QuoteOriginally posted by: Hamiltoni am very much of the opinion that understanding existence is an act that requires less thinking than you imagine. Congratulations on demonstrating less thinking in your response than anyone participating so far in this thread.sorry. i did not get the nature of this discussion immediately. you made that pretty clear.peace

QuoteOriginally posted by: secondMani am very much of the opinion that understanding existence is an act that requires less thinking than you imagine. wittgenstein, as many philosophers, would IMHO have loved to give all this brainconceptionalising for more comfort with his personal existence. "worüber man nicht reden kann, ..." (what you cannot talk about ...)and he wanted his successors to climb on the tractatus as if it was a ladder, and then leave the ladder behind. IMO he was quite aware of the weaknesses of doing philosophy. I agree with you. I'm sure you know his example of "a man with a philosophical problem is like a fly in an open bottle. It buzzes and bounces from side to side. If the fly would sit still for a minute, it would realize that the bottle is open". I think that that lies at the heart of all his later thinking. Our problems are so complicated, not because they are so complicated, but because our minds are. I now think that both his early writing and his later writings revolve around the same theme: a good deal of our problems are caused by the cloudedness and denseness of the way that our brains work. In the early writings, it was our lack of understanding of the limitations of our language to express the world around us. In the later writings, the limitations of our ability to comprehend the world.But once again, I know very, very little about Wittgenstein.

QuoteOriginally posted by: LongThetaQuoteOriginally posted by: secondMani am very much of the opinion that understanding existence is an act that requires less thinking than you imagine. wittgenstein, as many philosophers, would IMHO have loved to give all this brainconceptionalising for more comfort with his personal existence. "worüber man nicht reden kann, ..." (what you cannot talk about ...)and he wanted his successors to climb on the tractatus as if it was a ladder, and then leave the ladder behind. IMO he was quite aware of the weaknesses of doing philosophy. I agree with you. I'm sure you know his example of "a man with a philosophical problem is like a fly in an open bottle. It buzzes and bounces from side to side. If the fly would sit stilll for a minute, it would realize that the bottle in open". I think that that lies at the heart of all his later thinking. Our problems seem so complicated, not because they are complicated, but because our minds are.speaking of bottles, existence, and thinking, shouldn't I appeal to Rene Descartes...."Rene Descarte was a drunken fart, I drink therefore I am...." or something like that?

Quotespeaking of bottles, existence, and thinking, shouldn't I appeal to Rene Descartes...."Rene Descarte was a drunken fart, I drink therefore I am...." or something like that?What's Wrong with Descartes Philosophy

QuoteWittgenstein never developed a "philosophy," as many of us understand that term. Practically speaking, most of his intellectual life was devoted to methods and/or techniques of analysis. He did talk about ethics, for instance, but it was not ethics, strictly speaking, he was talking about, but how to clarify propositions used within ethics. The same applies to the other traditional divisions of philosophy. He never developed a metaphysics; he didn't even understand what it was. He never dealt with issues in the philosophy of inanimate nature (cosmology) or animate nature (rational psychology); he didn't have a cosmology in philosophical terms. And so on and on. To speak of a "Philosophy of Ludwig Wittgenstein" is to use the term "philosophy" in a very loose sense. There is simply no "system" of philosophy in Wittgenstein, at least not in the sense in which we talk about Spinoza's system, or Aristotle's system, or Kant's system.This does not, of course, disparage Wittgenstein's contributions to philosophical analysis. I am merely trying to point out that Wittgenstein did not solve the "problem of the universals," as some have asserted, and, in fact, did not really deal with the "problem." Furthermore, Wittgenstein never developed a comprehensive philosophy in terms of content; he was concerned with philosophy as an "activity." As for the matter of "truth," for those who do not know, Wittgenstein accepted a correspondence theory of truth, in which truth is viewed as a relation between an idea or proposition and its object, which seems to place him in the general (and maybe "moderate") realistic thread of thought in which we find Aristotle and many others.Dolhenty on Wittgenstein

QuoteWithin the tradition of analytic and linguistic philosophy, as developed in the twentieth century, it was Wittgenstein's "Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus" that spelled out most clearly the ontological framework presupposed by Russell's program, following Leibniz, of making the structure of language isomorphic with the structure of reality by employing a series of logical devices. It was Wittgenstein also who was the first to realize, belatedly, the incompatibility of the ideal language game with the actual functions which language performs in daily life and in ordinary discourse.Adler on Language and Wittgenstein

dear hamiltoni think your real intention within this thread is talking about philosophy and have fun with philosophic arguing as such. IMVHO real philosophy looks for solutions and is not at all satisfied with the process and its inevitable weaknesses. one of the real great insights of wittgenstein was to detect that most, if not all of our mind problems stem from language or, more general, from our conceptual thinking. after you have realised that this by itself is a concept too, you will inevitably look for the end of all conceputal thinking ... if you are interested in the results of philosophy and not philosophy as such. the aggression (and a little arrogance?) of your posts indicates to me that you love to feel good within the framework of impressive rational thinking. nothing bad about it, but i doubt you will find the answer to what a concept is within this frame. peace

QuoteOriginally posted by: Noniusspeaking of bottles, existence, and thinking, shouldn't I appeal to Rene Descartes...."Rene Descarte was a drunken fart, I drink therefore I am...." or something like that?The Philosopher's Song(Monty Python)Immanuel Kant was a real pissantWho was very rarely stable.Heidegger, Heidegger was a boozy beggarWho could think you under the table.David Hume could out-consumeSchopenhauer and Hegel,And Wittgenstein was a beery swineWho was just as schloshed as Schlegel.There's nothing Nietzsche couldn't teach ya'Bout the raising of the wrist.John Stuart Mill, of his own free will,On half a pint of shandy was particularly ill.Plato, they say, could stick it awayHalf a crate of whiskey every day.Aristotle, Aristotle was a bugger for the bottle,Hobbes was fond of his dram,And Rene Descartes was a drunken fart:"I drink, therefore I am"Yes, Socrates, himself, is particularly missed;A lovely little thinker but a bugger when he's pissed!Regards,Niclas

QuoteOriginally posted by: secondManone of the real great insights of wittgenstein was to detect that most, if not all of our mind problems stem from language or, more general, from our conceptual thinking. after you have realised that this by itself is a concept too, you will inevitably look for the end of all conceputal thinking ... if you are interested in the results of philosophy and not philosophy as such. Was Wittgenstein familiar with the lower wheel?

QuoteOriginally posted by: secondMandear hamiltoni think your real intention within this thread...<yadda> <yadda>peaceYawn. If you would have bothered to follow the links, you would have noticedthat Dolhenty is one of the few philosophers to do a book review ofNassim Taleb's Fooled by Randomness. You may wish to write Fooled by Intention.Crimminy.

QuoteOriginally posted by: LongThetaQuoteOriginally posted by: secondManone of the real great insights of wittgenstein was to detect that most, if not all of our mind problems stem from language or, more general, from our conceptual thinking. after you have realised that this by itself is a concept too, you will inevitably look for the end of all conceputal thinking ... if you are interested in the results of philosophy and not philosophy as such. Was Wittgenstein familiar with the lower wheel?small wheels, big wheels ... no one gets lost. knowing the wheels or not.

hamilton: i wonder if we could ever understand the strucutre of this crystal ...man: it's cold here. lets get in.hamilton: the shape, the order, the angels. did you ever think of the compelxity of each of these structures relative to their size and their pretty simple origin. i mean ...man: hamilton, it is snowing. hamilton: don't you hear me? ha? i am talking about the phenomenon around us here. the complex processes. the myriads of different variations of the same principle. don't you get it?man: no. i mean. yes. ... it is cold. hamilton: i read this sentence in this book on the form of snow flakes compared to their relative age. the life span of a snow flake is defined by temperature, amount of material and pressure. let us neglect wind for the moment. we come to that later on ... man? man?!

QuoteOriginally posted by: HamiltonQuoteOriginally posted by: secondMandear hamiltoni think your real intention within this thread...<yadda> <yadda>peaceYawn. If you would have bothered to follow the links, you would have noticedthat Dolhenty is one of the few philosophers to do a book review ofNassim Taleb's Fooled by Randomness. You may wish to write Fooled by Intention.Crimminy.Hmmm, I checked it out....Taleb is a mathematics professor? hmmm, interesting......

I have a little theory that these links have nothing, nothing to do with this discussion.

I have a little theory that these links have nothing, nothing to do with this discussion. We all wait with baited breath for the empirical testing and proof of your theory.