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/lit/ - Literature

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15184746 No.15184746 [Reply] [Original]

>Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.

So, what's an example of a thing you cannot speak of and therefore must remain silent of?

>> No.15184757

>>15184746
Can you speak of the chemical composition of penguin's blubber? Be silent about that then.

Honestly if you can't understand this quote, OP, you should not be reading philosophy at all.

>> No.15184763

>>15184757
>Can you speak of the chemical composition of penguin's blubber? Be silent about that then.

Well it's not impossible to do a little research and find out.

>> No.15184757,1 [INTERNAL] 

To my parents: the girl I like is a black Jew with autism and adhd. If you click "Marieka", you can email her.

>> No.15184764

>>15184746
if the world is a simulation or not

>> No.15184768

>>15184763
Once you have done the research you are no longer required to be silent.

>> No.15184769

>>15184746
My propositions are elucidatory in this way: he who understands me finally recognizes them as senseless, when he has climbed out through them, on them, over them. (He must so to speak throw away the ladder, after he has climbed up on it.) He must surmount these propositions; then he sees the world rightly. Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.

Even he recognized that the book he just wrote was something he claimed you cannot speak of. Later Wittgenstein and language games are much better we don't speak in logical propositions.

>> No.15184771

>>15184746
>example
Running one's mouth about books and authors that one hasn't got a clue beside Wikipedia articles.
If his suggestion was enforced in /lit/ it would become one of the slowest boards, if not the.

>> No.15184777

>>15184771
were*

I hate that you can't edit posts in this shit board.

>> No.15184791

>>15184768

Sure that makes sense. But is that really all there is to Wittgenstein? People talk of his like he's the most mystical wise sage ever or something but all he says is, "do your research or shut up bro." Bit of a letdown, really.

>> No.15184815

It's a nice quote, but seems to encourage conformity. Someone may argue that one should be silent on a number of things where it doesn't apply. Also we're naturally curious, so to put a stop to that is futile, even if our speculations don't amount to anything.

>> No.15184823

>>15184768
>>15184791
No this is totally wrong it wasn't some Peterson self-help nonsense. He was attacking metaphysics and what he considered the lack of meaning certain terms had in it. Extreme logical positivism that viewed all of human language as strict logical propositions and a variable in a logical proposition without a defined referrant is meaningless and in in his opinion should not be talked about

>> No.15184834

>>15184823
Here is the full passage the OP comes from:

“The right method of philosophy would be this. To say nothing except what can be said, i.e. the propositions of natural science, i.e. something that has nothing to do with philosophy: and then always, when someone else wished to say something metaphysical, to demonstrate to him that he had given no meaning to certain signs in his propositions. This method would be unsatisfying to the other - he would not have the feeling that we were teaching him philosophy - but it would be the only strictly correct method. My propositions are elucidatory in this way: he who understands me finally recognizes them as senseless, when he has climbed out through them, on them, over them. (He must so to speak throw away the ladder, after he has climbed up on it.) He must surmount these propositions; then he sees the world rightly. Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.”

>> No.15184854

>>15184746
People usually talk about the picture theory in a similar way to pic related. You can easily say what's different or the same, but you find it hard to impossible to say how you know that in any meaningful sense. The picture theory can be applied to the entire Tractatus, Witt is not randomly picking facts and assertions that are built of top of one another, he is painting you a picture of the problem of thinking collecting facts/statements is all there is.

>> No.15184865
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15184865

>>15184854
Second time's a charm.

>> No.15184875

I can't tell you

>> No.15184880

If you don't get it you're NGMI

>> No.15184893

grammar.

>> No.15184905

>>15184893
My grammar's dead.

>> No.15184911

its basically " if you have to ask you'll never know funky motherfucker will not be told to go" pandered to sophisticated academics

>> No.15184934

>>15184746
Anything pol related

>> No.15184938

>>15184834
Wittgenstein is an autistic interpretation of Hume.
>When we go through libraries, convinced of these principles, what havoc must we make? If we take in our hand any volume—of divinity or school metaphysics, for instance—let us ask, Does it contain any abstract reasoning about quantity or number? No. Does it contain any experiential reasoning about matters of fact and existence? No. Then throw it in the fire, for it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion.

>> No.15184949

>>15184746
Literally everything metaphysical.

>> No.15184957

>>15184938
He changed latter on and renowned the Tractatus. Language games is what he should be remembered for and those replace his idea of language as logical propositions

>> No.15184963

>>15184957
>renowned
*renounced

>> No.15184969

>>15184963
>*renounced
**rebounced

>> No.15184984

>>15184969
Wittgenstein was also a lunatic that beat children he was a teacher for and had many anonymous gay hookups with men he met in a public park. A generally horrible person but a good philosopher

>> No.15185008

>>15184984
He also designed a house and pretended to be the moon in a park.

>> No.15185024

>>15184746
Saying the word 'cat' implies an existential definition, a physical one, a semiotic one and a literature one. The one I use denotes the word for cat as well. Anyways his argument is to say that you can't use the word cat to understand car because it's made up of atoms that words can't reach, spoken or written. I like the concept, not an atomist tho but it makes his transition to pi make more sense

>> No.15185045

>>15185024
Jeez read the passage above it's an explicit attack on metaphysics not on cats fuck.

>> No.15185065
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15185065

>>15185045
The metaphysics of cats!

>> No.15185075
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15185075

This is now a cat posting thread

>> No.15185078

>>15185065
I guess. Tractatus Wittgenstein is against all metaphysics including the one he just laid out in the same book

>> No.15185085

>he doesn't know

>> No.15185089

>>15185078
Yeah I thought he was pro metaphysics just he didn't think we could speak of them

>> No.15185113

>>15185089
He was for something he thought you couldn't talk about? Wittgenstein was weird but he wasn't trying to start a mystery religion.

>> No.15185151

>>15184757
that's the most brainlet tier interpretation I've ever seen

>> No.15185183

>>15185113
He was religious. He read Tolstoy's gospels during ww1 and it enravished him

>> No.15185196

>>15185089
>>15185113
A pretty typical interpretation of the Tractatus is that it's saying "okay, we can't make a simple statement about metaphysics, but we can indirectly refer to it or paint a picture of it", as the book itself is this argument and is nothing more than a collection of simple statements.

>> No.15185210

>>15184746
The noumenal world.

>> No.15185225

>>15184769
all the language game stuff is pretty retarded desū

>> No.15185234

All of continental philosophy

>> No.15185246

>>15185196
The Tractatus is laid out like it is to ape mathematics like Spinoza. I know about philosophy as therapy and I don't really care that much since I view the Tractatus as a failure and later Wittgenstein as being the notable part.

>> No.15185247

Interpretations of art

>> No.15185257

>>15185225
Language games fits with modern linguistics better than any thing else. I'm not a positivist but science still rules over philosophy for me where they compete

>> No.15185263

>>15185246
>since I view the Tractatus as a failure
Principia Mathematica is the same sort of thing but failed, the Tractatus is Wittgenstein saying why that approach is wrong.

Imo.

I don't get too hung up that there's some fundamental disconnect in his earlier and later works, that's autistic analytic cope. Read some poetry, chill out.

>> No.15185273

He was talking about God/Religion when he said this

>> No.15185272

>>15185257
>I'm not a positivist
You're just an idiot.

>> No.15185283

>>15184746
Religion, ethics, and aesthetics, according to Witty himself

>> No.15185287

>>15185263
I didn't get that from it all. Principia failed because of Godel, they were never going to be able to get what they wanted from it. It's not like anyone ever really doubted that 1+1=2

>> No.15185294

>>15185287
>It's not like anyone ever really doubted that 1+1=2
I don't think you get it dude.

>> No.15185298

>>15185273
>>15185283
Blargh at least read the passage I posted above where the quote is taken from:

“The right method of philosophy would be this. To say nothing except what can be said, i.e. the propositions of natural science, i.e. something that has nothing to do with philosophy: and then always, when someone else wished to say something metaphysical, to demonstrate to him that he had given no meaning to certain signs in his propositions. This method would be unsatisfying to the other - he would not have the feeling that we were teaching him philosophy - but it would be the only strictly correct method. My propositions are elucidatory in this way: he who understands me finally recognizes them as senseless, when he has climbed out through them, on them, over them. (He must so to speak throw away the ladder, after he has climbed up on it.) He must surmount these propositions; then he sees the world rightly. Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.”

He is explicitly talking about metaphysics

>> No.15185301

Those truths about life which can only be experienced, which the propositions of logic and science cannot tell us about.

>> No.15185333

>>15185301
This. Experience is irrelevant if you can't prove what you are talking about through science

>> No.15185341

>>15185247
now this take I like

>> No.15185345

>>15185294
Russell and Whitehead really did prove 1+1=2 in the Principia but no one really cares about it now because the point of it wasn't to prove something so uncontroversial(along with many other uncontroversial things) but rather to provide a basis for all of mathematics. Godel torpedoed that. I don't know that alot of mathematicians know anything about Wittgenstein other than maybe his name.

>> No.15185364

>>15185301
>>15185333
Jesus Christ /lit/ is fucking brainlet tier. Ridiculous navel-gazing spit takes, read what the man fucking wrote

>> No.15185382

>>15185364
>"you are wrong!"
>doesn't explain why
pointless comment

>> No.15185406

>>15185382
I've already posted the passage twice this will be the third time:


“The right method of philosophy would be this. To say nothing except what can be said, i.e. the propositions of natural science, i.e. something that has nothing to do with philosophy: and then always, when someone else wished to say something metaphysical, to demonstrate to him that he had given no meaning to certain signs in his propositions. This method would be unsatisfying to the other - he would not have the feeling that we were teaching him philosophy - but it would be the only strictly correct method. My propositions are elucidatory in this way: he who understands me finally recognizes them as senseless, when he has climbed out through them, on them, over them. (He must so to speak throw away the ladder, after he has climbed up on it.) He must surmount these propositions; then he sees the world rightly. Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.”

See the line at the end is the quote from OP and the part in the middle where he talks about metaphysics. It's an explicit attack on metaphysics and he as much as says that the propositions of science are the only things that can be said.

>> No.15185452

>>15185345
>I don't know that alot of mathematicians know anything about Wittgenstein other than maybe his name.
Guy literally invented truth tables.

>Russell and Whitehead really did prove 1+1=2 in the Principia
I was getting at there's more to the Principia than that, it's an unfinished work. Wittgenstein more or less told Russell that he'd already tried to do the same thing as the Principia and found it fruitless, Wittgenstein is criticising the approach. Godel is responding to the Vienna circle's take and they seem to have taken TLP as like a way to fix the thinking in PM.

>> No.15185472

>>15185452
So what Wittgenstein anticipated Godel? And how would the Tractatus help with incompleteness?

>> No.15185500

>>15184938
This is hume's argument about empiricism; not at all what witt's point is. I don't even know witt at all and I can clearly see that his point is different.

>> No.15185508

>>15185500
Read the quoted passage here >>15185406

>> No.15185511

>>15185472
>So what Wittgenstein anticipated Godel?
No. From what I remember from reading Wittgenstein never took an interest in Godel, but then he never took an interest in the Vienna circle:
>When [Wittgenstein] finally came, instead of answering their questions about his book, he sat facing away from them reading Tagore, the Indian poet, for over an hour and then got up and silently left the room. Afterward Carnap remarked to Schlick, “I guess he is not one of us.”
I think he felt that everyone involved fundamentally missed the point of his work and that there was nothing useful coming out of it. Wittgenstein and Godel are both critics of the way of thinking in the Vienna school in effect, but in different ways. Godel's pretty much going "even if I am charitable and go along with your line of thinking, then there is this necessary result which is problematic for you", while Wittgenstein is saying "you need to look at the world in a different way, here is a work that hopefully helps you see where there are more things and what you're missing" ... sort of.

I do wonder if Wittgenstein and Godel could have had a fruitful discussion or interaction, but what is past is past.

>> No.15185529

>>15185511
They were both insane it probably made them automatically dislike each other. Godel result is really restricted to math I really can't imagine what any interaction between it and the Tractatus would look like

>> No.15185562

>>15185529
Didn’t Godel refuse to eat because he thought his food was poisoned and people were attempting to poison him? He died of painful starvation. Actual mental illness. I don’t even know if it qualifies as suicide, considering people who want to commit suicide do it fast and as painless as possible.

>> No.15185568

>>15185529
>Godel result is really restricted to math
I think it's fair to say that first of all the Vienna circle and even now a lot of analytics would say that the fundamental metaphysics of the world is pretty much mathematics, so your reading is perhaps not quite right. I don't know if Godel would think that (probs not) but certainly a lot do.

>> No.15185585

>>15185562
Wittgenstein was probably severely bipolar

>> No.15185602

>>15185562
It's a common thing in OCD. Got to be super careful about taking part in those rituals.

>> No.15185613

>>15185568
Incompleteness theorem relies on a lot of fairly technical details of mathematics. For example Presburger arithmetic a weaker form of the Peano axioms that doesn't include multiplication and is complete and decidable. Figuring out the metaphysical implications of that seems fairly ridiculous if math is viewed as somehow fundamental.

>> No.15185616

I agree with him but I have a habit of speaking out of my ass and it usually causes trouble in my life

>> No.15185631

>>15185585
Apparently he only ate meals that his wife cooked and tasted first. But his wife was hospitalized and then he stopped eating all together and starved himself to death. It makes me think of his wife was hospitalized due to poison...

Also yeah three out four of Wittgenstein’s sibilant committed suicide and Wittgenstein himself had suicidal tendencies.

I wonder if being such geniuses cause a higher change of mental illness

>> No.15185639

>>15184746

well you see... I cannot speak of it otherwise if I could then it would not be something of which I cannot speak
And therefore everything that is spoken of in this thread is in fact not something that cannot be spoken of

>> No.15185650

>>15185613
>Figuring out the metaphysical implications of that seems fairly ridiculous if math is viewed as somehow fundamental.
I mean again I think you're not coming at it with the right frame or world view to understand what they were thinking. There are no other metaphysical implications, it's mathematics all the way down with these guys. "Whereof one cannot speak" to them seems to have been an excuse to ignore this other metaphysics, which is probably nonsense or French (if there is a difference).

There's some quite poor hand wavy responses to Godel too that get developed from these logical positivist types, like if you use the right framework or second order logic and pray to mathematics it stops being relevant.

>> No.15185673

>>15185650
That's why I mentioned Presburger arithmetic Godel's incompleteness does not apply to it, it is a complete system

>> No.15186625

>>15184984
Gay hookups thing is a lie but yeah when he was a school teacher he slapped the shit outta the kids

>> No.15186638

>>15184757
If I can make the inference that it is organic matter can I speak on it?

>> No.15186648

>>15184777
GB

>> No.15186649

>>15184746
Every perception is illusion. You have no free will, no freedom of action

>> No.15186665

>>15186649
You're so deep, please tell me the secrets that allow you to suck your own cock.