[ExI] Wittgenstein's Other, More Important Work

Michael Miller ain_ani at yahoo.com
Thu Mar 27 14:53:29 UTC 2008


Of course, you understand what he meant by this?

That which can be expressed, can be done so precisely; to a mathematically perfect degree. This is what he has done in the written Tractatus. Logic and the modes of human expression are finite and thus definable.

That which cannot be so expressed (eg, the truths of ethics, religion etc...those which become manifest through a person's whole world and cannot be constrained to a mere linguistic utterance), we should not even attempt to speak about for we will only be able to lead further away from true understanding about it. This is what he wrote not about, but hoped to demonstrate through a process of showing rather than explaining.

It is precisely this second part which is the most important - Wittgenstein claimed that the Tractatus had solved all the problems of logic and philosophy, and made evident how little was accomplished by doing this. For, the real problems of life are those which cannot be discussed and dissected so easily: they are the religious and the ethical. The 'spiritual' concerns of man, if you will.

Mike

----- Original Message ----
From: Lee Corbin <lcorbin at rawbw.com>
To: ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Sent: Thursday, March 27, 2008 6:24:33 AM
Subject: [ExI] Wittgenstein's Other, More Important Work

Ludwig wrote

----- Original Message ----- 
From: Ludwig Wittgenstein <ludwigw at WienerKreis.de>
To: Ludwig Ficker <ludwigficker at WienerKreis.de>
Cc: lcorbin at rawbw.com; mschlicht at ViennaCircle.com
Sent: November 7, 1919  2:38 PM
Subject: The Line I Should Have Written in Tractatus Preface

> [Regarding Tractatus] the book's point is an ethical one. I once
> meant to include in the preface a sentence which is not in fact
> there now, but which I will write out for you here, because
> it will perhaps be a key to the work for you. What I meant
> to write, then, was this: My work consists of two parts: the
> one presented here plus all that I have not written. And
> *it is precisely this second part that is the important one*.
> My book draws limits to the sphere of the ethical from the
> inside, as it were, and I am convinced that this is the
> ONLY rigorous way of drawing those limits. 

[Janik & Toulmin, 1973,. p. 192, as I quote from
http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~chip/pubs/speaking.shtml]

Good heavens!  What an *out*!   Why didn't any author before
Wittgenstein have the witt to have thought of this!?   For, not only
do we have to credit Wittgenstein with what he did say, but we
must also credit him for all the unfathomable wisdom in what
he did *not* say!   Indeed, the man was a genius.

Lee

_______________________________________________
extropy-chat mailing list
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat





      Never miss a thing.   Make Yahoo your homepage.





      ____________________________________________________________________________________
Be a better friend, newshound, and 
know-it-all with Yahoo! Mobile.  Try it now.  http://mobile.yahoo.com/;_ylt=Ahu06i62sR8HDtDypao8Wcj9tAcJ
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.extropy.org/pipermail/extropy-chat/attachments/20080327/9a8f0f26/attachment.html>


More information about the extropy-chat mailing list