Ask a guy who wrote his Masters Dissertation on Wittgenstein anything

[Anonymous No.12415128]

Wittgenstein.
The name inspires fear and confusion in Analytics and Continentals alike.

>"You're misunderstanding Wittgenstein!"

That's what you'll likely hear from most Wittgenstein scholars - especially when they're talking to Platonists or, worse, to other Wittgenstein scholars. But what can we say about this misunderstanding? What about your own qualms with the fellow?


Ladies (male) and Gentlemen, for one night only I shall be answering your direct questions and confusions about Wittgenstein right here in this thread.
If you waffle then it'll be difficult for me to quibble with the words your using so try to be succinct or when you ask many questions try to do so in short sentences.

Make the most of me!

[Anonymous No.12415151]

Why should I listen to your opinions on Wittgenstein? What do you have to offer that others don't?

[Anonymous No.12415152]

What fascinates you about him?

[Anonymous No.12415157]

>>12415128
There are hundreds, if not thousands, of idiots every year who do their thesis on Wittgenstein. Why would I, why would anyone, give a fuck about you?

[Anonymous No.12415158]

>>12415128
Did Wittgenstein mean the beginning of the end of Philisophy into the insipid dark ages of analytic "philisophy"?

[Anonymous No.12415175]

>>12415128
Did Wittgenstein mean the beginning of the end of Philosophy into the insipid dark ages of analytic "philosophy"?

[Anonymous No.12415177]

I wouldn't even listen to most reputable Wittgenstein scholars who devote their whole academic career to his life and thought. Why should I listen to you then?

[Anonymous No.12415178]

>>12415128
Did you end it with "shut the fuck up"? And if you didn't, why?

[Anonymous No.12415179]

Wittgenstein is such a basic choice for a masters thesis. And MAs for philosophy are easy as shit to get on to. Fuck you

[Anonymous No.12415181]

>>12415128
What does "necessity" or "certainty" mean for Wittgenstein? Why does he critique it, especially in maths?

Also, why did he like Kirkegaard but hate Hegel?

[Anonymous No.12415182]

>>12415128
I want to know EXACTLY what he meant by:

5.261: "The world and life are one"
5.63: "I am my world (the microcosm)"
5.632: "The subject does not belong to the world; rather it is a limit of the world"
6.431: "So too at death the world does not alter, but comes to an end"

And what is the metaphysical subject? How is it different from the empirical subject? And why is it sensible to discuss something like it, as a limit?

[Anonymous No.12415187]

>>12415128
>masters dissertation
talk to me when you're getting your phd, retard

[Anonymous No.12415218]

>>12415128
>Was known as the Gospel man
>Went around telling everybody about Tolstoy's take on the New Testament (good taste)
>Decorated war hero, fought for his country as was his duty, but never held grudges against his former enemies
>Survived as most of his family died, kept control of himself and didn't fall into despair like his siblings
>Achieved monumental things in the battlefield, his scholarly foundations were flamed in the hell of war

Fuck what he came up with, his life as a whole is generally inspiring. I've been trying so hard to find Tolstoy's Gospels because of him but no store has it.

[Anonymous No.12415222]

In late Wittgenstein, is all language just language games?

[Anonymous No.12415250]

>>12415151
A dissertation and a strong engagement with the material. We also have the time to have a discussion (wherein we can have disagreements) which is not usually something you can do with a lecture.
>>12415152
What fascinates me about him isn't what I think makes him a great philosopher.
He's fascinating because he had such an extraordinarily different mind from his peers. When he first went to University in England people thought he was poor and they suggested a grant for him - only for one of his few friends who joined him in Austria to later relay that Wittgenstein's family was one of the wealthiest in Europe. The man seemed to struggle a great deal with life and other people and his attempt to find a place for himself and his thoughts in all of that.
His philosophy I find to be very useful
>>12415157
What's with the aggression? Why do you think they're idiots? I'm not asking you to give a fuck about me - I'm offering you the opportunity to discuss Wittgenstein with something who has dedicated a great deal of time both during and post graduation to study his works.
You can obviously decline, smartass.
>>12415175
Do you mean did Wittgenstein begin the end of analytic philosophy (If so then yes, because our understanding of the use of words doesn't come from anything like a picture or referent but something which was, to Wittgenstein and me, unknown but probably subconscious.)
If you meant "Did Wittgenstein mean the beginning of the end of philosophy and into the dark ages of analytic philosophy?" then see above. In short: No, he pulled philosophy out of it.
>>12415177
If you're interested in Wittgenstein or have some confusions about him or ideas then shoot. If you aren't interested that's fine. I'm offering you the ability to speak to someone with some limited but very real ideas and credentials regarding his study that people might appreciate.

>>12415178
No. Although it would be funny to mirror Wittgensteins "Whereof one cannot speak one must pass over in silence" I studied his later works.
Although even in the Investigations Wittgenstein does spend a lot of time trying to dissolve philosophical problems. He shows us that a lot of the problems we have like, for example, the Ship of Theseus, are not true problems at all, and the answers are largely depended on the definitions we give to words.
This ties into his notion of "Language games" - that one answer to, for example, the Ship of Theseus is correct in *one* language game, but not another.
So someone might say:
The ship is the *same* because all the parts have physical continuity with the Ship of Theseus. Here *same* means "has physical continuity with"
Whereas another might say:
The Ship of Theseus is not the same because parts have been replaced. Here *same* would mean that all the parts are the self-same that they were when it first existed.
cont.

[Anonymous No.12415254]

Why does Wittgenstein's voluntary enrollment into the austro-hunagrian army and his courage in battle say more about Ludwig than any of the books he wrote (even the children's book)?
>bonus: How do you feel about his last dying words?

[Anonymous No.12415256]

I’d ask you, but I’m playing a different language game so you wouldn’t fully understand my question, and therefore we should ask no more questions becuase clarification doesn’t exist

[Anonymous No.12415273]

>>12415218
Don't forget then he turned against his country in WW2 and worked for the Brits

[Anonymous No.12415310]

do you read/speak german?

[Anonymous No.12415335]

>>12415250
>>12415178
cont.
Which definition is better? Wittgenstein doesn't say - but there's room for an "objective" correct answer but there's also room to respect and *understand* the alternative language game, even if you don't agree with it.
To answer your question more directly: Because, in my "Non-Pyhrronian" view, Wittgenstein does say things about philosophy and does suggest ways of going about practicing, not just philosophy, but also general discussions.
>>12415179
Jelly?
>>12415181
Early Wittgenstein might have said that the word "certainty" is a picture or idea of the fact of all facts. Then, perhaps, that for something to be "certain" it would correlate with the true picture of the world.

Late (best) Wittgenstein would not have said these words (and we're just looking at the use of the words for now) have any one definition when devoid of their context.
If I call my dog "Certainty" and I say
"I'm looking for Certainty in my garden." then that's a legitimate a use for my current language game. I know that sounds a bit frustrating but he's not saying that all uses of the word "Certainty" have the same value, in the traditional sense, but that our understanding of various words come from their context.

People get wound up because they think that, because each use of a word can only have meaning in context, that Wittgensteinians can't believe in some things being better than other - they think it's a gateway to post-modernism.
However that's clearly not the case, here is an example that but quell some fears -
A Wittgensteinina might say:
"There is such a thing as Goodness and in most cases I use the word Good to mean absolute objective Goodness, however my friend named his dog Goodness. Now we are looking for Goodness, it would be unnacceptable within the current language game to try to find Goodness in the heart of a nun, or the innocence of a child - Goodness is somewhere in the garden. I have not given up on my objective values simply because I am currently using a different language game - I still believe in Goodness-as-in-morality. But my friend, annoyingly, has given his creature the same name."

Wittgenstein's philosophy is mundane, but you'd be surprised at how many people fall into the trap of launching into a discussion without taking the time to unpick certain assumptions we have about the words we appear to share, but in actual fact have different fundamental meanings.

[Anonymous No.12415362]

>>12415128
Please supply a summary of his substance as well as several introductory quotes, according to your own expertise and insight into his work.

[Anonymous No.12415380]

Was he a misogynist?

[Anonymous No.12415386]

>>12415250
>>12415335
cool, thanks

[Anonymous No.12415403]

>>12415335
I liked the Goodness example, it makes sense, I wish the smarter less obnoxious Wittgenstein...ians would do us all a favor and launch the polyps who just parrot """positivist""" Witty into the sun

[Anonymous No.12415404]

>>12415182
Ok this is early Wittgenstein with what amounts to a picture theory of language.
The first thing to remember is that Wittgenstein is speaking linguistically, nearly always.
I believe that those first two propositions can be seen in relation to his quote:
""The solipsist is quite correct... only is cannot be expressed." (The subject is not a part of the world but the whole world - "...does not belong to the world; rather it is the limit of the world.")

A solipsist knows only his world for certain.
(The world, my life, everything I know, is one thing: the self-same)
Words are pictures of facts.
In the Tractatus words come from an *internal* picture.
Therefore when we speak a we simply throw words into the void of life and hope they stick, so to speak.

Of course, we know they stick because we recognise the context not the word itself. That is to say: Words *stick* not because the hearer recognises the word with their own inner correlate but because we recognise its use in our shared space, culture and context.

But of course, pre-Investigation Wittgenstein didn't believe in the importance of context. And so must accept what we would call linguistic solipsism.

I'm not big on early Wittgenstein and I would strongly suggest not wasting your time with him.
Incidentally Richard Rorty, who likes early Wittgenstein, actually, suggests not bothering with Propositions 6 and 7 because they're too mystical - proto-proto-Philosophical Investigation as he tries to get back what was lost - the poetic and the numinous.
People actually think he contradicts himself somewhat in the final two props with his introduction of the numinous.

Where does Wittgenstein talk about a metaphysical subject - do you have a quote?

If he did assert there was a metaphysical subject I expect that he would argue that that there is no such thing as an empirical subject (unless you count our literal physical bodies) - the mind was the only metaphysical component of what Wittgenstein was looking at in the Tractatus.
Although he does say the problems of ethics remain unsolved - hinting strongly that ethics is metaphysical - literally not a part of the world.
However that would be a contradiction - because:
The world is empirical
The world and the subject are one
The world is empirical yet the subject is metaphysical
doesn't hold.

Again is falls back to linguistics and solipsism:
It doesn't *matter* that "a" world exists beyond "my" world - I can't talk about it. Not only will I pass over the objective world in silence, I will treat my world as the only world of which we can speak.

[Anonymous No.12415407]

>>12415128
I had a professor who wrote his PhD on the negative theology of the Tractatus, he says that the shift between his early and late period was primarily one of style and not substance, and that you can read a consistent through line in his work, but only once you have properly understood the Tractatus (which Witty openly lamented being totally misunderstood). Do you think his early and late period complement or contradict?

[Anonymous No.12415424]

>>12415335
holy shit, you didn't even answer the question and instead spouted some asinine truism every freshman is doubt. no shit certainty is a language game, the question is how this language game functions.

the fascinating thing W does with certainty is he divorces it from a relation to "truth" and "necessity." for most of the history of philosophy, it seemed quite obvious to say that a statement is certain when it is a true proposition that has no other verifiable proposition that contradicts it. we believe that we have never visited the moon because any conceivable objection we could formulate can be proven to be untrue, whereas a true statement that can be doubted is one that corresponds to reality yet has statements contradictory to it that could possibly be true.

however, W rejects this conception of certainty because it takes for granted that our process of verification makes sense if we actually take seriously the doubts we raised in the first place. if i am actually unsure of whether or not i have been to the moon, this means that i am incapable of trusting my experience on very obvious matters, so how can i construct a process of verification that would ever satisfactorily answer this inquiry? W argues in a case like this, we are only aping the linguistic construct of doubt without actually performing the game that gives doubt its meaning. when one says "I doubt I exist," they are simply throwing these words together in a way that is grammatically correct in English but incoherent in the deeper grammar of how language can be understood at all.

so, put simply, for W "certainty" is the existence of propositions that we are *incapable* of doubting. "certainty" isn't always knowledge either because we can be certain of propositions we are not even conscious of, but they are still certain because they structure our understanding of what can and can't be known.

source: pathetic NEET who somehow knows more about this than a masters student

[Anonymous No.12415434]

>>12415128
Have you ready Suba Hibi? Its a visual novel that incorporated Wittgenstein's philosophy, particularly his Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. If so, what did you think of it?

[Anonymous No.12415490]

>>12415218
You know he was writing the Tractatus in a PoW camp?

>>12415222
That's an interesting question - it depends on what you mean.
Words can point at things.
"Lamp" can mean the lamp on my table.
More importantly "Truth" can mean "That which correlates to the majority of people's (barring mad people's) experience of physical phenomena."
"Good" can mean "Objective, real, 'thou must' Goodness".

And all those things can be true and they can exist. Morality and truth can be real things.

But as I mentioned earlier, they can also be the names of my pet dogs.

Recognising those words is to recognise the language game.
"The meaning of a word is its use in the language game."

That is not to say anything of which language game is better but ONLY to recognise, on a very human level, that people use the same looking words differently.

One does not slam dunk a chesspiece.

All language partakes in a language game, but the underlying meaning is not necessarily arbitrary.

You can have good discussions with people who disagree with you by looking at the definitions of a word and then choosing which is better or which is more appropriate for your shared aims.
People don't do that enough.

>>12415254
I think they complement ones understanding of them. Wittgenstein's writing is as erratic as his life.
"Tell them I had a good life."

I hope someone asked him what he meant by good.
He achieved a lot and did many things. I think he lead both a Good (moral, pure, maybe utilitarian (except for hurting children)), and a Good (interesting, fulfilling, varied) life.

[Anonymous No.12415497]

what would you say are the key differences in assumptions between early and late wittgenstein?
can you explain the picture theory of language? vs his later meaning is use theory?

[Anonymous No.12415507]

>>12415128
Was he the last good philosopher?

[Anonymous No.12415512]

>>12415128
So did I, OP.

What exactly what your dissertation about? What Witty interpreters did you draw on?

[Anonymous No.12415518]

what were Wittgenstein's thoughts on politics during his lifetime? heard he was pretty apolitical.
Reading pic related atm

[Anonymous No.12415539]

>>12415518
He was a left-ish pragmatist but had some culturally conservative sentiments. He had an interest in the Soviet Union and wanted to live there to see what it was like, and once remarked that he agreed with Marxism "in practice but not in theory". He was also friends with the liberal economist Pierro Sraffa.

[Anonymous No.12415548]

>>12415539
>agreed with Marxism "in practice but not in theory"
yikes

[Anonymous No.12415559]

>>12415518
>>12415539
Oh he was also great friends with Keynes

[Anonymous No.12415597]

>>12415128
What can you tell me about his relationship with Spengler?

[Anonymous No.12415643]

>>12415256
You're conflating early and late Wittgenstein.
Later Wittgenstein says something like:
"Ask and you'll see if there's a problem, and if there's a problem we can talk about it, but usually there's no problem."

People aren't stupid, if I'm using a subtly different version of the word "morose" then I can usually explain myself to people -
"I don't mean I want to cry, or that I feel depressed, instead I feel like I want to stew in apathy."

Incidentally some uses of a word might be better than another, some are worse, usually they're different and agreeing on which language game to use is most of the battle, especially when both parties have the facts.

>>12415310
A little, but not enough to read it.

>>12415362
I can't do all of that right now but I'll try later down in the thread here's what I can offer for now:

Don't bother with the Tractatus, it's old Wittgenstein and doesn't really go well into the new.
Watch the Bryan Mcgee interviews with Quinton and Searle on Youtube they're a charming overview, about 45 minutes each.

People use words differently than other people.
We already know the meanings of words - and if we don't we learn them fairly easily in most cases.
The fact that some words share names with different words confuses us.
Conversation should be about people making it clear we're using the same word to mean different things and there's no more to it.
The Ship of Theseus is:
1. Not an important question
and 2. Can be solved by splitting your use of the word "same" into two or more different meanings.

I present an example of two different language games both using the word Good:
The fact: John is a slob, he is greedy and mean but he donates millions of dollars to charities across the country.

Ted: John is not good!
Sam: John is good!

Ted is using good to mean virtuous
Sam is using good to mean utilitarian

The question "What do you mean by good" is much more important to a discussion than "Is that Good."
(though the latter is a VERY important question it will not advance a discussion when one person is using a different language game than the other)

Once Ted and Sam understand each other they can find themselves in agreement.
John is not virtuous but he is utilitarian.

The discussion may, if they wish, shift onto whether or not virtue or utility is the better. The philosophical problem dissolves. The ethical one may be harder to crack.

[Anonymous No.12415686]

>>12415128
What's your favorite ice cream flavor? What was Witties'?

[Anonymous No.12415695]

did he really BTFO all philosophers?

[Anonymous No.12415711]

>>12415128
Does Wittgenstein holds any point of view on positivism? Does he ever talks about the the scientific method? Thanks

[Anonymous No.12415717]

>>12415128
:Wittgenstein is God's =L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E=G=A=M=E= crying out unto the spongocolean void of voices asking representation why it has forsaken itself: Reborn the argument becomes the Son of Language: And here finally God's form of language is complete, as is the post-Husserliean flux capacitor:

[Anonymous No.12415731]

>>12415490
again with the facile answers, goddamn

>>12415222
the language game is the process through which a series of sounds and/or gestures gains meaning, so there can be uses of "language" (in a more typical definition of accepted words structured on a system of grammar) that do not participate in a language game. a child babbling is not a language game (even if all of its words belong to the English language) because it presents no possible response that would allow a second speaker to meaningfully participate with what the child has said. whether or not you want to call this language is up to you, i guess, but I would argue it crosses the threshold of language by incorporating linguistic elements (preformed words or phrases) into its expression.

Philosophical investigations is full of examples of language that fails to be a game, the most famous of which being his argument against a private language. though we may be able to construct a language that only we speak that appears to have meaning to us, it is in fact has no meaning (ie is not a language game) because there is no practice others could participate in that would give it a linguistic function.

there is also the matter of new language games being invented. avante-garde art uses our preconceptions of what constitutes "art" as a jumping off point to establish a new game that others can participate in, but experimental art fails all the time and no one takes up its game. so if you're presented with an entirely new form of art and wondering if there's something "there", whether the artist is a pretentious fraud or a visionary, you're stuck between seeing the work as an imitation of meaning or as the first move in a language game that has yet to receive players who understand it.

so there always has to be something outside the language game that is recognized as linguistic but whose place in the language game is at present undecided. if all language is language games, then the social structures/conventions would be identical to language and would never change--social convention would dictate every meaning in advance and there would be no communication, only imitation.

[Anonymous No.12415744]

>>12415407
Perhaps. Linguistically speaking I do not believe the thread continues anymore than someone's ideas evolve. Early Wittgenstein is markedly different from late Wittgenstein but an evolution does take place over the final two propositions.
As for Wittgenstein's opinion of the purpose of philosophy - that might actually be fairly on point.

Wittgenstein said the Tractatus was misunderstood, BUT then later that it was wrong. He criticised himself implicitly in his later works.
>The more narrowly we examine actual language, the sharper becomes the conflict between it and our requirement. (For the crystalline purity of logic was, of course, not a result of investigation: it was a requirement.) The conflict becomes intolerable; the requirement is now in danger of becoming empty. -- We have got on to slippery ice where there is no friction and so in a certain sense the conditions are ideal, but also, just because of that, we are unable to walk. We want to walk: so we need friction. Back to the rough ground!
Also:
>A picture held us captive. And we could not get outside it, for it lay in our language and language seemed to repeat it to us inexorably.

However I honestly believe that Wittgenstein changed his mind or realised an error and begin changing course in the later part of the Tractatus. He begins with a picture theory of language and, at prop 5 he's saying:
> "all the propositions of our everyday language, just as they stand, are in perfect logical order."

Now, "perfect logical order" is baffling - its like welding the two books together. Our everyday language is not something to which the term "perfect logical order" seems to apply. By the philosophy of the Investigations it would be unnecessary for propositions to be such, propositions don't need a logical order - the way we employ words within those propositions need only consistent within a language game. Arguably that some logical order, but it's not the kind Propositions 1-4 Wittgenstein is talking about in my opinion.
Wittgenstein does effectively say, in the Investigations:
>"philosophy leaves everything as it is, it merely exposes the way we're using the language."
and also:
>“The problems are solved, not by giving new information, but by arranging what we have known since long.”

There's an iconoclastic edge to Wittgenstein which obviously does follow through. He's a rebel and he does come along with a saw and start cutting away at useless bits of philosophy where he can. He's always eager to point out redundancy even in his own work.
That's not to say his work is useless, far from it, but that he believes a lot of philosophy does not present real problems.

[Anonymous No.12415756]

>>12415424
If you say so. Although I'm pretty sure I answer the question in the first two lines. You asked what do the words necessity or certainty mean to Wittgenstein. Let me be as clear as possible:
I'm not sure what Tractatus Wittgenstein would say.
Investigations would say it depends on the context.

[Anonymous No.12415767]

>>12415128
I like the thread, OP.
I've read Ray Monk's biography on Wittgenstein, really interesting stuff.
Can you say something about his relationship with Bertrand Russell? Why were they both so butthurt?

[Anonymous No.12415775]

>>12415128
Why was he such a moral monster? By that I mean, having no morality in him at all? His assaults against little children are simply inexcusable, and it's a very sad shame that his rich family managed to cover that part of his life up.

[Anonymous No.12415793]

>>12415128
What was the title of your dissertation and what's the abstract

[Anonymous No.12415799]

>>12415775
Witty did what now?

[Anonymous No.12415809]

>>12415497
I can try and do both at once:
Picture theory:
Words get their meaning from the fact that we can pictures in our brain corresponding to them.
Words = Pictures in our brain

>It is believed that Wittgenstein was inspired for this theory by the way that traffic courts in Paris reenact automobile accidents. A toy car is a representation of a real car, a toy truck is a representation of a real truck, and dolls are representations of people. In order to convey to a judge what happened in an automobile accident, someone in the courtroom might place the toy cars in a position like the position the real cars were in, and move them in the ways that the real cars moved. In this way, the elements of the picture (the toy cars) are in spatial relation to one another, and this relation itself pictures the spatial relation between the real cars in the automobile accident.

Language game Wittgenstein:
Apocryphally a friend of Wittgenstein once put his middle finger up a Wittgenstein and said:
"Oh yeah? What's this a picture of!"
And of course, it has no picture to correspond with it, but the meaning was understood nonetheless.
So, with the court case example one thing represents another. Words are representations of that one thing we have in our mind.
But how does that explain the following phenomena:
Does one picture help you understand these phrases:
"The sky is blue."
"I'm feeling blue."
"I've lost my dog - Blue."
"Help me with my painting - pass me that blue... no not *that* blue the *other* blue."

When we hear blue how do we understand which to use?

Wittgenstein no longer offerred an explanation that touched on anything like our inner minds. Instead opting for an almost behaviourist approach to language.
Instead he talked about it on a very practical level: We know because of the context within which the word is used.
We know the meaning of the word because of its use in the language game.

[Anonymous No.12415813]

>>12415756
I'm not the one who asked the question.

I just think it shows little understanding of Wittgenstein to say that every single concept boils down to "context," since this amounts to an extreme relativism where no meaning is possible. The first few sections of PI show that meaning is use, but the rest of the book tries to make sense of this insight by INVESTIGATING how the context gives rise to meaning that speakers can participate in. So, to phrase the question "What is certainty?" in a way that presupposes that meaning is use: "I use the word 'certainty' to describe a sound mathematical proof, aspects of my identity that are fundamental to my sense of self, and sense perceptions that I have no reason to doubt. Is this the same context every time, and if so, what are the necessary conditions for bringing about this context so that the single word 'certainty' can apply to them all?" It's irrelevant to this question that you can name your fucking dog "certainty" when the point of my question is whether there's a COHESION between different instances of the same word.

[Anonymous No.12415817]

>>12415799
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haidbauer_incident
Nothing major, just physically beating an innocent boy into unconsciousness, and ripping the hair out of another little girl's head, along with pulling her ears so hard that they bled.

[Anonymous No.12415839]

>>12415128
the most i took away from him was that single words envoke images in our head. that enough is proof that we perceive the world differently. its all basic deconstructionism. basic bitches like him arent much. sure he might have had some other small ass ideas but at the end of it this is what he will be remembered by. modern philosophers havent had much to say in a long ass time.

[Anonymous No.12415844]

>>12415128
I did my dissertation for my PhD on Wittgenstein and would be happy to answer any questions you might still have about him, OP.

[Anonymous No.12415846]

>>12415128
What would/did Wittgenstein think of the philosophy of Martin Heidegger?

Lol on a more personal note: I am currently a philosophy grad student getting his masters: any good advice?

[Anonymous No.12415854]

>>12415507
That was J.S Mill
>>12415512
"The Appearance of Anti-Intellectualism in the Works of Ludwig Wittgenstein."
I look at how Wittgenstein had inspired a lot of post-modern thinkers, like Gaita, and how they had also influenced, or could be seen to parallel, more scientifically minded ones like, Hilary Putnam, Dreyfus, Thomas Kuhn and, yes, even Karl Popper.
My main criticism was of Wittgenstein's behaviourism, that with future MRI techniques and machine learning it may be possible to "go inside the box and see the beetle" and that we shouldn't write off psychology and Synthetic intelligence on that basis as early-to-mid Putnam did and Dreyfus did. I also argued that recognising language games is very important and similar to Paradigms for the purposes of science and general useful discourse.

I don't think Wittgenstein's beetle in the box analogy is prescriptive. I think it's useful to treat is as a way of focusing Wittgenstein's discourse in the Investigations - We are not talking about the beetle but the use of the beetle.
Some people take it too far and say we can never talk about the beetle.
Finally I talked about how Wittgenstein's airy-fairy language turns off EXACTLY the kind of positivistic, logical thinker for whom the book would be extremely useful. That his quotes like "philosophy leaves everything as it is" make it seem overly pessimistic, and that philosophy on the whole is useless, when really it isn't and that isn't what Wittgenstein meant.

[Anonymous No.12415862]

I'm Wittgenstein, ama

[Anonymous No.12415864]

>>12415686
Mine's Rum and Reason, I dunno what Wittgenstein would've liked, he probably wouldn't have liked the cold frictionless ice on his tongue.

[Anonymous No.12415865]

>>12415862
c-can you slap me :3

[Anonymous No.12415880]

>>12415817
I'll never think of Wittgenstein the same way again.

[Anonymous No.12415881]

>>12415865
only if you dress up like a schoolboy

[Anonymous No.12415986]

>>12415695
No. But most of them.
Just try and pin down a continental on what they're talking about using the Wittgensteinian method.
That usually separates the wheat from the chaff.
And I don't think anyone does analytic philosophy anymore.

>>12415711
He does. He thinks linguistic positivism is a dead end. The swathes of the Investigations is an attack and an alternative to it.
That's not to say there's no place for a monads of absolute truth, ethically and scientifically speaking.
>>12415731
What's your point?
>>12415767
I think Bertrand thought of Wittgenstein as his pupil (at one point his greatest pupil)
whereas Wittgenstein never really saw him as more than a guy who didn't understand him.
Wittgenstein was kind of savage - here:
https://blog.oup.com/2015/06/bertrand-russell-suicide/

“All that has gone wrong with me lately comes from Wittgenstein’s attack on my work ... Only yesterday I felt ready for suicide…” (Russell’s letter to Ottoline Morrell, 19 June 1913)
They grew very distant philosophically.

To Russell Wittgenstein was rude and obscure whereas to Wittgenstein Russell was either not smart enough or, ultimately, writing useless works.

>>12415775
Most of his life he seemed to be alright.
What made him hurt school children? As a former teacher I can understand that the tension might have been high but I chalk it up to a family history of depression combined with PTSD.
Some people can get carried away with the stories though.
>>12415813
No this is not the same context.
Can you explain the importance of cohesion?
>>12415839
I don't understand the first three sentences of what you said. Are you trying to explain what you understand of Wittgenstein or disagreeing with him.
>>12415844
How's your sex life?
Alternatively: What was your dissertation title?
>>12415846
I think there's a relation between the two regards "ready-to-handedness". A lot of what we do is subconscious and we're better at a lot of things when we don't think about doing it.
I don't know what he had to say explicitly about him.
As for advice - concrete advice would be getting the guy marking it to like you, suck up to your lecturer. Put podcasts about the philosopher your writing about on your headphones or play them when you game.
That's what I did.
>>12415862
When you say "Tell them I had a good life" What did you mean by "good"?

[Anonymous No.12416023]

>>12415854
>that with future MRI techniques and machine learning it may be possible to "go inside the box and see the beetle"
So I take it that you're a fucking idiot

[Anonymous No.12416040]

>>12415986
>Tell them I had a good life
because I say your life is bloody good if you only have one regret, my only regret in life is not beating enough schoolchildren

[Anonymous No.12416053]

>>12415434
No I didn't but that sounds really interesting.
>>12416023
I don't discount ideas without know anything about them.

>>12415157
>>12415179
>>12415424
>>12415731
I don't understand the aggressiveness of some of you guys. How old are you?
What generates this level of contempt? What other boards do you browse?

[Anonymous No.12416062]

>>12415539
absolutely based

[Anonymous No.12416084]

>>12415128
Was it ever mentioned on what level was Wittgenstein's mathematics knowledge on?

[Anonymous No.12416095]

>>12415854
>My main criticism was of Wittgenstein's behaviourism, that with future MRI techniques and machine learning it may be possible to "go inside the box and see the beetle" and that we shouldn't write off psychology and Synthetic intelligence on that basis as early-to-mid Putnam did and Dreyfus did
Do you know anything about MRI? I highly doubt it because otherwise you wouldn't make a claim as ridiculous as to say that MRI might make the consciousness, the thoughts and feelings, of another person visible. Machine learning is also a meme. Neuroscienctists can't even begin to account for the behavior of an organism as seeminy simple as a certain roundworm called C. Elegans, although every single physical fact about its nervous system is known. I suggest that neuroscientists start there and then continue with, say, ants (if they turn out to be able to explain the roundworm's behavior) before they start to make outrageous claims about the human mind.

[Anonymous No.12416145]

>>12416095
>I suggest that neuroscientists start there and then continue with, say, ants
Yes and continue and continue, it's not hypothetically impossible. The problem is behaviourists cutting off the notion of talking about the internal workings of the human mind.
Even Putnam changed his mind about being a behaviourist with the advent of MRI scans which allow us to look objectively at very material reactions of a human brain.

It might be possible that, in the future, you could read someone's mind.
How old are you?

[Anonymous No.12416151]

>>12416095
+ Dreyfus used to say we would never get speech-to-text software.

[Anonymous No.12416195]

>>12415986
>Can you explain the importance of cohesion?
Cohesion as in the shared concept that allows disparate instances to be grouped together under the same word. If we're going to say that meaning is use (i.e. convention) how are we deciding which instances fit into the convention and which don't? THAT'S the point of the investigation, not simply the production of arbitrary counterexamples about the names of dogs. Without cohesion, no game would form because each instance of use would be too specific to serve as a move in a game--the point of a rule is to establish a minimum threshold of generality so as to be applicable with any sort of regularity.

>>12415731 (You)
>What's your point?
well i figured that if i offered a differing interpretation, you'd at least be willing or capable to offer a counterargument, right? If you're so knowledgeable on Wittgenstein, show how there's no language outside language games.

[Anonymous No.12416213]

>>12415854
>>12416145
>guys when MRI gets like REALLY REALLY good we're gonna solve the hard problem of consciousness. just you wait guys. its gonna happen

[Anonymous No.12416325]

>>12415128
How would Witty go about solving the trolley problem?

[Anonymous No.12416629]

>>12416195
Wittgenstein referred to this kind of cohesion as a "family resemblance".
So if you looked at a family you'd recognise similarities in everyone but each would be distinct.
It's the same with *most* words that share the same name.

>how are we deciding which instances fit into the convention and which don't

The language game doesn't have to be conscious. The important thing is recognising whether or not it *works in practice*. If the words you use don't work in practice (he saw words as tools) then they are either being misused or are useless.
That doesn't have to be a conscious decision and as I've said earlier - he doesn't know how we, psychologically speaking, recognise which context is appropriate for the words.

>Without cohesion, no game would form

I don't think you understand what a language game is. A language game is the context within which words are used. In most language games, except for jokes*, a word only has one meaning.

*
Eg. "A proton walks into a bar.
The barman asks "Are you sure you want a drink"
The proton responds "I'm positive."
The joke is in the multiple uses of one word - positive. This is a rare exception to the general rule that most language games use only one definition per word.

>>12416213
Maybe but not for sure, I'm open to the possibilities. I doesn't make sense to not be optimistic.

>>12416325
Ethics isn't really Wittgenstein's forte. I actually don't know what his moral principles are.

[Anonymous No.12416713]

>>12416195
>If you're so knowledgeable on Wittgenstein, show how there's no language outside language games.

If Wittgenstein offered no answer to this then it follows that my knowledge of Wittgenstein wouldn't help me.

Anyway, it depends on how you define language. To Wittgenstein language is a shared activity between two people, therefore there can be no private language.

Would you like to propose an alternative use of the word "language"?

----- That's the end of my answer to that.

I want to say: And a sensible understanding of a word involves a deep understanding of the forms of life within which you find yourself.
But I think you'd go off on one again.
So - Since a language needs to be shared there needs to be mutual understanding.
Wittgenstein believes this mutual understanding stems from something we call "deep grammar" - an understanding of the life form that you're speaking to.
He believes "If a lion could talk we could not understand him."
That is to say: The less we comprehend a form of life the less we understand what he is saying.

This seems a bit far-fetched. Yet when you compare how you listen to strangers with how you listen to your parents, siblings or (dare I say it) loved ones you see how much MORE you understand the latter, you know how to secretly push their buttons, you know if they say a certain mundane thing - "Let's get coffee together" they actually mean something much more important, because, perhaps for example, they rarely have time for you so this means they really want to catch up.

When Wittgenstein talks about forms of life and their importance it seems like a waste of time - he's already talked about context.
Yet this deepens our understanding of our lack of understanding.

We partake in a societal language game and a cultural one and a legal one and within that there are many more language games taking place. Many uses of the word certainty share the same meaning - and yet, clearly, many do not.

[Anonymous No.12416764]

>>12415986
>some people can get carried away with the stories
Most people don't have the faintest knowledge of this aspect to Wittgenstein's character, thanks to his family's riches managing to hush it up, and him subsequently attaining celebrity. So no, actually, few people know about it and many more should. You sound like you're immensely downplaying the seriousness of his abuse, but then again, so do all postmodernist academics today who have such heroes for role models like those of Witty and Foucault. I'm not attacking you, but please don't downplay such matters, or imply that the people speaking of them are the ones exaggerating them when clearly it's only the opposite here.

[Anonymous No.12416855]

To what extent is his thought connected to the 20th century Nietzscheans - Deleuze, Focault and Derrida most of all.

[Anonymous No.12416876]

>>12416764
They aren't relevant to his philosophy. You come into every Wittgenstein thread and spout ad hominems.

They might be true. Let's say he killed children. Raped them.
It doesn't make what he says any more or any less true and the fact that you bumble and rave your way onto this threads makes me suspect your problem is with postmodernism first and Wittgenstein hitting children second.

I'm not a postmodernist.

[Anonymous No.12416963]

>>12416876
It is the fact that so few know about it, resulting from his fortunate circumstances, that causes me to feel it worth mentioning in these threads. Knowing the philosopher helps us to understand their philosophy, in some cases.

[Anonymous No.12416995]

>>12415128

I hope you're not that tranny faggot, in which case you should kys

[Anonymous No.12417015]

>>12416995
What the fuck are you talking about?

[Anonymous No.12417236]

>>12417015
Contrapoints probably.

[Anonymous No.12417241]

>>12415434
Godlike game

[Anonymous No.12417247]

>>12415539
>>12416062
>>12415548
>agreed with Marxism "in practice but not in theory"

This is awesome.

[Anonymous No.12417311]

>>12415128
Most of the words you are using aren’t representative of phenomenal objects I have interacted with. So that makes them just throat noises who’s meanings we will never agree on and this entire thread a pointless endeavor.

[Anonymous No.12417344]

Can Wittgenstein's private language argument be applied to morality?

[Anonymous No.12417535]

How was Witty so good at abusing children?

[Anonymous No.12417939]

Summarize his philosophy in 10 sentences.

[Anonymous No.12418257]

>>12416963
He felt tremendous regret over it. It seems as though you are trying to fish for ways to undermine his work. Have you ever made a mistake? Should every mistake you make be attributed to your entire sense of self? The incident isn't as big a deal as you are making it out to be. Kids were often harmed, W was just the type that felt it was only fair to dish it out to females too. He took education very seriously and obviously over-did occasionally, in an attempt to leave a imprint on students, make a difference. Again, he wasn't proud of his actions.

[Anonymous No.12418351]

How can you possibly convey the ideas of WIttgenstein while operating within the confines of human language.

[Anonymous No.12418354]

>>12415539
>>12415559

He was also a fan of Otto Weininger

[Anonymous No.12418404]

>>12415128
how does it feel to be rationalist?