Comments on Methods of Projection: Wittgenstein's Influence

Neil,I'd be happy to. I've also put your blog in t...

2008-05-05T07:46:00.000-05:00

Neil,

I'd be happy to. I've also put your blog in the "Wittgenstein(ish) Blogs" section. Maybe some of the other regulars will drop by to discuss Wittgenstein.

I met Roger White at a conference a few years back. He was very gracious in answering some questions I put to him. I think it would be a pleasure to write for him.

P.S. My email address is empty_reference@yahoo.com

Hi.. sorry for adding a comment that doesn't have ...

2008-05-04T22:58:00.000-05:00

Hi.. sorry for adding a comment that doesn't have anything to do with this particular post. I tried emailing your 'emptyreference' email address but it got sent back to me. This is what I wrote....

Hi

I'm at the University of Leeds doing an MA in philosophy and over the next 3/4 months I will be writing a dissertation on WIttgenstein (and iwll be supervised by Roger White). Struggling to put all my thoughts down in one go to formulate a line of argument, I thought it might be useful to find a forum to put my thoughts down piece-meal, alloweing me to 'detect' or 'extend' the general themes that arise from the discussion.

I was just wondering whether, if you are interested, would occassionally take a look and criticise or comment on what I say. Part of writing it in this way will lead me to be often 'wide of the mark' but sometimes this may be initially needed to come up with a new angle or emphasis. You will find it at: http://makingsenseofwittgenstein.blogspot.com/

If you could, that would be wonderful

Neil Clarke

Argh. I had a comment written up, and then my fing...

2008-05-04T18:15:00.000-05:00

Argh. I had a comment written up, and then my finger slipped and I refreshed the page somehow. A rougher version; I'm not going to worry about how it flows this time:

"I had a professor say to me early in my career that if I were to ever take the time to get intimately familiar with the thought of any of the giants of the tradition, I would find their arguments persuasive. I think this is, for the most part true"

I suspect this is quite right. But this gives me pause, since it at least appears that The Greats disagree among themselves. So their persuasiveness can't be entirely due to the cogency of their thought. "Academic stockholm syndrome" comes to mind. (This is of course not always the case. But I think it's a real threat.)

I'm also not inclined to worry about whether or not I'm in a position to question The Greats. If I can't make their thought my own possession, then it can be nothing to me; if I can make it my own, then we're on a level playing field. (Which is not to say it's a fair match. But it is a match.)

I'm also inclined to stress the need for a critical distance from what one wants to learn from, in addition to the need to "submit oneself" to the text. Err on one side, and one feels "persuaded" when one merely slavishly repeats what one has read; err on the other, and one becomes impervious to attempts at education. (Ayn Rand books seems to have this effect a lot.) It's a balancing act.

I'm perfectly happy to let bad interpretations flourish, if that's the price of having good interpretations sprout up every so often. (Kripke's rule-following book is lousy, but much of the literature it spurred into being by its sheer awfulness is quite good.)

My outlook on these sorts of topics is probably colored by my enthusiasm for Hegel. Considering his reputation a century ago, I'm thrilled just to see that anyone's reading him seriously again; I much prefer a mass of bad Hegel interpretation to none of any kind.

Daniel,I'm not opposed to tearing off bits and pie...

2008-05-04T16:38:00.000-05:00

Daniel,

I'm not opposed to tearing off bits and pieces, so long as they actually are bits and pieces. What bothers me about Dennett's attitude is that it implies that a bad interpretation is on a par with a good interpretation, so long as the interpreter can make use of the text he's interpreting. Implicit in this is the idea that the reader is on a par with the great philosophical authors of past and present--that what he takes from the text is as good as what the author put in it. Except for the rare occasion when philosophical greats read philosophical greats, this is almost always wrong (it seems to me). I had a professor say to me early in my career that if I were to ever take the time to get intimately familiar with the thought of any of the giants of the tradition, I would find their arguments persuasive. I think this is, for the most part true, though I've only had the opportunity to even go some of the distance with two thinkers, LW and Aristotle. I don't consider Dennett in the same league as LW or Aristotle (or Plato, Aquinas, Kant, Hegel, etc.). Sorry, that's a bit rambling, but I am on my way out the door.

Our agreement seems to be occasioned by silly comm...

2008-05-04T16:26:00.000-05:00

Our agreement seems to be occasioned by silly comments about Wittgenstein.

I do need to get back to the philosophical differences themselves. I havn't had a substantive post in a while. The primary reason is that I've been pouring every drop of thought into finishing up my dissertation (I think the end of July is realistic). I've also been trying to refashion part of it into an article I can send off for publication.

Perhaps I'll do a few posts on Naming and Necessity. All of this 'who-cares-about-Wittgenstein-we-love-metaphysics' sentiment has resulted in my rereading it (it's one of the roots of that sentiment). I dislike it now even more than I did when I first read it in school. I am also interested to read the Price article that Daniel linked to.

Concerning coyness, I wanted to err on the side of caution.

I had no idea that Searle claims his notion of "ba...

2008-05-04T01:34:00.000-05:00

I had no idea that Searle claims his notion of "background" is Wittgensteinian. I've mainly encountered it through Dreyfus & co.'s occasional references to Searle, so I'd figured they were all drawing from Heidegger (with Searle presumably doing so at a great remove). A quick glance at "The Primacy of Phenomenology over Logical Analysis" shows that I was apparently wrong about every bit of how that all went down -- Dreyfus thought Searle was offering something Husserlian, so he decided to play Heidegger to Searle's Husserl, and then this eventually went all kerflooey. I have no idea what Searle thinks he's taking from Wittgenstein. (Perhaps this just shows that I don't know Searle very well. But I'm not terribly inclined to spend time getting to know him better. I got about halfway through "The Rediscovery of Mind" before finding something else to do.)

I actually like Dennett's attitude towards historical philosophers in that article; if everyone keeps tearing off bits & pieces* of so-and-so, then at least so-and-so is still acknowledged as being in the conversation. If all there was was fanatics, then I expect contemporary philosophy would be more myopic than it already is. So, two cheers for plundering graves!

*"Schopenhauer as Educator" comes to mind as relevant, here. "I never pick him up without tearing off a wing or a leg" strikes me as pretty much the highest praise you can give a work.

You left out the part where we agreed! In fact I ...

2008-05-03T18:50:00.000-05:00

You left out the part where we agreed! In fact I do think everyone agrees here – except those outside philosophy, or in it for that matter, who think that analytic philosophy as a whole has turned away from the Good, the True and the Beautiful toward nihilistic "language games" because of Wittgenstein's dire influence. It is in reacting to this charge in particular that people's philosophical differences present themselves, misleadingly, as empirical disagreements (about the extent of W's influence). Now that the latter have been pretty much cleared up, we can go back to the former – yay!

I agree (if that's what you're saying) that Wittgenstein himself would have been just as appalled by Dennett's naturalism as by Searle's Cartesianism, but for some reason I am bugged more by the latter. Dennett at least gets some anti-Cartesian use out of what he gets from Wittgenstein (and Ryle) and in that context I don't really care where he gets it (even if he then does other things wrong). Searle just seems to miss the point completely.

Another philosopher in this category is Stroud. As with Searle, I couldn't believe it when I found out Stroud takes W. to be an influence. However, I respect Stroud quite a bit for his forthrightness about his inability to think his way out of his self-admittedly aporetic position, and he's very good about taking down lame attempts by others to avoid it. Recently, in fact (I need to read more of his recent stuff), he has seemed even, possibly, to be working his way toward the light; but it's very hard for Cartesians to change their spots, so I'd be surprised if he ever made it.

Of course, yet another guy in this category is (Colin) McGinn; but him I respect least of all. Have you seen his blog? It's an embarrassment to the profession.

Incidentally, I see you've amended the post since I first saw it. No need to be coy on my behalf – I stand by my words. I get steamed when people who find little of value in Philosophical Investigations feel the need to pontificate, out of sheer ignorance, about the motivations of those of us do find a great deal there. Not the first time we've run into that!

Brandon,I agree with you about much of Searle's ph...

2008-05-02T21:03:00.000-05:00

Brandon,

I agree with you about much of Searle's philosophy. That is, I think Searle is influenced by a misinterpretation of Wittgenstein. Given the numerous interpretations of Wittgenstein, this is true of many philosophers. In his disagreement with Hacker, Dennett claims to be following Wittgenstein. In his recent conference paper "Rule-Following Revisited," Warren Goldfarb quotes the following bit from Dennett's piece on Wittgenstein in Time magazine:

Wittgenstein, like any other charismatic thinker, continues to attract
fanatics who devote their life to disagreeing with one another ...about
the ultimate meaning of his words. These disciples cling myopically to
their Wittgenstein, not realizing that there are many great
Wittgensteins to choose from.

Goldfarb adds, "I am, I admit, a fanatic: I would like to find out the meaning of Wittgenstein’s
words. (Even their ultimate meaning, if that’s different.)" Even though I deplore Dennett's attitude toward Wittgenstein (or any other philosopher), I think we can still call this an 'influence' or sorts. It's generally agreed that Carnap misinterprets the Tractatus, nevertheless, Carnap's positions are heavily indebted to his encounter with Wittgenstein's thought whether he gets it right or not.

N.N.:W.'s impact on Ryle is quite striking actuall...

2008-05-02T19:44:00.000-05:00

N.N.:

W.'s impact on Ryle is quite striking actually, and as you say one can't miss it when reading 'Concept of Mind'. W. also told Ryle's cousin that he (Ryle) was one of the few people who understood his work.

And of course, one cannot simply dismiss the extraordinary flowering of Ordinary Language Philosophy in the late 50s and into the 60s, especially at Oxford, largely due to Wittgenstein and his students.

As for Searle, I'm skeptical of him. He says that W. influenced him, but if he did it's either through misunderstanding or mere lip service. His view on the relation between science and philosophy, and especially his views on the mind and consciousness, are decidedly non-Wittgensteinian.

Those guys on that article dismiss Wittgenstein as...

2008-05-02T17:32:00.000-05:00

Those guys on that article dismiss Wittgenstein as J.L. Austin did: "Well, suppose everyone has a beetle in the box. Next week everyone bring a box with a beetle in it."
( Conversations With John Searle. p.23 )

Wittgenstein was a maverick analytic; he draws on brilliant philosophers like Kierkegaard, wrote in an almost poetic style, and he will be remembered long after the names Schlick, Ayer, Ryle and Carnap have turned into dust.

I am drawing on Hacker's book (which is excellent)...

2008-05-02T09:43:00.000-05:00

I am drawing on Hacker's book (which is excellent). Even before I had read Hacker, I had a pretty good idea of Wittgenstein's influence. Russell's articles in the Monist on logical atomism are explicitly indebted to Wittgenstein. Ramsey and Carnap acknowledge debts to Wittgenstein left and right. Waismann was basically Wittgenstein's philosophical partner in the early 30s. It's impossible to read Concept of Mind without seeing Wittgenstein's influence (something Ryle readily admitted). Strawson's account of meaning as rules for use in "On Referring" is obviously Wittgensteinian.

One prominent analytic philosopher I forgot to include who explicitly acknowledges debts to Wittgenstein is John Searle. His idea of the Background is Wittgensteinian (though Searle misunderstands it), as is the idea of a speech act (I even think his dog is named 'Ludwig').

This is not at all surprising, really. A.C. Grayl...

2008-05-02T00:31:00.000-05:00

This is not at all surprising, really. A.C. Grayling argues the same thing in his book about Wittgenstein, that he really had no influence at all after the Tractatus. Completely insane. Of course, Grayling's book is awful anyway, and I am still angry at the fact that it is currently the 'Wittgenstein' book in the "A Short Introduction to..." series of books.

Funnily enough, I just started reading Hacker's 'W.'s Place in 20th Century Analytic Philosophy', which makes the same (and correct) argument that you did, that W. was hugely influential to two major philosophical movements. I imagine that you've read it as well, given what you said?