I included a link to the entire interview. The section I pointed out gives the context for the ensuing remarks.

Now who is taking the comments out of context? The question was whether he would do what was done to him. He continues to describe what he claims happened to him, not what he would never do.

At the 12:16 mark, Acevedo asks if Trump would do what he says has been done to him:




At the 15:35 mark, Trump says "It could certainly happen in reverse." Not the most cogent response but certainly not a matter of his words being taken out of context.

The Horowitz Report is actually a more disturbing report on the problems with FISA warrants and information sharing in the various institutions. That report did not, however, support the charge that the entire investigation was a hoax.

The Durham report ignored many elements of the investigation Mueller presented. Durham's ignorance of those elements came out in Congressional testimony:

Eric Swalwell asked Durham about how Trump “tried and concealed from the public a real-estate deal he was seeking in Moscow.” This was a deal, described in the Mueller report, in which the Russian government promised Trump several hundreds of millions of dollars in profit at no risk to himself to license a tower in Moscow. The proposed payoff, and Trump’s public lies at the time about it, gave Russia enormous leverage over his campaign. Durham replied, “I don’t know anything about that.”

When Adam Schiff asked Durham if the Russians released stolen information through cutouts, he replied, “I’m not sure.” Schiff responded, “The answer is yes,” to which Durham reported, “In your mind, it’s yes.”

When Schiff asked Durham if he knew that, hours after Trump publicly asked Russia to find Hillary Clinton’s State Department emails and release them, Russian hackers made an attempt to hack Clinton emails, Durham replied, “If that happened, I’m not aware of that.”

When asked if Trump referred to those stolen emails more than 100 times on the campaign trail, Durham answered, “I don’t really read the newspapers and listen to the news.”

And when Schiff asked Durham if he was aware that Trump’s campaign manager, Paul Manafort, passed on polling data to Konstantin Kilimnik, a Russian intelligence agent, at the time Russia was conducting both a social-media campaign and the release of stolen documents to help Trump, Durham replied, “You may be getting beyond the depth of my knowledge.”

David Corn reacted incredulously to the last profession of ignorance. “The Manafort-Kilimnik connection — which the Senate Intelligence Committee report characterized as a ‘grave counterintelligence threat’ — is one of the most serious and still not fully explained components of the Trump-Russia scandal,” he writes. “It is inconceivable that Durham is unaware of this troubling link.” — Jonathan Chait

And then there is the fact that Durham failed to bring proof of the conspiracy he was promulgating into any successful convictions.

The reason the investigation was not conclusive was because of the obstructions put up to it by the involved parties. Mueller explicitly stated this is why he could not exonerate the parties.

A.G. Barr launched an investigation into the FBI that petered out after years of Durham rooting about for a cabal who was said to be the fabricator of the cause for the investigation. It was what MAGA likes to call a fishing expedition.

For a religion to survive and thrive among a largely regressive people, it would of necessity incorporate much of the prevailing regressive worldview. — Art48

This is an interesting theory of class, where the only participants of "religion" are powerless. That idea needs more development before making it part and parcel to some historical judgement.

I think it is a helpful perspective but not a last word or the results of a complete system.

As far as Nietzsche's historical sense, he's the only western philosopher who even utilized ANY Historical sense at all. — Vaskane

That does not account for Hegel who was bold enough to claim what that history was destined to bring about.

It also excludes those philosophers who presented "natural' right as outcomes of our development as human beings, as seen in the differences between Hume, Hobbes, Rousseau, Locke, etcetera.

Against that backdrop, the use of the word Genealogy by Nietzsche seems less explanatory than others.

It is not clear that endurance is a suitable criteria for aspects of self. Why shouldn't self be ephemeral? That seems to fit the facts. — Banno

That is the Aristotelian view. The supposition of eternal agents in De Anima 3 is distinguished from memory that permits the activity of a person who endures through time for a bit to be experienced.

The element of being literate and educated certainly played a part but it should not be ignored that great efforts were made to convert them to Christianity or confine their civic rights and participation.

It was the Christians desperate for alternatives along with excluding a group that could help them as much as anything.

Usury was not permitted to Christians. Jews were outside that legal system.

There it is.

Because they accepted their deals of surrender up to the point they were given places to be in a separate place. Your comparison sucks.

The events showing dereliction of duty are no brainer. The events were televised.

My comment regarding federalism was to point at the irony involved in having a feature of "state rights" be the vehicle of creating fake electors alongside the power to remove candidates from the ballot.

That image of operating outside the boundaries can be found in a sibling remark to 195:

251. What does it mean when we say: "I can't imagine the opposite of this" or "What would it be like, if it were otherwise?"—For example, when someone has said that my images are private, or that only I myself can know whether I am feeling pain, and similar things.

Of course, here "I can't imagine the opposite" doesn't mean: my powers of imagination are unequal to the task. These words are a defense against something whose form makes it look like an empirical proposition, but which is really a grammatical one.

But why do we say: "I can't imagine the opposite"? Why not: "I can't imagine the thing itself"?

Example: "Every rod has a length." That means something like: we call something (or this} "the length of a rod"—but nothing "the length of a sphere." Now can I imagine 'every rod having a length' Well, I simply imagine a rod. Only this picture, in connexion with this proposition, has a quite different role from one used in connexion with the proposition "This table has the same length as the one over there". For here I understand what it means to have a picture of the opposite (nor need it be a mental picture).

But the picture attaching to the grammatical proposition could only shew, say, what is called "the length of a rod". And what should the opposite picture be?

((Remark about the negation of an a priori proposition.)) — Philosophical Investigations, 251

Both 195 and 251 question what we learn through experience. But is the comparison between 'pictures' and 'possibility' in 195 equivalent to the question of what is an "empirical" proposition in 251? To say so looks like two means of negation masquerading as a positive. And that observation of 251 is germane in the part of the text where "identity" comes under interrogation.

In any case, the theme of being on the outside is continued nearby in:

255. The philosopher's treatment of a question is like the treatment of an illness. — ibid. 255

Not what you want to hear riding the gurney.

This is beginning to remind me of some very upsetting parts of my upbringing.

Impregnate yourself.

What is that higher standard?

As I previously observed, your view of history, in this regard, is very selective.

My comments were not meant to be an argument against that thought.

I question your interest in pinning that tail on one particular donkey when there are herds of asses to choose from.

in which case it is not a lack of ego that gives rise to the fearlessness, but it is actually the inflated ego itself causing the fearlessness. You should take that into account, I think. — ToothyMaw

That is a good point. It surely is a good description of those "encouraged" through intoxication.

The Bushido code of accepting death is an interesting counterpoint to that. The state of mind is not the cessation of ego but access to a capability outside of its operation.

Islam and Christianity accept and even welcome new members of all nationalities and all races, by an act of conversion, without the requirement of being born and raised into said religion — baker

You left out the nasty bits where those organizations insisted upon conversion and wiped-out heretical forms deemed inadmissible to their faith.

They refuse to integrate into the society they live in, they set themselves apart. — baker

You left out the bits where they spent centuries in ghettos without the rights of other citizens unless they converted. Living on the margins, they developed markets not permitted by the others. That co-dependency developed in many different ways.

Hannah Arendt made a useful distinction between religious/racial hatred from "anti-semetism" because the latter grew as an international movement that equated the idea with world domination through secular institutions. I know some churches we could visit together if you wish for a loving spoonful of the stuff.

In continuance of asking the question of solving problems for all times, I wonder if aiming to dissolve problems does not create others. And that gets close to the role of aporia in classical philosophy.

Does the project to dissolve as many problems as possible actually do that?

It seems reasonable to ask how far Wittgenstein thinks he has closed the distance between the two groups imagined here:

When we do philosophy we are like savages, primitive people, who hear the expressions of civilized men, put a false interpretation on them, and then draw the queerest conclusions from it. — PI, 194

The 'civilized' people are the ones using language. With all the deference paid to them, it is not like their activity is the resolution of the investigation. The crude savages carry on outside of the perimeter. The questions about meaning are uncomfortable.

That thought leads me to wonder how much the work is a version of Kant's Prolegomena of Any Future Metaphysics, establishing the ground of future discussion, or a step back from such ambition.

I have looked into Hacker and company, and they have an interesting method. I am reluctant to respond to very particular readings of Wittgenstein passages without access to the work as a whole. It is very expensive by what I have seen. I am a simple caveman stonemason on a very limited budget.

I agree with many of the remarks of the preface I could preview. But they also raise other questions.

Is there an inexpensive way to see the writing upon a larger scale?

My objections are the same as back then. Any rebuttal on your part is welcome.

The mention of Cornford reminds me of when we discussed his views previously.

I continue to question the 'doctrinal' aspect of Cornford's argument. In regard to what is meant by: "what is meant by 'thinking' or 'reason'", that was a matter of interest at the time with many conflicting opinions,

Cornford's account of nous does not distinguish the mythical from the logos of inquiry.

You air that serves me with breath to speak!
You objects that call from diffusion my meanings and give them shape!
You light that wraps me and all things in delicate equable showers!
You paths worn in the irregular hollows by the roadsides!
I believe you are latent with unseen existences, you are so dear to me.

You flagg'd walks of the cities! you strong curbs at the edges!
You ferries! you planks and posts of wharves! you timber-lined sides! you distant ships!
You rows of houses! you window-pierc'd façades! you roofs!
You porches and entrances! you copings and iron guards!
You windows whose transparent shells might expose so much!
You doors and ascending steps! you arches!
You gray stones of interminable pavements! you trodden crossings!
From all that has touch'd you I believe you have imparted to yourselves, and now would impart the same secretly to me,
From the living and the dead you have peopled your impassive surfaces, and the spirits thereof would be evident and amicable with me. — Walt Whitman, Song of the Open Road, 3

Cryptic. Can you elaborate? — Fooloso4

Guilty as charged.

I will try to put forward a more cogent version next week.

Going into conflict, knowing full well it could end badly, is courage. Being certain that you will survive, no matter what, is fearlessness. So, you may have it precisely backwards:

A fearless person has no ego, which means, no threat to the self-image, hence there is no need to fight with fear for no fear arises in the first place. — TheMadMan

Responses to fear is a close portion of anybody's life. I am not proud of all of mine. But I did stand up sometimes.

I figure that saying: "When we do philosophy" includes all the efforts Wittgenstein is making as much as it includes views he is resisting. Stating: "so it is not an empirical fact that this possibility is the possibility of precisely this movement" is a philosophical remark.

The aspect of the engineering language is prominent in the paragraph. Does that supply what Wittgenstein is claiming to be missing in some accounts? Does it get closer to the "civilized men" being imagined here?

It seems like the wide variance of interpretations are a function of how that gets answered.

I think Aristotle was on to something when putting the pleasure of perception and knowledge above others.

And how will that be measured against another thought?

The efforts to remove T from the ballot in a number of States is an interesting expression of Federalism, where the rights of States can cancel national criteria.

Despite what Wittgenstein says about the ordinary it is often an overlooked aspect of his philosophy. All the focus remains on the same few linguistic tangles. — Fooloso4

I would go further and say that the 'ordinary' is precisely what is not given. This is expressed in terms of distance from understanding. From paragraph 194:

Though we may doubt whether such-and-such physical conditions make this
movement possible, we never discuss whether this is the possibility of this or of that movement: 'so the possibility of the movement stands in a unique relation to the movement itself; closer than that of a picture to its subject'; for it can be doubted whether a picture is the picture of this thing or that. We say "Experience will shew whether this gives the pin this possibility of movement", but we do not say "Experience will shew whether this is the possibility of this movement": 'so it is not an empirical fact that this possibility is the possibility of precisely this movement'. We mind about the kind of expressions we use concerning these things; we do not understand them, however, but misinterpret them.
When we do philosophy we are like savages, primitive people, who hear the expressions of civilized men, put a false interpretation on them, and then draw the queerest conclusions from it. — PI, 194

This is not the sound of knowing language as a set of facts. The statement: "closer than that of a picture to its subject'; for it can be doubted whether a picture is the picture of this thing or that" suggests that the role of 'representation' is being presented against the background of other activities we do not understand.

With Powell and Chesebro in the bag, the T team loses the chance to have a trial before their trial. The sled is beginning to pick up speed down the hill.

I figure Bateson is a paradigm change that has not happened yet.

Noticing the repetition of iterations is not the same as saying what they are.

As regards the Investigations, I read it more as an attack on "bad" philosophy than scientism. — RussellA

I did not intend to argue otherwise. The questions I am asking concern where philosophy ends and science begins. That is where I objected to this statement you quoted from wikipedia:

Wittgenstein viewed the tools of language as being fundamentally simple, and he believed that philosophers had obscured this simplicity by misusing language and by asking meaningless questions. — RussellA

I don't think this view is supported by the text. The complaints coming from Wittgenstein regarding the excesses of science as culture is expressed as an overindulgence in generalizations. No limits upon what science could actually produce were promulgated therein.

What the Wikipedia article writer fails to understand is that 'ordinary' uses of language do not become 'simple' elements from which models may be built upon. Such a presupposition ignores paragraphs like the following:

663. If I say "I meant him" very likely a picture comes to my mind, perhaps of how I looked at him, etc.; but the picture is only like an illustration to a story. From it alone it would mostly be impossible to conclude anything at all; only when one knows the story does one know the significance of the picture.

664. In the use of words one might distinguish 'surface grammar' from 'depth grammar'. What immediately impresses itself upon us about the use of a word is the way it is used in the construction of the sentence, the part of its use—one might say—that can be taken in by the ear.——And now compare the depth grammar, say of the word "to mean", with what its surface grammar would lead us to suspect. No wonder we find it difficult to know our way about — Philosophical Investigations

The complexity of 'philosophical' questions, that perhaps could be "shooed out of the bottle" is not the same as recognizing the complexity of the 'ordinary.'

This element involves the question about science that prompted my initial remarks. I don't think the effort to compare reports about 'physics' and 'psychology' were made to make science easier.

Wittgenstein is confident in the Investigations, in the way of Aristotle, that the role of the philosopher is to bring clarity to the ordinary use of language, rather than investigating the nature of reality. — RussellA

This is a reading of Aristotle I am not familiar with. From what I have gathered, not only was Aristotle an advocate for using "theory" in way that Wittgenstein questioned but Aristotle considered himself able to distinguish the inquiries by kind. That endeavor is far removed from the criticism of 'scientism' put forward by Wittgenstein. And it is the matter of 'science' distinguished from philosophy that I directed my comments toward .

However, Tomasello's empirical approach to understanding how humans are evolutionarily grounded in their cognitive abilities holds more value. — schopenhauer1

It seems to me that you are putting the two views into competition with one another in a way that was not intended by Wittgenstein. When I asked whether: "there is no such thing as a "non-theoretical" approach?", I was also asking if only the scientific method has value for you and whether the attempt, by various philosophers to place such efforts into a larger context was a mistake.

As a point of reference, consider Bridgman's call for 'operational' definitions where the possible meanings of terms in models should be delimited at the outset of an investigation in order to avoid being sabotaged by meanings outside of the project. That approach has had a problem from the model building side as well as claiming we could proceed with certain kinds of explanation without comparing them to each other. Trying to find a way to talk about it is as much the beginning of 'metaphysics' as the speculation it encouraged.

Few question or critique his ideas here, and I find this lack of critical examination reminiscent of disciples following a prophet. — schopenhauer1

After several years participating in this forum, I have observed countless challenges and critical examination of the writings. To ascribe all the challenges to those challenges as hewing to settled doctrine runs afoul of your complaint that no firm general proposition has been provided.

It does seem likely that some have joined together in camps. It would be very campy to insist everyone has done so. There is a half-playful interview with Deleuze that illustrates both sides of the dynamic:

“W as in Wittgenstein”

Parnet: Let’s move on to “W”.

Deleuze: There’s nothing in “W”.

Parnet: Yes, there’s Wittgenstein. I know he’s nothing for you, but it’s only a word.

Deleuze: I don’t like to talk about that… For me, it’s a philosophical catastrophe. It’s the very example of a “school”, it’s a regression of all philosophy, a massive regression. The Wittgenstein matter is quite sad. They imposed (ils ont foutu) a system of terror in which, under the pretext of doing something new, it’s poverty instituted in all grandeur (c’est la pauvreté instaurée en grandeur)… There isn’t a word to describe this danger, but this danger is one that recurs, it’s not the first time that it has happened. It’s serious, especially since the Wittgensteinians are mean (méchants) and destructive (ils cassent tout). So in this, there could be an assassination of philosophy. They are assassins of philosophy.

Parnet: It’s serious, then.

Deleuze: Yes… One must remain very vigilant. [Deleuze laughs] — Interview with Deleuze

I came upon all this sort of thing later in my life and am better read in the Ancients than the new-fangled stuff. I am torn between the optimism of Aristotle that we can get a handle on our existence through careful methods and the skepticism of Plato that focuses upon what is difficult to begin. I read Wittgenstein as being troubled in the vernacular of Plato more than confident in the way of Aristotle. Does that put me in a camp?

In any case, Deleuze's complaint is not the same as yours. What is "over-explained" compared to "underexplained?"

Also, Wittgenstein's approach, characterized by presenting language errors and usage cases without explicit theory, can be seen as overly simplistic and aligned with common sense. — schopenhauer1

I don't understand how "common sense" is a given in the text. Many of the examples treat what is given as commonly understood as odd when looked at as general reference. That is the opposite approach of establishing there is a baseline of assured propositions.

I think Tomasello is developing important models and is rigorous in his methods. You turned me on to him last year (or so).

You acknowledge that such work is theoretical in a way that Wittgenstein's is not. Tomasello's work does not seem to cancel Wittgenstein's observations as other views might. Is your objection to Wittgenstein to say there is no such thing as a "non-theoretical" approach?

Would you accept that such a question is, at least, "meta-theoretical?"