Is a Hotdog a Sandwich? A Definitive Study

A followup of the post 'Who decides what words mean'. Here a comic about the definition of something to eat, a sandwich. Wittgenstein shows up.

Wittgenstein’s shift in thinking, between the Tractatus and the Investigations, maps the general shift in 20th century philosophy from logical positivism to behaviourism and pragmatism. It is a shift from seeing language as a fixed structure imposed upon the world to seeing it as a fluid structure that is intimately bound up with our everyday practices and forms of life. For later Wittgenstein, creating meaningful statements is not a matter of mapping the logical form of the world. It is a matter of using conventionally-defined terms within ‘language games’ that we play out in the course of everyday life. ‘In most cases, the meaning of a word is its use’, Wittgenstein claimed, in perhaps the most famous passage in the Investigations. It ain’t what you say, it’s the way that you say it, and the context in which you say it. Words are how you use them.

Wittgenstein and other philosophers such as J.L. Austin came to believe that a fundamental mistake was made about the nature of language itself. Language, they thought, doesn't pick out truth propositions about the world at all. Speech acts were fundamentally no different than other actions, and were merely used in social situations to bring about certain effects. For example, in asking for a sandwich to be passed across the table, we do not pick out a certain set of facts about the world, we only utter the words with the expectations that it will cause certain behavior in others. Learning what is and isn't a sandwich is more like learning the rules of a game than making declarations about what exists in the world, so for Wittgenstein, what is or isn't a sandwich depends only on the success or failure of the word "sandwich" in a social context, regardless of what actual physical properties a sandwich has in common with, say, a hotdog.

via Existential Comics

Ludwig Wittgenstein: 'In case you want an Emetic, there it is.’

Neville Chamberlain
"Peace for Our Time," September 30, 1938

The following statement was made by British Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain, in front of #10 Downing Street, London, after his arrival home from the notorious Munich Conference of 1938:

"(...)

My good friends, for the second time in our history, a British Prime Minister has returned from Germany bringing peace with honor. I believe it is "peace for our time." Go home and get a nice quiet sleep".

. . . . . . .

Wittgenstein sensed a different smell:

In the midst of all this anxiety, the sight of Neville Chamberlain returning from Munich proclaiming ‘Peace in our time’ was too much to bear. He sent Gilbert Pattisson one of the postcards printed to celebrate Chamberlain’s ‘success’. Beneath a picture of Chamberlain and his wife the legend reads: ‘The Pilgrim of Peace. Bravo! Mr Chamberlain.’ On the back Wittgenstein wrote: ‘In case you want an Emetic, there it is.’

(Ray Monk - Ludwig Wittgenstein: The Duty of Genius)

Ludwig Wittgenstein

26 April 1889 - 29 April 1951

He considered Confessions to be possibly ‘the most serious book ever written’. He was particularly fond of quoting a passage from Book I, which reads:

‘Yet woe betide those who are silent about you! For even those who are most gifted with speech cannot find words to describe you’, 

but which Wittgenstein, in discussing it with Drury, preferred to render:

‘And woe to those who say nothing concerning thee just because the chatterboxes talk a lot of nonsense.’

In conversation with Waismann and Schlick the text was translated even more freely:

‘What, you swine, you want not to talk nonsense! Go ahead and talk nonsense, it does not matter!’

Ray Monk - Ludwig Wittgenstein: The Duty of Genius

Wittgenstein - A wonderful life

"Will you please tell me if I am a complete idiot?"

He would, according to Russell, ‘pace up and down my room like a wild beast for three hours in agitated silence’. (1)

"When we do philosophy we are like savages, primitive people, who hear the expressions of civilized men, put a false interpretation on them, and then draw the queerest conclusions from it."

Wittgenstein, PI §194

(1) Ray Monk: Wittgenstein

Wittgenstein’s Favorite Music: Schubert, Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms, because “nothing of value had been composed after the 19th century’s demise"

It would not be the notoriously ill-tempered and in your face philosopher, were there not one rare exception: cabaret actress and singer Yvette Guilbert, favorite subject of artist Henri Toulouse-Lautrec and onetime star of the Moulin Rouge.

The philosopher’s perfectionism lead to some harsh critical judgments. “Brahms is Mendelssohn without the flaws,” he wrote. He declared Mahler “worthless… quite obviously it took a set of very rare talents to produce this bad music.” What did Wittgenstein value in music besides an ideal of perfection? Grammar, silence, and profundity. “The music of the Baroque era… made use of the special effect of silence,” writes Yael Kaduri at Contemporary Aesthetics. “The general pause of the Baroque was used to illustrate concepts such as eternity, death, infinity and silence in vocal music.” These concepts “did not disappear in the transition to the classic era.” Haydn’s music in particular “contains so many general pauses that it seems they form an intrinsic component of his musical language.”

Way more here and here.

Dem Landgericht München I sei dringendst die Lektüre von Ludwig Wittgensteins 'Philosophical Investigations I' nahegelegt

Ein Spaziergang in die ungebildete Provinz der Münchner Justiz.

Exzerpt aus Verfassungsbeschwerde:

Das beanstandete Bild ist eine Photoshop-generierte Karikatur der früheren Chefin von Yahoo Marissa Mayer. Es ist offenkundig eine Satire und bezogen auf eine Entscheidung des Yahoo CEO, die bis dahin geltende Möglichkeit der Arbeit von daheim zu diskontinuieren. Das Bild ist hier zu sehen: http://www.classicforwards.com/memes/marissa-mayer-work-home-meme/

Der Behauptung des Gerichts im Urteil unter 'V. Rechtliche Würdigung' (Anlage 2, Seite 9), "es ist bei dem Bild auch nicht erkennbar, dass sich der Angeklagte eindeutig gegen den Nationalsozialismus ausspricht", fehlt es an jeglicher Rationalität. Das Bild ist eine Karikatur, Yahoo eine amerikanische Medienfirma, bislang nicht bekannt als Proponent des NS. Der Blog Post trägt u.a. den Text "Sehen Sie, geschätztes Fräulein Martina Musati, genau solche Bilder mit Nazi-Symbolen werden wir vor dem obersten Gericht klären. Das Jobcenter wird jedenfalls nie mein Recht der freien Meinungsäusserung beschneiden!" Der Nationalsozialismus hatte nie etwas mit freier Meinungsäusserung zu tun. Der Text spricht ein Gericht in einem demokratischen Land an.

Dem Münchner Gericht sei dringendst die Lektüre von Ludwig Wittgensteins 'Philosphical Investigations I' nahegelegt. In § 435 heisst es: 

"If it is asked: "How do sentences manage to represent?"—the answer might be: "Don't you know? You certainly see it, when you use them." For nothing is concealed."

'Don’t I look enterprising?!'

©Wikipedia

Wittgenstein on a postcard to Gilbert Pattisson:

‘Dear old Blood, I’m sure you’ll be interested to see me as I walk with a sister & a friend of mine [Margarete Stonborough and Arvid Sjögren] in an exhibition of bloody modern houses. Don’t I look enterprising?! You can gather from this picture that we had very hot weather but not that there was a terrific thunderstorm half an hour after this was taken. I am, old god, yours in bloodyness, Ludwig’

Ray Monk - Wittgenstein

Wittgenstein on Christmas Day

‘I am a beast and am still not unhappy about it’, he wrote on Christmas Day. ‘I am in danger of becoming still more superficial. May God prevent it!’

The reason being that, when shortly after he arrived in Vienna to spend Christmas with Marguerite (his love) and with his family, she announced that she no longer wished to kiss him. Her feelings for him, she explained, were not of the appropriate kind. Wittgenstein did not take the hint.

The problem, as he saw it, was not to win her over but to conquer his own desires. That's when he said the above.

(Ray Monk - Ludwig Wittgenstein: The Duty of Genius)

Wittgenstein published only one book review. And that was devastating.

Wittgenstein was still only twenty-four, and officially an undergraduate reading for a BA, when he was asked to review a textbook on logic – The Science of Logic by P. Coffey – for the Cambridge Review. This is the only book review he ever published, and the first published record of his philosophical opinions. In it he presents a Russellian dismissal of the Aristotelian logic advanced by Coffey, but expresses himself with a stridency that exceeds even Russell’s, and borders on the vitriolic:

In no branch of learning can an author disregard the results of honest research with so much impunity as he can in Philosophy and Logic. To this circumstance we owe the publication of such a book as Mr Coffey’s ‘Science of Logic’, and only as a typical example of the work of many logicians of to-day does this book deserve consideration. The author’s Logic is that of the scholastic philosophers and he makes all their mistakes – of course with the usual references to Aristotle. (Aristotle, whose name is so much taken in vain by our logicians, would turn in his grave if he knew that so many Logicians know no more about Logic to-day than he did 2,000 years ago.) The author has not taken the slightest notice of the great work of the modern mathematical logicians – work which has brought about an advance in Logic comparable only to that which made Astronomy out of Astrology, and Chemistry out of Alchemy. 

Mr Coffey, like many logicians, draws a great advantage from an unclear way of expressing himself; for if you cannot tell whether he means to say ‘Yes’ or ‘No’, it is difficult to argue against him. However, even through his foggy expression, many grave mistakes can be recognised clearly enough; and I propose to give a list of some of the most striking ones, and would advise the student of Logic to trace these mistakes and their consequences in other books on Logic also.

There follows a list of such mistakes, which are, for the most part, the weaknesses of traditional (Aristotelian) logic customarily pointed out by adherents of Russellian mathematical logic – for instance, that it assumes all propositions to be of the subject-predicate form, that it confuses the copula ‘is’ (as in ‘Socrates is mortal’) with the ‘is’ of identity (‘Twice two is four’), and so on. ‘The worst of such books as this’, the review concludes, ‘is that they prejudice sensible people against the study of Logic.’ By ‘sensible people’ Wittgenstein presumably meant people with some sort of training in mathematics and the sciences, as opposed to the classical training we can probably assume Mr Coffey (along with most traditional logicians) to have had.

(Ludwig Wittgenstein: The Duty of Genius - Ray Monk)

Wittgenstein probably would have smashed a couple of TV sets in Germany these days

With so-called Nazi time documentaries airing on fucking boring German TV at least three days a week every week, Wittgenstein would certainly lose his temper. He could be pretty tense.

Contrary to him, I do like the British anthem as I like the Russian and American, and the French is fresh and airy. Play the German anthem and I am gone or turn off the sound. I hate it beyond description.

Wittgenstein was a great fan of Western movies.

"By the late 1930s, however, his taste had broadened to include musicals. His favourite actresses, he told Malcolm, were Carmen Miranda and Betty Hutton. Exhausted and disgusted by his lectures, he would invariably go to see a ‘flick’ after them, accompanied by Malcolm, Smythies or one of his other friends from the class. He would always sit at the front of the cinema, where he could be totally immersed in the picture. He described the experience to Malcolm as ‘like a shower bath’, washing away his thoughts of the lecture.

It was the custom at that time to play the national anthem at the end of the film, at which point the audience was expected to rise to their feet and stand respectfully still. This was a ceremony that Wittgenstein could not abide, and he would dash out of the cinema before it could begin. He also found the movie newsreels, which used to be shown between films, unbearable. As war with Germany approached, and the newsreels became more and more patriotic and jingoistic, Wittgenstein’s anger increased. Among his papers there is a draft of a letter addressed to their makers, accusing them of being ‘master pupils of Goebbels’. It was at this time that his friendship with Gilbert Pattisson, of ten years’ standing, came to an end, when he perceived in Pattisson’s attitude to the war something he took to be jingoism. His friendship with Norman Malcolm was threatened by a similar issue."

Ludwig Wittgenstein: The Duty of Genius - Ray Monk

Wittgenstein on 'How to date a hot girl'

See, I knew I would have your attention with this headline. Slightly fooled you. Wittgenstein wrote  the following in a state of great dispair. He had finished his 'Tractatus' and was eagerly looking for a publisher which proved to be extremely difficult.

You see, W. did not exactly display smooth salestalk when he cautioned a prospective publisher by hinting ‘For you won’t – I really believe – get too much out of reading it. Because you won’t understand it; the content will be strange to you’.

So with that in mind, here is the Wittgenstein way of dating in the final phase:

"And now, only one more request: Make it short and sweet with me. Tell me ‘no’ quickly, rather then too slowly; that is Austrian delicacy which my nerves are not strong enough to withstand, at the moment."

As they say demurely in India: "Don't mention."


Monk - Ludwig Wittgenstein: The Duty of Genius

You wrote 'the next big advance in philosophy’ and are not entitled to receive a BA!? There is only one way to respond, the Wittgenstein way.

Moore, accordingly, wrote to Wittgenstein to explain the situation. Wittgenstein was outraged. His work – ‘the next big advance in philosophy’ – not entitled to receive a BA!? And just because it was not surrounded with the usual paraphernalia of undergraduate scholarship! This was the limit. It was bad enough to have to offer pearls to swine; to have them rejected was intolerable. On 7 May he gave vent to his feelings in a fiercely sarcastic letter to Moore, which, for the time being, put an end both to his friendship with Moore and to his hopes of obtaining a Cambridge degree:

Dear Moore, 

Your letter annoyed me. When I wrote Logik I didn’t consult the Regulations, and therefore I think it would only be fair if you gave me my degree without consulting them so much either! As to a Preface and Notes; I think my examiners will easily see how much I have cribbed from Bosanquet. – If I am not worth your making an exception for me even in some STUPID details then I may as well go to HELL directly; and if I am worth it and you don’t do it then – by God – you might go there. The whole business is too stupid and too beastly to go on writing about it so –

L.W.

Monk - Ludwig Wittgenstein: The Duty of Genius

Not sure what kind of man you should be? Wittgenstein can help you out of your misery

Ludwig Wittgenstein
(4th from left)

Wittgenstein was known to be tough on his students and could be pretty explosive. In addition, he was not inclined to debate his convictions unless ...

Wittgenstein was not one to debate his most fundamental convictions. Dialogue with him was possible only if one shared those convictions.

Anyway, here is what makes a real man:

Wittgenstein talked about Beethoven:

"… how a friend described going to Beethoven’s door and hearing him ‘cursing, howling and singing’ over his new fugue; after a whole hour Beethoven at last came to the door, looking as if he had been fighting the devil, and having eaten nothing for 36 hours because his cook and parlourmaid had been away from his rage. That’s the sort of man to be."

Monk - Ludwig Wittgenstein: The Duty of Genius

Wittgenstein gave Russell a pretty hard time in the beginning

My German friend threatens to be an infliction, he came back with me after my lecture & argued till dinner-time – obstinate & perverse, but I think not stupid.8 [19.10.11]

My German engineer very argumentative & tiresome. He wouldn’t admit that it was certain that there was not a rhinoceros in the room … [He] came back and argued all the time I was dressing.9 [1.11.11 ]

My German engineer, I think, is a fool.10 He thinks nothing empirical is knowable – I asked him to admit that there was not a rhinoceros in the room, but he wouldn’t. [2.11.11]

[Wittgenstein] was refusing to admit the existence of anything except asserted propositions.11 [7.11.11]

My lecture went off all right. My German ex-engineer, as usual, maintained his thesis that there is nothing in the world except asserted propositions, but at last I told him it was too large a theme.12 [13.11.11]

My ferocious German came and argued at me after my lecture. He is armour-plated against all assaults of reasoning. It is really rather a waste of time talking with him.13 [16.11.11]

Excerpt from Monk - Ludwig Wittgenstein: The duty og Genius.

Russell learnt only later that Wittgenstein was Austrian, not German.

(The book is an excellent read. The NYT has a review "Give Him Genius or Give Him Death".)

People too absorbed on social networks? Bertrand Russell was pretty engaged there from 1911 onwards.

"With the completion of Principia Russell’s life, both personally and philosophically, entered a new phase. In the spring of 1911 he fell in love with Ottoline Morrell, the aristocratic wife of the Liberal MP Phillip Morrell, and began an affair that was to last until 1916. During the height of his passion he wrote Ottoline as many as three letters a day. These letters contain an almost daily record of Russell’s reactions to Wittgenstein – a record which provides a useful corrective to some of the anecdotes he told about Wittgenstein in his later years, when his love of a good story frequently got the better of his concern for accuracy."

Monk - Ludwig Wittgenstein: The Duty of Genius

"Das Schlimmste, was einem Mann passieren kann ...

"Das Schlimmste, was einem Mann passieren kann, ist, wie ein Geldsack durch das Leben zu gehen."

Wittgenstein

The Merkel-Schulz exercise in vapidity and The Beetle in a Box Analogy

That #TVDuell between Uckermark and Würselen before the elections with an already foretold outcome.

Merkel and Schulz getting revved up for the TV Duell

Perhaps it's going to be an abridged form of 'Scenes from a Marriage' (remember back then when you were still a virgin?!) They will encounter some 'Problems of Human Communication' along those hours of boredom, guaranteed by some dickheads & tarts from German TV. Take the 'e' out of 'duell' and you save yourself some ass time.

Let's turn to some much more interesting problems: Ludwig Wittgenstein & His Philosophical Insights on the Problems of Human Communication and his Beetle in a Box analogy.

His Philosophical Investigation's approach to the problems of communication involves a development of the “ostensive”—or demonstrative—role of language. Wittgenstein made an argument that language can only serve a social, rather than a personal, subjective, function. To make the point, he introduced his “Beetle in a Box” analogy, which you can see explained above in an animated BBC video written by Nigel Warburton and narrated by Aidan Turner.

The analogy uses the idea of each of us claiming to have a beetle in a box as a stand in for our individual, private experiences. We all claim to have them (we can even observe brain states), but no one can ever see inside the theater of our minds to verify. We simply have to take each other's word for it. We play “language games,” which only have meaning in respect to their context. That such games can be mutually intelligible among individuals who are otherwise  opaque to each other has to do with our shared environment, abilities, and limitations. Should we, however, meet a lion who could speak—in perfectly intelligible English—we would not, Wittgenstein asserted, be able to understand a single word. The vastly different experiences of human versus lion would not translate through any medium.

Because no one can really know what's in any box but their own, the word "beetle" ceases to have any meaning outside of "that thing that's in your box." The box in Wittgenstein's analogy is the mind. We assume that the inner workings of another person's mind—the feeling of love, the sensation of pain, the very experience of being conscious—are pretty similar to our own. But that's just an assumption. We can only see into our own minds and describe that experience in words to other people, and they can do the same with us. That's why this analogy is sometimes called the "private language argument": the language we use to refer to our private experiences is defined by the way it's used with other people, and to have language that exclusively describes your own private experiences is impossible.

There are quite some interpretations on the 'private language argument' and I really do have to read it again and again. This following made immediate sense to me:

Another possible interpretation is that Wittgenstein wished to tackle Comte’s problem about the impossibility of introspection; the idea that I would need to somehow split my mind between feeling a sensation and observing myself feeling that sensation. However, according to Wittgenstein, I do not need to observe the fact that I am in pain; I know it perfectly well already, I couldn’t not know it; and given that for Wittgenstein language cannot describe inner sensations, introspection would be useless anyway. It could not tell us anything we do not already know. But both of these implications seem to be side-effects rather than being the main inspiration for the argument.

More here

On Certainty

Pretensions are a mortgage which burdens a  philosopher's capacity  to think.

Wittgenstein, On Certainty § 549

Wittgenstein - raising the ceiling by 3 cm made all the difference

Two of my favorite books