Thanks for the link!

As for the other comments- fascinating!

If you think Goodness is a mirage, or else a standard you develop pragmatically, then obviously this has implications for discourse. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Can you explain more how this idea of Goodness relates to the Wittgenstein thing? I just need that tie-in and I can perhaps make a comment or two.

Then I guess I did not understand what you meant by the coin flip comment. Can you elaborate?

That was excellent. Wittgenstein answers the question. The rest of us are too busy embarassed by or ignoring the answer. — ENOAH

No, it is THIS mentality (in the background of explaining Wittgenstein's ideas) that is the source of much of this...

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? — Paine

Exqueeze me?

I thought you were characterizing me views here:

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. — Paine

And I thus elaborated on it here:

The "mental floss" made me chuckle :smile:.

Indeed I tend to think the first about Tractatus and the second about PI. I think this gets into tricky territory, and adds to the dbaggery here..

People will often say that Witt has to be "elusive" in a way, because he is "showing" and cannot just "say", thus giving him exempt status from explanation.

But other times, I see that he has an actual argument which I then go to refute, but then am gatekept from thus refuting without the special pass of using Wittgenstein to unrefute myself. — schopenhauer1

And now you are saying you have no idea what I am saying? Then I guess I misinterpreted you.

Have you tried to make a poll on how many here actually understands the writings of Wittgenstein? — L'éléphant

Eek.. I don't even want to know, honestly.. That in itself will devolve into who can show off how much Wittgenstein is beyond really "knowing"...

He says very little about the history of philosophy. Some claim he had little knowledge of it. Plato is an interesting exception. — Fooloso4

:up:

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. — Paine

The "mental floss" made me chuckle :smile:.

Indeed I tend to think the first about Tractatus and the second about PI. I think this gets into tricky territory, and adds to the dbaggery here..

People will often say that Witt has to be "elusive" in a way, because he is "showing" and cannot just "say", thus giving him exempt status from explanation.

But other times, I see that he has an actual argument which I then go to refute, but then am gatekept from thus refuting without the special pass of using Wittgenstein to unrefute myself.

If you're not into analytics, and find it unimportant in making a view in philosophy, then Wittgenstein's is not the proper philosophy for your purpose. I have not used Wittgenstein in any of my ideas in a long time. I have increasingly sympathized with Aristotle -- back to basics. Back to our origin. It's okay to use ordinary language (here it is Wittgenstein) in explaining the world. — L'éléphant

I have no problem with this or that approach to philosophy. That is not my problem. It is HOW specifically Wittgenstein is often employed.

Heidegger tells a long story about how the concerns of philosophy were corrupted by some elements of its practice. — Paine

Yeah, I don't like Heidegger as a person.. so hard for me to "defend" anything here with his political affiliations.. a POS in that regard, but it seems that Heidegger wanted to discuss exactly that which Wittgenstein was against (being, da sein, metaphysics). Heidegger seemed someone who was very aware of the history, and it was precisely this knowledge that he was saying he thought he had a better (more primitive) way that went back to the pre-socratics.. Matters of being itself rather than "beings" as he put it.

So no kidding no one understands Wittgenstein, neither did he. — Fire Ologist

:lol: :smile:

That sounds deep, and there is wisdom in it - words really do get in the way of what they are trying to do, sometimes - but I sum up Wittgenstein as saying "Let me explain to you how there is no such thing as an explanation." — Fire Ologist

Now we are ACTUALLY debating Wittgenstein.. This is more of a meta-thread on HOW PEOPLE debate Wittgenstein.. We can debate Wittgenstein, but I fear doing so for exactly the REASON I created this thread :wink: :razz:

You can lead a horse to water. No need to beat it to the death if it's not particularly thirsty. — Outlander

:wink:

What are your main disagreeances or suggestions for alternate interpretation you think could lead to greater understanding or utility of his works in the simplest most direct way and why?

eg. Debater A believes when Wittgenstein claims/makes reference to X it alludes to Y, while I believe X is actually a case against Y in favor of Z... etc, etc. — Outlander

Notice here, there is a sort of asymmetry which is good, but not assumed by the Witt fan:

Debater A believes when Wittgenstein claims/makes reference to X it alludes to Y

While

Debater B says: I believe X is actually a case against Y in favor of Z... etc, etc.

Rather, what the Witt debater seems to want is this:

Debater A believes when Wittgenstein claims/makes reference to X it alludes to Y

While

Debater B believes: Wittgenstein actually means to say, that Wittgenstein X is actually a case against Y in favor of Z... etc, etc.

Wittgenstein can only refute Wittgenstein (with a better interpretation).

Heidegger is the true antipode to Wittgenstein. — Paine

Interesting..Care to elaborate?

Philosophy is not a body of doctrine but an activity. — Ludwig Wittgenstein

THIS I agree with. But when one tries to treat philosophy as an activity and engages with people who treat it as rather static doctrine that can only have levels of understanding... Activity becomes dismissed, because it is not adherent-like (accepted) hermeneutics over the sacred text...

Wow, this is an excellent response and analysis with specific examples. Good job! :up:

Second, clearly Nietzsche is the king when it comes to devotees citing his words as Scripture. — Count Timothy von Icarus

:smirk:

Certainly, there is a tendency for hardcore Wittgensteinans to denigrate the value of many areas of philosophy. This stems from the idea that they can't meaningfully be spoken about. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Oh god, how many times is this going to be dragged out as the definitive, conversation killer :roll: :lol:. In a way, it was perfectly designed for the smug personality types :lol:. I mean, the fact that you can misconstrue "non-sense" with "nonsense" and the play with words there alone is rife for dbaggery when it comes to engaging with others who might have a different notion of metaphysics and its place in philosophy.

You might find Rorty's typology of Wittgenstein's descendents interesting here. In general, it's going to be the "therapeutic Wittgensteinians," who see a good deal of philosophy as simply time wasting incoherence, which he sort of gets at. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Oh, I have to get acquainted with his reading there- he even has "types" of Wittgenstein descendants :). Someone was paying attention...

But because of his early work Wittgenstein also attracts people who find a natural home in analytic philosophy, and analytic philosophy has its own problems with labeling whole huge swaths of philosophy as "incoherent," and thus not worthy of discussion. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Ugh.

Also, you get the problem of people mistaking complexity for good argument—pointing to the characteristics of formal systems when the question at hand has to do with metaphysics, epistemology, etc. I have attorneys in my family and they do this all the time in political conversations , pointing to what the current law is, special legal terminology, etc., when the issue being discussed is really "what is just in this case" (i.e., what the law ought to be). — Count Timothy von Icarus

Yep.. I can see that.

This is hardly unique though. Eliminitivists very often seem to confuse presenting an avalanche of facts and the complexity of neuroscience with good argumentation, and this can lead to the tendency to fall into a pernicious habit of equating mastery of complex terminology with sound reasoning or even intelligence (you can see this with Continental philosophy at times too). — Count Timothy von Icarus

For sure.. I think this can pervade any type of academic or abstract thinking.

Since I find Russell to be particularly uncharitable, I don't mind calling him out as an exemplar of someone who used to point to cutting edge mathematics that few people understood in his day to try to put his arguments over the top by simply making them impossible to understand and then only time and the dispersion of knowledge in these areas has allowed people to point out that some of his appeals to mathematics are simply not very good arguments. — Count Timothy von Icarus

:up: Good observations there.

I think it might be fair to say that a bit of hubris overflows into the audience too. I mean, this is a guy who claimed to have "solved philosophy," and IIRC from some biographical thing I read he never bothered to read Aristotle in his lifetime. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Yeah, hubris appeals to those with a similar hubris?

I think as another commenter was saying, the style of Wittgenstein, might have a lot to do with this as well. Nietzsche does a similar thing.

War is another name for conflict and there are many kinds of those, have you never seen people fighting — Sir2u

I see this as playing with words. There is a reason why "war" is different than a fight between individuals. It's "conflict" and "violent", but it's not the same thing.

Tariffs is another word for charging, I do that to my boss every month for my services to him. Treaties is just another way of saying agreement, I have an agreement with my neighbor not to call the police again if he keeps the volume of his music down to a reasonable level. All of these are done daily at the individual level. — Sir2u

Sure, there are analogies to individuals, but they can only happen in the domain of large institutions. It may be "fake" or "abstract" but what is a "law", but something that people of an institution agree to that head the apparatuses of a territory. All of it is abstracted. It can be considered a fantasy.. but then so is any social institution.. That then gets into what counts as "real", but for all practical purposes we act as though the fictions are real, and that is what I am going with. I can certainly question the reality of these institutions, but that wouldn't change the pragmatic outcome of how states operate in the world.. They will keep enacting laws, people creating money, making policies, etc.

The only thing that change between state and individual ethics is the size, fist fight 2 or more people - war hundreds. — Sir2u

No, because an individual fighting doesn't worry about things that are only seen in war.. collateral damage, for example is uniquely only seen in war. Drafts are something that only happens in war. Moving massive amounts of people on behalf of the state in tactical and strategic settings to gain some objective only happens in war. They are things that happen at the level of "state". There is a hierarchy one must follow.

But what makes something ethical will always be the same, the ethics system that is used in the place were the action is to be judged. In some places you get a telling off, in others you might go to jail for street fighting, in others places you might get whipped. — Sir2u

I mean not really. There are things that happen in war that would not be seen as appropriate at an individual level. As an individual you cannot drop a bomb on a target or order others to do that for you in any legitimate way. But you can in a certain hierarchical setting on behalf of the state, as a state actor. Interesting how that confers by way of institutionalism, but that is how it seems to be.

Wittgenstein strikes me as someone who was trying to be original, to such an extent that he becomes opaque and even somewhat mystical (again, almost like a guru). — Leontiskos

I think you are getting closer to it.. The aphoristic style lends itself to people reading it like a prophet.. holy writ almost. And again, Nietzsche's style does the same.. Clever. Clever.

Daring thread — Lionino

:smirk:

Are you suggesting that I am 'gatekeeping' that thread? I didn't have much to say about Wittgenstein anyway.

Sorry if it seemed like it. — Shawn

Ok. I just don't understand why Wittgenstein seems peculiarly treated like a prophet who one must just "read better" rather than one can have a critique of.. If someone critiques Schopenhauer, many take that as a matter of course.. Or Aristotle, or Plato.. But Wittgenstein.. woe woe wait a minute. Did you not read his blue and brown books IN ORDER???

And the same I must say happens when it comes to Nietzsche and his great mustache.

For what its worth, Wittgenstein was a complex philosopher. His methodology was methodological nominalism, and when you apply methodological nominalism towards philosophy as therapy, you get a complex relationship between examples elucidating a way out of the bottle for the fly, which is the whole of the Philosophical Investigations. Compound the fact that the Tractatus-Logico-Philosophicus was meant as a preface to the Philosophical Investigations, then you might have a lot of questions about what the TLP and then the PI meant. In my opinion, if people started with the blue and brown books, which were presented in a university setting where Wittgenstein taught for a brief while, you might find it easier to understand Wittgenstein. — Shawn

There's a lot of complex philosophers...

It seems like Wittgenstein's work is inherently resistant to interaction with the rest of philosophy. Thoughts? — Leontiskos

I mean... :yikes:

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? — Paine

No not at all, I am in a thread on Schopenhauer right now, for example.. I don't think I am "gatekeeping" it. Gatekeeping is deciding who gets to participate.. And it seems a certain kind of engager-with-Wittgenstein is seen as legitimate.. And this engagement takes the form of only refuting Wittgenstein with varying levels of better or worse or informed or uninformed interpretations of Wittgenstein. There is an implicit idea that whatever it is, you can't directly refute Wittgenstein, because you see, you simply don't "understand" him.. And this gets compounded because since you don't "understand" him, they will ignore you, or sideline you for the ones who they agree with who are informed.

:lol: You're not wrong. — Leontiskos

:up:

For fuck's sake :roll: .. No answer.. What I thought.

Let's hear your summary, write something instead of making silly statements. — Sam26

No because everything I say is liable to be said, "Thus interpreted wrong.. so I am not going to communicate with you". I commented on your summary of Wittgenstein's statement about "facts" and metaphysics and gave my commentary on your summary. I did NOT question your summary, I went with it, and made my own evaluation of it.

But you will always make a move (a bad faith one) where you say, if you look a bit harder at Wittgenstein, you see he has ALL the answers. It's like people proving the Bible by using the Bible...

Just write a summary of the Tractatus, maybe I'm wrong. — Sam26

This is my problem with this kind of CIRCLE JERKING thread.. Just KNOWING the premise of the Tractatus doesn't impute that it is RIGHT.

In your estimation, unless you agree with most of the Tractatus' premises, you cannot have a discussion.

What a dick way to go about this forum.

My opinion is that you don't understand the Tractatus, so no, I'm not going to discuss it with you. — Sam26

Ah, an elitist. School me, bro... Use Tractatus to prove Tractatus and show me.

You can do whatever you want. I'm just saying if you have a better interpretation of his work, explain it, but I'm moving forward. — Sam26

"Moving forward" implies you don't want a discussion. Is it because you find my commentary distasteful or you just don't like the point of a forums.. which is discussion? Or is it that, you think that threads in forums are simply for one's own commentary, and no one else's? All of these seem odd to me.

If you have a better understanding of Wittgenstein's Tractatus explain it in a thread. I'm just giving my interpretation of what he said. — Sam26

So I cannot comment on your thread on an topic in the main part of the forum?

Given Wittgenstein's logic about what can be said within the limits of the world of facts, anything that goes beyond the world of facts (beyond the propositions of natural science) is metaphysical and outside the limit of what can be said. — Sam26

Is the world of facts only propositions of natural science? Why would it be so?

His statement doesn't violate his logic, i.e., it's not a metaphysical statement. — Sam26

Um, it's not a fact (empirically valid), it is a statement about empiricism en toto, so it is metaphysical.

Wittgenstein does make metaphysical statements in the Tractatus, but they're meant to show us the way, i.e., they're not meant to be factual in Wittgenstein's sense. They show the way up the ladder, and once the ladder is traversed it can be discarded. What we're left with after the ladder is discarded is all the propositions that connect with the world of facts. — Sam26

This is as useful as if I said, "Don't believe what I am saying, believe me". It's just cherry-picking and making exceptions for his own claims.

Ok. Thank you. You have put me on track re Noumena.

Is there a "direct reality" for Kant? Does he even get into that? — ENOAH

I'm not sure if @Mww is trying to convey this but..
Noumena is a speculative notion that are the "objects-themselves" or the "things-in-themselves" - a reference to the "entity" non-cognized, but as it is "in itself". For Kant, I believe, this could be many objects, a plurality of various objects. However, it cannot be known, what, if any, "being" stands behind empirical understanding. It is "X" for lack of better term for Kant. For Kant as well, it is only a concept that is gotten to by negation. It is the "not-empirical thing".

For Schopenhauer, he thinks he can go "beyond Kant" by not just proposing that there are "things-in-themselves" behind the empirical, that we can never know (X), but rather, we CAN KNOW and very INTIMATELY what X actually IS.. and that is a monism, Will.. The very fact that we have an "inner being" (subjective experience) is for Schopenhauer proof that Will exists as this double-aspected thing that strives.

Now again, does Schopenhauer here mistakenly equate his "subject" for Will? I am not sure.. I think he might be saying just the fact that there is inner experience points to a "striving" of sorts- a greater Will at work. I don't think he is actually identifying the subject as Will.

It seems clear to me that metaphysics is beyond the world of facts, and that metaphysics for Wittgenstein is beyond what can be said. This is the distinction between saying and showing. — Sam26

This doesn't make sense though. First off, this statement itself is a metaphysical statement of the world.. one regarding metaphysics relationship with facts. Also, not all "facts" have to be empirically verifiable. It would be more speculative, but possibly true "facts" about the states of affairs of reality.

...although Schop himself used Greek terms some of the time, e.g. (I hope relevantly, I mainly know about Schop in relation to music not metaphysics):

the wise man always holds himself aloof from jubilation and sorrow, and no event disturbs his ἀταραξία [ataraxia].
— Schopenahuer, vol 1 p.88 — mcdoodle

True! I was being cheeky there because it seems that every time there is some contradiction or paradox in Schopenhauer's Will, a Sanskrit and/or Pali word is thrown out there to show that there is this other concept inserted that can save it.

You're doing what Witt warned against: you're giving in to the desire to see the world from a vantage point you can't have. But there wouldn't be much philosophizing going on if everyone took Witt's point. :razz: — frank

It's nonsense to speak of nonsense, because it is precisely defining what "is" that we are doing, and thus, what is legitimate for there to have a "sense" about.. I feel Witt's understanding is asinine, and playing to a certain crowd that wanted to remove itself from metaphysical speculation. He was doing metaphysical speculation himself, but then playing cutesy at the end by saying "Just lift up the ladder now that I showed it to you!" .. No, you are not immune either, bro. Just one of many speculators.. Take a number.

BTW, I am more in support of what Galant and Benny Gantz is saying to Netanyahu.. It is immoral to go to war without an end in mind... And I have always said this.

For example, in the Potsdam Conference, in July 1945, there was a vision for a robust Japan after the war. Without something like that, a war becomes indefinite and then questionable. It only makes sense in the beginning phases as a deterrent. But if it is a total war, like this is (complete surrender is demanded), then there has to be a positive vision, for how that reconstruction looks.

What other actors are there besides individuals? — Tzeentch

You were talking about a different form of ethics that applies to states. For transparency's sake, I don't think such a form of ethics exists, because the state is an abstraction and personifying the state has no basis in reality. It's just a handy tool we use for communicating broad ideas. — Tzeentch

But this is my point. This is why "ethics proper" would be a category error to apply to "governments". For example, how can one understand the "ethics" of "war" or "commerce" or "economic policy" AS APPLIED to individuals. These are inherently things only applied to state apparatuses and institutions. That is to say, "governmental entities". That is why I would split government or political ethics as a different domain than individual ethics. It is now dealing with abstract entities of state actors, which are liable to things such as "wars", "tariffs", "treaties", and the like, all things that are not done at an individual level.

So here we have a situation whereby Israel is claiming that it was attacked, which, similar to say, a Pearl Harbor situation, would lead it to declare war, or some military response to the attacker.

They have obviously now done so against Hamas, who had initiated the current conflict by killing civilians indiscriminately, brutally, and whathaveyou.

So now, Israel is conducting a war where it must face various modern dilemmas, that state actors must do in war. The main dilemma is, unlike battles in the 1700s or 1800s which were often done on open fields, these asymmetrical wars, are often conducted in urban environments, whereby the soldiers hide in plain clothes. In this case, it is even more stark because billions of dollars were put into tunnel systems that wrap around, under, and into civilian infrastructure, basically making the whole city a web-fortress.

Then the calculations of how to conduct the war. In such a messy, web-like urban environment, let's say there are two ways of conducting the war to get rid of Hamas.

Let's say there are two broad approaches:
A1) Just ground troops
A2) Aerial bombardment and ground troops.

A1)Let us say, if the first approach was the one taken, 10x the casualties on one's own side would take place, and the war would become bogged down to indefinite, hellish levels for one's own troops because it would become essentially an unending maze or trap.

A2) The second broad approach allows your troops enough room to maneuver and eventually go in and fight more aggressively, saving lives for your own troops, and ending the war more quickly.

So, I am fine discussing international law.. But it will simply get bogged down to various instances whereby "Did this fighter, by ducking into a building, make that building a legitimate target in the eyes of international law".. Having civilians as "human shields" doesn't make the enemy use it as a "get out of jail free" during a war. As we both agreed, (even if we detest war and violence), war is a "legitimate" thing countries can wage.

I too necessarily employ the structure difference. I say there is only will, like you, but the second aspect is does not beling tobthe will. The second is Fictional (illusion) because it is projected, and it isn't what anything else is or has ever been. It is truly new and other. But has no enduring structure, just empty signs in motion triggering feeling, action, sky scrapers, nuclear bombs, and this very dialogue. — ENOAH

But then how can anything be "projected" as if it proceeds from something. This is all language of the phenomenal which would be inappropriate as it is the language of causation, duration, temporality, and causality. This is the language of the Phenomenal world applied to the Noumenal.

Rather, it would make more sense that the Noumenal is simply the Representation in its other aspect, one that we cannot know except by way of intellectualization. I guess the Enlightened person "knows" it in some mystical sense.

One thing for sure, it can't be accomplished using the tools of the "illusion" no matter how entangled with the will. Right? — ENOAH

I just don't even know what "denial of the Will" even means in this context. There is no fit.

This is why I said it is something akin to the Representation knowing its essence more familiarly? So where the ordinary mode is to be caught up in the world of phenomenon, the enlightened person is the least "caught up", though still in the world, as the phenomenal doesn't just disappear altogether.

It's not a satisfying answer though.

But as to Will BEING Illusion (not prior to it or more Real than it), I think we should continue that discussion. I am not sure how, but if you have ideas, I will hear it out.

Edit: The only way I can characterize it is that it is "double-aspected" like the double-aspect theories of consciousness contend that material is mental to some extent, not that material causes mental.

This is a far more serious problem. What resolves it for me, is undoubtedly not Schopenhauerian. A simple answer is best for now. The question may be posed as what makes the projections not just an extension of what is real? The answer is in their structure/nature(?). While the Universe is formed of matter and energy, as are all of the organisms including their brain functions, Mind emerged as something other; it is structured by Representations that now move in accordance with their own laws and mechanics (as opposed to the rest of "us" bound by the laws of nature).

I won't get into the how and wherefore of it. But for me, this epiphenomenom has an affect on our will, our natural selves, to the point of superimposing an "I" upon it. And yet, it is not Real. — ENOAH

This all sounds like an attempt to square the circle here. Something I also struggle with in Schopenhauer. That is, how is the multiplicity the same as the unity. It just starts sounding more absurd.. I proposed a Higher Will (will denied), and Lower Will (will manifested), but this makes no sense if all is One Will.

Then it also starts looking like early forms of trinitarian justifications.. same substance different modes, or whathaveyou. This also will not do.

Rather, the only way I can interpret it is that Will literally IS the illusions. It is NOT primary/originary/more REAL than the illusions. Rather, illusions simply IS WILL as it is carried out.

However, I still don't know where Denial of Will comes into play. "What" that is, is beyond me. But it's the same problem as Buddhism's desire for no desire. And I am sure there are plenty of clever ways to get around it..