It is probably uncontroversial to describe Ludwig Wittgenstein as one of the twentieth century’s greatest philosophers. In my less charitable moods I’d be tempted to say that this is rather like being one of Kansas City’s tallest buildings. Still, his vast influence over the philosophies that come after him is undeniable – but I often wonder why.
I’m led to think about Wittgenstein by a few recent comments from Thill, quoting a text called On Certainty. Readers might recall that in my most extensive reading of Wittgenstein to date – looking at the Philosophical Investigations – the main effect he had on my thought was to push me away from his thought and closer to the thinkers he disliked, like Plato and Augustine. But a brief look at On Certainty does even less for my estimation of Wittgenstein as a thinker.
The main aim of On Certainty, as I understand it, seems to be to dispense with the kind of doubt that René Descartes expresses in the Discourse on Method and the Meditations. In my own reflection on certainty I expressed sympathy with Cartesian doubt – but not with his solution, so that even “I think therefore I am” is uncertain to me.
But Wittgenstein wants to do away with all this. Some things, he thinks, simply should not be doubted: “Even if I came to a country where they believed that people were taken to the moon in dreams, I couldn’t say to them: ‘I have never been to the moon. – Of course I may be mistaken’. And to their question ‘Mayn’t you be mistaken?’ I should have to answer: No.” (section 667) Why? “From its seeming to me – or to everyone – to be so, it doesn’t follow that it is so. What we can ask is whether it can make sense to doubt it.” (section 2, emphasis in original)
I don’t see how Wittgenstein can say it doesn’t make sense to doubt it. The Matrix gives a clear and graphic illustration of what it would mean to doubt our everyday experience, to show that the world could be completely other than we imagine. It’s not necessarily plausible; but what seemed hugely implausible or even impossible to past generations (the earth revolving around the sun, the adaptation of living species without the help of an intelligent designer) has turned out, as far as we now know, to be true.
While Wittgenstein isn’t thinking about the Matrix, he does seem to have some similar cases in mind. One might think here about possibly the most famous passage in the work of Zhuangzi, where Zhuangzi dreams he is a butterfly, wakes up, and then wonders if, rather than Zhuangzi having dreamed he was a butterfly, he is actually a butterfly dreaming he is Zhuangzi. (I’m not entirely sure that this doubt is the real point of Zhuangzi’s passage, but it can be used to illustrate the point at hand, which is the important thing for the moment.) Wittgenstein isn’t much for such uncertainty based on dreams. Yet the very conclusion of On Certainty, in attempting to refute a position like Zhuangzi’s, seems effectively to defend it. Wittgenstein says:
I cannot seriously suppose that I am at this moment dreaming. Someone who, dreaming, says “I am dreaming”, even if he speaks audibly in doing so, is no more right than if he said in his dream “it is raining”, while it was in fact raining. Even if his dream were actually connected with the noise of the rain.
Was Wittgenstein unaware of lucid dreaming? The existence of lucid dreaming, in which one is aware that one is dreaming but continues to dream, is well attested scientifically; I’ve done it once or twice myself. I don’t see how one can judge the lucid dreamer incorrect about the fact that he is dreaming. Section 383 says: “The argument ‘I may be dreaming’ is senseless for this reason: if I am dreaming, this remark is being dreamed as well – and indeed it is also being dreamed that these words have any meaning.” I don’t see how claims made in a lucid dream are meaningless, given that the same words can be intelligibly recalled when the dream is over – is Wittgenstein turning to the juvenile habit, so endemic among logical positivists, of declaring “meaningless” anything that he does not wish to put in the effort to understand? Perhaps Wittgenstein has a different point in this passage; but then again, perhaps he’s just being willfully ignorant. The latter seems to be the case in section 108 of On Certainty, pointed to a while ago by Chris Mathews at Philosophical Misadventures:
If we are thinking within our system, then it is certain that no one has ever been on the moon. Not merely is nothing of the sort ever seriously reported to us by reasonable people, but our whole system of physics forbids us to believe it. For this demands answers to the questions “How did he overcome the force of gravity?” “How could he live without an atmosphere?” and a thousand others which could not be answered.
As we all know, these very questions were all in the process of being answered definitively right as Wittgenstein wrote, to the point that in 1969 – the very year On Certainty was published – Neil Armstrong did indeed walk on the moon. What might have once appeared to have been a profound aphorism turned out shortly afterwards to be just plain wrong. It wouldn’t surprise me if recent attempts at lucid dreaming wound up refuting the previous passage in the same way.
There’s plenty more to Wittgenstein’s thought than On Certainty, of course, and I’ll try to say more next time. But for the moment, I will note that I feel mostly certain that Wittgenstein is wrong in that text. The only reason I can find to doubt that he’s wrong is itself based on the fact that I disagree with him, and think that to a certain extent we can and should doubt everything.
On Certainty contains threads of interwoven insights from the first to the last page and the full force of those insights will remain elusive to any “quick look”.
“even “I think therefore I am” is uncertain to me.”
What? The words “I think” mean something very clear in English and “I am” or “I exist” is logically implied by “I think”. To confess that this is “uncertain” does not strike me as a case of authentic uncertainty or doubt. To doubt the claim implies that we can conceive of the possibility of the truth of “I think, but I don’t exist.” But this claim is not even meaningful in English, not any less meaningless than “I speak but I don’t exist.” or “I am typing but I don’t exist.”!
And this is W’s main point, in some cases doubt is meaningless because it is meaningless to think that the claim could be false. Peirce is also relevant here. Any competent speaker of English can form a sentence starting with “I doubt”, but this doesn’t mean that the doubt is significant or meaningful.
To be significant or meaningful, a doubt must have a good reason. As Peirce put it “There must be a real and living doubt, and without this all discussion is idle.”
“I don’t see how Wittgenstein can say it doesn’t make sense to doubt it.”
The $ 100 billion question is: Do you seriously doubt the statement “I have not been to the moon.”? I am absolutely certain that you have never even entertained the possibility that you have been to the moon! You only need to ask yourself why you have never doubted it to understand W’s point. Doubting it calls into doubt many other claims taken for granted which in turn calls into doubt many other claims taken for granted and so on. You are on a slippery slope to skepticism about everything.
And if you did doubt that you have not been to the moon, why not doubt that you are a human being? When was the last time you doubted that? And if you didn’t, why not?
Of course, if you say it makes sense to doubt your own existence, then you can doubt anything merely in the sense of being able to form sentences beginning with “I doubt that…”! But that’s not doubting meaningfully, e.g., whether the figure you see approaching you on a foggy night doubt is a man.
But even here there’s a catch! When you raise all these profound doubts on whether you have recently visited other parts of our solar system and such, there is always something you never doubt and can never doubt: the meaning of sentences expressing your doubt!!! If you doubted that, you will be incapable of doubting anything.
This is the death blow to all total or global skepticism: the intelligibility of the sentence(s) articulating the doubt is never doubted.
So, even the doubter who feigns (the meaningless) doubt concerning her own existence does not and cannot doubt that she is doubting!
And why not? The answer to this question dissolves skepticism in its global form and also some local forms of skepticism.
“we can and should doubt everything”
Try doubting (and I don’t mean childish games forming “mental sentences” beginning with “I doubt that….” etc.) that you are seeing these sentences now! Now try doubting that you are doubting that you are seeing these sentences now! What happened?
The next time you have a headache, try doubting that you have a headache. What would show that you were mistaken in thinking that you had a headache?
As you think of a response to these sentences, try doubting that you are thinking! What would show that you were mistaken in thinking that you were thinking?
Do you see the senselessness of asking “Am I really thinking?”, Am I really doubting?”, or “Am I really having a headache?” and such?
There are also analytic statements one can’t possibly doubt if one knows the meanings of the key terms and also tautologies such as “A is A.”
This is the point where the question starts to get genuinely interesting. There are many matters where I act as if I don’t doubt anything for pragmatic reasons. I’m pretty confident Armstrong walked on the moon, and I assume he did for the purposes of any argument. But there are people who believe he didn’t, and I’ve never actually heard what they had to say. Could they be right? Highly unlikely, it seems to me – but I think it’s important to leave oneself open to being convinced, not assume that fringe views are wrong a priori.
Once you get to the view that the doubter cannot doubt that he is doubting, you’re more or less with Descartes. But, as I noted in the old post I referenced, it’s clear to me that Descartes’s argument fails because he assumes its conclusion. To affirm one’s own doubt, one must affirm that doubt exists – but to add an agent to the doubting is already an additional step, one that the Buddhists refused to take, as you well know. Now you may well argue that the Buddhists are wrong about the nonexistence of self, and I suspect that that is in fact the case. But if you’re going to say they didn’t even doubt the existence of self, then at the very least you’re going to have to justify the terms a lot more. If you say that someone didn’t really believe that the self didn’t exist despite affirming that belief all the time, inside and out, you seem to be relying on a concept of implicit belief – and that’s an idea that, as far as I know, Wittgenstein himself rejected. (“I don’t have a belief that the world will not end five minutes from now.”)
In the previous post, I noted that the rules of logic are significantly harder to doubt than the self. Still, some do argue against them. And there are many ideas I once took as absolute unwavering bedrock foundations, which I now think are false. Perhaps a strong enough argument from a postmodernist or a dialetheist could actually convince me of the falsity of “A is A” – although I doubt that!
“But I think it’s important….not assume that fringe views are wrong a priori.”
Given the finiteness of our lives, it is prudent to govern our inquiry by the principle that hypotheses which are consistent with our background knowledge, i.e., commonsense and scientific knowledge, take priority over “fringe views”. There are contexts in which it is rational not even to consider fringe views, e.g., in a murder investigation,in dealing with the weather, physical or mental diseases, or economic or military strategy, we would be justified in ignoring fringe views such as supernatural “hypotheses” or “tactics”.
There is a significant amount I agree with in your comment: one must not allow oneself to be ruled by one’s doubts. There is a great deal that one cannot know for sure, and in the meantime (which is effectively a whole life), one must live as best one can. I wasn’t sufficiently precise in saying “one must not assume,” and you’re right to call me out on that point – one should not assume that implausible-seeming views are ultimately or objectively wrong; but one must still assume that they are wrong for practical purposes in the process of living a life. This is why the distinction between knowledge and certainty is of crucial importance. I may not be completely and utterly certain that Armstrong walked on the moon, but I’m happy to say I know it. (I know Wittgenstein denies the importance of the distinction in section 8, although I wonder if that’s a translation issue, since in that section what he calls “knowledge” seems to imply certainty more than what he calls “certainty.” I haven’t had time to look up the German.)
Where I think our differences remain great is on which beliefs one should take as true even when in a state of uncertainty, until the beliefs are demonstrated otherwise. Here as ever I grant no epistemological priority whatever to “common sense” in any of the senses you have been advancing, which I am beginning to think may be a completely incoherent concept. Rather, the priority goes to “common sense” in the sense I first mentioned: one’s preexisting beliefs and prejudices (Vorurteilen), the worldview with which one begins the inquiry. Thus a fundamentalist Christian is justified in living her life as if evolution is a lie, until she has started to acquire sufficient doubt to merit a serious inquiry into the contrary – even though evolution is, as best we know, objectively true.
“the intelligibility of the sentence(s) articulating the doubt is never doubted.”
Isn’t it? I think you – and Wittgenstein – just did! Both of you seem to be implying that sentences articulating total doubt are meaningless. Which is in itself to give good reason why they should be doubted.
I will agree that there is likely to be more to the text than I have found on my self-confessed quick look. That’s why I said it was a quick look: I didn’t want to overstate my claims or act as if my criticisms were definitive, because they aren’t. Part of the doubt I defend here itself involves an acknowledgement of the possibility that Wittgenstein might be right. However, he’s wrong as far as I can tell so far, and I haven’t found my perusal of On Certainty especially enlightening – I don’t regret it but don’t find that the book merits my deeper examination at the present time, when there are so many other things out there to read and so little time to read them.
No, my point is not that others can question the meaningfulness of the doubt. It is that the doubter cannot doubt that the sentences he or she uses to articulate the doubt are meaningful in that language. Thus even Descartes takes it for granted that readers of Latin or French understand the sentences he uses to articulate his famous doubt are meaningful.
When W points out that we cannot make sense of certain kinds of doubt, he means that the doubt is absurd or pointless and not that the sentences expressing the doubt are literally meaningless or unintelligible in the language.
I typed my response too fast. Here it is again without the errors:
No, my point is not that others cannot question the meaningfulness of the doubt. It is that the doubter cannot doubt that the sentences he or she uses to articulate the doubt are meaningful in that language. Thus even Descartes takes it for granted that readers of Latin or French understand, or find meaningful, the sentences he uses to articulate his famous doubt.
When W points out that we cannot make sense of certain kinds of doubt, he means that the doubt is absurd or pointless and not that the sentences expressing the doubt are literally meaningless or unintelligible in the language used.
Above you say, apparently thinking with Wittgenstein: “in some cases doubt is meaningless because it is meaningless to think that the claim could be false.” Given the context of the passage, you seem to be referring to doubts about one’s own existence – saying that the linguistic expression of such doubts is meaningless.
If so, suppose I’m really uncertain about my philosophical position – I’m somewhere between Wittgenstein and Nāgārjuna, and think the truth lies somewhere between the two. It hardly seems implausible that someone could waver between these two alternatives (there have been a couple of books out there comparing Nāgārjuna to Wittgenstein, for good or for ill). If I am in that position, then I suspect it’s likely that everything is a certain kind of illusion, as Nāgārjuna says, and most of all myself. Thus I am doubting my own existence. But I’m also reminded of the claim in the previous paragraph (which I take to be Wittgenstein’s), that the expression of doubts about my existence is linguistically meaningless. So while I think I’m doubt my own existence, I’m also doubting whether that doubt is meaningful.
“everything is a certain kind of illusion, as Nāgārjuna says, and most of all myself.”
How many kinds of illusions are there? Nagarjuna, like all of us, acquired the concept of “illusion” only in contrast to exemplars of reality. If everything is “a certain kind of illusion”, Nagarjuna would not even be able to use “illusion” meaningfully.
“Thus I am doubting my own existence.” This is nonsense! How did you learn to use the expressions “I am” and “my own”?
“the expression of doubts about my existence is linguistically meaningless.”
It is not linguistically meaningless in the way “Is because not just am and” is, but it is absurd and pointless. Think of this: any attempt to resolve the “doubt about my existence” ( = the doubt whether one really exists or is an “illusion”) shows its absurdity.
“So while I think I’m doubt my own existence, I’m also doubting whether that doubt is meaningful.”
Again, how did you learn to understand and use “I think” and “my own existence”? That would show whether the “doubt” is meaningful. If you didn’t exist, how could you even formulate the doubt using those expressions?
“while I think I’m doubt my own existence, I’m also doubting whether that doubt is meaningful.”
Are you also doubting whether “doubting whether that doubt is meaningful”? Why not? The infinite regress here should show the absurdity of entertaining the doubt in the first place.
I’ve never really understood why infinite regress is supposed to lead to absurdity in the first place. Certainly the idea that it does so shows up in a lot of traditions – perhaps in India most of all. But if there is a connection between infinite regress and absurdity, it can’t apply in all cases that are merely an infinite regress of questions which can be asked. It is meaningful to ask “What is the meaning of the word ‘freedom’?” It is also meaningful to ask “What is the meaning of the sentence ‘What is the meaning of the word “freedom”?'” And then it is again meaningful to ask “What is the meaning of the sentence ‘What is the meaning of the sentence “What is the meaning of the word ‘freedom’?”‘” And so on and so on. This is an infinite regress but it’s not at all absurd – merely pointless. The possibility of the later, more abstracted questions in the series casts no shadow over the value or meaning of the earlier, more concrete questions.
“This is an infinite regress but it’s not at all absurd – merely pointless”
“Pointlessness” is a facet of absurdity.
Ah, but it is only the actual engagement of the infinite regress that is pointless – the actual asking of the longer questions like “What is the meaning of the sentence ‘What is the meaning of the sentence “What is the meaning of the word ‘freedom’?”‘” and so on. In no way whatsoever does the mere possibility of asking those longer and pointless questions make it pointless to ask the shorter question “What is the meaning of the word ‘freedom'”? Actually engaging in an infinite regress is pointless. The fact that a given activity could be carried out to the extent of infinite regress provides no reason whatsoever to declare that activity pointless. The possibility and actuality of pointlessness are completely different.
It is pointless for me to walk north to Nunavik. That doesn’t mean it’s pointless for me to walk north to the pub – even though, having walked north to the pub, I could try to keep going all the way to Nunavik.
These “how did you learn” questions seem like a red herring to me. One often learns concepts as inadequate approximations. Nobody learns what a fish is through the biological definition: every child knows that a fish is something that swims and has a long “fishy” shape designed for swimming. But by that standard, of course, a whale is a fish. In order to learn the correct definition of a fish – one that does not include whales – one use the concept in a way that directly goes against the definition by which one learned the concept in the first place.
It’s not a red herring if the point is to understand the necessary conditions of comprehension of the meaning of a word in the early contexts of its acquisition and use.
If we didn’t have bodies, we would not have learned the distinction between self and others. So, having a body is a necessary condition of understanding how to use the word “I” and “my own”. This implies that it can’t be an illusion that we have bodies.
And if having a body is constitutive of selfhood, and it cannot be an illusion that we have bodies, it follows that selfhood can’t be an illusion.
“If we are thinking within our system, then it is certain that no one has ever been on the moon. Not merely is nothing of the sort ever seriously reported to us by reasonable people, but our whole system of physics forbids us to believe it. For this demands answers to the questions “How did he overcome the force of gravity?” “How could he live without an atmosphere?” and a thousand others which could not be answered.”
It is a gross distortion to think that in this passage W claims that no one can ever go to the moon!!! Obviously, he is talking about claim that someone has been to the moon in his time or before his time! And he is absolutely right that the framework of science and technology of his time and before his time ruled out the truth of the claim that someone had visited the moon!
By the way, On Certainty was composed in 1949-51. W died in 1951.
It’s not that easy. I will certainly grant that he begins by saying “no one has ever been on the moon,” past tense, and that the passage is written in support of that statement. But the way in which he justifies the claim implies very strongly that he believes it is simply impossible. Why is it we know no one has been on the moon? What justification for this does he give? Not merely present technical limitations; not merely the fact that we do not yet know how to do it. No. Our whole system of physics forbids us to believe it. That’s a far stronger claim. And thousands of questions about it, he says, could not be answered. But in fact one of the very questions he lists had already been answered even as he wrote – a high-pressure suit which could allow one to live without an atmosphere had already been invented in 1931.
Moreover, while Wittgenstein did write these words in 1949-51, On Certainty was not published until 1969 – the very same year that Armstrong walked on the moon. So by the time anyone outside of Wittgenstein’s close circles got to read these words, they had already been made false.
But that’s okay, because Wittgenstein didn’t need to investigate the truth of the matter. Nobody can walk on the moon – that’s just common sense!
I think there is a serious misunderstanding here. I don’t think we can portray W as a commonsense philosopher who, typically for that reason, was oblivious to the possibilities of scientific and technological advancement. The physics of his time does rule out travel to the moon in the absence of technology which can overcome the physical constraints.
And W’s questions – “How did he overcome the force of gravity?” “How could he live without an atmosphere?” – suggest that he could be thinking of a claim to have visited the moon without technological help.
But consider this. We now have the technology to send people to the moon. It is now commonsense, or ought to be commonsense, that humans can go to the moon and have done so.
Would you then believe it automatically if your neighbor told you that he had a great time on the moon the previous night? After all, the science and technology of our day doesn’t rule it out. Why wouldn’t you believe his claim prima facie or even give him “the benefit of doubt”?
“…in 1969 – the very year On Certainty was published – Neil Armstrong did indeed walk on the moon.”
Ok, so you don’t doubt that Neil Armstrong walked on the moon. Great! LOL
Amod, this post takes off from yours, though it is really an expansion of my thinking about intuition and common sense (& philosophy as regards these). As you can see, like Fermat’s proof, it got too long for the margin.
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I think it quite a naive reading of W’s On Certainty to say that the Moon Landing was a refutation of his views. Keep in mind that, as a young man, W was a year away from his doctorate in aeronautical engineering and he probably was well aware that someday, maybe even in the near future, people would walk on the moon.
Let me just say that I believe W’s work on doubt to be very insightful and even correct. I may be taking some exegetical liberties in my interpretations but such liberties are justified when dealing with W because he was such a horrendous writer. Horrendous writer may be but I still find many of his ideas quite profound though, as with you, I also think that much of his esteem among many philosophers to be from his “bewitching” personality as opposed to the quality of his views.
This is how I interpret those passages. W was making an analogous move to Gettier in his seminal work on knowledge. As Gettier showed that justified true belief (JTB) is not necessarily a well defined and philosophically robust definition of knowledge but may be loosely termed such, W showed that just by raising possibilities counter to some forms of common sense is not a philosophically relevant form of doubting.
Gettier showed that it takes more than just JTB because the justification criterion must occur in a certain way. It can’t just be any ol’ sort of justification because one can be justified in some belief coincidentally. W’s example of being correct about dreaming and being on the moon, I believe, is meant to show that same point as it relates to doubt.
Mere raising of possibilities such as the possibility that one is now dreaming or being on the moon yesterday when one doesn’t believe oneself to be does not destroy one’s belief or even certainty in such beliefs. W’s reasoning for this conclusion as is detailed is by several examples and arguments.
He argues that raising odd possibilities tend to cancel out. For example, the possibility of someone being on the moon in 1949 (when On Certainty was written) when he tells you that he was is more than canceled out by the possibility of his being crazy or by him using those words in a way that you have misunderstood him. He could be in a different linguistic context than what you presume him to be in of speaking truthfully (such as sarcasm, telling a fictional story, etc) or he could be speaking in a language you don’t even understand. These unlikely possibilities cancel out any such *even more* unlikely possibilities of someone being on the moon in 1949 (which was impossible given the technology of the time). Raising of mere (logical) counter possibilities does not entail one should justifiably lower the probability of any belief as doubt would require. This was, I think, W’s point.
I think W was also making some kind of distinguishing remark about raising a counter possibility and the *feeling* of being doubtful and being doubtful itself. Think of this example (mine, not W’s but I think captures what he meant). Imagine a drug that is able to induce a *feeling* of doubt even in your most confidently held beliefs (maybe in logic or math). Now just because you feel doubtful doesn’t make it’s doubtful that that belief is false. Consider W’s quote:
“From its seeming to me – or to everyone – to be so, it doesn’t follow that it is so.”
I think W was making the point that true doubt requires justified reasons (and not just coincidentally justified) and not just a feeling of doubt or a mere possibility. That may have been an analytic truth to him as Gettier’s point that it is just an analytic truth (“built in the very meaning”)that knowledge requires more than JTB. Hence someone who claimed to doubt based on some mere possibility and a “doubtful feeling” simply don’t know what to doubt means (though they may in a philosophically irrelevant sense be correct in that usage much as JTB may be correct in some common usage).
To be doubtful you would have to be justified in the doubt in just the right way (just like you would have to be justified in just the right way for a belief to be knowledge). And that would entail you being able to answer a host of questions to which all our common sense beliefs may be connected in some way to that belief. See W’s quote:
“For this demands answers to the questions “How did he overcome the force of gravity?” “How could he live without an atmosphere?” and a thousand others which could not be answered.”
The more certain and “common sense” the belief, the more questions you’d have to answer which are connected to it. Compare this view with Quine’s web of beliefs and I think there’s quite a similarity. With Quine’s web, the closer it is to the center of the web, the more it will disturb the outer edges of that web and more of the whole web will have to be replaced by a more justified system or web of coherent beliefs.
W also notes that normal doubt requires some standard of weight to measure certitude or confidence. We doubt some belief X by using a stronger standard Y. Y provides the standards to put X into question. Even if X ultimately ends up being correct, if we had a stronger standard in a “common sense” Y to justifiably put X into doubt, X would only end up being correct *by coincidence* much like someone who says in his dream “it is raining” may be only coincidentally correct about the status of the non dream world.
Someone who doubted Y without good reason to by holding fast to some contradictory belief X would not be in fact correct to doubt Y in favor of X (compare with the Matrix where we are told that we don’t live in a real world but a dream world where evil robots are controlling our dream environment). He would not have an epistemic right to doubt Y because he could not provide a stronger standard to do so (which would entail coherently and justifiably answering a host of questions related to common sense Y).
I am now convinced that raising mere possibilities cannot justify loss in certainty in some belief as W claimed for much of the same reasons he argued. Doing so would be more akin to artificially inducing a feeling of doubt rather than real doubting. Lowering of confidence in our common sense beliefs (or any belief) has to occur in just the right way much as justification has to occur in just the right way for knowledge. This would still allow for the normative claim that it is still good practice to question all our beliefs but just that when that is done without good justification, it is not real doubt.
Nan, welcome to the blog and thank you for your incredibly detailed comment. I do not have the time to do it justice, so just a point or two in response:
First, if Wittgenstein was genuinely aware that people could walk on the moon within his lifetime, then he must have spoken wrongly with his example. “Our whole system of physics forbids us to believe” that someone has walked on the moon is scarcely compatible with someone being able to do it within 20 years. If he genuinely recognized the truth that it was a mere matter of current technical limits, he should have been able to acknowledge the possibility that the secretive Russians or Chinese, to whose knowledge he was not privy, might have already got there. It was clearly not a physical impossibility for that to happen, as he directly and explicitly claims is the case.
But beyond this, on what I think are the more important issues you raise in the rest of the post, a great deal will come down to definitions, to what we identify as doubt and certainty. Just as a mere start on this, in your last paragraph you say “Doing so would be more akin to artificially inducing a feeling of doubt rather than real doubting.” Why could an “artificially induced” feeling of doubt not itself be real doubt? Artificial colour is still colour.
“I may be taking some exegetical liberties in my interpretations but such liberties are justified when dealing with W because he was such a horrendous writer.”
Nan, this is a serious error of judgment. You provide no evidence for your judgment. The use of “horrendous” is just hyperbole run amok. Try a page, or even a paragraph, of Hegel and Kant for samples of “horrendous” writing in philosophy. Compared to their writings, Wittgenstein’s writings are the very paradigm of clarity if you focus on individual remarks!
W himself clarifies his style of writing in the preface to the Investigations. Pl. read it.
In essence, he states that the book, and I think this applies to the rest of his writings, is an album of philosophical remarks, not a continuous and extended argumentative essay in typical academic philosophical style.
W’s objective in creating these albums of remarks (their ancestry goes back to Lichtenberg’s philosophical remarks and aphoristic style of expression) is to get us to see the relevant facts and counterexamples so that the hold or spell of certain pictures, analogies, or metaphors on our consciousness can be broken. I too admire and find congenial the aphoristic style and think that his style is most apposite to his objectives in doing philosophy.
The best approach to his writings is to savor and critically reflect on the import of individual philosophical remarks.
If you are looking for a philosophical system, then Wittgenstein’s style and his writings will prove to be extremely frustrating.
“I think W was making the point that true doubt requires justified reasons (and not just coincidentally justified) and not just a feeling of doubt or a mere possibility.”
I agree with you Nan. It is logically possible some of us are from another planet, but it would be absurd to entertain any doubts on our human origins solely on those grounds.
“Nan, this is a serious error of judgment. You provide no evidence for your judgment. The use of “horrendous” is just hyperbole run amok. Try a page, or even a paragraph, of Hegel and Kant for samples of “horrendous” writing in philosophy. ”
I don’t know how one would provide “evidence” for being a bad writer. Suffice it to say that I and even most Wittgenstein scholars would probably agree that he is a poor writer. He is a pretty good writer of aphorisms but as for philosophical writing, he is considered very poor. Just because Hegel and Kant are as well doesn’t mean W wasn’t.
Well, you can start by giving some examples of what you think is “poor writing” by Wittgenstein.
I mean unclear and cryptic. For one notorious example, the private language argument is difficult to understand not because of its inherent abstractness but because of the unclear and cryptic way W phrased it. I think there are actually several private language arguments in W’s works from the PI to the Remarks On the Foundations of Mathematics. Now, I think I know what he was trying to say in many of these arguments but I can’t be sure because his writing was so unclear and cryptic. Most Wittgenstein scholars agree that there is no consensus view on what the private language argument partly because of his characteristically bad writing.
In fact, one Wittgenstein scholar (Jaakko Hintikka) has posited the theory that Wittgenstein had a learning disability which was the reason for his characteristic poor writing ability. See his On Wittgenstein:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0534575943?tag=simplywittgenstein-20&camp=14573&creative=327641&linkCode=as1&creativeASIN=0534575943&adid=0J8MP77DRPV9FM74C9M7&
Since your only argument here is an argument from samples or by example, needless to say, your sample size must be large and your samples must be representative. It won’t do to selectively focus on cryptic remarks. Imagine someone arguing that Beethoven is a mediocre composer and offering only examples of B’s mediocre compositions in support!
Anyway, what is an example of W’s “poor writing” on the problem of private language? What sort of actual remarks of W do you have in mind?
>Since your only argument here is an argument from samples or by example, needless to say, your sample size must be large and your samples must be representative. It won’t do to selectively focus on cryptic remarks. Imagine someone arguing that Beethoven is a mediocre composer and offering only examples of B’s mediocre compositions in support!
Anyway, what is an example of W’s “poor writing” on the problem of private language? What sort of actual remarks of W do you have in mind?<
Sample sizes? Look, it is a widely known fact that Wittgenstein is one of the most obscure writers of the twentieth century in philosophy. This point isn't really worth arguing over. Now, if you think you understand his writing perfectly and easily, I suggest you publish your interpretations of his most obscure arguments in peer reviewed papers. I'm sure scholars of Wittgenstein would love to hear the definitive insights of his views.
The private language argument is a crucial portion of the PI. In fact, the most published and debated over on portion. His Tractatus has also been the subject of tremendous debate as to the true interpretation. Even Russell and Moore had difficulty understanding, it and likely, along with all the Positivists, had got it wrong. It has only perhaps, within the last 40 years, been somewhat of an agreement as to the main arguments of the Tractatus. And there are still large areas of disagreement. Like I said, this is usually attributed to be the obscure and cryptic writing style of W. That is common knowledge. See Hintikka's book where he talks about the difficulty with interpreting W because he "wrote like a dyslexic." Hintikka is W's most famous student's student (G H Von Wright who also had difficulty interpreting his writing and he studied with W).
http://simplycharly.com/wittgenstein/jaakko_hintikka_interview.php
If you understand W's writing so well and think it is so clear, please give your interpretation of the private language argument(s). thanks.
It is curious how you fail to provide even a few remarks or passages in support of your wild claim that W was a “horrendous” writer or that he was one of the most obscure writers of the twentieth century!
Why do you keep appealing to the authority of this or that philosopher instead of providing a few examples yourself?
If you have read W yourself, and are not relying seocnd-rate or third-rate secondary literature, this should be easy to do.
Ayer could understand W’s argument on the private language just fine and disagree with it.
Strawson, an eminent philosopher who raised powerful objections to the ideas of other eminent philosophers like Russell, Austin, and Quine, understands W just fine. If you are having any trouble understanding the PI, I recommend Strawson’s essay “Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations”.
I agree with Strawson’s remark that “Even if Wittgenstein was a bit parsimonious in actually explicit arguments, there are implicit ones.”
The fact that there is more than one argument or train of thought on the problem of private language in no way implies or supports the claim that W’s thinking is “obscure” on this topic.
This really isn’t much of a worthwhile thing to argue over. If you think that you understand W’s writing and that it is perfectly understandable than good for you.
“Why do you keep appealing to the authority of this or that philosopher instead of providing a few examples yourself?”
I don’t think you know what an appeal to authority fallacy is. It’s only an appeal to authority fallacy when it is the wrong kind of authority. Wittgenstein scholars are the right kinds of authority when it comes to this issue on the intelligibility of his writing and his style.
http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/appeal-to-authority.html
Quote:
“This fallacy is committed when the person in question is not a legitimate authority on the subject. More formally, if person A is not qualified to make reliable claims in subject S, then the argument will be fallacious.”
Hintikka *is* an legitimate authority on Wittgenstein as with the other authors I cited as affirming my view. If anyone is, they are. Your appeal to Strawson and Ayer begs the question. Just because they were able to interpret him doesn’t mean that such tasks is relatively easy. It’s not. I never said it’s impossible to interpret him, just that his writing style makes it very difficult. Strawson and Ayer’s interpretation are very controversial because there can be so many other justifiable interpretations from the text. If you knew anything about the history of Wittgenstein scholarship, you’d know that already.
Yes, I’ve read W. I find him obscure and unskilled as a philosophical writer. You disagree but you still haven’t given a interpretation of the private language argument. I really would like to know what the definitive understanding of that argument is.
The lack of standards of judgment only adds to the chaos of (poor) opinions in philosophy.
The issue arose because of your gross abuse of language in the first place. You claimed that W was a “horrendous” writer. This is hyperbole run amok!
If your premise is that his arguments for his views are sometimes difficult to understand, it gives no support to your conclusion.
It is a commonplace of informal logic that when experts disagree on an issue or hold conflicting judgments, you can’t appeal just to a few of them to support the judgment you agree with. So, yes, your appeal to the authority of a few Wittgenstein experts fails.
John Wisdom, O.K. Bouwsma, Rush Rhess, G.E.M. Anscombe, Anthony Kenny, A.J. Ayer, P. F. Strawson, Von Wright, Gilbert Ryle – the list can go on – understood Wittgenstein’s writings just fine and agreed or disagreed with the views and arguments expressed in them. Many of them knew W well as a person and thinker. Read them and see if they make any judgment on W’s writings remotely similar to your grotesque one.
There is a simple reductio ad absurdum of your bombastic and thoughtless judgment that W was a “horrendous” writer.
The quality of thinking is indicated by the quality of the writing. If W was “horrendous” writer, then he was a horrendous thinker. If he was a horrendous thinker, it would be absurd to consider him a great philosopher. Since it is not absurd to consider him a great philosopher, he was not a “horrendous” writer.
I can only wonder at the projections you make on Wittgenstein’s writings which renders them “horrendous” to you.
“You claimed that W was a “horrendous” writer. This is hyperbole run amok!”
First of all, he is generally considered a bad writer as is his reputation among analytic philosophers goes. I think you are just carping on words to say that “horrendous” was the wrong word. I think that that is appropriate. You don’t. So what? Like I said, most interpreters of W agree that he was at least a poor writer (“wrote like a dyslexic” as one of his most esteemed interpretors have said). Kripke used the charitable euphemism “stylistic preferences” to describe the reasons for the difficulties with interpreting W. Now you have provided no evidence to counter this commonly held view, just your bald assertions that he is a good writer. It just seems a petty thing to carp about. Good for you that you (think you) understand W with absolute clarity. I happen to think that you are no better at interpreting him than Kripke and Hintikka and myself (and other W scholars) who happen to think he is a poor writer and a good judge of writing clarity and style in philosophy. I’m still waiting for that clear and definitive understanding of the private language argument from you.
” Read them and see if they make any judgment on W’s writings remotely similar to your grotesque one.”
Why don’t you read them? Do any of them say that he wasn’t a bad writer? No. You can’t counter anything I’ve said but resort to this kind of petty name dropping?
“The quality of thinking is indicated by the quality of the writing. ”
Wrong. Clarity counts too. Ask any real philosopher.
“The quality of thinking is indicated by the quality of the writing. ”
Nan: “Wrong. Clarity counts too. Ask any real philosopher.”
What do you mean “wrong”???? Of course, lack of clarity in the writing indicates lack of clarity in the thinking! That’s implied by my statement as any real philosopher will tell you!
“The issue arose because of your gross abuse of language in the first place. You claimed that W was a “horrendous” writer. This is hyperbole run amok!”
The only thing that is “hyperbole” is you calling my use of “horrendous” a “gross abuse of language.” common, this is just silly. Do you really think you’ve made any serious points?
“What do you mean “wrong”???? Of course, lack of clarity in the writing indicates lack of clarity in the thinking! That’s implied by my statement as any real philosopher will tell you!”
Wrong again. Quality of thinking is sometimes inferred from bad writing. That’s where interpretation comes in. In the case of W, that takes a little more work.
BTW, I ‘m still waiting from my lowly mortal realm for your definitive and clear interpretation of the private language argument(s) that will put Kripke and Hintikka and all his other interpretors to shame.
“Wrong again. Quality of thinking is sometimes inferred from bad writing. That’s where interpretation comes in. In the case of W, that takes a little more work.”
“Quality of thinking is sometimes inferred from bad writing.”? Which quality of thinking is so inferred? It is commonplace that incoherent writing indicates incoherent thought.
We think in the medium of language inside our heads and if those thoughts are written down as they are in our heads and the words don’t make sense, this means that those thoughts don’t make sense.
“Which quality of thinking is so inferred? It is commonplace that incoherent writing indicates incoherent thought.”
I agree that this is “commonplace” but I don’t think that it is the case in W’s specifically. I think he did have quality thoughts but had difficulty conveying them (perhaps it was due to dyslexia as Hintikka claimed or maybe to quirky “stylistic preferences” as Kripke claimed or perhaps for some other reason)
“We think in the medium of language inside our heads”
Actually, it is hotly debated in the philosophy of mind whether or not thoughts are linguistic in nature.
“Yes, I’ve read W. I find him obscure and unskilled as a philosophical writer. You disagree but you still haven’t given a interpretation of the private language argument. I really would like to know what the definitive understanding of that argument is.”
You are committing the mistake of shifting the burden of proof to your critic! It is you who bears the burden of proving your judgment on W’s writings, not your critic!
I will offer my understanding of W’s views in due course and on the condition that you show at least One Thing which is “horrendous” in his remarks on the issue.
Also see here:
“Some of this disagreement has arisen because of the notorious difficulty and occasional elusiveness of Wittgenstein’s own text (sometimes augmented by problems of translation).”
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/private-language/
And see Kripke’s Wittgenstein On Rules and Private Language where Kripke says:
[W’s] own stylistic preferences obviously contributes to the difficulty of his work…”
Also see the “notorious” difficulties of interpreting the Tractatus:
“The Tractatus is notorious for its interpretative difficulties. In the eighty years that have passed since its publication it has gone through several waves of general interpretations. Beyond exegetical and hermeneutical issues that revolve around particular sections (such as the world/reality distinction, the difference between representing and presenting, the Frege/Russell connection to Wittgenstein, or the influence on Wittgenstein by existentialist philosophy) there are a few fundamental, not unrelated, disagreements that inform the map of interpretation.”
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wittgenstein/
Now if you think you are much better at interpreting W’s writing than these Wittgenstein scholars then good for you. But to say that his writing is clear is simply to go against what is obvious and the consensus among philosophers and I would suggest you publish your clear-headed understanding of W’s writing as they are still contributing to some debate within professional philosophers as to their exact meaning.
A few or many problems of interpretation arise in the context of any major philosophical work. W’s writings are not unique in this respect. To conclude from this that W was a horrendous writer and thinker is the very paradigm of non sequitur!
“A few or many problems of interpretation arise in the context of any major philosophical work. W’s writings are not unique in this respect. ”
Of course that is not unique. The point is that it is more *common* to have difficulties with W than the other major analytic philosophers. That’s something that was clear from what I said and you seem to have fly straight over your head.
“If he genuinely recognized the truth that it was a mere matter of current technical limits, he should have been able to acknowledge the possibility that the secretive Russians or Chinese, to whose knowledge he was not privy, might have already got there. It was clearly not a physical impossibility for that to happen, as he directly and explicitly claims is the case.”
I think this hinders on a definition of terms. On a charitable interpretation of W (which is what I like to give philosophers), it was impossible under the laws of physics to go to the moon. Rockets at that time simply were too slow to escape the earths gravitational pull. That’s what I take to be W’s point in saying that it was physically impossible to go to the moon in 1949. You can’t go to the moon using slow rockets because the laws of physics suggest a minimum escape velocity.
“Just as a mere start on this, in your last paragraph you say “Doing so would be more akin to artificially inducing a feeling of doubt rather than real doubting.” Why could an “artificially induced” feeling of doubt not itself be real doubt? Artificial colour is still colour.”
Yes, it is a “definitional point,” much like Gettier’s counter example(s) as I make a analogous connection. A feeling of doubt (what it seems like) is not really doubt in the philosophical important sense because anyone can have a feeling of doubt when for example, given a drug to induce it, even if it is not justified. But philosophers don’t seem to be concerned with just mere feelings but whether or not the feeling is justified with reasons. My point was that raising a mere possibility does not justify that feeling as I think that was W’s point.
“A few or many problems of interpretation arise in the context of any major philosophical work. W’s writings are not unique in this respect. To conclude from this that W was a horrendous writer and thinker is the very paradigm of non sequitur!”
I see, we have another self-ascribed W scholar of some repute! Please give your definitive an clear version of the private language argument. thanks.
It should be easy to show that someone’s writing is “horrendous”. Why don’t you provide an example of W’s “horrendous writing”? The onus is on you to show that W’s writing on the problem of a private language is “horrendous”.
” Why don’t you provide an example of W’s “horrendous writing”?”
I already did. It’s called the private language argument. It’s notoriously convoluted and jumbled. You seem unsurprisingly silent on that point.
Nan, I think Thill and Jabali108 do have a point in your critique of the private-language argument. Appeals to expertise in philosophy are difficult, for experts disagree about so much. As such, it’s understandable that they can come out looking like appeals to authority. I’m not myself inclined to take Hintikka’s or Kripke’s word on the matter. Could you explain why you think the private-language argument is so poorly written?
Mind you, I’m not saying you’re wrong (at least not yet). As you may have gathered, I’m not exactly a great defender of Wittgenstein. But I haven’t read the PL argument myself yet, and I’d like to hear what makes it an example of bad philosophical writing in your view (and not merely the fact that Hintikka, Kripke, the authors of the SEP article, or anybody else thinks that it is). If you’ve read the passage, presumably you have your own opinion too that is not derived from theirs.
I already explained why I think W’s writing is horrendous. It is needlessly unclear relative to other analytic philosophers. Now if you look at other formulations of Wittgenstein’s arguments from GEM Amscomb, Hintikka, Kripke, and a plethora of his other interpretors, you will see his arguments reformulated in much more clearer fashion. So they are not necessarily unclear from their content but the style in which they were originally formed.
I just think this is a silly thing to argue over as there is a rather subjective element to judging writing style. I think that is obvious. To get all worked up over someone’s partially subjective judgment and use of the word “horrendous” is just a little petty. Besides that, I think I supplied more than enough evidence from the stanford encyclopedia of philosophy and some of W’s most famous interpretors in Hintikka and Kripke to show that there is at least some basis for my judgment and that it certainly is not “bombastic and thoughtless” as thill described my use of a word which is itself, mere hyperbole and not supported by “large sample sizes” and “examples”.
“Nan, I think Thill and Jabali108 do have a point in your critique of the private-language argument. Appeals to expertise in philosophy are difficult, for experts disagree about so much. As such, it’s understandable that they can come out looking like appeals to authority. I’m not myself inclined to take Hintikka’s or Kripke’s word on the matter. Could you explain why you think the private-language argument is so poorly written?”
I think you are making a category mistake. Philosophers disagree much on *philosophical issues*. Is debating over someone’s writing style really a philosophical issue? It’s also not an appeal to authority at all. Like I said, if his interpretors say that he “writes like a dyslexic” what better authority to evaluate his style than that? Now you or the others may disagree. How would you prose settling a disagreement over writing styles? I think I’ve provided as much as can be said about that. What’s left? I say, so what? What philosophical bread will that bake, what philosophical cake will that cut? So what? I think he is a horrendous writer and neither thill, nor anyone else has demonstrated anything to show that false a judgment. I don’t need great amount of evidence (large sample sizes) to show that because it is largely a matter of stylistic preference and any demand for great evidence and argument for it, is well, just petty and a distraction from the real philosophical issues.
“But I haven’t read the PL argument myself yet, and I’d like to hear what makes it an example of bad philosophical writing in your view (and not merely the fact that Hintikka, Kripke, the authors of the SEP article, or anybody else thinks that it is). If you’ve read the passage, presumably you have your own opinion too that is not derived from theirs.”
Exactly, it is my opinion. But the difference is is that I’ve provided some basis (more than enough I think for the purposes) to justify it unlike thill and the other guy. Keep in mind that we are not debating medical science or chemistry and any talk of “sample sizes” is just silly.
In order to justify a generalization, in contrast to merely throwing it up or airing it, about a philosopher’s writings, or anything else, you require
a sufficient number of representative examples. Any elementary textbook of informal logic will tell you that.
Thill asked for a justification of your generalization. You haven’t provided one yet and simply engage in irrational dismissal of the need for justification of your generalization.
And, indeed, your appeal to the authority of a couple of commentators on Wittgenstein, is a fallacy for two reasons:
1. There are many experts on W who could make sense of many of his characteristic views, methods, and arguments.
2. Any appeal to authority is always subject to the question: Why do the experts hold that particular judgment? Speaking of “silly”, it is silliness par excellence to say that they just hold judgment! So, the alternative is to give their reasons for holding the judgment and such reasons will inevitably include a good many representative examples of W’s writings!
This only takes us back to Thill’s request for an adequate number of representative examples of W’s remarks!
thill,
I really think this is getting petty and silly. You take issue because I used “horrendous” to describe W’s writing? Even though I think that is quite justified do you actually have some philosophically relevant thing to discuss or is carping on terminology your brand of “philosophy”? Can you just accept that *I* think his writing horrendous (and you don’t)? Happy now?
This is far from a petty issue. You made a harsh and sweeping judgment on a great philosopher. Philosophy ought to teach one to be careful with judgments and to back any excessive or harsh judgment with the appropriate evidence.
I still find it curious that you not yet offered one example of an actual passage or remark from W.
I am not here to score debating points by extracting a concession.
I am sorry you are now getting upset about my dogged pursuit of this issue of the truth or plausibility of your judgment.
Take a look at remark # 269 and # 275 of the Philosophical Investigations. Now tell me what is even remotely “horrendous” about them.
If you evade this task, I can only conclude that you spoke in vicious jest when you judged W’s writings!
If you think you can pick out two passages from the PI and demonstrate that he wasn’t a bad writer than you should take a basic critical thinking class and study hard in it. I’m sorry again, that I have offended you so much in insulting your exalted hero W. He is after all, the king of the philosophers. I know you feel deeply offended but please forgive me.
It is evident that you are taking this personally (talk of philosophers’ detachment even on issues of philosophical judgment!!!) and that this producing confusion in your mind.
You allege that I was trying to prove something by mentioning his remarks # 269 and # 275 which are the only two remarks in the Investigations which mention “private language”!
I was doing such thing! I was offering them to you so you can compare them with your ill-considered judgments.
If I wanted to find out about W’s writings or his style, I would read him first, not secondary literature on him!
“I was doing such thing!”
It should read “I was doing no such thing.”
“It is evident that you are taking this personally (talk of philosophers’ detachment even on issues of philosophical judgment!!!) and that this producing confusion in your mind.
You allege that I was trying to prove something by mentioning his remarks # 269 and # 275 which are the only two remarks in the Investigations which mention “private language”!”
You seem to get all upset over nothing (at my use of the word “horrendous”). Come on, that’s silly. Don’t you have any philosophical relevant points to debate? Now, my use of that word is justified IMO, and I gave other philosophers of some repute in interpreting W who seem to concur. That’s all. You still disagree. So what? Asking for “sample sizes” and such just seem silly over this judgement over stylistic point. It’s irrational and has seemingly caused you to say all sorts of demonstrably silly things. Chill out. Now I’ve read W and am somewhat familiar with his interpretors but you haven’t demonstrated you are familiar with either. So I guess my asking you for the definitive and clear interpretation of the private language argument(s) is, well, misplaced. How does two passages from the PI settle anything? Are you saying that there is no private language argument which you gleam from those two passages? If W’s writing is so clear than there should be relatively definitive textual evidence for that. I guess it is asking too much to ask you to provide that definitive evidence.
Ok, W was horrendous” writer, a “very poor writer”, but all the same a “great philosopher”, and the only evidence we need for these contradictory claims is that some W scholars think either one or the other. But which of these scholars makes the inference from one claim to the other?
At least, I gave you two specific and crucial passages to read and show what the “horrendous” element is in them. You gave none, nada, zilch!
Given this kind of superficiality in reflecting on your own judgments, it is best that I don’t waste any more of my time!
I gave you the example of many passages to which you are unsurprisingly silent about. the whole private language arguments takes up dozens of passages and it is very much unclear, jumbled and overall, poorly written. Your lack of intellectual integrity in facing that example has been evident for quite some time now.
Again, Nan, please refrain from personal attacks on this blog. I understand that this discussion can be frustrating, but there is no need to make accusations of a lack of integrity.
The word “horrendous” means “extremely shocking, unpleasant, unacceptable” (OED). The word “poor” means “deficient, scanty, inadequate, less than is expected”.
Nan, could you explain why you think these terms fit Wittgenstein’s writings?
“I regret that I did not examine the semantics of “horrendous” carefully. I assumed that the word implied, in this context, that W’s writings were extremely or awfully confused or unclear, but it does not have that implication.
According to the OED, “horrendous” means “extremely shocking, unpleasant, unacceptable”.
Now to say that W is a horrendous writer means that his writings are “extremely shocking, unpleasant, unacceptable”. This clearly does not imply that his writings are extremely or awfully confused or unclear. On the contrary, it implies that his writings are clear enough to be judged “extremely shocking, unpleasant, unacceptable”!!!
Now, if “Nan” doesn’t accept this implication of his ascription of “horrendous” to W’s writings, he must eschew the use of that word.”
Wrong. I told a what I meant by horrendous (as in needlessly unclear) and now you resort this this kind of petty dictionary word smithing? That’s childish. You just don’t know how that word is used the the English language. It’s perfectly acceptable to use that word to describe writing that is very much needlessly unclear. It can mean dreadful or horrible or hideous. That describes W’s philosophical writing quite well IMO.
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/horrendous?show=0&t=1294166498
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/horrendous
This is incredibly petty to misuse the dictionary in such a way to demonstrate what against what I have already sufficiently shown.
Why do you keep avoiding the examples I gave? Can’t you just provide the definitive and clear explanation of W’s private language argument if you think it is so obviously understandable to you?
Again, a bunch of judgments flowing from confusion produced by emotional upset!
He is not my hero. And I disagree with some of his views.
But all this is irrelevant!
Nan and Thill,
I appreciate this discussion, and am happy that you have found my blog as a forum for it. However, the tone of it is beginning to concern me. I think it is starting to move to an unnecessarily personal level, on both sides. By all means continue debating, but I request that you both keep it to the arguments rather than to personal motives, and keep it calm.
Thill was not offering those two remarks as a refutation of your claim that W is a “horrendous” or poor writer. He is asking you to show what’s “horrendous” or “poor” about them.
Now if you can’t do that, just acknowledge it as a matter of intellectual integrity. Or come up with other passages in the PI on your own if you are able to do that.
You show a serious lack of integrity when you keep ignoring the examples I already gave.
Ayer and Strawson have given crystalline expositions of W’s argument against the possibility of a private language. Since you made the claim that his argument cannot be understood because of the horrendous nature of his writing, the onus is on you to show why the expositions of Ayer and Strawson fail to clarify W’s argument.
To shift the burden of proof on to your critics for a claim you have made is certainly irrational.
Jabali108, you are appealing to the authority of Ayer and Strawson and “Nan” has his Kripke and Hintikka.
How do we resolve this disagreement? Surely, we need to go to W’s remarks directly and judge for ourselves!
Nan, can you start the balls rolling? I am assuming you have them!
Also notice that Nan has claimed several times that Wittgenstein’s interpreters have restated his claims in a clearer fashion. The whole point of claiming that Wittgenstein is a bad writer, as I understand it, is to point out that others have been able to make the same points in more understandable fashion; Nan is claiming that it is very difficult to understand the private-language argument, not that it cannot be understood at all. Indeed I think Nan’s claim is that it is relatively easy to understand the same argument when it is expressed in clearer terms by writers other than Wittgenstein. So your example of Ayer and Strawson effectively serves to demonstrate Nan’s point.
“You made a harsh and sweeping judgment on a great philosopher. Philosophy ought to teach one to be careful with judgments and to back any excessive or harsh judgment with the appropriate evidence.”
I do think he was a great philosopher, just a very poor writer. Now talking about one’s writing is a bit of a stylistic point. So you do come off as petty when you carp on this point. You should start asking W scholars around and get their general view of W’s writing style. I think most will agree that he was among the worst writers of the early analytic philosophers (Russell, Moore, Frege, all the Logical Postivists). That’s not a “sweeping” judgement especially when I gave support for it. calling someone’s views on another philosopher’s writing style “an abuse of language” because he used “horrendous” to describe it, is.
I’m sorry I offended your great hero by calling him a horrendous writer. Are you satisfied now?
“I do think he was a great philosopher, just a very poor writer.”
If he was a poor writer, he would be for the most part obscure, and, hence, unintelligible. If he were unintelligible, it would make no sense to say that he was a great philosopher.
“If he was a poor writer, he would be for the most part obscure, and, hence, unintelligible. If he were unintelligible, it would make no sense to say that he was a great philosopher.”
This is non sequitur par excellence. Just because he was a poor writer doesn’t follow that he was “unintelligible.” Just harder to interpret in his case than most 20th century analytic philosophers.
“Nan”, what do you mean by a “poor writer”? Could give an example other than Wittgenstein?
Most of his views are not “harder to interpret”. His central views are pretty clear. In some cases, his arguments are not stated all in one piece or explicitly and in other cases the plausibility of his arguments are debatable. That’s all.
What do you think follows from someone being a “poor writer”?
“The quality of thinking is indicated by the quality of the writing. If W was “horrendous” writer, then he was a horrendous thinker. If he was a horrendous thinker, it would be absurd to consider him a great philosopher. Since it is not absurd to consider him a great philosopher, he was not a “horrendous” writer.”
Wow. How did I miss this little gem. This gets the non sequitur of the whole thread.
Explain and don’t simply assert that it is non sequitur!
“What do you think follows from someone being a “poor writer”?”
This is silly. Many things may “follow” from being a poor writer. However, one thing doesn’t always necessarily follow, that just because his writing is unclear that entails his thoughts unclear. that is the basic mistake and non sequitur you have made.
I regret that I did not examine the semantics of “horrendous” carefully. I assumed that the word implied, in this context, that W’s writings were extremely or awfully confused or unclear, but it does not have that implication.
According to the OED, “horrendous” means “extremely shocking, unpleasant, unacceptable”.
Now to say that W is a horrendous writer means that his writings are “extremely shocking, unpleasant, unacceptable”. This clearly does not imply that his writings are extremely or awfully confused or unclear. On the contrary, it implies that his writings are clear enough to be judged “extremely shocking, unpleasant, unacceptable”!!!
Now, if “Nan” doesn’t accept this implication of his ascription of “horrendous” to W’s writings, he must eschew the use of that word.
I rest my case.
To be fair, Thill, you have previously described Hegel’s writings in a way that implies you find them at least “unpleasant, unacceptable” if not “extremely shocking,” and that because of their very lack of clarity. Perhaps shock requires clarity, but I presume you know that the legitimate use of a word does not have to match every term in the dictionary definition of it.
Amod, let me just say I find Hegel’s writings extremely obscure and that I find, not the content, because I don’t know what it means, but the lack of clarity unpleasant, unacceptable, and extremely shocking. I intend to examine specific passages from his works in due course on my blog and you are welcome to offer your comments.
By the way, no need for editing or including the other post. I think there was an error in typing the e-mail address. Thanks for asking.
I won’t be discussing further with “Nan” on this issue since I have rested my case.
While Nan is free to speak for him/herself, I should note that what you have just said here should be sufficient to refute this particular objection to the use of “horrendous” – which, now that I mention it, you actually yourself used above to describe Hegel and Kant, and mentioned their lack of clarity as a reason. For Nan only described Wittgenstein’s writing, not his ideas, as horrendous. So you must retract your point that Nan’s use of “horrendous” to describe Wittgenstein’s writing “implies that his writings are clear enough to be judged ‘extremely shocking, unpleasant, unacceptable'”. Unless, that is, you want to ascribe clarity to Hegel – and even I wouldn’t do that!
I did not say that I find Hegel’s writings unpleasant or shocking. I said I find their lack of clarity unpleasant or shocking. The following three claims are mutually consistent:
1. Hegels’ writings or works suffer from a lack of clarity.
2. The lack of clarity in Hegel’s writings is unpleasant and shocking.
3. We cannot know if his ideas are unpleasant and shocking.
If someone says that they are making the same claims with “Wittgenstein” instead of “Hegel”, I would, of course, agree that the statements would still be mutually consistent.
Note that # 2 pertains to one feature, obscurity or lack of clarity, of the writings in question. What is judged to be unpleasant or shocking is not everything about the writing or the style, but only its obscurity or lack of clarity. One could still conceivably find other features of the writing, and I am certainly not attributing these to Hegel, such as the aphoristic style, or the use of short sentences or short paragraphs, pleasant.
Surely, you don’t think that obscurity or clarity is the only feature of any writing or its style?
Note that truth of # 1 “Hegel’s (or Wittgenstein’s) writings or works suffer from a lack of clarity.” can still be examined.
Further, if someone finds W’s writings “horrendous”, they could be talking about one feature of those writings such as its (alleged) obscurity or every feature of that style including the use of aphorisms or sutra-like sentences. To switch from “horrendous” to “poor” to describe the writing doesn’t really help because this too is vague and doesn’t help in making clear whether all aspects of the writing style, or just one or two aspects of the writing style, suffer(s) from inadequacy or deficiency and what sort of inadequacy or deficiency it is.
P.S. You wrote two duplicate copies of this comment, so I deleted the second one. Hope that’s okay with you. If there was a subtle difference that I missed, let me know and I can edit the first one for you.