[PEN-L:1548] Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Enlightenment

[Ajit Sinha <ecas@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

At 11:52 11/12/98 -0800, Ken Hanly wrote:
>	My bit of whimsy mislead you. Of course the Sicilian gesture did not
cause the
>change in Wiittgenstein all by itself. I always like to pull economical
legs. Von
>Wright's remarks are probably quite accurate but my remarks do indicate
precisely the
>sort of thing that Wittgenstein was convinced was wrong and I note that
Sraffa woke
>Wittgenstein from his dogmatic slumbers-- as Wittgenstein notes in his
preface to the
>Investigations.. Ramsey no doubt helped as well. Wittgenstein would never
use the sort of
>language I used, although he was certainly offensive at times and in a
famous incident is
>said to have threatened other philosophers with a poker. You ignore all
the important
>detail of my post that gives it its significance, for I try to make clear
what
>precisely Sraffa's influence changed in Wittgenstein's views.
__________

I didn't comment on those aspects because to a large extent I did not
disagree with what you said there. Moreover, I have just started studying
Wittgenstein--I'm no Wittgenstein scholar. I do have a shoft corner for
Wittgenstein because from all the accounts I have read he was a man
bodering on madness but exteremly genuine in his relationship with others,
would not have anything do with with conceit, and was genuinely lonely.
________
>   By the way the Investigations was not actually published until two
years after
>Wittgenstein died. He was not able to get it into the finished form he
desired.
_______

That's right. So the Preface only relates to the first part of
Philosophical Investigation.
__________
 I have no
>idea what you are talking about when you refer to silences. Are you sure
you haven't been
>listening to John Cage rather than reading the Tractatus?
> 	Wittgenstein does talk about silence in the Tractatus but the term is to
be
>understood as a deduction from his  model of the ideal language. The
relationship between
>language and the world cannot be said or described but only the logical
form shown
>through the similarity of structure of the symbol and the fact. One of the
analogies uses
>is a model  of a traffic accident versus the accident, or a map and the
territory.
>Communication is possible through SEEING the common structure of model
elements in the
>model and actual autos to each other in reality. This can only be shown
and not itself
>spoken of--according to Wittgenstein. Hence he says: That whereof one
cannot speak, one
>must be silent. Are these the silences whereof Ajit speaks? This silence
disappears in
>the Investigations and is replaced by a lot of noisy lanuage games since
the whole idea
>was based upon an incorrect  model of  how language works.
_____________

I'm sorry I misled you there. I was talking about Sraffa's silences in PCMC
(i.e. Production of Commodities by Means of Commodities) and not
Wittgenstein's dictum in *Tractatus*. By the way, what do you mean by
"incorrect model of how language works"? Is a critique of *Philosophical
Investigation* lurking here or it was the *Tractatus* model that is beeing
reffered to as being "incorrect"? Thanks for the references below. Cheers,
ajit sinha
______

>	From 1926 to 1928 just before he went to Cambridge WIttgenstein took part
in the
>discussions of the Vienna Circle. Although he was never a card-carrying
logical
>positivist he was sympathetic to their views and the Tractatus certainly
makes a strict
>distinction between language that can be cognitively meaningful (languages
of science and
>mathematics) and all other discourse-- a key resemblance to logical
positivism. It is
>within the context of the attempt to delineate the formal outlines of an
ideal language
>that would enable everyone to speak clearly (That which can be said. Can
be said
>clearly.) that the TRACTATUS was written. So what specifically are the
family
>resemblances between the TRACTATUS and Sraffa's PCMC? By the way most of
us including my
>do  not have an innate mechanism that can automatically interpret what the
letters "PCMC"
>stabd for. I assume it is Sraffa's book on the reproduction of
commodities. I haven't
>read it but I have read a bit about it and glanced through it. Perhaps
there are
>similarities to the TRACTATUS. I don't know.
>	Again, I would stress that the TRACTATUS is an extremely technical book
and to be
>understood within a certain tradition of anti-metaphysical writings
designed to promote
>the development of an ideal language using the tools of the newly
developed symbolic
>logic and mirroring the features of a deductive system. Just a quote to
give you an idea
>of one of the main themes of the TRACTATUS.
>  OXFORD COMPANION TO PHILOSOPHY ed Ted Honderich p 912. The material is
by the
>Wittgenstein scholar P.M.S. Hacker. This is part of his discussion of what
the Tractatus
>is about.
>	"The logical analysis of propositions must yield propositions which are
logically
>independent of each other, i.e. elementary propositions whose truth
depends only on the
>existence or non-existence of (atomic) states of affairs. Elementary
propositions can be
>combined to form molecular propositions by means of truth-functional
operators- the
>logical connectives."
>	I submit that the  above discourse will make no sense (or ought not) to
anyone
>not familiar with symbolic logic and the predicate calculus in particular.
In the
>predicate calculus small letters typically are interpreted as constants
analagous to
>proper names that refer to individual entities and capital letters refer
to properties
>and relations. Thus a particular dot being red could be symbolized by the
atomic
>proposition "Rd" where "R" means "is red" and "d" refers to the dot. All
meaningful
>discourse can be analysed ultimately in to atomic propositions of  this
sort or
>(truth-functional) combinations of them. For example according to
Wittgenstein  at this
>time: ALL dots are read would mean: Ra and Rb and Rc..... that is a
conjunction
>conjoining each and every nameable individual thing with the predicate
red. Joy of joys
>if you could translate everything into these truth functions and
empirically determined
>whether the atomic statements conformed with reality you could calculate
what was
>definitively true or false about whatever is said. That's the scenario and
the problems
>are equally arcane from the viewpoint of non-logicians. The meaning of the
symbols
>referring to individuals is that to which they refer. How can  "Excalibur"
have meaning
>when the sword is destroyed? When "Ajit Sinha" dies is the name
meaningless? The problems
>are discussed ad nauseam in the Investigations. The opening passages
quoting St.
>Augustine are all about an incorrect model of how names mean. Further
elaboration of the
>problems Wittgenstein is dealing with can be found in Saul Kripke's NAMING
AND NECESSITY
>(Oxford 1980) and WITTGENSTEIN ON RULES AND PRIVATE LANGUAGE (OXford 1982).
>   Cheers, Ken Hanly
>
>
>P.S. Wittgenstein also knew John Maynard Keynes. Keynes along with Russell
championed
>Wittgenstein. However, Russell had no sympathy with Wittgenstein's views
in the
>Investigations. Russell claimed Wittgenstein gave up thinking around 1930!
There is a
>bizarre movie called simply Wittgenstein that exlpores some of his
personal relationships
>and includes bits about Keynes.
>>
>> At 00:43 11/12/98 -0800, Ken Hanly wrote:
>> >       I didn't realise that Wittgenstein had any influence on Sraffa. I
>> >though the influence was the other way around. Sraffa sort of woke
>> >Wittgenstein from his dogmatic slumbers. In the Tractatus, Wittgenstein
>> >holds that all language, to communicate, must have a certain logical
>> >structure. An ideal languages would make this structure transparent
>> >whereas it is obscured in ordinary language. Symbolic logic basically
>> >gives you the form of this structure without any content. (Wittgenstein
>> >developed truth tables independently of the mathematician Post.
>> >Wittgenstein thought they gave you a picture of "logical space".)
>> >Wittgenstein was explaining his ideas to Sraffa and Sraffa made a gesture
>> >of contempt. I gather that it is a movement of the hand under the chin
>> >that Italians use. Sraffa said: What is the logical structure of that?
>> >Strangely enough , since he usually didn't pay attention to criticism,
>> >this really impressed Wittgenstein. He said to himself. Shit. Maybe it
>> >doesn't have a logical structure. Here I thought I had solved the basic
>> >problems of the philosophy of language and have been saying THIS MUST BE
>> >SO when any idiot, even an economist, can see it AINT SO.
>> ___________________
>>
>> Wittgenstein did not see Sraffa as an "idiot" or "an economist". Let me
>> give you just two quotations, one from Preface of *Philosophical
>> Investigations* and second from von Wright's 'Biographical Sketch' of
>> Wittgenstein.
>>
>> "For since beginning to occupy myself with philosophy again, sixteen years
>> ago, I have been forced to recognize grave mistakes in what I wrote in that
>> first book. I was helped to realize these mistakes--to a degree which I
>> myself am hardly able to estimate--by the criticism which my ideas
>> encountered from Frank Ramsey, with whom I discussed them in innumerable
>> conversations during the last two years of his life. Even more than to
>> this--always certain and forcible--criticism I am indebted to that which a
>> teacher of this university, Mr. P. Sraffa, for many years unceasingly
>> practised on my thoughts. I am indebted to THIS stimulus for the most
>> consequential ideas of this book." (L.W)
>>
>> "Of great importance in the origination of Wittgenstein's new ideas was the
>> criticism to which his earlier views were subjected by two of his friends.
>> One was Ramsey, whose premature death in 1930 was a heavy loss to
>> contemporary thought. The other was Piero Sraffa, an Italian economist who
>> had come to Cambridge shortly before Wittgenstein returned there. It was
>> above all Sraffa's acute and forceful criticism that compelled Wittgenstein
>> to abandon his earlier views and set out upon new roads. He said that his
>> discussions with Sraffa made him feel like a tree from which all branches
>> had been cut." (von Wright)
>>
>> So simply it was not just Sraffa's well known 'Sisilyan gesture' that
>> caused it all. Now, why I'm reading Wittgenstein, when the influence seems
>> to be other way round? It is because Sraffa's writings, and particularly
>> PCMC, is like music with full of silences. The silences are part of the
>> music, and cannot be 'understood' without a good understanding of the
>> silences. On the face of it, PCMC has a family resemblence with TRACTATUS,
>> but once you begin to listen to the silences the ground starts to shift. I
>> think the nature of shift in Wittgenstein's thought would be able to help
>> us understand Sraffa's silences and the nature of his project much better.
>> As far as who influenced whom is concerned, I think when two outstanding
>> minds indulge in friendly intellectual discussions for many years it would
>> be foolhardy for anyone to think that the influence would be a one way
>> avenue. I don't know much about Wittgenstein's "antisemiticism", but his
>> friend Sraffa was a jew. Cheers, ajit sinha
>>
>>
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