Wittgenstein,Tolstoy and the Folly of Logical Positivism

[Philosophy Now]

Stuart Greenstreet explains how analytical philosophy got into a mess.

http://philosophynow.org/issues/103/Wit ... Positivism

[Julianf]

I enjoyed this essay and found it largely on track. However, the piece concludes with:

"The declared aim of the Vienna Circle was to make philosophy either subservient to or somehow akin to the natural sciences. As Ray Monk says in his superb biography Ludwig Wittgenstein: The Duty of Genius (1990), “the anti-metaphysical stance that united them [was] the basis for a kind of manifesto which was published under the title The Scientific View of the World: The Vienna Circle.” Yet as Wittgenstein himself protested again and again in the Tractatus, the propositions of natural science “have nothing to do with philosophy” (6.53); “Philosophy is not one of the natural sciences” (4.111); “It is not problems of natural science which have to be solved” (6.4312); “even if all possible scientific questions be answered, the problems of life have still not been touched at all” (6.52); “There is indeed the inexpressible. This shows itself; it is the mystical” (6.522). None of these sayings could possibly be interpreted as the views of a man who had renounced metaphysics. The Logical Positivists of the Vienna Circle had got Wittgenstein wrong, and in so doing had discredited themselves."

In fairness though, the tractatus view is that of these things nothing can be said. And philosophy must remain silent. I disagree with this view. And believe even Wittgenstein came to disagree with it later in life. Or else he would not have written or taught anything on culture, value, aesthetics, and religious belief. Furthermore, his lectures on the foundations of mathematics are utterly metaphysical in this sense.

[Dunce]

What did Bertram Russell make of all this soldiering? Didn't like war much did he, Bertie?

The account of Wittgenstein's courage highlights the limits of virtue ethics. Courage is a virtue, yet it can be exploited to serve futile or immoral ends. Can a virtue become a vice under such circumstances?

[Wyman]

What did Bertram Russell make of all this soldiering? Didn't like war much did he, Bertie?

The account of Wittgenstein's courage highlights the limits of virtue ethics. Courage is a virtue, yet it can be exploited to serve futile or immoral ends. Can a virtue become a vice under such circumstances?

Les Miserables Hugo VIII,III:

"Probity, sincerity, candor, conviction, the idea of duty, are things that, when in error, can turn hideous, but - even though hideous - remain great; their majesty, peculiar to the human conscience, persists in horror. They are virtues with a single vice - error. The pitiless, sincere joy of a fanatic in an act of atrocity preserves some mournful radiance that inspires veneration. Without suspecting it, Javert, in his dreadful happiness, was pitiful, like every ignorant man in triumph. Nothing could be more poignant and terrible than his face, which revealed what might be called all the evil of good."

Maybe add 'courage' to that list.

[Dunce]

"Probity, sincerity, candor, conviction, the idea of duty, are things that, when in error, can turn hideous, but - even though hideous - remain great; their majesty, peculiar to the human conscience, persists in horror. They are virtues with a single vice - error. The pitiless, sincere joy of a fanatic in an act of atrocity preserves some mournful radiance that inspires veneration. Without suspecting it, Javert, in his dreadful happiness, was pitiful, like every ignorant man in triumph. Nothing could be more poignant and terrible than his face, which revealed what might be called all the evil of good."

What a wonderful quote - thank you Wyman. I'll push Hugo further further up my lengthy to-read list.

[NielsBohr]

Stuart Greenstreet explains how analytical philosophy got into a mess.

http://philosophynow.org/issues/103/Wit ... Positivism

It never seemed to occur to the Vienna Circle that the proposition ‘the sense of a proposition is its method of verification’ is itself a metaphysical assertion that cannot be verified by its own test: their doctrine is self-contradictory, and therefore must be false.

I like definitively this idea. Stuart Greenstreet is a great man!

(N.B.:
I think to know that Niels Bohr was of Vienna Circle, but I think rather to prevent it to try in explaining all. I mean he was of these men who realized that words themselves were not always accurate.)

[Ansiktsburk]

I've done a first, rather quick reading of the Tractatus this spring, basically skipping the modal logics. Interesting to read that article from someone who obviously have read it many times...

I couldn't really see this religious side of W. To me, in my first reading he seemed kind of exactly what those Wienna gentlemen was talking about. No mumbo jumbo allowed. All these "elementary truths" and building up the universe from there on, using logic and such. That "wovon mann nich sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen". Can you talk about god, then? Or mumbo jumbo?