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OK. Names aside I'm not sure how much you know about Wittgenstein. I'm far from an expert but - he did largely refute the Tractatus later in life but reasons th

OK. Names aside I'm not sure how much you know about Wittgenstein. I'm far from an expert but - he did largely refute the Tractatus later in life but reasons that are probably the opposite of what you're implying. If anything his later works attempts to be less rigorous because he reached the conclusion that attempting rigour in language was deeply flawed. Like I said - I'm no expert and I've never read Wittgenstein first hand - but I do struggle when people casually dismiss the work of thousands of smart, sincere people over thousands of years.

lisper 3y ago
> I'm not sure how much you know about Wittgenstein. Not much. But I don't have to know much to make my case here. All I have to do is point to the Tractatus, which really is manifest nonsense, and point out that publishing this bit of manifest nonsense didn't seem to hurt Wittgenstein's career much. Tractatus is not the only example of this sort of thing, just the one that sticks out in my mind as the most blatant. And this is not to say that Wittgenstein, or philosophy in general, never produced anything of value. But the problem is that to find the value you have to wade through all this horse shit, so it's so much more effort than it needs to be. A stopped clock is right twice a day. That doesn't mean there is any value in consulting it to find out what time it is.
- keiferski 3y ago
  Calling something "manifest nonsense" while not understanding it, or even attempting to understand it, seems like a clear example of "manifest nonsense" to me.
  - lisper 3y ago
    You apparently failed to note this sibling comment: > Wittgenstein himself states that the Tractatus is nonsense in its closing pages. > My propositions are elucidatory in this way: he who understands me finally recognizes them as senseless...
    - keiferski 3y ago
      Senseless and nonsense are not the same thing, and if you had read the book, you’d understand this.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- steppi 3y ago
  Wittgenstein himself states that the Tractatus is nonsense in its closing pages. My propositions are elucidatory in this way: he who understands me finally recognizes them as senseless, when he has climbed out through them, on them, over them. (He must so to speak throw away the ladder, after he has climbed up on it.) I think you may agree with the Wittgenstein of the Tractatus more than you realize. My understanding is that his main goal at that time was to show that many of the classic problems of metaphysics which plagued philosophers for centuries or more are literally just nonsense. He didn't write the Tractatus to convince regular people though, but to convince academic philosophers of his time. He earned his fame by being somewhat successful. Rather than making a logical argument for his point, I understand his aim as stimulating his audience to think things out for themselves by offering them carefully crafted nonsense that gave a fresh perspective. I think you just have no use for the Tractatus because you're not preoccupied with metaphysical questions.
- mcguire 3y ago
  You do realize you are doing philosophy at this moment, right?
  - lisper 3y ago
    Sure, but this is just a casual conversation. The problem is not with philosophy per se, the problem is with the academic field, which assigns (IMHO) outsized importance to undersized ideas.
    - andybak 3y ago
      Children often ask questions such as "Why is there something rather then nothing?" or "What happened before time?". These questions often cause great mirth for any adult in earshot. You can choose to draw one of two very different conclusions from this statement.
      - lisper 3y ago
        Do you think philosophy has produced better answers to these questions than science?
        NateEag 3y ago
        I think his point is that these are important questions which science can't speak to.
        lisper 3y ago
        How do you know it can't? What makes you think that these questions are beyond the scope of scientific inquiry?
        andybak 3y ago
        If science is tackling these questions then it's most likely doing so by making non-falsifiable claims. And at that point it's doing philosophy rather than science. And if you want to disagree with the definition of science that I'm using here then that's OK. But at that point, you're also doing philosophy. And all of this is fine because there's nothing wrong with doing philosophy. It's not just a word for "the stuff I don't like".

lisper 3y ago

> I'm not sure how much you know about Wittgenstein. Not much. But I don't have to know much to make my case here. All I have to do is point to the Tractatus, which really is manifest nonsense, and point out that publishing this bit of manifest nonsense didn't seem to hurt Wittgenstein's career much. Tractatus is not the only example of this sort of thing, just the one that sticks out in my mind as the most blatant. And this is not to say that Wittgenstein, or philosophy in general, never produced anything of value. But the problem is that to find the value you have to wade through all this horse shit, so it's so much more effort than it needs to be. A stopped clock is right twice a day. That doesn't mean there is any value in consulting it to find out what time it is.

keiferski 3y ago
Calling something "manifest nonsense" while not understanding it, or even attempting to understand it, seems like a clear example of "manifest nonsense" to me.
- lisper 3y ago
  You apparently failed to note this sibling comment: > Wittgenstein himself states that the Tractatus is nonsense in its closing pages. > My propositions are elucidatory in this way: he who understands me finally recognizes them as senseless...
  - keiferski 3y ago
    Senseless and nonsense are not the same thing, and if you had read the book, you’d understand this.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
steppi 3y ago
Wittgenstein himself states that the Tractatus is nonsense in its closing pages. My propositions are elucidatory in this way: he who understands me finally recognizes them as senseless, when he has climbed out through them, on them, over them. (He must so to speak throw away the ladder, after he has climbed up on it.) I think you may agree with the Wittgenstein of the Tractatus more than you realize. My understanding is that his main goal at that time was to show that many of the classic problems of metaphysics which plagued philosophers for centuries or more are literally just nonsense. He didn't write the Tractatus to convince regular people though, but to convince academic philosophers of his time. He earned his fame by being somewhat successful. Rather than making a logical argument for his point, I understand his aim as stimulating his audience to think things out for themselves by offering them carefully crafted nonsense that gave a fresh perspective. I think you just have no use for the Tractatus because you're not preoccupied with metaphysical questions.
mcguire 3y ago
You do realize you are doing philosophy at this moment, right?
- lisper 3y ago
  Sure, but this is just a casual conversation. The problem is not with philosophy per se, the problem is with the academic field, which assigns (IMHO) outsized importance to undersized ideas.
  - andybak 3y ago
    Children often ask questions such as "Why is there something rather then nothing?" or "What happened before time?". These questions often cause great mirth for any adult in earshot. You can choose to draw one of two very different conclusions from this statement.
    - lisper 3y ago
      Do you think philosophy has produced better answers to these questions than science?
      - NateEag 3y ago
        I think his point is that these are important questions which science can't speak to.
        lisper 3y ago
        How do you know it can't? What makes you think that these questions are beyond the scope of scientific inquiry?
        andybak 3y ago
        If science is tackling these questions then it's most likely doing so by making non-falsifiable claims. And at that point it's doing philosophy rather than science. And if you want to disagree with the definition of science that I'm using here then that's OK. But at that point, you're also doing philosophy. And all of this is fine because there's nothing wrong with doing philosophy. It's not just a word for "the stuff I don't like".