Thursday, April 19, 2012

Ugh...

I will be honest, I am feeling complete frustration with Wittgenstein and this piece, so please excuse my negativity. I don't really like the set up. You would think a list format would be less confusing than a normal paragraph full of complex ideas, like that of Heidegger or any other philosopher, but I think I would have that preferred that more. Each number starts with a statement and then each decimal goes backwards to explain it. I would rather begin with the support and facts and then work towards a conclusion. I like an explanation that is like a funnel, narrowing as it goes, rather than a pyramid, which is narrow from the beginning. One thing that I may have possibly grasped onto, is that he did not seem to give his definition of "thing." Please tell me if I am wrong because I may have missed it, but unlike facts, objects, state of affairs, and everything else he does not explain what he means when he says "things." This is a very general term and I surprised he did not elaborate. Does anyone have a gloss on "things?"

1 comment:

  1. As my post indicates, Marie, I share your confusion about this text, and I can never tell how much is the text itself and how much is just that I'm unfamiliar with the language of formal logic. Either way, though, it seems to me to be a fascinating mix of precision and vagueness, logic and feeling,and to reflect on the one hand Wittgenstein's extreme certainty and on the other his radical sense of the unknowablility of things.

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