In a way. What W was getting at was that the referent of the word 'pain' is a linguistic entity, therefore public not private. It connects to other words but not to the extrra-lingual experience which is cognitively inaccessible. The world that we live and move in floats on the rest of our experience.
Language is a social construction (read Lev Vygotsky) which cannot be given to anyone but has to be constructed wih everybody. If you restrict your interactions only to philosophers, your constructions will be understood only by them. Although I am not a philospher but a physicist, I agree with Wittgenstein.
@Grawpify A scientist is a philosopher. In order to produce a hypothesis and devise an effective way to verify it THEN sift the results into an intelligible theory is to do philosophy. There is a reason science has been so influential to philosophy. And why the thoughts of so many philosophers creep up in science.
'A dog cannot speak' is senseless, since a dog that speaks would not be a dog. On the other hand, both dogs and lions DO have an oral language. And we often DO understand it. Without translation!
Wittgenstein's view that there arent philosophical problems is equivalent to him saying "my school of thought" is that there aren't any. It is merely a method of attack. By devaluing the problem, one avoids being responsible for giving an "answer." It seems more than obvious to me. It might be called "contradiction," "denial," or how about merely denying our emotional value of something.
What I mean is that we, humans, call it lying. A dog would never call it lying and even if he'd call it 'woof waaf' (also our interpretation and translation of the sound a dog makes), it wouldn't be lying. Imagine I grew up in isolation, in some forest. I'd never see a tree, why not? I don't know what 'tree' means. If someone were to explain to me what a tree was, only then I'd know. Until then, the only thing I saw would be a thing some humans, who not grew up in isolation, call 'trees'.
Al-Gazali also argued that there is no such a thing as philosophy. What we call philosophy is either mathematics, logic, religion, or ethics. In this clip, Wittgenstein says "there are linguistic, mathematical, ethical, logistic, and religious problem, but there is no genuine philosophical problem." The two positions look very similar. Indeed, Al-Gazali's suggestion would lead to say that philosophers did really muddy the waters, and that philosophy is just a by-product of all of the above.
Yes, I am. The way he presents his lecture somehow doesn't make me trust his words, it doesn't provoke me to ponder about it, his awkward style takes over all my attention and makes me regard the lecturer as not fully sane. Even Crowe's Nash looked more normal, although he was supposed to be a schizophrenic. Of course, that's only my first impression.
Conventionalism being the prenominal logic of individuation functionality. You still die when the red car functions conventionally by swinging across the dx of all lanes of traffic. Maybe, that's why this only happens in the movies. Tangent to radius of circle as orthogonal agreement...? Operation & phenomena.....?
That would make sense...if Wittgenstein was discussing the Tractatus here instead of The Investigations. In fact this movie is a pretty good summery of The Investigations, for a movie.
@fravatel Everyone uses their own dictionary, since no two people share exactly the same meaning of a word (I would argue). If two people share roughly the same meaning for a word then it is a bonus. All people necessarily make claims in their own personal language, which is shared perfectly by nobody. Since philosophy is primarily an individual rather than a social pursuit the sharing of language is much less important than it would be for a social pursuit, like business and courtship.
"Oh dear...he can't bear disagreement, can he?" A bit of an understatement, really...but perhaps I have simply misunderstood the picture he was attempting to represent with that arbitrary linguistic sign? ;)
...Consists of sounds, utherings, most, all of them actually, not symbolizing anything. Just easy examples "help", "where", "maybe "symbol", language", "right", "wrong"... What do the sounds, that the letters above "do" symbolize, symbolize?
perhaps it was that Witt. and his likes (and through Heidegger, later also existentialists), were finally able to move on after Nietzsche's postmodern dead-end road of authenticity. A problem of current philosophy and social science is the inherent normative construction of representation in approaching perception. This occurs due to social scientific data of overly complex social reality, leaving us to break down western epistemological fundaments (sometimes conceptualized as "postmodernism").
@jupta00 It's my opinion that two people cannot share the same meaning of any word - even a word for abstract concepts like "square" or the number "one". This is mainly because people are not clear thinkers and their thoughts are polluted by emotions and other thoughts. However, if people were clear thinkers then they might indeed be able to share the same meanings of words, and therefore be able to understand each other. But that is an ideal situation.
1) laws of physics are not laws, just descriptions of observations limited in time and space and capacity of observation. 2) W. doesn't mock the question of "what time is". He just asks why should time be "something". No response came around so far. 3) Why can't people treat the Tractatus just as an interesting piece of museum? W. did. Never again did tried to impose any limitations to language, to the contrary only expanded its application.Why can't people just let the Tractatus rest in peace?
Wittgenstein's view that there arent philosophical problems is equivalent to him saying "my school of thought" is that there aren't any. It is merely a method of attack. By devaluating the problem, you avoid giving an "answer," as it were. It seems more than obvious to me. It might be called "contradiction" or how about merely degrading our emotional value of something.
I think you are fundamentally right. Signs/symbols are not for things, but the purpose of language is communication. We can stop here. Philosophy is superfluous. Here it tries to clarify how language works. It doesn't change anything, unlike science. I think it is fun. Wittgenstein said in the Preface of his "Tractatus": "Its objective will be attained if there will be one person who reads it with understanding and to whom it affords pleasure". Mission accomplished as far as I am concerned.
perhaps this was asked before but, who are those people listening the lecture, I mean aside from the "(Cambridge) students". We have Bertrand Russell with the reddish cape, perhaps the one with the moustache is Nietzsche? who else?
Well, he was right. And everyone else was wrong. It can lead to a certain - disagreeableness ;') Wish I could catch the movie. I haven't seen it online.
No offense to the great man but he did set Philosophical inquiry back a few decades and I have made it my lifes work to undo the confusion that he generated.
I’m really attracted to LWs intensity of thinking or more specifically how he engages us with the processes of thought and how we can catch ourselves not really concentrating. I was put off when I first read the Tractatus decades ago because I didn’t or couldn’t grasp the mathematical symbols etc but I loved and felt extremely grateful (to him) for The Philosophical Investigations. He died relatively young (62) and I always wonder what else he might have written late in life.
I wrote two comments, Just wanna make sure you read them both, because it sounds like you didn't. I was talking about a machine(with AI to discover knowledge) on its own trying to understand the human concepts by peeking into a human brain. My point is if an entity in itself does not have the capability to feel human emotions, then it cannot understand human emotions merely by looking into a human's mind, just like since we are not lions, we don't feel the same things a lion feels.
W. Spent lifetime showing that language is NOT expression of thoughts. Thoughts happen IN language. The meaningful and expressiveness of expressions like "like I kind of like" (puns not intended) is what make him debunk his Tractatus LOGICO Philosophicus, which searched for a logical structure of language.
I think I almost agree with Wittgenstein about language and philosophy: watch?v=oSjRRp_3SSI Except I use to communicate very well with my dog because of the dog's body language. My dog always managed to tell me when he wanted a walk (he'd grab his leash and lay it in my lap) and when he wanted to eat he'd bring his empty bowl. We lived in the same world and how I acted in his world was important.
Johnson is great in this. I've had actor friends and they often drove me nuts with their actor ways. but this is a terrific reconstruction of a person. it's what actors ought to be good at and sometimes are.
I doubt the real Wittgenstein was so foolish as to leave, he would surely have elaborated the point. Plus, what we see here is Wittgenstein no. 2, which is just as interesting as Wittgenstein no. 1 :)
The muddy waters were muddied by philosophers. Wittgenstein clarifies them. Why immerse himself in that mud (what you call exploration beyond the obvious). His progress comes from dissolving, not solving, problems that are not. Indeed, he does not go beyond the obvious.He shows it, which only becomes such, however, as a result of a search that is all but superficial, rather a hard work of genius. It is an ah! dah! thing. Not otiose. Philosopher's (not all) way out of a maddening fly bottle.
Because I am not a dog. And because the cool drawing was quite revealing. I wonder how many times he rehearsed that one. By the way, a dog may wonder sometimes. Like, what humans mean when they command : 'lie'! Ooops, pun not intended.
@poli4007 Thnx but the dilemma I have is not in whether he would have liked it or not (that cannot be determined by what's available so I don't know how you know), it is the impact on someone gaining an unsuitable opinion of the man's philosophy or style based on watching a RU-vid video of a bad movie. And I refute that he would have liked a movie ridiculing him because he was very defensive (but I didn't know him anymore than you do).
isn't there a flaw when he says there's no context for doubt when the guy hits himself - WE could doubt it, as onlookers, therefore there is a context for doubt, Wittgenstein's prerequisite. But the original point made by the student remains - only HE knows it.
dont get me wrong but (last name ) + (first name) = (first name) +(last name) i did not do anything wrong Mike Smith = Smith Mike . There are no rules for word order in names .
Why is it that the dog could not lie simply because it wouldn't understand our man-made concept of lying? If you grew up in isolation not knowing language and upon meeting me deceived me somehow, would it be wrong to describe what you did as such (I use deception in case we think 'lying' requires human language to engage in) Is it necessary that only a human can be described as lying? Surely it depends on our definitions? Your 'tree' is just as much a tree as whatever you would describe it as.
@drunkcanuck604 You wouldn't. It's not part of lion's language game, its stream of life. It's the same criticism against AI which presupposes a computer one day may mimick human intellect. If a robot were to say "the grass is behaving badly today," you would know intuitively that the robot is speaking nonsense, that it really doesn't underatand what it said b/c that kind of talk is not part of a robot's stream of life, its language game.
And 1 more: I didn't say Plato muddies waters as if it were my opinion that he did, I was just reusing the comment to which I replied which accused all philosophers of muddying waters and saying that although such proves otiose quite often that muddy waters (exploration beyond the grain of the obvious) is where progress comes from.
@XZohar123 At the very least, mathematics emerged from the cocoon of philosophy. Consider its beginnings. I don't think I would be very hard pressed to find an intellectual of either field that would be willing to admit that.
What is the purpose of using language? That is what he was trying to answer. But in order to solve it, he had to explore what the hell language is actually good for. He thought he got it down in the Tractatus, but later realized there's no formal logic (i.e. order) that can be applied to language usage - a false assumption that has lasted in philosophy since the Greeks (thank you Socrates). THAT'S why people think he's the shit.
@crackedout123 .. I guess I'm not cut out for .. either philosophy or Witgenstein.. If it gets more complicated than necessary .. pfff.. I find it well overcomplicating stuff. I got interested when I hear T. McKenna mention his concept "the unspeakable" but .. I'm thinking I see a pineapple.. fine, he will see a overcomplicated mess, but it's still a pineapple. It's not very practical.. hmm..
@EugenicMutant Wittgenstein was Austrian you fool. Also, Jarman's work is not to be taken literally. Whether the actor nailed his accent or not, you cannot deny that he is the spitting image of Ludwig.
Anything that starts the laws of physics are not laws is bound to lead to disturbed ends. What is your definition of "mock" "law"? What leads you to believe the Tractatus is not a museum piece? W. continues discussing the limits of language throughout the Blue and Brown books and into the Philosophical Investigations. I have never taken the Tractatus serious. In fact I prefer not to read it. For anyone who doesn't quite get what a law is, Karl Popper offers the best exposition about laws.
I am not sure there can be any justification, everything that can be said is either in accordance with the facts or not in accordance with the facts :-)
Is that how he taught? His writing seems more straight forward than this lecture. It was my understanding that his lectures where merely students just taking notes in a crowded classroom with him talking for over an hour.
@igotkiwi Like the rules in chess does not explicitly command you to win, but humans will try to win or else there is no point playing. The world has a lot of physics laws, but none of them commands you to be good or find truth, the only reason humans seek for it is that they think it should be. Perhaps he means something like that.
That's quite clear, clarify language. Now we must try to see the practical approaches it can have ,for example, as a therapy philosophers could talk to people and identify if some of their "existential problems" are not consecuences of contradictions in their concepts. Or also as a therapy use some philosophical systems, for example, I have a friend who does that with Nietzsche.
I admit I only undertand about 1/3 of what Wittgenstein writes. So, I look at the thinkers life. I know he was part Jewish. I am sure he was gay and he had three brothers who committed suicide. I read up on books about his life. This is easier for me to understand and by understanding his behaivior, I get a glimpse into his thoughts. I go in the backdoor of the physical to get to the waves inside his brain. Then I understand "Is." I did this with Nietzsche, too, and understood "will."
I resonate with Wittgenstein, but this makes a genius look like a twit. Even though the actor really looks like him. Also his students were devotees who copied down every word, not joking frat boys. Instead of thinking about a duck-rabbit this movie had me thinking of Bertrand Russell's comment about Dr. Barnes in Philadelphia. Russell said Barnes was so irascible he could only get along with dogs and people of color over whom he felt superior. This movie puts Wittgenstein in a similar box.
Ludwig, please do not shout so much and stomp out of the room. When the fly finally is shown the way out of the fly-bottle, there is a fly swatter waiting for it. SMACK! End of philosophical problems for the little fly. (I am thinking the little creature does have a "private language"--I hear little variations in the buzz sounds.)
The only good thing about this flick, is the physical resemblance of the actor with Wittgenstein *(that's all). It is very pretentious and only answers to the needs of those not willing to do any thinking of their own & distracts from what it is to really think quite hard about some very difficult questions.
'If a lion could talk we would not understand him,' says Wittgenstein. He might have added, for clarity, NOR COULD THERE BE ANY POSSIBILITY OF TRANSLATION. A fortiori: 'If an extraterrestrial could talk...'. This is bad news for SETI.
@republicofsandles For instance can a machine understand why we are willing to die or kill our own kind for the greater good? Or why we believe in a god which has nothing to do with our operations as alive beings, but what happens to us after we are dead. A machine cannot understand these things because its not a human being, similarly we cannot understand things about lion because we are not a lion.
I don't really get Wittgenstein's view often, even his basic pholosophy on language cultivating reality, I mean...isn't language created to convey and explain information existing in this world and furthermore? Language is merely just a tool for human conversation and imagination isn't it... anyone help
It is a common big misconception that of seeing Wittgenstein as clarifying the use of language for regular use in human communication. His therapeutical work is directed specifically to philosophers who "muddy the waters" giving and searching for hidden meanings and functions that language doesn't have , never had, and is not supposed to have. He treats a philosophical disease and philosophers are the only patients, with questions like "what is love?". Have they forgotten?, asks Wittgenstein.
Also, dogs are very smart indeed. They can understand some of human's language and humans cannot understand theirs (or it(?) wouldn't be a human). Maybe a dog can lie to another. Humans will never know!
W's point, I think: Pretty much all human problems, philosophical or otherwise, arise from misunderstanding language: either in the specific instance of mistranslation or mis-signification, or in the more general problemics of language, per se. Without language, there really are no "problems." Hence the dog/lion/pineapple. This is really quite astonishingly good.
