>The right method of philosophy would be this. To say nothing except what can be said, i.e. the propositions of natural science, i.e. something that has nothing to do with philosophy: and then always, when someone else wished to say something metaphysical, to demonstrate to him that he had given no meaning to certain signs in his propositions. This method would be unsatisfying to the other—he would not have the feeling that we were teaching him philosophy—but it would be the only strictly correct method.
Uh if you werent familar nigga, he writes more books after that. To he fair his conclusion is basically the same but still
>>25617054Only if one allows room for aesthetic, ethical, and religious (what he called, in the Tractatus, and other contemporary writings, the Mystical) forms of activity external to philosophy, but this is to beg the question. In the Tractatus, the source of your quote, he thought the Mystical was, strictly speaking, inexpressible; and the discovery, perhaps confirmation, of this, was the real business of philosophy, at least the business of the book.By "demonstrat[ing] to him that he had given no meaning to certain signs in his propositions" he recommends a method, as most of his ("resolute") readers nowadays think, that shows that the propositions, not just their constituent words, are meaningless. Word meaning is parasitic on sentence meaning, these readers think, hence if a word is meaningless so, a fortiori, is the sentence. But this still leaves open the possibility, central to his later philosophy, that the sentence, spoken by another, could have meaning: so the method could only be practiced on members of one's own linguistic community. This by itself is fine, the real import is to show that the person offering some "philosophical proposition" himself doesn't mean anything, doesn't mean what he thinks he means. This is how he analyses absolute ethical propositions in his Lecture on Ethics, there the purpose of someone sincerely expressing them consists partly in denying that any sense can be made of them, that their constituent words have meaning: they are miraculous, mystical, unavailable to any calculus of meaning. Perhaps this is also the status of the propositions of the Tractatus itself.But yes, this can only be held if there are thought to be significant spheres of human activity which encompass those things--the Mystical--popularly thought to be philosophical, things under the remit of capital M Meaning. Wittgenstein took himself to show that these things could never be available under, fixed by, a calculus of meaning, a theory of language or thought.
>>256170541) Metaphysical things can be said2) meaning is hyperstatised into being by force3) talking is infecting someone with god4) truth is a metaphysical category
>>25617054He liked it up the ass
>>25617261How do you know he wasn't a top? Did he conduct a race to the bottom with Bertie?
>>25617273I didn't say up HIS ass, my statement could go either way.>up [his] ass>[his dick] up [someone's] ass
what ze fuck
Anyone got the Wittgenstein chart I'd appreciate it if you post it
>>25620447What do you want to know? He is known for two books, the Tractatus--the only book, minus one on German grammar for children, published in his lifetime--and the Philosophical Investigations. Take your pick; each is relatively self contained.
>>25620540Yeah I know I just seem to remember a chart containing some advice or background reading. I plan to read PI either way
>>25617054‘Why’ ‘is’ there a ‘right method’ that ‘mainstream’ ‘natural’ ‘philosophy’ could ‘get’ ‘denoted’ as ‘possessing’?
>>25620907What are you saying? That the question W tries to answer--what is the right method of philosophy?--is one not askable for its constituent words lacking meaning? He would have no problem with this, the proposition is just one more unsayable thing.
>>25620926Why is ‘meaning’ getting privileged on this account of things though, what does ‘meaning’ or ‘hermeneutics’ posses that creates the instance where ‘meaning’ is a determinant criteria to instances about criteria or about what can get asked or claimed about criteria & instances?
yes he was right
>>25621038>Phonepost >ESL >Incomprehensible photo of thread What did he mean by this?
>>25620981Your post is written strangely and is difficult to understand. I’m trying to work out if you’re a reader of the later Wittgenstein’s and, with your emphasis on criteria, Cavell’s. Maybe.I had to rephrase your question:>What is it about the concept ‘meaning’ that gives it the authority, as a criterion, to decide which criteria are relevant to the analysis of language?I can’t interpret what you said in any other relevant way. The answer is, by the lights of PI, nothing. And this is part of the anti-Tractatus realisation that fact-stating propositions are not paradigmatic forms of language. Meaning is, in PI, use, so is as multifaceted as the various uses of tools in a toolbox. But, in the Tractatus, such propositions are paradigmatic. The meaning of a proposition, which are all of the form “things are such and such”, is that the things in question are in such and such a way. If the proposition is meaningless, it cannot refer to anything, hence is not a proposition, hence not language. (This still leaves open the possibility, as many “traditional” readers of the Tractatus believe, that propositions, strictly nonsensical, can be used in other ways, say to “gesture” at things beyond the realm of the sayable. What is ruled out is there being propositions which state ultimate fact about the constitution of reality, of any possible world: metaphysical propositions modelled on propositions of natural science. Such propositions are meaningless, they can’t be analysed.)
He's so right Gregory b. Sadler had to call his time reading him a phase to cope with how based he is. Every modern philosopher has to tip toe around him if they want to continue spewing BS.
>>25621130From the things I can perceive of this post the things getting posited is that posts can be ‘strangely inscribed & written’ where ‘understanding is difficult’, and this is an ambitious claim about writing that I am humbled by and metaphysical claims that I think are ambitious and whose aim and scope of positing that I could have not done and am enlightened just from looking at the radiance and clarity of those claims and the ambition about claiming and denoting that also the thing getting claimed there that’ Such propositions are meaningless, they can’t be analysed’, is the meaning that can be gathered corresponded to the notion that the meaning of meaning is that analysis constitutes meaning?
>>25623631Oh you’re taking the piss. Silly me.
>>25622089Not really. Wittgenstein was so woefully uneducated in pre-20th century thought (don't @ me over his readings of Augustine, Schopenauer, and Kierkegaard) that his comments don't really touch anything of substance. OP, for example, only really holds if your understanding of philosophy is limited to Russell and Frege and the efforts to perfect logic and ground all propositions in it. Absent the assumptions attending to that view, it merits an eyeroll.
>>25623683Hello, Mr. Sadler. When’s the next stoicism convention?
>>25617054>To say nothing except what can be said, i.e. the propositions of natural scienceit's funny how all these anti-metaphysician philosophers inevitably veer towards scientism (science is a discipline that still hasn't explained the role causality plays in over 2,000 years since its inception), yet complain about the dogmatism of metaphysics and philosophy. lol, what a joke.
>>25625318Wittgenstein, throughout his life, was a staunch opponent of scientism. See>https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/regulars/55561/wittgensteins-forgotten-lessonThe Tractatus delimits what can be said, but is of no value (the propositions of natural science), against what cannot be said, but is (the 'mystical': ethics and aesthetics). It is a polemic against the overreach of science.
