126. Philosophy simply puts everything before us, and neither explains nor deduces anything.—Since everything lies open to view there is nothing to explain. — Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations Ed. 3
I don't think [ that "everything lies open to view", above ] means we understand things simply by looking at them. I think he is alluding to what was called ordinary language philosophy. — Jackson
Philosophy simply puts everything before us... — Wittgenstein
… our investigation is directed not towards phenomena, but rather, as one might say, towards the ‘possibilities’ of phenomena. We remind ourselves, that is to say, of the kind of statement that we make about phenomena.
...
Our investigation is therefore a grammatical one. Such an investigation sheds light on our problem by clearing misunderstandings away. (Philosophical Investigations, 90)
I believe that my originality (if that is the right word) is an originality belonging to the soil rather than to the seed. … Sow a seed in my soil and it will grow differently than it would in any other soil. (CV, 36)
A main source of our failure to understand is that we do not command a clear view of the use of our words.—Our grammar is lacking in this sort of perspicuity. A perspicuous representation produces just that understanding which consists in 'seeing connexions'. Hence the importance of finding and inventing intermediate cases.
The concept of a perspicuous representation is of fundamental significance for us. It earmarks the form of account we give, the way we look at things. (Is this a 'Weltanschauung'?) (PI 122)
Working in philosophy -- like work in architecture in many respects -- is really more a working on oneself. On one's interpretation. On one's way of seeing things. (And what one expects of them.) (Culture and Value, 16)
53. There is no such thing as phenomenology, but there are indeed phenomenological problems.
(Remarks on Colour)
Working in philosophy -- like work in architecture in many respects -- is really more a working on oneself. On one's interpretation. On one's way of seeing things. (And what one expects of them.) — Witt., Culture and Value, p. 16
By the possibilities of phenomena he means the various ways in which we can see things. — Fooloso4
This [ desire for a single complete resolution (PI, #91) ]--"as if our usual forms of expression were, essentially, unanalysed; as if there were something hidden in them that had to be brought to light... [ finds expression in questions about essence ] ...not something that already lies open to view and that becomes surveyable by a rearrangement, but [ we imagine ] something that lies beneath the surface... something that lies within, which we see [ only ] when we look into the thing, and which an analysis digs out." PI, #92 This is the human compulsion to "penetrate" (PI, #90) the world by way of knowledge that Wittgenstein is turning from in glancing sideways at what is essential about a thing by examining what Kant would call its "conditions"; that our ordinary expressions reveal what something can be (is possible of, and limited to). — Antony Nickles
I take "working on oneself" to be an ethical admonishment--work on changing your acts rather than somehow altering (or understanding) our perception (as phenomenology wishes); that philosophy for Witt is not about seeing in a new way, but, to use this re-framing, realizing what we can expect from interpreting and seeing, say, by finding the limit of what they (and we) can and can not do. — Antony Nickles
The work of art is the object seen sub specie aeternitatis; and the good life is the world seen sub specie aeternitatis. This is the connexion between art and ethics.
The usual way of looking at things sees objects as it were from the midst of them,the view
sub specie aeternitatis from outside.
In such a way that they have the whole world as background.
Is this it perhaps — in this view the object is seen together with space and time instead of in space and time?
Each thing modifies the whole logical world, the whole of logical space, so to speak.
(The thought forces itself upon one): The thing seen sub specie aeternitatis is the thing seen together with the whole logical space.(NB 83)
Ethics and aesthetics are one. (6.421)
(6.45)To view the world sub specie aeterni is to view it as a limited whole.
Feeling the world as a limited whole - it is this that is mystical.
we do not "conceive things" — Antony Nickles
For what is hidden, for example, is of no interest to us.
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 of course you want them to admire the room from outside!
The honorable thing to do is to put a lock on the door which will be noticed only
by those who can open it, not by the rest. (CV 7-8)
Excuse my ignorance. Are you claiming that Witty was in favour of ordinary language philosophy? — emancipate
how one sees things is a prominent and recurring theme for Wittgenstein — Fooloso4
The analogy of conceiving as building is that it exactly is an action ... — Antony Nickles
work on changing your acts rather than somehow altering (or understanding) our perception — Antony Nickles
Your quotations from Witt's earlier work amount to the limitations he projected onto our ability to (rationally) discuss or understand morality and aesthetics. But it is exactly this picture that he is questioning and replacing through the work of the Philosophical Investigations. — Antony Nickles
Specifically, it was his requirement for crystalline purity in the Tractatus that stopped him from realizing the regular ways we talk about these subjects, causing him to feel this part of the world was "mystical". — Antony Nickles
Man has to awaken to wonder - and so perhaps do peoples. Science is a way of sending him to sleep again. (CV, 5)
Philosophy does not explain anything — Jackson
The point is that perception is not passive, it is active, constructive. — Fooloso4
And yet he says very little about morality and aesthetics in his later work. What exactly is he replacing the earlier picture with? — Fooloso4
The demand for crystalline purity does not extend to the ethical/aesthetic. They are not matters of fact and logic. — Fooloso4
The point of the PI is to show that there is not one logic — Antony Nickles
...statements like "Philosophy simply puts everything before us", I, etc. do not mean anything, because one must first define philosophy, i.e. tell us what kind of philosophy he is talking about. Isn't that so? — Alkis Piskas
The point of the PI is to show that there is not one logic ... — Antony Nickles
... which is a revocation of the fixed criteria of certainty enforced in the Tractates ... — Antony Nickles
... that created the picture of aesthetics and ethics as a mystical part of our world (though the world is not without wonder and mystery). — Antony Nickles
It is exactly the desire for purity that creates the idea that they are outside fact and logic. — Antony Nickles
Just because we may not come to agreement does not mean there is no rationality, no discussion ... — Antony Nickles
The problem is, we do not possess the facts and logic to bring moral deliberation to a satisfactory conclusion. There is no moral science. Moral deliberation, although rational, is not reducible to facts and logic. — Fooloso4
All this is fine and thank you for the clarification.He's within and responding to the tradition of western analytic philosophy (the problem of other minds, epistemology, ethics, education, skepticism, etc.) — Antony Nickles
But intellectualizing this as a "problem" makes the world seem hidden — Antony Nickles
The desire (to have moral deliberation reducible, a science) is the same desire Wittgenstein had in the Tractatus — Antony Nickles
If one wants to refer specifically to philosopher X, he should form the title of his topic as follows: "What did X mean by saying this and this?" This would put the topic and discussion in the right perspective. Isn't that right? And in that case, I wouldn't have anything to say. — Alkis Piskas
Only if one assumes there is an objective morality to be uncovered. — Fooloso4
The Tractatus attempts to show that it is not reducible to a science. — Fooloso4
one should not need to know or study the work of Wittgenstein or whoever else to find out what they mean about philosophy and whatever other terms or concepts are involved in these statements. — Alkis Piskas
We are not relegated to the obscurity Witt originally put ethics and aesthetics into because of his requirement for statements to have certainty. — Antony Nickles
He wanted it to be reducible to logic ... — Antony Nickles
The failing is not morality not being scientific; it is our decision to want it to be because of the fear that we must stand in its place. — Antony Nickles
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