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The relentless honesty of Ludwig Wittgenstein (2017)

the-tls.co.uk

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Re: The relentless honesty of Ludwig Wittgenstein (2017)

#31
post #25

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.

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?

There’s no feedback.

I truly wouldn’t post something if I didn’t feel it was relevant so constructive feedback (as per HN guidelines) is much more useful than silent downvotes.

Re: The relentless honesty of Ludwig Wittgenstein (2017)

#32

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.

I hope you don’t take offense, but I would imagine some people are turned off by your self-promotion, the length of your post, and a tone that could be interpreted as pompous.

Thanks for the feedback. Much appreciated.

Re: The relentless honesty of Ludwig Wittgenstein (2017)

#33
post #15

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.

You didn't contribute to the talk about Wittgenstein, but exclusively talked about yourself and things you do. In addition, instead of explaining the relationship of your activities with Wittgenstein (that could have been an on-topic contribution), you ask the reader to watch recordings.

How would recommend explaining the relationship of my activities W?

Honest question, I’d love to not come across as such a moron.

Thanks for the feedback.

Re: The relentless honesty of Ludwig Wittgenstein (2017)

#34
There was a documentary on his life in the 80s, mentioning his life as teacher in a rural primary school (they even interviewed some of his pupils) and his acting in a silent movie [1]. It is these anecdotes which make history and biographies so vivid.

81] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0013619/

Re: The relentless honesty of Ludwig Wittgenstein (2017)

#35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Could you elaborate?

As the other comment points out, people aren’t willing to challenge themselves but also feign a confidence about themselves due to various factors such as economic and societal pressures. Admitting you have no idea most of the time is probably more accurate (estimate is obviously a reasonably afauirable skill) but that’s not what boss man is looking for.

I think this also evidences itself in the prevalence of imposter theory, especially in younger generations. The reason the saying goes, “that feeling never goes away” is because we all operate outwardly as if we are more expert than we are and begin to believe that lie.

Does that clarify?

Re: The relentless honesty of Ludwig Wittgenstein (2017)

#36
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…

Maybe it's worth mentioning that he didn't write most of "his" books apart from the Tractatus and Philosophische Untersuchungen. The others might still be worth reading but they are mostly notes from his students.

Having studied analytical philosophy in university I also find it interesting that Wittgenstein is seen as a founding father of the analytical movement while his later philosophy can be understood as a refutation of analytical philosophy.

You have some valid points about the transcendence of philosophy in stopping the pursuit of pseudo-problems. In relation to that there's also a hint in the end of the Tractatus about (the most important?) things that cannot be said but only shown.

Also I found it funny that he supposedly said that there are more profound insights to be found in the crime stories he read than in the philosophical journal "Mind". (I think that's mentioned in Malcom's book).

Re: The relentless honesty of Ludwig Wittgenstein (2017)

#37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I wouldn't call it unethical, but unfair. It happens mostly in the more extreme corners of the political spectrum, whether it is right or left. That perspective of non-discussion has gained a strong foothold in the "center" unfortunately, too, recently. I believe many people have the feeling that they haven't been heard and thus are not interested in listening any more. It's not an irreversible trend, I suppose, if e…

Yea that's what I was thinking, and also along with another idea about experimentation. People on both sides can become even intolerant of the other's rights to their civil libertiea and democratic right of self-governance. What I mean, in practice, is that if a state wants to legalize a plant, run its own healthcare system, well in fact they should be encouraged to do so. We should be to some extent tolerant of these experiments and competition among states in social policy. It is consistent with democracy and what the Founding Fathers intended. But instead everyone wants to command the authority of the central government to demand everyone has to do it their way, and the results end up really egregiously bad as you can see today.

Re: The relentless honesty of Ludwig Wittgenstein (2017)

#38
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

There’s no feedback. I truly wouldn’t post something if I didn’t feel it was relevant so constructive feedback (as per HN guidelines) is much more useful than silent downvotes.

The downvote is feedback. It's feedback that other people don't find your post relevant. You can constructively review how you expect other people to find it relevant and imagine the reasons why they wouldn't.

Re: The relentless honesty of Ludwig Wittgenstein (2017)

#39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you elaborate?

As the other comment points out, people aren’t willing to challenge themselves but also feign a confidence about themselves due to various factors such as economic and societal pressures. Admitting you have no idea most of the time is probably more accurate (estimate is obviously a reasonably afauirable skill) but that’s not what boss man is looking for. I think this also evidences itself in the prevalence of imposte…

No, not really. It's still rather vague to me. Could you give me a concrete example?

Re: The relentless honesty of Ludwig Wittgenstein (2017)

#40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I think they mean that the unedited, the stream-of-consciousness style you're employing, while "honest" in that you give the reader the the full paper trail of where your conclusions are coming from, has a low signal-to-noise ratio, making it tedious to read.

It's surprising to me that someone compared your work to Wittgenstein's. His writing contains an extraordinary amount of dense, finely-honed philosophical content per page--rather the opposite of the 'let it all hang out' approach you seem to be taking. Which isn't to say either one is strictly better, although the previous commenter may disagree with me.

If you're looking for more feedback, I would suggest that you read. Read orders of magnitude more than you write, in fact, no matter how much you write. No matter how old or how experienced you are, philosophy is a party that has been going on for thousands of years and you have only just arrived. There is always more to read, and for any novel idea or theory you have that is keeping you up at night pondering it, there is almost certainly someone whose entire life's work was dedicated to the exploration of that one idea.

Read Wittgenstein on language, sure, but you're gonna then need Frege and the logical positivists for context. Then read into Hilbert and Russell's work on the foundations of mathematics, and then about Gödel's famous theorems and how they affected that program. There's a rewarding parallel to be drawn between what the conclusion of Wittgenstein's Tractatus says about the philosophy of language and what Gödel's incompleteness theorems say about the foundations of math, but you gotta do the work to get there.

Stream-of-consciousness is a well-worn technique at this point, and not just in writing or speaking. Read about theatre improvisation and jazz, and hip hop, and what those artists have to say about their processes, and read theorists and critics who are skeptical of the very possibility of what you're calling "honesty" in your writing.

Read history. Read about propaganda campaigns and why they worked, and past instances of "information radiation". Look up all the 20th century theorists who warned us about the power of television to make even the most horrific atrocities banal. It's all been said before.

Contributing new thought is hard work, and one of the reasons why it is hard work is that you have to first understand the entire conversation that had been already happening right up until you joined the party. Read anything and everything you can get your hands on, and then read more.

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