Category: Wittgenstein
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How Could God be Ineffable?
The mystically inclined say that God is ineffable. The ineffable is the inexpressible, the unspeakable. Merriam-Webster: Ineffable comes from ineffābilis, which joins the prefix in-, meaning "not," with the adjective effābilis, meaning "capable of being expressed." Effābilis comes from effārī, "to speak out," which in turn comes from ex- and fārī, meaning “to speak.” But: "What we cannot speak about we must pass over in…
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What I Like About Wittgenstein
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Ludwig Wittgenstein
My plan this morning was to hit the mat of meditation at 2:30, but it wasn't until 4:00 that I got there, having once again become entranced by the depth, probity, and genius of Wittgenstein as displayed in his Culture and Value (Vermischte Bemerkungen). His was a great if tormented soul and a powerful intellect. …
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Wittgenstein’s Philosophy of Religion
Substack latest. One source of the appeal of ordinary language philosophy (OLP) is that it reinstates much of what was ruled out as cognitively meaningless by logical positivism (LP) but without rehabilitating the commitments of old-time metaphysics. In particular, OLP allows the reinstating of religious language. This post explains, with blogic brevity, how this works…
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Wittgenstein and Dreaming
On Certainty #383: The argument "I may be dreaming" is senseless for this reason: if I am dreaming, this remark is being dreamed as well and indeed it is also being dreamed that these words have any meaning. I beg to differ. It is a plain fact that people have dreams in which they know that…
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The Question of the Reality of God: Wittgensteinian Fideism No Answer
Substack latest.
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Wittgenstein on Christianity
A Good Friday meditation. Substack latest. Last year's Good Friday Substack meditation.
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Wittgenstein’s Tractatus at 100
Here
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The Concept of the Metaphysical Self in Wittgenstein as Limit Concept
I continue my investigation of limit concepts. So far I have discussed the concepts of God, prime matter, bare particulars, and particularity. We now turn to the Tractarian Wittgenstein. As I read him, Wittgenstein accepts Hume's famous rejection of the self as an object of experience or as a part of the world. "There is…
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Death as the Muse of Morality Limits Our Immorality
How much more immoral we would be if we didn't have to die! Two thoughts. 1. Death sobers us and conduces to reflection on how we are living and how we ought to live. We fear the judgment that may come, and not primarily judgment of history or that of our circle of acquaintances. We sense that…
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More on the Question: Is Christianity Vain if not Historically True?
Just over the transom from Jacques: Enjoying your posts as always! Thanks for writing so regularly, at such a high level. Reading your posts on Wittgenstein on religion I have a few quick thoughts about religion (or Christianity specifically). When I first started reading Wittgenstein, I initially thought that he had in mind some very…
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An Easter Sunday Meditation: Wittgenstein Contra St. Paul
1 Corinthians 15:14: "And if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain." (KJV) Ludwig Wittgenstein, Culture and Value, U. of Chicago Press, 1980, tr. Peter Winch, p. 32e, entry from 1937: Queer as it sounds: The historical accounts in the Gospels might, historically speaking, be demonstrably false…
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On the Expressibility of ‘Something Exists’
I am trying to soften up the Opponent for the Inexpressible. Here is another attempt. …………………….. Surely this is a valid and sound argument: 1. Stromboli exists.Ergo2. Something exists. Both sentences are true; both are meaningful; and the second follows from the first. How do we translate the argument into the notation of standard first-order…