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The relentless honesty of Ludwig Wittgenstein (2017)

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Re: The relentless honesty of Ludwig Wittgenstein (2017)

#61

Post by bobthechef »

wallace_f wrote: post #37
mrleiter wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 thes…

You seem to be assuming a great deal of things axiomatically. All of your claims are subject to philosophical discussion. The "Founding Fathers" are not God. Liberalism, democracy, and civil liberties are not given and obvious goods (Plato saw democracy as the worst form of government and one that degenerates into tyranny, probably more through ethos than procedure).

Re: The relentless honesty of Ludwig Wittgenstein (2017)

#62

Post by gtycomb »

a passing remark -- by all means read Wittgenstein's 'Philosophical Investigations' because it is readable as the article says. In the metaphysical world it can be hard cut through the work of its great thinkers. A sensible way to approach Wittgenstein is to start with a college level introductory book on Metaphysics to get the foundational ideas, Categories and Forms of Aristotle and Plato. Some modern philosopher writers can walk us through this nicely (Michale Loux from U of Chicago, his introductory writings or some other perhaps). What might be modern now (Trope Theory, World of States of Affairs, Stage Theory etc), their instigators first came to reject the basics of the ancients but in the end they actually dissect the work of the ancients for us. Travel to Wittgenstein along this path, read him only towards the end. One needs numbers and algebra before calculus.

Re: The relentless honesty of Ludwig Wittgenstein (2017)

#63

Post by bobthechef »

"The early Wittgenstein on scientism"[0] and "Goodill on Scholastic Metaphysics and Wittgenstein"[1] for more on Wittgenstein.

[0] https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2010/06/early-wittgenstein-...

[1] https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2015/12/goodill-on-scholast...

Re: The relentless honesty of Ludwig Wittgenstein (2017)

#64

Post by codeulike »

watwut wrote: post #55
codeulike wrote: post #5

My favourite Wittgenstein quote: "A philosopher who is not taking part in discussions is like a boxer who never goes into the ring."

Shouldn't philosopher seek truth and knowledge rather then one-on-one competition of quick wit and reaction?

If you never bounce ideas off of anyone else, its too easy to lead yourself down the path of convincing yourself that you are right.

Re: The relentless honesty of Ludwig Wittgenstein (2017)

#65

Post by bobthechef »

halfjew222 wrote: post #47
danharaj wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Sure! If you look at the levels of reported 'imposter syndrome', there is a noted rise over the last few years. I'm assuming here that you are aware of imposter syndrome and perhaps have felt it at times yourself. I certainly have. To our peers, we pretend we know more than we do to feign this confidence that has almost emerged as necessary since there are so many that can do our jobs as programmers. This feigned con…

Huh? I think you have the wrong thread.

Besides, pretending to be more competent than you are is fraud. Sounds like "imposter syndrome" as you have defined it is really the guilt of being a fraud, and frankly, it's well deserved because it's true. You should feel guilty for doing evil things. You should feel like an imposter when you are an imposter. The antidote is the courage not to be a fraud and not to be an imposter, not pathologizing it as a "syndrome" or blaming your boss for your own cowardice.

Re: The relentless honesty of Ludwig Wittgenstein (2017)

#66

Post by woodandsteel »

I have a mixed feeling about this article. On the positive side, it does a good job of explaining the ideas in Wittgenstein's two books. On the negative side, the author fails to explain that there are similar ideas in Pragmatism and Existential-Phenomenology.

Also, the author fails to explain, as Roy Monk's book makes clear, that Wittgenstein had a highly dogmatic and rather irrational set of religious and cultural views.

Re: The relentless honesty of Ludwig Wittgenstein (2017)

#67

Post by sramsay »

brownbat wrote: post #45
yarrel wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes philosophical admiration of Wittgenstein indicates a failure to take him seriously. If he was right, people should stop philosophising. But they don't. Wittgenstein failing to end philosophy not once but twice in the Twentieth Century marks him out as a doubly spectacular failure on his own terms. The problem may be that neither logic nor philology exhausts philosophy in ways simpler than philosophy itself. Wittg…

> If he was right, people should stop philosophising. Slight asterisk-- if he was right, philosophers would be employed as counselors, to help people realize that the deep problems they are wondering about are probably just problems with language, or the limits of vague, abstract terminology. > But they don't. Ha, I don't know-- which way is "philosophers per capita" actually trending?

> Slight asterisk-- if he was right, philosophers would be employed as counselors, to help people realize that the deep problems they are wondering about are probably just problems with language, or the limits of vague, abstract terminology.

That's right. And that is exactly what Rorty came to believe.

Re: The relentless honesty of Ludwig Wittgenstein (2017)

#68

Post by sramsay »

harwoodjp wrote: post #44

I've noticed Wittgenstein is mentioned quite a lot on HN threads about philosophy. I suspect he's a favorite of engineer types because his conceptions nullify large swaths of philosophical activity and thinking. This conclusion allows the untrained student to feel as if they've entered a cheat code to reach the end of the discourse -- it's all a language game, so I need not waste my time with further inquiry.

I hope that's not true. Wittgenstein certainly led me deeper into the subject, not away from it.

"It's all a language game so why bother" is about as intellectually barren (and misinformed) as saying, "Well, Turing demonstrated that all programming languages are 'equivalent,' so it doesn't really matter."

Re: The relentless honesty of Ludwig Wittgenstein (2017)

#69

Post by sramsay »

gtycomb wrote: post #62

a passing remark -- by all means read Wittgenstein's 'Philosophical Investigations' because it is readable as the article says. In the metaphysical world it can be hard cut through the work of its great thinkers. A sensible way to approach Wittgenstein is to start with a college level introductory book on Metaphysics to get the foundational ideas, Categories and Forms of Aristotle and Plato. Some modern philosopher w…

I agree with that completely. Wittgenstein's "simplicity" is only apparent, because he tends to write as if he's the first person to ever do philosophy. But he knows he's not, and his grasp of classical metaphysics (like most philosophers of his era) was basically flawless. He is way more interesting to read with that background in place.

Re: The relentless honesty of Ludwig Wittgenstein (2017)

#70

Post by sramsay »

codeulike wrote: post #5

My favourite Wittgenstein quote: "A philosopher who is not taking part in discussions is like a boxer who never goes into the ring."

Mine is: "I am sitting with a philosopher in the garden; he says again and again 'I know that that's a tree,' pointing to a tree that is near us. Someone else arrives and hears this, and I tell them: 'This fellow isn't insane. We are only doing philosophy.'"
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