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Wittgenstein

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Posted by Jason meyer on May 15, 1998 at 19:27:29:

In the final chapter we were to read, there was a section on the late 20th- century thought. It briefly went into the philosophy of Wittgenstein, by giving one of his main theses: sentences are pictures of reality. Well, as I am quite interested in philosophy, I decided to dig into some of his work and learn about his thoughts. I'd like to discuss some of the interesting things I discovered --in this post--his coverage of language and ethics. Wittgenstein's main focus was on language, and its use to convey ideas. Like the text mentioned, our sentences (propositions) are pictures of reality--literally. This, he discovered, while he was in the war-How?- he saw in a magazine how a real live war accident was reported in a court by models--with language recreating the picture. He believes a sentence does exactly what a picture does, its shows its sense. Also, we cannot say/explain what the form of representation is-that which is common to all sentences making the pictures of reality. In other words, we cannot say HOW various languages represent nature, but just that they DO. From my personal opinion, I think this can also be extended to thoughts about translations of languages---for example the Koran (I think) is written in a different language, and for its true meaning to be understood, it must remain in its origional state. Different languages have different means of expression, some of which for example, have no english translation. Anyway back to Wittgenstien: Following from the HOW/DO issue, consider the parts of a sentence, we can understand each element of the sentence and see how they are combined , but cannot understand what the combination of these elements means. Still we seem to "grasp" the meaning of it, the sentences show us a picture. Not everything we understand, can be said with a language--this is a huge problem in the philosophical world. He explains thinking is impossible without a language,--his argument follows-- thoughts are pictures, which are sentences,you then add up all your thougths and get "your" picture of the world. Another section of his philosophy deals with ethics--here are some of his thoughts on the subject...There are no "propositions" of ethics. If anything has a value (or values), it cannot come by accident--it must just "have" value already--everything in the world, things we perceive, touch, hear--has no value. You see, value is trancendental, Wittgenstien explains. He is not denying the existence of ethics--just that the principles are "outside" this world (supported by the philosophy of Kant)and exist themselves. Anyway, thats my spin on Wittgenstein, --its tough to understand the philosophy of someone in bits and pieces instead of getting the whole picture, but this is just an intro to his work....Jason

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:   In the final chapter we were to read, there was a section on the late 20th- century thought.  It briefly went into the philosophy of Wittgenstein, by giving one of his main theses: sentences are pictures of reality. Well, as I am quite interested in philosophy, I decided to dig into some of his work and learn about his thoughts. I'd like to discuss some of the interesting things I discovered --in this post--his coverage of language and ethics.  Wittgenstein's main focus was on language, and its use to convey ideas.  Like the text mentioned, our sentences (propositions) are pictures of reality--literally.  This, he discovered, while he was in the war-How?- he saw in a magazine how a real live war accident was reported in a court by models--with language recreating the picture.  He believes a sentence does exactly what a picture does, its shows its sense.  Also, we cannot say/explain what the form of representation is-that which is common to all sentences making the pictures of reality. In other words, we cannot say HOW various languages represent nature, but just that they DO.  From my personal opinion, I think this can also be extended to thoughts about translations of languages---for example the Koran (I think) is written in a different language, and for its true meaning to be understood, it must remain in its origional state. Different languages have different means of expression, some of which for example, have no english translation.  Anyway back to Wittgenstien:  Following from the HOW/DO issue, consider the parts of a sentence, we can understand each element of the sentence and see how they are combined , but cannot understand what the combination of these elements means.  Still we seem to "grasp" the meaning of it, the sentences show us a picture.  Not everything we understand, can be said with a language--this is a huge problem in the philosophical world.  He explains thinking is impossible without a language,--his argument follows-- thoughts are pictures, which are sentences,you then add up all your thougths and get "your" picture of the world.  Another section of his philosophy deals with ethics--here are some of his thoughts on the subject...There are no "propositions" of ethics.  If anything has a value (or values), it cannot come by accident--it must just "have" value already--everything in the world, things we perceive, touch, hear--has no value.  You see, value is trancendental, Wittgenstien explains. He is not denying the existence of ethics--just that the principles are "outside" this world (supported by the philosophy of Kant)and exist themselves.  Anyway, thats my spin on Wittgenstein, --its tough to understand the philosophy of someone in bits and pieces instead of getting the whole picture, but this is just an intro to his work....Jason

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