Was Wittgenstein anti-philosophy?
One of my most dear and beloved philosophers, Ludwig Wittgenstein has always been a sort of an enigma to me.
On the one hand, he is arguably the greatest philosopher of the 20'th century. His contributions seen in the Tractatus and the Investigations are without a doubt impressive.
Yet, people seem to get lost in his philosophy, instead of focusing on the primary theme of his philosophy; being, the resolution of philosophical problems into senseless or nonsensical problems.
So great has Wittgenstein's influence on me is or have been to the point of abandoning any plans on majoring in philosophy at college.
To anyone who has majored or is thinking about majoring in philosophy in some institution, isn't Wittgenstein a sort of cognitive dissonance or bittersweet inducing experience?
On the one hand, he is arguably the greatest philosopher of the 20'th century. His contributions seen in the Tractatus and the Investigations are without a doubt impressive.
Yet, people seem to get lost in his philosophy, instead of focusing on the primary theme of his philosophy; being, the resolution of philosophical problems into senseless or nonsensical problems.
So great has Wittgenstein's influence on me is or have been to the point of abandoning any plans on majoring in philosophy at college.
To anyone who has majored or is thinking about majoring in philosophy in some institution, isn't Wittgenstein a sort of cognitive dissonance or bittersweet inducing experience?
Comments (40)
That is unfortunate. I did not get the impression while wrestling with him that he was solving all the problems in so far as they could be solved. He is more Zhuangzi than Kant regarding the limits of explanation.
There is a tale, I can't find the source and my memory is finicky, that a student of Wittgenstein abandoned his doctoral thesis in philosophy and left college. Upon hearing this Wittgenstein proclaimed that he ought to be granted tenure or some such matter for this act.
If.
Do you really believe that or is this bullshitting in practice?
Teaching is an odd profession in that if one does it well, the student will no longer need the teacher; teachers seek to do themselves out of a job. If people did not insist on having more kids, we would not need teachers.
We would not need philosophers if folk stoped getting tangled up in their worlds and words.
But, today is Sunday.
Quoting Banno
I feel sorry for teachers. I still consider it a noble profession.
Quoting Banno
Ahh, they'd go on well without anyone teaching them also.
One teacher I had while reading Wittgenstein pointed out that shooing the fly out of the bottle is not an event if you don't own the both the bottle and the fly.
Hmm, what do you mean by that? It's not quite clear to me. I miss being in the bottle. There is certainty in the struggle of the fly trying to get out. Once it is out, then the struggle disappears. Everything else becomes non-relevant.
No, it's Monday. I live in your future.
Philosophers generally think of themselves as teachers; they set out to explain where others have gone wrong, and to show folk what they ought do.
Are they any good at their job?
When the patient has achieved remission?
Certainly a confusing experience. I feel sorry for the bloke. But, then again philosophy is no authority on living life.
Oh, I wouldn't say that.
Well, I phrased it deceptively. Life is one thing, the other part is living it.
Getting it wrong leads to all sorts of trouble.
No, it is not unimportant. Maybe impotent?
So, you read the fly as representing yourself in the bottle.
I think of it more as a way to not just keep repeating certain problems. Not because they have disappeared but because one can change your relation to them over time.
My teacher's remark was a caution against living too vicariously through other people's processes.
It's shewing, and archaic spelling of showing...
Not Shooing.
“Teaching philosophy” is the lowest of the low.
Yet, here we are metalogically talking about the merits or detriments of philosophy.
Quite a conundrum.
Point taken. More of a guiding action than a waving away.
The fly could see all the motion either way.
So we'll always need teachers and philosophers. Perhaps philosophy is useful after all, although it is a Monday, so I'll have to wait until tomorrow until we're on the same wavelength.
The fly is content. It doesn't need any shooing or showing or shewing.
Poor fly.
The fly doesn't need your sympathy, this is a cause for celebration. It has been liberated. Fly away, dear fly, fly away. Up, up, and away.
Until I shewt you down.
No, the rights of the fly have been infringed by an overzealous individual.
These are grounds for the fly to sue Wittgenstein.
So, Wittgenstein was in contradiction. To borrow a term from Harry Frankfurt, was there a higher order volition (non egotistical) to dissuade others from doing philosophy and instead appreciate the esoteric and mystical that is religion, ethics in practice and charitable deeds?
I feel as though despite the overtones of Schopenhauer in Wittgenstein's early philosophy that he realized that it was his, so to speak, "duty" to dissolve the problems of philosophy, even though he rather failed at this task in my humble opinion.
One can think oneself a flowerpot and not be a flowerpot. That's not a contradiction. That's being wrong. In any case, Witty simply had a narrow, thinly pitched idea of what he understood to be 'philosophy'; he may have exploded it, well even, but expunging shadows ain't all that.
Sure, but I've no pretension to declare the 'uselessness' or 'senselessness' of philosophy.
If language stems from experiences, and questions are settled through experiences, then there are only practical problems.
People ask, "what is the meaning of life?", or more precisely "what is the purpose of my life?". The very concept of purpose stems from experiences where some object is useful to reach something that is wanted, a hammer laying there has no purpose unless one wants to use it for something, then its purpose becomes to help reach the thing that is wanted. In the same way, one's life has no purpose unless one wants to use it for something, then its purpose becomes to help reach what is wanted. The answer is either obvious, or there is no answer until one finds something they want to reach with their life. The underlying practical problem would be "how do I find something I want to reach with my life?", but there is nothing deeper to it.
Or some might ponder endlessly "what is time?", thinking of time as some mysterious entity that passes or that flows, without realizing that our concept of time stems from us experiencing change. A clock is something that changes, that we use as a point of reference to relate to other things that change, and then we say that a clock measures time as if time was an entity with an independent existence, and then we try to find that entity but there is nothing to find, there is just needles moving or shapes changing, there is just change.
Or often we ask "why?", such as "why is there something rather than nothing?", or "why is there this rather than something else?". Where does our concept of "why" stem from? We see someone do something, and we wonder what drove them to do what they did, what was it that they wanted, what was desired to be attained. Or we see something in a unusual place and we wonder how it got there, was it someone who put it there or the wind or some unknown force? The word "why" summarizes that, attempting to know what was the desire that drove someone, or what was the creature or the thing that was responsible for moving or building or destroying something.
But then when we are asking "why is there something rather than nothing", we are wondering what was the desire or what was the thing that is responsible for there being something rather than nothing, which presupposes the existence of some being or phenomenon outside of our experience with the power of creating everything we can experience, but if the "something" in the question is taken to include everything outside of our experience too then "why" cannot apply to it and the question has no meaning. Just like "what does time smell like" has no meaning, many questions that can be formulated in a language have no meaning, in that they don't relate to anything from which the language was built in the first place. And once all such questions are removed there only remains the practical ones that relate to what we do experience.
If that was the theme of his philosophy then why did he continue? Did he fail to resolve the problems for himself? Was his primary theme to help others solve the problems he had solved for himself? If this were the case then why his extensive private notebooks? Some of these notes were work on books he never published, but others were his way of thinking with his pen.
Quoting Wallows
Quoting Wallows
I was attracted to the interpretive challenge, becoming totally engrossed in trying to think along with him, making connections. I take the cognitive dissonance to be fundamental to the pursuit of philosophy. Philosophy can be truly dangerous if one is unable to be comfortable with that dissonance.
I take seriously the following from a draft for the preface to Philosophical Remarks:
There are locked doors, rooms we are prevented from entering in Wittgenstein's writings. The first step is not to find the key but to find the lock.
[Psychologizing ensues] And here I have to say that Wittgenstein was motivated by personal issues or perhaps even perceived shortcomings. I haven't read his biography; but, it is common knowledge that he struggled with suicidal thoughts and most probably some form of PTSD after the World Wars.
Basically, I find his philosophy motivated by an existential impetus. Even though it is debatable whether he classifies as a continental philosopher or analytic one, I still find comfort in the mixture of the two that can be found in his philosophy.
Quoting Fooloso4
Yes, perhaps.
Quoting Fooloso4
Again, maybe they were not meant for publication, much like Marcus Aurelius Meditations were a private diary.
Quoting Fooloso4
Yes, please expand on this.
Quoting Fooloso4
Enigmatic as always with Wittgenstein.
I would say more generally that Wittgenstein was motivated to think. This includes but is not limited to problem solving.
The solving of philosophical puzzles is related to the larger issue of how one sees things. The puzzlement stands in one's way. But the elimination of the problems is not the elimination of philosophy, although it might mean the elimination of philosophy as it has been practiced by some.
Quoting Wallows
Socrates was accused of being a torpedo fish, numbing his interlocutors. What he was doing, however, was simply demonstrating to them that they did not know what they professed or assumed to know. This was not the end but rather the beginning of philosophical inquiry. Not having solid ground to stand on, however, can cause vertigo as one stares into the abyss. This uncertainty can be incapacitating for some, as they come to question everything and cannot feel certain about anything. Or they may latch on to something that promises to be the answer.