/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.20455532]

What does /lit/ thinks of this dude? Is it worth reading his books? If so, is there any additional sources necessary to understand him?

[Anonymous No.20455605]

>>20455532
>What does /lit/ thinks of this dude?
Hot ziggety. He's a'ight.
>Is it worth reading his books?
to quote the man himself:
>>"The meaning of a question is the method of answering it...Tell me how you are searching, and I will tell you what you are searching for."
So reverse it, what is it that you are expecting to find in his books?

[Anonymous No.20455614]

He puts it this way: You will only understand or care about his books if you have already thought similar thoughts, or at least asked similar question as him

[Anonymous No.20455630]

>>20455614
And what thoughts or questions does he mean?

[Anonymous No.20455650]

>>20455630
Why are you asking this question?

[Anonymous No.20455651]

>>20455650
Because I see him posted on /lit/ a lot and I'm too lazy to google.

[Anonymous No.20455671]

>>20455532
He was a pseud as you can most clearly see from all the above replies where other pseuds tried to copy his pseudery.

[Anonymous No.20455868]

ignore that moron above who has never read Wittgenstein so throws around the word 'pseud'. Early Wittgenstein is the pseud-slayer. In Proposition 6 he all but says that metaphysics is a waste of time and that true philosophy only concerns itself with observable phenomena. After all Prop 1 expounds upon how words correlate with the 'state of affairs' that form the world. While pseuds debate over 'is this true' and get stuck in trying to define 'truth' or 'is'. Early Wittgenstein basically remarks, "does it exist out there in the world? No, then you're making shit up, so shut the fuck up." There is nothing pseud about that. Questions of 'subjectivity' versus 'objectivity' don't come into it, because it doesn't matter.

[Anonymous No.20455961]

>>20455532
He is kinda based.

[Anonymous No.20456038]

Ol' Wittgenstein has two eras. He's a really interesting character too. These two phases are the roots of really important parts of early 20th Century philosophy.

So in his first phase, he believed Philosophy should not talk about the things we can't prove true or false. He basically hated 19th centruy Philosophy and wanted to destroy it. He wrote a book called the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Which is analytic as fuck and led to Logical Positivism and later some people read it and formed this semi-cult called the Vienna Circle. Honestly, it's a tough read if you are not familiar with formal logic. It's worth a glance to just admire how structured and direct the book and arguments are though. It's like an engineering document. I really wish more stuff was at least structured the way he did.

So then he fucked off into the mountains and became a teacher and then a gardener or something and left Academia because he hated Philosophy. He lived in peace for a while, then decided to come back for some reason. But he hadn't even graduated — yeah, as an undergrad he wrote one of the most important works of early 20th century philosophy — so Bertrand Russel suggested he submit the Tractus as a PhD dissertation and basically just gave him a PhD and hired him at Cambridge. He infamously told Russel and Moore in his defence: '"Don't worry, I know you'll never understand it."

Anyway, then he decided he was wrong all along and he ushered in another new phase of 20th century philosophy where he became focused on the problem of language. This is generally considered his more important phase, as it sort of kicks of all of the 20th Century relativist views that lead to post-modernisim — though he was not a post-modernist and he was not responding to modernisim.

[Anonymous No.20456049]

>>20456038
"This is generally considered his more important phase, as it sort of kicks of all of the 20th Century relativist views that lead to post-modernisim — though he was not a post-modernist and he was not responding to modernisim."

Exactly, this is how trans ideology begins.

[Anonymous No.20456050]

>>20456038

I'll also say that he is quite unique in that he doesn't build on or directly respond to many other philosophers directly, so there aren't many pre-requisites to understand him. A secondary source or two might make things a bit easier, but the Investigations (his second-era publication) is actually quite readable.

[Anonymous No.20456053]

>>20456049
>Exactly, this is how trans ideology begins.

This is your brain on 4chan

[Anonymous No.20456175]

>>20456049
Obsessed

[Anonymous No.20456191]

Important philosopher and very worth reading. If you understand him, I think it's safe you can leave philosophy behind.

[Anonymous No.20456197]

>>20455868
>he all but says that metaphysics is a waste of time and that true philosophy only concerns itself with observable phenomena
How is this supposed to be at all interesting in a post-Kantian world?
I mean, shit, Hume was already saying that.
(And I think they’re all wrong, people have been trying to “end metaphysics” since forever but it never actually dies because you can’t just arbitrarily decree that people are no longer allowed to think perfectly sensible thoughts, although you plead in vain that those thoughts are actually nonsensical).
This is my problem with Wittgenstein, either the things he said are nonsensical, or they were said better by his contemporaries or people who came before him. Maybe my historical knowledge is weak and I just don’t appreciate how big an influence he had on contemporaries like Russel, Carnap, etc.

[Anonymous No.20456275]

>>20455532
Basically like a sophist with an English degree. Only worth reading to see another example of the kind of thing Socrates argued against.

[Anonymous No.20456285]

>>20456197
I agree. If someone wants to challenge metaphysics, which leads nowhere, they should read Hume. He was a little more convincing than "every disagreement in philosophy is just a linguistic misunderstanding"

[Anonymous No.20456286]

>>20456049
Nah bro, that started with Descartes

[Anonymous No.20456433]

>>20456191
>it’s safe to say you can leave philosophy behind
It’s a fantasy to think that humanity can ever leave philosophy behind.
Do trannies have a right to be called by their preferred pronouns? Do they deserve access to women’s bathrooms, women’s sports? Are American blacks owed reparations? Do companies have a right, maybe even an obligation, to hire non-whites instead of whites in order to correct historical injustices? Should western countries open their borders to everyone from the third world who wants to come here? These aren’t just idle speculations - they have a major impact on the lives of millions of people - and after peeling back a few layers, it turns out they depend crucially on the same stodgy old theoretical questions in metaphysics, epistemology, and political philosophy that so many thinkers have tried to dissolve and do away with. And whatever view you hold on these questions, you’re going to have to face an angry horde who believes the exact opposite, so you better be prepared to defend your view. Or else consign yourself to total social irrelevance, at the mercy of whatever other people decide for you.
You might counter that, although these are indeed pressing issues, philosophical reflection has nonetheless revealed them to be pseudo-questions, and although we cannot help but reflecting on them, such reflection properly belongs to the domain of rhetoric, poetry, and art, rather than philosophy. I’m very sympathetic to this view, and I think there’s truth in it. And yet no matter how strongly convinced I am by the philosophical arguments that normative questions have no mind-independent answers, I cannot shake the spell they hold over me. I cannot help but reason about these questions as though they do have answers; I share arguments with other people, I critique their arguments, I point out misconceptions they may have that have lead them down a path of bad reasoning; and nothing in these activities seems at all impeachable to me. Perhaps this is merely a contingent psychological fact about me. But if nothing else, this paradox shows to me that we have not succeeded in “dissolving” the problems of philosophy, and that it would be foolish to abandon it prematurely.
Certainly there is a natural desire to ignore the problems of philosophy, because they are painfully difficult and seemingly intractable. But that doesn’t mean you can wish them away. They’re still there, whether you want to ignore them or not.

[Anonymous No.20456448]

>>20456197
>I mean, shit, Hume was already saying that.
I don't see how that's relevant to my point. All that means is that Hume is not a pseud either. Shock horror.

[Anonymous No.20456544]

>>20456191
Even though I have read him myself I don't think I can stop, because it is an addiction to continue pursuing it even if it gets nowhere.

[Anonymous No.20456953]

>>20455532
Who?

[Anonymous No.20457528]

>>20455532
Reminder that Witty was a retarded.
>regularly beat children
>knocked out a kid who was suffering from leukemia
>advised patients not to take medication when he worked at a hospital
>gave up his inheritance (his family was among the richest post WW1) and lived off the generosity of others for years
>regularly pissed off everyone around him, especially people who once considered him a friend
>advised all of his young students to become working class morons and give up everything they'd worked towards
I hate this Austrian faggot so much.

[Anonymous No.20457543]

>>20457528
all very based, sounds like a zen master

[Anonymous No.20457774]

>>20455532
No