Maverick Philosopher

Footnotes to Plato from the foothills of the Superstition Mountains

Category: Wittgenstein

  • How Philosophers Should Greet One Another

    Ludwig Wittgenstein, Culture and Value (University of Chicago Press, 1980), p. 80: Der Gruss der Philosophen unter einander sollte sein: "Lass Dir Zeit!" This is how philosophers should greet each other: "Take your time!" A similar thought is to be found in Franz Brentano, though I have forgotten where he says this: Wer eilt, bewegt…

  • Go For Broke and Die with Your Boots On

    Norman Malcolm, Ludwig Wittgenstein: A Memoir, pp. 56-57: Moore's health was quite good in 1946-47, but before that he had suffered a stroke and his doctor had advised that he should not become greatly excited or fatigued. Mrs. Moore enforced that prescription by not allowing Moore to have a philosophical discussion with anyone for longer…

  • Findlay Contra Wittgenstein

    John Niemeyer Findlay, The Transcendence of the Cave  (Allen & Unwin, 1967), p. 212:  We must find a fulcrum outside of this world if we are to lift the heavy load of puzzles which weighs on us in this world, and no therapy can hope to heal us if we are unwilling to be…

  • Wittgenstein’s Level

    There are philosophers whose ideas are worth  little, but whose lives were in many ways exceptional and pitched at a level of spiritual intensity that the rest of us reach only occasionally if at all.  Simone Weil is one example, Ludwig Wittgenstein another. This Wittgenstein fragment gives me shivers and goose bumps: A beautiful garment that is…

  • Morris Lazerowitz on Philosophy and Propositions

    Immersed as I am these days in a metaphilosophical project, I once again pull Lazerowitz's Philosophy and Illusion (Humanities Press, 1968) from the shelf.  Morris Lazerowitz (1907-1987) may not be much read these days, but his ideas remain provocative and worth considering, despite the fact that they are now taken seriously by few, if any.  But if he is…

  • What is Wrong and What is Right with Wittgenstein’s Philosophy of Religion

    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 and what…

  • Adorno on Wittgenstein’s Indescribable Vulgarity

    Theodor W. Adorno, Philosophische Terminologie I (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag, 1973). pp. 55-56:

  • Wittgenstein, On Certainty #348: ‘I am Here’

    Ludwig Wittgenstein writes: . . . the words 'I am here' have a meaning only in certain contexts, and not when I say them to someone who is sitting in front of me and sees me clearly, — and not because they are superfluous, but because their meaning is not determined by the situation, yet…