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The relentless honesty of Ludwig Wittgenstein (2017)

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Re: The relentless honesty of Ludwig Wittgenstein (2017)

#21

Post by mrleiter »

sramsay wrote: post #19

I've been a big fan of Wittgenstein since college, and have at this point read just about all of his work. I might suggest that people new to Wittgenstein start neither with the Tractatus nor with Philosophical Investigations , but with the Blue and Brown Books (you want the Blue part). These are lecture notes toward what would later become the PI . They're way less systematic than the big two, but they'll give you a…

Yes, absolutely! He even explicitly stated that in a letter to Norman Malcolm, dated November 1944 [0]:

"What is the use of studying philosophy if all that it does for you is to enable you to talk with some plausibility about some abstruse questions of logic, etc., & if it does not improve your thinking about the important questions of everyday life"

[0]https://books.google.de/books?hl=en&lr=&id=JfnyUT7Oo_wC&oi=f...

Re: The relentless honesty of Ludwig Wittgenstein (2017)

#22

Post by perfmode »

halfjew22 wrote: post #10
halfjew22 wrote: post #6

I've been told on exactly one count that my thought process echoes Wittgenstein. Here's a recording of the comment as kind of a proof of why I think this is interesting to do. Very Meta. Watch Community of you enjoy this kind of thing: Part 1: https://youtu.be/sx7K8O7IGxo Part 2: https://youtu.be/wZGvJBXOkGs I also do live thought explorations, record them, and put them on YouTube. Please come tell me why you disagre…

Rather than downvote, can someone point out why they dislike this comment? On an article on Wittgenstein's honest and fluid thinking style, I posted something similar to what the current top comment has described as the most interesting part of W's process. Thanks in advance.

Your rhetorical style undermines the arguably prescient content of your speech.

Re: The relentless honesty of Ludwig Wittgenstein (2017)

#23

Post by BucketSort »

halfjew22 wrote: post #6

I've been told on exactly one count that my thought process echoes Wittgenstein. Here's a recording of the comment as kind of a proof of why I think this is interesting to do. Very Meta. Watch Community of you enjoy this kind of thing: Part 1: https://youtu.be/sx7K8O7IGxo Part 2: https://youtu.be/wZGvJBXOkGs I also do live thought explorations, record them, and put them on YouTube. Please come tell me why you disagre…

Wow, you really think highly of yourself. Most of us have thought ourselves to be geniuses ( as you do ) until we actually faced truly difficult challenges which humbled us. I suggest you stop engaging in meme philosophy and actually produce a body of work that rigorously puts forth your position(s). I cannot put enough emphasis on rigor. Define things you are talking about, don't just pass things over because they are "obvious," that's where most problems come from. I think you will find in doing this that you don't actually have much to say. I was once like you. Please heed my advice and grow.

Re: The relentless honesty of Ludwig Wittgenstein (2017)

#24

Post by WAthrowaway »

halfjew22 wrote: post #10
halfjew22 wrote: post #6

I've been told on exactly one count that my thought process echoes Wittgenstein. Here's a recording of the comment as kind of a proof of why I think this is interesting to do. Very Meta. Watch Community of you enjoy this kind of thing: Part 1: https://youtu.be/sx7K8O7IGxo Part 2: https://youtu.be/wZGvJBXOkGs I also do live thought explorations, record them, and put them on YouTube. Please come tell me why you disagre…

Rather than downvote, can someone point out why they dislike this comment? On an article on Wittgenstein's honest and fluid thinking style, I posted something similar to what the current top comment has described as the most interesting part of W's process. Thanks in advance.

You are not half as smart as you think you are and it is annoying

Re: The relentless honesty of Ludwig Wittgenstein (2017)

#25

Post by Retra »

halfjew22 wrote: post #10
halfjew22 wrote: post #6

I've been told on exactly one count that my thought process echoes Wittgenstein. Here's a recording of the comment as kind of a proof of why I think this is interesting to do. Very Meta. Watch Community of you enjoy this kind of thing: Part 1: https://youtu.be/sx7K8O7IGxo Part 2: https://youtu.be/wZGvJBXOkGs I also do live thought explorations, record them, and put them on YouTube. Please come tell me why you disagre…

Rather than downvote, can someone point out why they dislike this comment? On an article on Wittgenstein's honest and fluid thinking style, I posted something similar to what the current top comment has described as the most interesting part of W's process. Thanks in advance.

In what sense are you being honest with yourself if you can't put yourself in an objective enough frame of mind to see where the down-votes come from?

Re: The relentless honesty of Ludwig Wittgenstein (2017)

#26

Post by pjc50 »

danharaj wrote: post #17
wallace_f wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's right. Modern intellectual and political aversion to open competition and experimentation is, at best, unethical.

Could you elaborate?

I suspect he's talking about people's refusal to "debate" whether they should be subjected to suffering, discrimination, abuse, etc.

Re: The relentless honesty of Ludwig Wittgenstein (2017)

#27

Post by mbrock »

mrleiter wrote: post #21
sramsay wrote: post #19

I've been a big fan of Wittgenstein since college, and have at this point read just about all of his work. I might suggest that people new to Wittgenstein start neither with the Tractatus nor with Philosophical Investigations , but with the Blue and Brown Books (you want the Blue part). These are lecture notes toward what would later become the PI . They're way less systematic than the big two, but they'll give you a…

Yes, absolutely! He even explicitly stated that in a letter to Norman Malcolm, dated November 1944 [0]: "What is the use of studying philosophy if all that it does for you is to enable you to talk with some plausibility about some abstruse questions of logic, etc., & if it does not improve your thinking about the important questions of everyday life" [0] https://books.google.de/books?hl=en&lr=&id=JfnyUT7Oo_wC&oi=f...

I enjoy Richard Rorty's writings along similar lines, like in his essay "Trotsky and the Wild Orchids":

"I decided to major in philosophy. I figured that if I became a philosopher I might get to the top of Plato's 'divided line' - the place 'beyond hypotheses' where the full sunshine of Truth irradiates the purified soul of the wise and good: an Elysian field dotted with immaterial orchids. It seemed obvious to me that getting to such a place was what everybody with any brains really wanted."

"The more philosophers I read, the clearer it seemed that each of them could carry their views back to first principles which were incompatible with the first principles of their opponents, and that none of them ever got to that fabled place 'beyond hypotheses'."

"When I am asked (as, alas, I often am) what I take contemporary philosophy's 'mission' or 'task' to be, I get tonguetied. The best I can do is to stammer that we philosophy professors are people who have a certain familiarity with a certain intellectual tradition, as chemists have a certain familiarity with what happens when you mix various substances together."

"Despite my relatively early disillusionment with Platonism, I am very glad that I spent all those years reading philosophy books. For I learned something that still seems very important: to distrust the intellectual snobbery which originally led me to read them. If I had not read all those books, I might never have been able to stop looking for what Derrida calls 'a full presence beyond the reach of play', for a luminous, self-justifying, self-sufficient synoptic vision."

Re: The relentless honesty of Ludwig Wittgenstein (2017)

#28

Post by whatshisface »

mrleiter wrote: post #21
sramsay wrote: post #19

I've been a big fan of Wittgenstein since college, and have at this point read just about all of his work. I might suggest that people new to Wittgenstein start neither with the Tractatus nor with Philosophical Investigations , but with the Blue and Brown Books (you want the Blue part). These are lecture notes toward what would later become the PI . They're way less systematic than the big two, but they'll give you a…

Yes, absolutely! He even explicitly stated that in a letter to Norman Malcolm, dated November 1944 [0]: "What is the use of studying philosophy if all that it does for you is to enable you to talk with some plausibility about some abstruse questions of logic, etc., & if it does not improve your thinking about the important questions of everyday life" [0] https://books.google.de/books?hl=en&lr=&id=JfnyUT7Oo_wC&oi=f...

>What is the use of studying philosophy if all that it does for you is to enable you to talk with some plausibility about some abstruse questions of logic, etc.

Some would argue that philosophy has never helped with any ordinary question (only purporting to), but has made contributions to society through logic's support of math.

Re: The relentless honesty of Ludwig Wittgenstein (2017)

#29

Post by voidhorse »

Wittgenstein is one of those rare, inimitable thinkers. I get a sensation reading his work that I rarely get reading the work of others: that he truly was someone who thought about the world with great incisiveness and depth, beyond the confines of any particular discipline or outlook—a logician with a mystic's underbelly. Each one of his pithy notes exudes the degree of exhaustiveness with which he's contemplated the topic—it's a great experience. I highly recommend checking out some of his writing. Aside from the Tractatus it's not systematic, and as such I do not think there's any particular reason to study it systematically.

Philosophy as analysis, philosophy as therapy—Wittgenstein's writings present the collision of both of these perspectives.

Re: The relentless honesty of Ludwig Wittgenstein (2017)

#30

Post by halfjew222 »

perfmode wrote: post #22
halfjew22 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rather than downvote, can someone point out why they dislike this comment? On an article on Wittgenstein's honest and fluid thinking style, I posted something similar to what the current top comment has described as the most interesting part of W's process. Thanks in advance.

Your rhetorical style undermines the arguably prescient content of your speech.

What style would be better to use? I don’t even know what you mean by rhetorical style, apologies.

Thanks for the feedback.

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