Talk:Ludwig Wittgenstein/Archive 7

This is an archive of past discussions about Ludwig Wittgenstein. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Archive 1

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Archive 5

Suggestion for this Forum

This page was becoming quite unwieldy so I forked off two subtopics. Suggest this be done for more, possibly retrieving still vital elements from the archives. Suggest "Eccentricities", "Significance", and "Untersuchungen" as additional ones. Lycurgus 08:29, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Criticism

I think this article needs a section containing criticism of Wittgenstein's views. PJ 09:57, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, I think this needs to be linked with the page Wittgenstein's Poker. This guy Wittgenstein is so revered yet, as this book shows, he was in fact a terrible person and his philosophy was defeated way back in the 50's. He was a violent warmonger and he also shares that sickly look of Jesus. Harry Frankfurt's recent book On Bullshit discusses how Wittgenstein was insensative to the suffering of others. Wittgenstein and Heidegger were like the same guy -both very influential and both were unethical with philosophies opposed to realism. Bertrand Russell and Emmanuel Levinas offer similar, yet more original and more important philosophies-Teetotaler 2/16/07 —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 75.68.22.207 (talk) 07:50, 17 February 2007 (UTC).

Criticism, commentary, and where it ought to go

I agree—and it needs a lot more than that, besides. The section dealing with the Tractatus, for instance, makes repeated use of the phrase "some commentators" without any indication of who these commentators might be. Aside from the fact that this looks terribly unprofessional and verges on a weasely circumvention of Wikipedia's policy concerning original research, it is also very unhelpful to the reader. These phrases need to be replaced with internally-linked references to actual people. Furthermore, the stand-alone articles dealing with both of Wittgenstein's major works contain nothing at all dealing with the reception of these works. Considering that Wittgenstein is one of the most influential and controversial philosophers of the 20th century, this is really absurd.

Maybe the most immediate question, in view of what seems to be a mania around here (i.e., in the Wikipedia) for linked pages rather than single comprehensive articles, is whether the situation ought to be rectified on the main Wittgenstein page or on the pages dealing with each work. My inclination would be to keep all the work-related info on the main page, and simply re-direct all searches for specific works to that page. But since that seems not to be the way things are done around here, I guess we should pare-down the work-related entries on the main page and flesh-out the entries on the work-specific pages (to avoid not only redundancy but, much worse, contradiction) with well-sourced sections on the reception of Wittgenstein's ideas.

But before I start deleting the fruits of other people's (and my own) labor, let's get some more input on this. What do the rest of you think: Should we expand the main-page subsections on his works, with re-directs to that page for work-specific searches? Or should we expand the work-specific pages and shrink the entries dealing with works on the main page? Buck 19:06, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

Seconded. Verificationist reactions to Use "theory" and the Russell punch-in-the-stomach example suggested as starting point—Preceding unsigned comment added by Tempest VIII (talk • contribs) 03:32, 17 April 2006

I think the best thing to do would be, as you said, to shorten the sections in this article on his work and expand the separate articles dealing with those topics. Since this is a biographical article on Wittgenstein, perhaps only the biographical material is precisely relevant, and all the philosophical material can go on the other pages. As you said, the sections on his work need major, well, work. As for criticism, there seems to be a trend in which it is deemed necessary to have criticism and contrary viewpoints, instead of merely exegesis and commentary. Without slipping out of a NPOV I think it's possible to give a good exegesis and an a summary of his work's reception without including criticism all over the place. Wikipedia is not a place where competing philosophies battle it out, but where information on a philosopher is presented. That's why I think we ought to stick with exegesis and a general assessment of his work's reception. Certainly this will include the fact that many did (and still don't) care for his work, but this is distinct from putting actual criticism in the article. Enigma00 (talk) 18:11, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

By all means someone add some criticisms if they can - philosophical rather than moral, please. You will find though, that many people whose position differs from Wittgenstein's have not even read him and therefore don't offer an adequate criticism. For this reason it is wildly inaccurate to say that his position was "defeated in the 1950s."Cleeliberty (talk) 13:33, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

Notable Ideas

I made a change under Notable Ideas on the sidebar, because what was there regarding his later thought was actually something that can be applied to both his early and later philosophy, viz., that philosophical problems arise from confusions involving language.

I have tried to change it such that it reflects more acurately the shift in his thought. Enigma00 05:39, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

I see that somebody has changed the notable ideas section without notice here, and the change is fine. But I felt I should add something to do with his private language argument.Enigma00 04:49, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Major Issue with later work

In the article there is nothing said about the problem with the philosophical investigations and the understanding of the later works structure which is crucial for understanding. The current editor of the Nachlass "On his death, Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951) left behind a philosophical Nachlass of some 20,000 pages", http://www.inst.at/trans/10Nr/pichler10.htm. The style of writing is so important that it should be considered as a new form of philosophical inquiry.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.177.164.98 (talk) 09:57, 14 September 2007

Bygosh and bygolly, the bloke never got off a completed or coherent work after the Tractatus and here we are launching into Wittgenstein Studies! Lycurgus 21:22, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

And there are good reasons for that which lie directly in the work itself. The main topic of the later work has to do with coherence of thought manifested by the texts themselves and the process of production. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.177.151.212 (talk) 11:25, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Uh...I do not think that is the main topic of the later work; that should be plainly obvious. Perhaps there should be a comment about the style of the work, and the reason for it (Wittgenstein explains this in the preface) but I simply do not see the "major issue" that you do. Enigma00 15:06, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

There is no preface and there is no published work. Any account that suggests that the philosophical investigations are a publication of L.W. is just simply false. If you want to dispute my point you better bring some arguments. 'I don't see the point' is not an argument. If somebody works for 20 years and doesn't publish a single page there must be quite obviously a serious reason. This is even more true for a person who, at the beginning of this work was arguably most widely regarded as the most important philosopher of the time. So either L.W. didn't have any interest in the reception of his work at all or just didn't manage to publish.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.60.105.148 (talk) 15:14, 20 September 2007

Actually Part I of the Investigations WAS in its final form, and it was Part II that was added on by the editors (maybe because the material that it contains would have been edited down and included in Part I had he gotten around to it? I don't know). The preface (as far as I know) was written to correspond with the manuscript of Part I, which he decided not to publish, for reasons that I'm not clear on right now. You are clearly being irrational and neglectful of the facts. Enigma00 06:10, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

Just want to be clear I didn't make the comment above. No idea who did but log should indicate something. Lycurgus 16:14, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

So I am being "clear irrational" when you first don't bother to bring an argument and second don't give any sources. It seems that you know little about the situation, but attack my points for no clear reason without bothering to consider my arguments. 1. The preface was never written for a work called PI. 2. Any part can not have been it its final form, but the closest piece of work close to publication was the Big Typescript. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.56.59.1 (talk) 19:56, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

I notice that you fault me for not giving sources yet you give none of your own. Please enlighten me (with sources) as to how the PI is not really a true work of W's and how we've all gone astray. Enigma00 04:42, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

I've not given sources? That is an easy thing to check. Right up there I gave a source which presents the situation in detail. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.56.59.1 (talk) 22:53, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

But it doesn't tell me WHY I ought not to consider PI Part I a work of Wittgenstein's, or at least, if it does, I can't see it. Enigma00 17:05, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

This leads nowhere. Why even bother? Inform yourself and make some arguments if you want to have a debate.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.56.59.1 (talk) 21:59, 30 September 2007

Areas of Interest

Currently the areas of interest are listed as: "Metaphysics, Epistemology, Logic, Philosophy of language, Philosophy of mathematics". Given Wittgenstein's voluminous remarks on psychology and psychological concepts, should we not include Philosophy of Mind or Philosophy of Psychology? I know that Phil of Mind can sometimes be subsumed under 'Metaphysics' (though this is perhaps up for debate), but I think we should make a distinction here. Opinions? Enigma00 02:19, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Wovon man nicht sprechen kann ...

"Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muß man schweigen" ("Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent"). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.95.236.142 (talk) 20:26, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

"Wovon man nicht sprechen kann ..." translation

"Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muß man schweigen" ("Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent").

The german muss, as far as I know, does /not/ mean 'must', but rather means 'should'.

Hence the correct translation is: Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one should be silent.
Personally I think this is an important nuance that is lost in 'thereof one must be silent'.

bjd

— Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.95.236.142 (talk) 20:32, 13 October 2007

Well, that's from the Ogden translation, which I believe was assisted by Frank Ramsey and commented on by W. himself. The Pears and McGuiness translation also uses "must" (though they render the whole phrase different; "What we cannot speak about we must pass over in silence."). Given both of these facts, plus three on-line translation sources (Dictionary.com, Babelfish, and The Maschler German-English Online Dictionary) giving me the meaning of "must", I think you may be wrong on this one.Enigma00 06:30, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

Suggestion for this Forum

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