Posts Tagged Ludwig Wittgenstein

Hattiangadi on Meaning in Language

Posted by Tom McDonald in Misc. Philosophical Musings, Reviewage on April 21, 2011

Oughts and Thoughts: Scepticism and the Normativity of Meaningis a 2007 book by Oxford philosophy professor Anandi Hattiangadi that develops a response to Saul Kripke’s skepticism about whether there is a fact of meaning in a person’s use of language. In Kripke’s 1984 book Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language,he argued, via a controversial interpretation of Wittgenstein, that there is never a fact about the linguistic meaning itself in our use of language.

Note that this is not global skepticism about the objective facts that science is supposed to study. This is the fairly typical contemporary view that if language requires interpretation, then its meaning-content is ‘merely subjective’ or even ‘merely intersubjective’. This is skepticism about whether in language the semantics or meanings expressed, e.g., conceptual contents like “the distinction of the 18th-century powdered wig” or “comedy” or “the zombie in cinema”, are themselves ‘a matter of fact’.

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David Foster Wallace on Wittgenstein

Posted by Daniel Horne in Web Detritus on December 30, 2010

DFW cartoon

Slate Magazine recently posted a great article on the recently-departed author and essayist David Foster Wallace, focusing on how Wallace (correctly?) interpreted Wittgenstein’s early and late philosophy to cope with his allegedly crushing sense of solipsistic dread. I’m not sure I buy this thesis, but Wallace’s suicide implies something was clearly bothering him. Even so, I’d ascribe a more clinical complaint like depression than a philosophical one like solipsism.

For anyone who reads the article and wonders whether Wallace (a fellow philosophy grad school dropout) had anything interesting to say about Wittgenstein, here’s a clip from his essay “Tense Present: Democracy, English, and the Wars over Usage,” as it originally appeared in Harper’s Magazine in 2001:*
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Episode 8: Wittgenstein’s Tractatus (and Carnap): What Can We Legitimately Talk About?

Posted by Mark Linsenmayer in Podcast Episodes on September 4, 2009

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:37:48 — 89.6MB)

Continuing last ep’s discussion of Wittgenstein’s Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus with some Rudolph Carnap (a logical positivist from the Vienna Circle: “The Rejection of Metaphysics” from his 1935 book Philosophy and Logical Syntax) about what kind of crazy talk is outside of legitimate discourse.

Carnap interprets W as simply ruling out as unscientific most of the talk we’d consider philosophical, i.e. metaphysics, ethics, the self… Or is W really a mystic who just wants to distinguish these from science? Why doesn’t he just write more and explain himself? This tricky text inspires Seth to start a cult.

To follow along, read the Tractatus from the beginning through around 4.12, then skip to 6.3 and read to the end, skimming the more technical material in the middle. Here’s the text for free online, or you can buy the book.

Also, if you’re confused by the description of truth tables (which are hard to picture without seeing some), look here.

End song: “The Last Time,” by Mark Lint and the Fake from the 2000 album So Whaddaya Think?

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Episode 7: Wittgenstein’s Tractatus: What Is There and Can We Talk About It?

Posted by Mark Linsenmayer in Podcast Episodes on August 19, 2009

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:27:08 — 79.8MB)

Discussing the beginning (through around 3.1) of Wittgenstein’s Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Mr. W. wrote that the world is made up of facts (as opposed to things) and that these facts can be analyzed into atomic facts, but then refused to give even one example to help us understand what the hell he’s talking about, and so Wes and Mark argue about it per usual while Seth corrects our German pronunciation. The first 3/4 of this episode was recorded off-site from our regular equipment, making the audio quality relatively sucky. Enjoy!

Read the text online or buy the book.

For a clearer explanation of fact-based ontology, see this short introduction by Bertrand Russell to his lectures on logical atomism.

End song: “Facts for a Moment (What You Are to Me),” recorded in 1992 and released on the Mark Linsenmayer album Spanish Armada, Songs of Love and Related Neuroses.

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