I'm not going to lie, I had a really hard time with this reading. Even though Kristen gave us an open topic, I'm going to take the "on thing I understood (maybe)" route here and discuss what I didn't really understand (everything else) in class.
Wittgenstein deceived me early on, trying to fool me into believing I would understand what the hell he was talking about. In the preface, Wittgenstein states that "what can be said at all can be said clearly, and what we cannot talk about we must consign to silence." Okay, I get what he's saying here-- if something can be properly stated or talked about, it's clear. It's expressed in a way that's understood and causes no confusion. If something cannot be stated properly, it's not to be talked about because it will never be right or understandable. Again, I get it but I don't agree. Why keep silent? If we don't understand something, how are we to ever reach a point of understanding if we simply don't talk about it? How am I ever going to understand this guy if we don't talk about him in class tomorrow?
In a way, this reminded me of our talk regarding men and women in classrooms. We discussed how men are usually completely comfortable answering a question without having their response completely formulated but instead work through the answer while responding while women tend to only respond if they have an answer completely worked out in their heads and are 100% sure they are correct.
This is an interesting comparison, Kat. So you're saying that by Wittgenstein's standards women do the correct thing by not talking unless they fully understand something and men are incorrect to try to talk through something that isn't clear?
ReplyDeleteI also picked up on the quote, "what can be said at all can be said clearly, and what we cannot talk about we must consign to silence," and I also don't agree with it. Does this mean we should never go looking for answers to questions we don't understand? Wittgenstein clearly fully understands what he is trying to get across, so it's okay that he talks about it, but I don't understand it, so does that mean according to him I should just let it all go and not bother with it because I "can't talk about it" as he can?
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