be able to ask relevantly in the course of learning the
game: "What do you call this?"—that is, this piece in a game.
We may say: only someone who already knows how to do something
with it can significantly ask a name.
And we can imagine the person who is asked replying: "Settle the
name yourself"—and now the one who asked would have to manage
everything for himself.
Far from being useless, I'm advising you and those here about to listen to Sam; certainly he will be a better guide than MU. — Banno
This thread is like the blind leading the blind — Sam26
It is going too fast. — I like sushi
I am not “leading” because there is no chance I can stop anyone from posting or readin ahead — I like sushi
The fact that the book largely operates at these two different scales is not easy to square with our usual habits of reading, — StreetlightX
doesn't require some kind of kabbalah-like esoteric hermeneutics that often and damagingly gets associated with the work. — StreetlightX
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