/lit/ - Literature

>>14850277
back to plato

>>14850284
You're insane if someone who's internalized Wittgenstein can go back to Plato except for aesthetic reasons.

>>14850277
OP, read some Rorty if you haven't done it already.

Post Tractatus Wittgenstein is one of the simplest philosophers.
There really is no need to read him; one ought to find those thoughts oneself. If you fail to do that you shouldn't even bother engaging in philosophy.

>>14850277
I found I got much more out of his approach than his conclusions. He's fun to read for me. Like philosophy's version of MTV's Jackass.

>>14850277
Check out Austin, Strawson, Grice, Urmson, and Lazerowitz if you want to see where the study of language in his vein goes in its own right.

If you'd prefer the 'done with philosophy' path instead, I would recommend (i) learning a real empirical discipline, and devoting yourself to it (if you're a /lit/ type, it can be history, literature, linguistics, whatever), and (ii) find peace in your own culture on the shifting riverbed, unspooked.

>>14850655
>>14850277
In answer to the question of whether scientific philosophy is impossible, I would say yes, though maybe Wittgenstein himself only gestures at this.

Progress in philosophy from this point would have to look at the discpline from the outside, and examine how it came to be as a socio-historical matter. Westerners will stop believing in it as a 'native' tradition, much as they stopped believing in religion, and will study how it came to be from a non-philosophical framework, just as they study religion non-religiously. The non-philosophical study of philosophy will be quite interesting, not only as we come to learn how philosophy came to be (we still don't know this, since we have only practiced 'in' the discipline natively, and so aren't yet anthropologically positioned to see it for what it is), but also what its arising and defects tell us about the nature of our cognition and culture.

>>14850655
I find Grice specially anti-wittgenstinian. He even admits to this, I don't think that's a good rec. Even Austin and Strawson do not conform to Wittgenstein's view. Speech act theory can be easily translated into a representational account of language.

>>14850744
They represent a logical development of some of WIttgenstein's thought. Whether they agree with him or could be thought of as 'anti-Wittgensteinian' is irrelevant, though I think the label is pointless, since it would be like calling a western philosopher 'anti-Socratic' or something, and Grice's project (as well as Austin's and Strawson's) simply make no sense in a world without Wittgenstein to begin with.

>>14850277
What did he take away from you?

>>14850763
Grice still relies on a distinction between semantics and pragmatics. His implicatures fall apart without this distinction. He is a refinement in the meaning as representation tradition. OP should read Rorty, specially about his concept of ironist philosopher/ironist poet.

>>14850277
Sit your fucking ass down, study basic Calculus, basic Newtonian mechanics, and try to build a simple experimental setup like something Galileo used.
I'm serious. You might think all of this is obvious, but just fucking do it once in your life. Try to measure the speed of a falling object, or the conservation of energy. Go through the process of trying to make the measurements more precise, of eliminating noise sources from them.
On the span of one week where you do this you will learn more about science, the world and yourself than you ever will from these absolute fucking shit eating hacks that spit remarks from their closed thinking rooms.

You don't understand science until you actually measured something and tried to reduce experimental uncertainty. This is true even for theoretical scientists.
MEASURE SOMETHING

>>14851142
Go back to your IFUCKINGLOVESCIENCE subreddit faggot.

>>14851012
He took away much of the solace I used to found in reading philosophy, specially analytic philosophy. Now I look at these works and feel like they're all a huge waste of time, completely detached from their so-called mission of uncovering truth. They feel artificial, as if they were operating on a world detached from our own. In a certain way, Wittgenstein achieved his goal of freeing the fly from the fly-bottle, but now that I'm in the outside, I don't know where to go.

>>14851142
I don't get it.

>>14851157

Every single quote on the right is out of context. NDT in particular has professed his love for philosophy and art when people ask him about it.

>>14851157
Based. Heisenberg not only read Wittgenstein but discussed his ideas with Russell.This is taken from an interview:

>DP The philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein originally started out by thinking that words were related to facts in the world, then later reversed his position to conclude that the meaning of words lay in their use. Is this reflected in quantum mechanics?

>I should first state my own opinion about Wittgenstein's philosophy. I never could do too much with early Wittgenstein and the philosophy of the Tractatus Logico-philosophicus, but I like very much the later ideas of Wittgenstein and his philosophy about language. In the Tractatus, which I thought too narrow, he always thought that words have a well-defined meaning, but I think that is an illusion. Words have no well-defined meaning. We can sometimes by axioms give a precise meaning to words, but still we never know how these precise words correspond to reality, whether they fit reality or not. We cannot help the fundamental situation - that words are meant as a connection between reality and ourselves - but we can never know how well these words or concepts fit reality. This can be seen in Wittgenstein's later work. I always found it strange, when discussing such matters with Bertrand Russell, that he held the opposite view; he liked the early work of Wittgenstein and could do nothing whatsoever with the late work. On these matters we always disagreed, Russell and I.

>I would say that Wittgenstein, in view of his later works, would have realized that when we use such words as position or velocity, for atoms, for example, we cannot know how far these terms take us, to what extent they are applicable. By using these words, we learn their limitations.

>>14851157
This image has been debunked a billion times by now. In any case, you implying like you understand the scientific contributions of Heisenberg, Einstein, Schroedinger and Bohr is laughable. You claiming to understand them without ever making measurements is even more laughable.
None of what they did means anything without measurements to back it up and implying they said otherwise is babbys first scientific philosophy.
I bet you think quantum mechanics is just a theoretical philosophical construction? AHAHAHAHAHA

Go measure something. I suggested the Galileo inclined plane setup because even double digit IQ people should be able to build one to measure the acceleration of gravity within one or two decimal places.

>>14851176
You're proving my point. That the greatest scientists on the realm of physics, who made great measurements that shifted our entire perception of reality, are the ones who can most deeply appreciate philosophy.
You just name dropping them without going through their same path to enlightenment doesn't make you as smart as them.

>>14851191
You sound like a complete cocksucker. Wittgenstein was no physicist, yet Heisenberg clearly respected him. You look like those Catholics who want to teach the Pope to read the Bible. It shows your young age, and I'm glad you're passionate about science. As you age you'll learn to appreciate life under a bigger spectrum. Much luck on your life, Anon.

>>14851142
>Sit your fucking ass down, study basic Calculus, basic Newtonian mechanics, and try to build a simple experimental setup like something Galileo used.

To be fair, that is a roughly accurate description of the course of Wittgenstein's intellectual life before he embarked on his philosophical journey, though he nonetheless ended up with whatever it is that excavated OP's soul.

To OP: now that your soul is empty, fill it with God. Leave the post-Tractarian nonsense for what it is. The early Wittgenstein shared quite profound insights. Read the 6's in the Tractatus - even if the entirety of all empirical propositions are given and known by man, what is excluded cannot be reasonably talked about, though *that* is precisely what is most important to life.

>>14851212
That is completely wrong, and there are many similarities between his writings falling under the 6 section on the Tractatus and his PI writings. He never really debunked his insight of the importance of some things not being able to be said, only shown. This insight just transformed into what he later calls 'Lebensform'.

>>14851210
You legitimately can't evaluate what Heisenberg said to any extent without studying at least graduate level Physics. As in, even the theoretical aspects of it, even if you read some chewed up Physics for dummies wikipedia article. You can't appreciate the analogies he is making, or know exactly how far he is going. Heisenberg finding parallels in Wittgenstein is different to Wittgenstein finding parallels in Heisenberg (which, for obvious reasons, never happened). You are doing neither. Comparing this to religious thought makes it even worse, because you are the one who must take scientific ideas as dogmas coming from higher priests. To you Heisenberg is just some guy who said something you believe to be true. How would you go about verifying if his claims are real? (Friendly tip: If you go down this path you'll lose about 12 years of your life, but you might gain some actual insight about reality that philosophy books alone will never give you).

>>14851228
The saying/showing distinction has absolutely nothing to do with what I was attempting to convey - for that distinction pertains to logical form, *not* to what is colloquially referred to as the mystical (I despise that term) part of the Tractatus. Wittgenstein's inability to account for the ineffability of logical form is *not* what is "transformed" into the notion of "Lebensform" in his later philosophy. I did not in the slightest hint at logical form in my previous post. You are mistaken and likely a pseud anyway.

>>14851233
Evaluate your own statements and compare them to Heisenberg's. I feel sad and happy for you, because clearly you have passion in your life, yet it manifests itself with a quite teenager feeling of being special. My point is not that I can grasp Heisenberg's scientific contributions, as I cannot. My point is that if what you are saying were true, namely, that only the "greatest scientists" can "appreciate philosophy", it would be nonsensical to admit that philosophers who were not great scientists could themselves write worthy philosophy. I'm saying you're naive, young and cultish not because you FUCKING LOVE SCIENCE in a reddit sense. You simply lack elegance, insight and life experience. You're still in the early phases of your life, needing to destroy in order to affirm yourself. Heisenberg did not need to call out on Wittgenstein's like of training in Physics. He was able to see his contribution as worth his while. You're LARPing as a great scientist when you're a 20-something yo planning on becoming a great physicist. Yet you will not become such thing. You'll be, at max, a lab rat in your local department.

>>14851258
My post is only indirectly linked to his view of logical form. You most likely have never read the Philosophical Investigations if you think there is an absolute wedge between it and the TLP. It's ok, though. I don't expect to find cordial discussion on 4chan anyway.

>>14851157
the analogy in that Schrodinger quote is nice, easily fleshed out. Like how you could focus a laser on two different entry points (two different hypothesis) and have them exit the same point (identical conclusion) and vise versa.

>>14851160
>specially analytic philosophy.
Okay this is based I need to read Wittgenstein now.

>>14851258
By the way, the saying/showing has absolutely everything to do with what you were trying to convey. You merely paraphrased this from the Tractatus:

>6.52 We feel that even when all possible scientific questions have been answered, the problems of life remain completely untouched. Of course there are then no questions left, and this itself is the answer.

This is precisely what the logical positivists from Vienna could not grasp (and perhaps also the reason why they respected Wittgenstein so much). It's also what makes the show/talk distinction important. Although things such as ethical matters cannot be talked about, they can be shown by a person's life, choices and behaviors. When Wittgenstein proceeded to volunteer to go to war, to take up dangerous posts, to renounce his inheritance, he was trying to show something.

>>14851160
>but now that I'm in the outside, I don't know where to go.
See >>14851212

>>14851321
GTFO, Christcuck.

>>14851261
>FUCKING LOVE SCIENCE in a reddit sense
People who do this study computer engineering or some shit. I don't "FUCKING LOVE SCIENCE", I'm a scientist. There's a difference.
You also, despite your eloquence, seem to get trapped on the same philosophical mode of thinking that is common in humanities. You think me questioning Heisenberg or Wittgenstein is "destructive", when it is just the basic mode of operation of any science.
When physics students sit down for their Quantum Mechanics I class, they are not there to be indoctrinated and memorize quotes. They are aware they are studying the conclusions of some of the greatest scientific minds of the century, but they know they must also study and perform the measurements of other scientists, sometimes lesser known, to gain real insight into what these things mean. No Physics course in the world foregoes of experimental classes for a reason. It's really easy to fall into logical holes where unverifiable claims start piling up otherwise.
That image with the 4x4 comparison wants to lead people to believe "haha see, questioning philosophy is dumb, smart scientists don't do that", when the real conclusion is "the 4 guys on the right are not scientific researchers (3 of them aren't even physicists), and the other 4 guys had some of the most scientifically inquiring minds in the history of mankind, and helped develop experiments and tests to see which of their views was true. As a curiosity, because of this inquiring mind they had, they also often looked for parallels in eastern religions, western philosophy, etc).
The 4x4 image should be a wake up call that reading philosophy alone is indeed an empty voyage, just as much as just "FUCKING LOVING SCIENCE".

When I read Wittgenstein I felt the same way. But I had to finish Being & Time, I don't like to have unread books on my shelf, so I consciously ignored everything in Philosophical Investigations. Anyway, I'm far from being an expert on the subject, I need to read more books from this jew.

>>14850297
>You're insane if someone who's internalized Wittgenstein can go back to Plato except for aesthetic reasons.
I would agree. However isn't Plato also mysticism and not only philosophy? It wouldn't be senseless to go back.

>>14851175
>lying on the internet
>being a stupid fanboy

NDT is the most arrogant douchebag I've ever seen. Read the stupid things he wrote in the comment section of a philosopher site, after he got called out for his retarded comments. He only dug his hole deeper.

If anything, the image fails to capture how retarded Tyson actually is.

>>14850277
I think that if you read Wittgenstein, and feel that philosophy doesn't function in the same way for you any more, that means you *didn't* really get the point. Philosophy still serves the same function it always has: it's just that you recognize that the "philosophical" part is purely subjective and in a sense "poetic". The key quote is "Philosophy is not a body of doctrine but an activity".

LW himself still referred to God in his later writings, so clearly the word still meant something to him, even after he understood that the relationship between the word and what it made him feel was never going to be proven or reduced to a formula.

>>14851191
>who can most deeply appreciate philosophy.

Wittgenstein would get really mad at the fuzzy way you are using the word "appreciate" here.

>>14851444
Heisenberg would get really mad at the uncertain way you're using the word "fuzzy" here.

>>14851449
>>14851449
no, because it's clear what I mean from context.

It isn't clear in the case of the quoted sentence, and the ambiguity is part of an attempt by the poster to act as if he is making the same case great scientists would have made, by acting as if the poetic vagueness of most philosophy and the precision of science are somehow interchangeable, when they are, in fact opposites.

>>14851342
Not the guy you were quoting, but you're simply sperging out in a way no "great scientist" ever would. You're just butthurt because you'll forever be working in a lab under some grant-receiving academic. You're not a scientist, you're an undergraduate with an ego.

>>14851342
>It's really easy to fall into logical holes where unverifiable claims start piling up

isn't that the current status of string theory?

>It is all one to me whether or not the typical western scientist understands or appreciates my work, since he will not in any case understand the spirit in which I write. Our civilization is characterized by the word 'progress'. Progress is its form rather than making progress being one of its features. So I am not aiming at the same target as the scientists and my way of thinking is diffrent from theirs.

Holy, based.

>>14851308
That's a good point, thanks. Perhaps I'm mistaken in strictly demarcating Tractarian and post-Tractarian thought. I nevertheless think there's something to be said in favour of it. I'll sit on that over the next week.

>>14850277
>Is scientific philosophy truly impossible
I'm not exactly certain what you mean my "scientific philosophy," nor am I certain of what you have gleaned from Wittgenstein. But if I understand you correctly: just because it's impossible doesn't mean that it isn't worthwhile.
Every field of human endeavor, philosophy included (because most people, including - as you have perhaps realized - philosophers, do not share your views on the nature of language and reality) is rife with simple misunderstandings and abuses of semantics that should be easy for someone like you to pick apart. The development of the world mirrors your own growth, but at a much slower pace, so you can be useful by helping it along given your mature point of view.
>Where do I go from here
Now that you know what you know, perhaps you also realize that you exist in what amounts to a playground. Do what you want.
>>14850297
Ironically, muh allegory of the cave provides for a way out of the Platonic maze, too. Don't dismiss Plato.

>>14851546
You have no arguments, so you're resorting to attacking me instead. Both of you only call this sperging because you're used to someone who refuses to bow down when it comes to talking about your mythical figures.
>>14851556
It is and it's heavily criticized for these precise reasons.

>>14850277
Congratulations, you got jewed. Don't read jewish authors without protecting your mind from their nihilistic ways of thought.

>>14851598
My point of view is thus: Heisenberg, a real scientist (not a genetic dead-end 4chan user) was able to respect philosophical thought created by non-physicists. You, a nobody, insists one can only achieve enlightenment through science. Make of that what you will, NDT.

>>14851613
My point of view is: Heisenberg, a scientist, studied science as means of better describing reality, and on his free time read up on sources from other fields to find possible interesting parallels. You (not a philosopher, not a scientist, and quite possibly more of a nobody than me), keep name dropping scientists whose contributions you don't understand, thinking this convinces someone with an IQ above the triple digit threshold because this works with your humanities friends.
This is perhaps the best thing about science. One might admire a scientist as a fun past time, but when it comes to dissecting their ideas, all argument of authority is cast aside, and measurements reign supreme.
No amount of butthurt or name calling on your end can change this. I could die unknown and unpublished in the scientific world, and yet I'd still learn more about the world in a single well done measurement than in a thousand opinions emitted by people like you.

>>14851642
Go to grad school first, kid.

>>14851650
You shouldn't have dropped out of college, gramps.

If you've internalized Wittgenstein, it means philosophical problems are no longer troubling you. That's good, OP.

>>14851181
cringe ‘measure something’ stemlord, off to hell

Wittgenstein is only taken seriously because he's Jewish, heavily autistic and Bertrand Russell's last hope that his work on logic wasn't a waste of his life.

This man's work can be summarised by saying "I haven't studied much of philosophy, but what I did study I didn't understand, therefore all philosophy is a waste of time because the only languages I can grasp are numbers and boolean operators."

His whole work on language can be refuted by saying that the referent or meaning behind a word can exist without the word itself. Yet such a thought does not compute in this autistic mind. A failed engineer with a penchant for logic who had his ego inflated and not a philosopher.

>>14850277
My philosophical ramblings will fix ya right up m8, i'll pm you when they're published

>>14851142
>Every kid who's been to school has done that

>>14851876
Are you retarded? He literally addresses your point in the first 80 sections of the Philosophical Investigations. You have to go back.

>>14851181
Fuck off idiot, empirical science is an ally to philosophy and one of its greatest invention. It belongs to people of culture, not American sperglords who think it's more cool than theory because it's used to code their coomer shit.

>>14851937

Quote him then faggot

>>14852116
>Let us first discuss this point of the argument: that a word has no meaning if nothing corresponds to it.—It is important to note that the word "meaning" is being used illicitly if it is used to signify the thing that 'corresponds' to the word. That is to confound the meaning; of a name with the bearer of the name. When Mr. N. N. dies o one says that the bearer of the name dies, not that the meaning dies. And it would be nonsensical to say that, for if the name ceased to have meaning it would make no sense to say "Mr. N. N. is dead."

>41. In §15 we introduced proper names into language (8). Now suppose that the tool with the name "N" is broken. Not knowing this, A gives B the sign "N". Has this sign meaning now or not?— What is B to do when he is given it?—We have not settled anything about this. One might ask: what will he do? Well, perhaps he will stand there at a loss, or shew A the pieces. Here one might say: "N" has become meaningless; and this expression would mean that the sign "N" no longer had a use in our language-game (unless we gave it a new one). "N" might also become meaningless because, for whatever reason, the tool was given another name and the sign "N" no longer used in the language-game.—But we could also imagine a convention whereby B has to shake his head in reply if A gives him the sign belonging to a tool that is broken.—In this way the command "N" might be said to be given a place in the language-game even when the tool no longer exists, and the sign "N" to have meaning even when its bearer ceases to exist

>44. We said that the sentence "Excalibur has a sharp blade" made sense even when Excalibur was broken in pieces. Now this is so because in this language-game a name is also used in the absence of its bearer. But we can imagine a language-game with names (that is, with signs which we should certainly include among names) in which they are used only in the presence of the bearer; and so could always be replaced by a demonstrative pronoun and the gesture of pointing.

There are many more passages leading up to his metaphilosophical stance. They're right in the beginning of the book and the only way you would've missed them is if you've never read th PI.

>>14851876
kys retard

>>14850277
Read critiques on Wittgenstein. Maybe some will stick.

>>14850523
Rght, but you need to read him to find that out, because why would I trust yor word, you lying son of a bitch?

>>14851876
this post is embarrassing
don't ever talk about wittgenstein again

>Consider for example the proceedings that we call "games". I mean board-games, card-games, ball-games, Olympic games, and so on. What is common to them all? -- Don't say: "There must be something common, or they would not be called 'games' "-but look and see whether there is anything common to all. -- For if you look at them you will not see something that is common to all, but similarities, relationships, and a whole series of them at that. To repeat: don't think, but look!
>Look for example at board-games, with their multifarious relationships.
>Now pass to card-games; here you find many correspondences with the first group, but many common features drop out, and others appear
>When we pass next to ball-games, much that is common is retained, but much is lost.-- Are they all 'amusing'? Compare chess with noughts and crosses. Or is there always winning and losing, or competition between players? Think of patience. In ball games there is winning and losing; but when a child throws his ball at the wall and catches it again, this feature has disappeared. Look at the parts played by skill and luck; and at the difference between skill in chess and skill in tennis.
>...
>I can think of no better expression to characterize these similarities than "family resemblances"; for the various resemblances between members of a family: build, features, colour of eyes, gait, temperament, etc. etc. overlap and cries-cross in the same way.-And I shall say: 'games' form a family.
>And for instance the kinds of number form a family in the same way. Why do we call something a "number"? Well, perhaps because it has a-direct-relationship with several things that have hitherto been called number; and this can be said to give it an indirect relationship to other things we call the same name. And we extend our concept of number as in spinning a thread we twist fibre on fibre. And the strength of the thread does not reside in the fact that some on e fibre runs through its whole length, but in the overlapping of many fibres.

>>14851321
Take your cult and shove it up your ass.

>>14851600
wittgenstein hated jews

>>14853287
so he hated himself?

>>14853294
probably yes. But in culture and value he likens jews in europe to a cancerous growth.

>>14851114
The semantics / pragmatics distinction only even makes sense in the wake of Wittgenstein, his disciples, and the Oxford philosophers.

Grice additionally was fueled primarily by the instinct that in natural language, 'everything was in order,' something else that makes no sense prior to Wittgenstein.

>>14851181
What do I gain from measuring something?

>>14852483
People take this seriously today? It reads like something I'd come up with while stoned if I smoked weed. At least he's halfway toward Tegmark.

>>14850277
Here OP: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3UxvycpqYo

>>14853698
The joy of feeling and contending with the constraints of reality, which thought needs to brush up against to be fruitful.

>>14853484
Except Wittgenstein would never separate them in this manner. That's also why non-Ordinary Language Philosophers (including Grice, ironically) are always talking about Wittgensteinians "conflating semantics with pragmatics".

>>14850277
Children's poetry.

>>14851642
>I'd still learn more about the world in a single well done measurement than in a thousand opinions emitted by people like you.
What have your learned thus? Is it something that people like Wittgenstein (and OP) wouldn't have known?

Where you go now is Sextus Empiricus, Outlines of Scepticism. Embrace the scepticism and use it. Enjoy it.

>>14855255
Based, although Wittgenstein refutes scepticism, Sextus Empiricus is based as Fuck.

>>14855267
Yeah I mean technically Sextus also refutes it. Wittgenstein is often called a Neo-pyrrhonist.

>>14855311
If that is true and since Pyrrhonism is just western Buddhism then why not read pic related and then complete the system by embracing Nagarjuna?

>>14856089
Yes I would recommend Nagarjuna, especially dispeller of disputes. Also zhuangzi.

>>14850277
Go to Popper my friend. There is the light.

>>14857785
Here's your Popper, bro.

>>14852483
Wow, what a Jewish way of putting something. Gotta be honest with you anon, the fact hes even a mitschling or whatever makes me instantly yawn, turn 180 and walk away.

Wittgenstein does not 'refute' anything but shows conceptual errors in philosophy that lead to conceptual puzzles - skepticism is one of these. The private language arguments for example show the premise no which skepticism founded is a confusion.

Nagarjuna is doing something different, his is a soteriological system showing the emptiness of intrinsic nature in order to abandon the cause of suffering, self clinging.