In regards to the problem of 'totalizing' propositions, there is an interesting historical comment made in the Tractatus:

6.371 The whole modern conception of the world is founded on the illusion that the so-called laws of nature are the explanations of natural phenomena.

6.372 Thus people today stop at the laws of nature, treating them as something inviolable, just as God and Fate were treated in past ages.

And in fact both are right and both wrong: though the view of the ancients is clearer in so far as they have a clear and acknowledged terminus, while the modern system tries to make it look as if everything were explained. — ibid.

This supports my previous contention that choosing not to couch his arguments in the context of other writings does not mean he was unaware of them. The discussion of solipsism, for example, surely sounds like a debate with Kant, even though it is not presented that way.

When one goes to the first page of the search for Gerson, the comments I made there are some arguments against his view. Further in the past, I expressed differences with Gerson's interpretation of De Anima unrelated to this thesis.

As time has passed, I have been thinking about his thesis as a "philosophy of history" that searches text to find the steps he is looking for. Up to now, I was mostly approaching it as a competing interpretation of the text.

I will think about how to expand upon the historicist angle.

We have disagreed over Gerson in the past. As a devoted student of Plotinus, I cannot fault his view of Plato since Gerson follows Plotinus' reading.

But I object to Gerson's picture of Aristotle as an anti-naturalist. It elides Plotinus' criticism of Aristotle.

Gerson's version of materialism ignores the limits of the universal that Aristotle discusses in the Metaphysics, which my quote above is taken from.

This is a sharp contrast from the language of "participating in Forms." As he says a little further:

And in general it follows—if the human |1038b30| and whatever is said of things in that way are substance—that none of the things in their account is substance of any of them or is separate from them or in something else. I mean, for example, that there is not some animal—or any other of the things in the account—beyond the particular ones. — Aristotle, Metaphysics, 1038b30, translated by CDC Reeve

This focus on the limits of what can be known through distinctions of kinds is evident in the discussion of actual being contrasted with potential or capacity:

Activity, then, is the existence of the thing not in the way in which we say that it exists potentially. And we say, for example, that Hermes exists potentially in the wood and the half-line in the whole, because it could be abstracted from it, and also we say that even someone who is not contemplating is a scientific knower if he is capable of contemplating. And by contrast we say that other things exist actively. What we wish to say is clear from the particular cases by induction, |1048a35| and we must not look for a definition of everything, but be able to comprehend the analogy, namely, that as what is building is in relation to what is capable of building, and what is awake is in relation to what is asleep, |1048b1| and what is seeing is in relation to what has its eyes closed but has sight, and what has been shaped out of the matter is in relation to the matter, and what has been finished off is to the unfinished. Of the difference exemplified in this analogy let the activity be marked off by the first part, the potentiality by the second. |1048b5| But things are said to actively be, not all in the same way, but by analogy—as this is in this or to this, so that is in that or to that. For some are as movement in relation to a capacity [or a potential], and the others as substance to some sort of matter. — ibid. 1048a30

I appreciate your willingness to continue the conversation. I apologize for my intemperate comment.

If I can pull together a response, I will put it in your thread since this comment is a continuation of what is said there.

What is your native language?

This sounds like an AI generated thing.

I am challenging your description of what the writing is about. If it is not worthy, just ignore it.

Where does he say all propositions are language?
They all are language, of course.
But your reading of "domains" is not in the text.

That statement does not say:

science is a smaller domain within the larger domain of possible natural language — 013zen

Witt does not limit what can be said to the domain of science, but rather science is a smaller domain within the larger domain of possible natural language. — 013zen

Which statements support this interpretation?

Whether or not that is the case, instead of wasting time telling me that so and so is misunderstanding him, let’s reveal the difference in underlying metaphysical commitments that separate your reading from mine. — Joshs

In my various disagreements, they have mostly been made as understanding the text differently than what was offered by others.

Your approach of placing x in a context before discussing x is itself a proposition. And open to challenge, like other propositions.

I readily admit my view is the confluence of education, experience, and personal preferences.

There are many ways to live a good, flourishing life, but the life of contemplation is highest and most divine. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Metaphysics connects the concerns stated in Nichomachean Ethics and Politics by asking if it is wrong to pursue the primary causes:

{6} What in fact happened is witness to this. For it was when pretty much all the necessities of life, as well as those related to ease and passing the time, had been supplied that such wisdom began to be sought. So clearly we do not inquire into it because of its having another use, but just as a human |982b25| being is free, we say, when he is for his own sake and not for someone else, in the same way we pursue this as the only free science, since it alone is for its own sake. It is because of this indeed that the possession of this science might be justly regarded as not for humans, since in many ways the nature of humans is enslaved, so that, according to Simonides, “a god alone can have this |982b30| privilege,” and it is not fitting that a human should not be content to inquire into the science that is in accord with himself. If, then, there is something in what the poets say, and jealousy is natural to the divine, it would probably occur in this case most of all, |983a1|and all those who went too far [in this science] would be unlucky. The divine, however, cannot be jealous—but, as the proverb says, “Bards often do speak falsely.” Moreover, no science should be regarded as more estimable than this. — Aristotle, Metaphysics, 982b24, translated by CDC Reeve

The search for causes is theological in the context of how it challenges other views of what our place is as humans. Asking what is good by nature is at odds with other ideas of justice.

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.

This, too, fills in a space left empty by Wittgenstein. It mischaracterizes the role of "forms of life." The work does not mark out what a "legitimate role" is.

A few philosophers, we may admit, are “like savages, primitive people, who hear the expressions of civilized men, and then draw the queerest conclusions from it”. (PI 194) But most of them are not. They are, rather, contributors to the progress of civilization.

Rorty supplies additions to what was written that are sharply at odds with other ways to read those words. I don't understand Wittgenstein to be denigrating the role of the philosopher in PI 194. It is an expression of humility toward what has been created around the philosopher. If all the problems of philosophy are without value, then one should stop. And yet Wittgenstein is out there digging in ancient grounds.

Rorty’s analysis of Wittgenstein’s peculiar use of the word philosophy may go some way toward appreciating the basis of his lack of interest in its history. — Joshs

Wittgenstein does not place himself in the narrative of the philosophy of history by means of talking about it. Concluding that means he had no interest in it is prejudicial. That suggests the absence of word on the matter was not intended but a condition of his times, or something.

I disagree. I need time to frame my rebuttal.

What does the opposite of an obsession with language look like?

Interesting. The text does not follow you to your conclusion.

I will ponder upon it.

What do you make of the following?

6.4 All propositions are of equal value.
6.41 The sense of the world must lie outside the world. In the world everything is as it is, and everything happens as it does happen: in it no value exists—and if it did exist, it would have no value.
If there is any value that does have value, it must lie outside the whole sphere of what happens and is the case. For all that happens and is the case is accidental.
What makes it non-accidental cannot lie within the world, since if it did it would itself be accidental — ibid.

That view is distant from visions of discourse defined solely by use or general purpose.

That is an interesting observation.

Will think about.

He also believed early on that any philosophy that wasn’t linguistic analysis to be a criminal waste of effort but here he was wrong as he later softened his position. — kindred

That is one interpretation. There are others. The statement "purely linguistic" indicates a particular point of view.

Are you proposing that is a self evident component of the text?

If all that is a side track, what is the main path? What is supposed to be studied?

What examples of this sidestepping attract your notice?

Yours is a fair representation of what Heidegger was about.

Where does an opposing view start? A rebuttal of a narrative? A different frame of reference?

Well, that is proof of my charge that there is nothing there to challenge you as a philosopher.

Heads you win, tails you lose.

From what I understand, Wittgenstein did not want to participate in that conservation the same way others did.

The diffuse quality you object to is different from the broad reflection upon what is happening in view of what has happened. History, by any other name.

The broad difference in our reading is whether a consideration is being opened up or closed off.

If nothing is at stake in considering differing points of view. If Wittgenstein is truly a valueless cipher, then he should be ignored. By you and me.

If both sides of the coin are different kinds of irrelevance, then the discussion is meaningless.

I did not say I had no idea what you are saying.

You repeat the terms of your objections as if I was not following along with your comments.

I hazard the guess that your answer to me is no.

Would you be willing to recognize that you are offering me a "tails you lose, heads I win" set of alternatives?

What can either of us be talking about in this context?

To which statement are you directing your question?

I would not call it 'gatekeeping' but you have often offered an undialectical version of the works.

In many cases, you seem to ride two horses at the same time:

The work intends to establish a thesis and fails at it.

The work does not intend to establish a thesis, so it is mental floss.

Heidegger tells a long story about how the concerns of philosophy were corrupted by some elements of its practice. He wrote (and lectured) at length upon how Nietzsche was the last practitioner of the mistake.

There are a lot of other points of contrast and conflict between their views but let me start with simply observing that Wittgenstein has negative interest in the romance and nostalgia expressed thereby.

Wittgenstein refers to many of his contemporaries in his writings. He does not mention studying others. I think the Count's point about the depth of 'classical education' is germane. But it is a matter impossible to settle from text alone.

We have all read stuff we are not going to bring into arguments we wish to make.

Antonia Soulez (sorry, I cannot find a public link to it) makes interesting observations that Wittgenstein's references to Plato, Kant, Russell, etcetera are not designed to solve their problems but as instances of what concerns his views and development. That suggests a conscious departure from the "philosophy of history" discussion.

Some have made that departure to be a parting shot, an assassination in Deleuze's view or a trip to the couch for various expressions of "therapy."

As an opponent of the means of 'natural sciences" to explain everything, I think it is helpful to compare Wittgenstein to others who did something seemingly similar but chose to wear the ermine of The Philosopher of History.

Heidegger is the true antipode to Wittgenstein.

That is painting with a broad brush. Are you assigning all who evince interest in the writings as gatekeepers?

For my part, the work is an interesting kind of argument and not a Prolegomena for any future Metaphysics. If I resist that latter conclusion, am I, too, a gatekeeper?

We know that Aristotle was wrong, and an idea more akin to Democratus' was more right...there is serious concern regarding the method Aristotle employs to reach "metaphysical knowledge". — 013zen

The sense of what is "metaphysical" knowledge is not presented as the anti-thesis to "material" causes. The beginning of the discussion is how the inquiry into the way of knowledge is distinguished from using theoria to learn specific natures and their causes:

Lectures, however, produce their effects in accord with people’s habits, since we expect them to be spoken in the manner we are accustomed to, and anything |995a1| beyond this appears not to have the same strength but to be something quite unknown and quite strange. For it is the customary that is familiar. Indeed, the extraordinary power of what we are accustomed to is clearly shown by our customs, where mythical and childish stories about things have greater power than our knowledge about them, because of |995a5| our habits. Now some people do not accept what someone says if it is not stated mathematically, others if it is not based on paradigm cases, while others expect to have a poet adduced as a witness. Again, some want everything expressed exactly, whereas others are annoyed by what is exact, either because they cannot string all the bits together or because they regard it as nitpicking. For exactness does have something |995a10| of this quality, and so just as in business transactions so also in arguments it seems to have something unfree or ungenerous about it. That is why we should already have been well educated in what way to accept each argument, since it is absurd to look for scientific knowledge and for the way [of inquiry] characteristic of scientific knowledge at the same time—and it is not easy to get hold of either. Accordingly, we should not demand the argumentative exactness of mathematics in all cases |995a15| but only in the case of things that include no matter. That is why the way of inquiry is not the one characteristic of natural science, since presumably every nature includes matter. That is why we must first investigate what a nature is, since that way it will also be clear what natural science is concerned with, and whether it belongs to one science or to more than one to get a theoretical grasp on causes and starting-points. |995a20| — Aristotle, Metaphysics, 995, translated by CDC Reeve, emphasis mine

An excellent clarification of the situation before and after.

I would like to add some observations but will wait to see if the original poster of the discussion has something to say.

The Southern states had a powerful stake and influence upon Federal policy. The compromises made in the Constitution continued right up to the outbreak of war. A clear indication of that is how many of the military leaders on both sides were trained at West Point.

A great book that discusses these matters and more is Battle Cry of Freedom, by James McPherson.