understanding”. Do you believe that Wittgenstein can only be refuted by better readings of Wittgenstein or could Wittgenstein just be wrong and refuted thus? — schopenhauer1
This endlessly fecund, perhaps even Rabbinical reinterpretation of W does suggest that critique almost seems superfluous. — Tom Storm
Might it not be argued that until one has a robust reading of any writer it is not really possible to refute or acclaim them? — Tom Storm
It inherently assumes that the philosopher is right if you only knew him better... — schopenhauer1
This tactic deflects from holding the philosopher accountable for the clarity and coherence of their arguments, which should stand up to critique regardless of the critic's breadth of reading. — schopenhauer1
It can create an environment where philosophical works are revered rather than critically examined, which is contrary to the spirit of philosophical inquiry. — schopenhauer1
:clap: :up: More or less this summarizes how I also read Witty's later thinking (re: recursively generated plurality of non-discrete discourses) which I interpret as contextualizing, not refuting or discarding, his early thinking (re: implicit nonsense of meta-discourses). In other words, implied by the PI, Witty's TLP exemplifies just one language-game (i.e. discursive way of making sense/meanings) among countless others; however, IMHO, this is also 'meta-discursive nonsense' too (i.e. a language-game of 'examples of language-games') and therefore (PI) internally critiques, or refutes, itself implicitly in the manner of the more explicit proposition 7 of the TLP. Witty doesn't propose a 'theory of language' so there aren't any 'claims' to argue against, only this reflective activity to perform ("red pill" ~ how to stop philosophizing) or not to perform ("blue pill" ~ to never stop philosophizing), and this groundless 'choice' is what, I suspect, aggravates many (scientistic or analytical or dogmatic) philosophers with its ordinariness ...[Wittgenstein] is not talking about language, as Rorty and Wayfarer’s Kenneth Taylor take it, he is looking at how we talk, in certain examples (calling out, rule following, pointing, continuing a series, seeing, understanding, and, even, “meaning”/language, but only as another example), because it is a window, a method, in order to see how different things do what they do differently (our criteria for judging can be seen in the ways we talk).
His goal is not to tell us the way the world works, e.g., by way of rules, or that this is how rules work. Initially he is trying to figure out why he got stuck on one solution (in the Tract[atus]), when the world works in so many different ways. What he learns first is that our desire for certainty narrows our vision (dictates the form of answer), and so, yes, it is a book about self-knowledge. It aims to show us how our interests affect our thinking. — Antony Nickles
There may well be those who think philosophy is an enquiry dedicated to reasonableness and ongoing discourse. I suspect that much philosophy is faddish tribalism, dedicated to onanism, amongst other things. :grin: — Tom Storm
[pointless or trivial] is the reciprocal of how their interests are regarded by him. — Wayfarer
We do, however, find in the Tractatus a comment about two ways of seeing a cube. (5.5423) — Fooloso4
How can it be that an approach which claims to privilege the common use of language does not use language in a common way? — Leontiskos
Do you believe that Wittgenstein can only be refuted by better readings of Wittgenstein or could Wittgenstein just be wrong and refuted thus? — schopenhauer1
You are not a solipsistic island dropped into the midst of society. Whether you know it or not, your reading of Wittgenstein will have enough overlaps and resonances with a particular community of Wittgenstein scholars that it will be useful to say , as shorthand, that you identify with the new Wittgensteinians or the old Wittgensteinians, with the therapeutic approach or the non-therapeutic approach, with the Oxford reading or the American reading. This doesn’t mean you think in lock step with any particular reading of Wittgenstein. To speak for oneself is already to speak in relation to a cultural perspective, Whether one feels in tune with it or in opposition to it, one is in both cases tied to it. Explicitly communicating this awareness when discussing philosophical ideas is not the same thing as advancing someone else’s view, but giving others a better sense of where you’re coming from.If one takes your approach, no person is speaking for themselves in response to the text but are parroting "so and so's" who speak for others. That means I am not speaking for myself but advancing someone else's view.
So, the humility you are asking from me is a keeping of a gate. And you have shopped out the work to a contractor. — Paine
To speak for oneself is already to speak in relation to a cultural perspective,
— Joshs
Did you just reciprocal co-constitution Wittgenstein scholarship? — fdrake
One more thing I think is happening sometimes is people take everything Witt writes as if it was a statement, like a claim to knowledge or an argument for the purpose of having a conclusion admitted. But I hear them like conjecture, or even more, like characterizations of remarks, that only lead to asking: “why would we say that?” Or: “look at it in this way”. But the only way to treat a picture like a conclusion is to accept it whole hog, without justification and without means of refuting it, when the picture is just meant to say: “do you see what I see in this (by/for yourself)?” — Antony Nickles
This can happen to any thinker, but it seems viciously pernicious in Wittgenstein's case, being the style, the ambiguity of the text, and the demand to believe that this is a sui generis type of philosophical discourse that cannot be dealt with in the same manner as other philosophers... — schopenhauer1
I should not wish to have spared anyone the trouble of thinking.
OF COURSE, all of this relies on even thinking his Old or New Testament matters or is the right approach.. Something that seems completely off the table to the adherents. You see, you can't directly attack Wittgenstein, only provide either primary sources (from the GURU himself), or from one of his approved sooth-sayers.. — schopenhauer1
One more thing I think is happening sometimes is people take everything Witt writes as if it was a statement, like a claim to knowledge or an argument for the purpose of having a conclusion admitted. But I hear them like conjecture, or even more, like characterizations of remarks, that only lead to asking: “why would we say that?” Or: “look at it in this way”. But the only way to treat a picture like a conclusion is to accept it whole hog, without justification and without means of refuting it, when the picture is just meant to say: “do you see what I see in this (by/for yourself)?” — Antony Nickles
The knower is as it were a mirror for the known (the microcosm). Whatever this relationship is, and however it is to be properly explained, it is not the kind of relationship which Wittgenstein's simple objects can enter into. The knowing subject is therefore not part of the world, or an object that can be met with in the world alongside the other objects in the world. The self is pure medium, pure mirror for the world; their limits coincide. The self is, in a sense, one with the world. It gives way to it. Solipsism collapses into realism. — Peter Simpson, Schopenhauer and Wittgenstein on Self and Object
You would enjoy Gellner’s Word and Things, he has very similar points throughout his book. — Richard B
Wittgenstenians have a tendency to impose this premise on others, resulting in a double standard that is a form of unethical discourse. — Leontiskos
Frank Ramsey's reply to Wittgenstein is on point, "What can't be said can't be said, and it can't be whistled either." Wittgenstein is either saying something or else he is not. It can't be had both ways. If he is saying something then he can be contradicted and he can be wrong; if he is not saying anything then he cannot. But obviously he is saying something, and along with Ramsey I'd say it is a farce to claim that he is not. (I have noticed that Wittgenstenians tend to miss the fact that conjectures and indirect locutions are also ways of saying something.) — Leontiskos
The effect is that Wittgenstein gets to say things without saying things. He gets to have his cake and eat it too. Perhaps this is part of the reason why the Wittgenstenian is so awkward when it comes to disagreement. They are imposing their own system and that system cannot even theoretically account for disagreement. — Leontiskos
While framed as a denunciation, this amounts to an endorsement of the resounding success of a man who said
I should not wish to have spared anyone the trouble of thinking. — Srap Tasmaner
Shouldn't he? — Leontiskos
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