3 ms·

The relationship is that one of the reasons cited by the article for why Wittgenstein is overrated is because he's difficult to understand. That's not a valid

The relationship is that one of the reasons cited by the article for why Wittgenstein is overrated is because he's difficult to understand. That's not a valid argument. Being difficult to understand is not a fault in somebody who is in the business of having to explain difficult things all the time. And the fact that the author thinks it's a valid argument makes me think that the author subscribes to the same fallacious cultural norm that PHB (pointy-haired boss) subscribes to when he puts the burden on Dilbert to have to work harder to make himself understood by PHB, rather than PHB taking it upon himself to have to work harder to try to understand Dilbert. Why am I saying it's not a valid argument? Say you read Wittgenstein, and it strikes you that he is difficult to understand, but, despite that feeling of difficulty, your takeaway from reading Wittgenstein is some idea that you think is the idea Wittgenstein is trying to express. At that point you have no way of knowing whether the idea you took away is correct or incorrect, whether it is complete or incomplete as a reflection of what it is that Wittgenstein was trying to say. You furthermore think to yourself: Boy, that idea that was my takeaway from Wittgenstein, I could explain that very easily so that a 6-year old could understand. World view A: Holds most dearly the notion of a complex idea explained so simply that a 6-year-old can understand. World view B: Holds that any idea that can be grasped by a 6-year-old couldn't have been all that complex to begin with. World view A, together with a personality trait of overconfidence, departs from the assumption that your understanding of Wittgenstein is perfect and arrives at the conclusion that Wittgenstein is doing a shitty job making himself understood. World view B departs from the observation that your understanding of Wittgenstein is such that it could be grasped by a 6-year-old. Granting that the stuff that some of the most famous philosophers of all time were talking about when they were exchanging ideas on philosophy is not stuff that a 6-year-old could understand, you would arrive at the conclusion that your understanding of Wittgenstein is probably incorrect and/or incomplete. Now. Overconfident stupid people tend to go through life adopting world view A. Throughout their whole lives they have the experience of smart people talking to them in a complicated way, and taking away ideas that a 6-year-old can understand. Well. If it looks that way to you, it's probably because, being stupid, you only understand half of what they're saying. And, in your perception: Complex ideas simply do not exist. But the world is filled with people explaining simple ideas in complex ways. Well, to such people I have something to say: "Complex ideas do exist. And I'm done trying to explain them to you and feeling bad when failing." And Wittgenstein is not a world-famous historical figure due to being overrated. Rather Crispin Sartwell is somebody no one has ever heard of for reasons that seem to me to be entirely rightful.

ivalm 7y ago
My claim isnt that wittengstein's ideas can be explained to a 6 year old or are simple or that he is overrated. My claim is that blog author's perception of wittengstein is shaped by how wittengstein wrote. Which is a style that was common for philosophers of the time. The style of expression has little to do with the difficulty of the idea. I regularly read/write scientific papers that would be very hard to meaningfully express to a 6 year old. However, good modern papers do use a direct style with few independent clauses and indexical references. This was not the prevalent style for wittgenstein or even modern continental philosophy. Tldr, writing style matters and can confuse people independent of idea complexity. Edit: more thought, in physics (and other math heavy field) we often rename sub-expressions with variable names to make formulas written subsequently shorter and more comprehensible. This means that we often write extra lines of text simply to segment out different concepts so no one line is too hard to understand/too long. This makes it easier to understand the "important" parts.

ivalm 7y ago

My claim isnt that wittengstein's ideas can be explained to a 6 year old or are simple or that he is overrated. My claim is that blog author's perception of wittengstein is shaped by how wittengstein wrote. Which is a style that was common for philosophers of the time. The style of expression has little to do with the difficulty of the idea. I regularly read/write scientific papers that would be very hard to meaningfully express to a 6 year old. However, good modern papers do use a direct style with few independent clauses and indexical references. This was not the prevalent style for wittgenstein or even modern continental philosophy. Tldr, writing style matters and can confuse people independent of idea complexity. Edit: more thought, in physics (and other math heavy field) we often rename sub-expressions with variable names to make formulas written subsequently shorter and more comprehensible. This means that we often write extra lines of text simply to segment out different concepts so no one line is too hard to understand/too long. This makes it easier to understand the "important" parts.