Wittgenstein's Joke Book

Wittgenstein had the idea of a philosophy book composed entirely of jokes. Here's one for him.


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Psychiatrist: You're crazy
Patient: That's outrageous. I want a second opinion.
Psychiatrist: You're crazy.

Wittgenstein on the Scripture of Pain

One may illustrate the distinct uses of Scripture (in all that relates to morals) and of natural Conscience, by the comparison of a sun-dial and a clock. The clock has the advantage of being always at hand, to be consulted at any hour of the day or night; while the dial is of use only when the sun shines on it. But, then, the clock is liable to go wrong and vary from the true time; and it has no power in itself of correcting its own errors; so that these may go on increasing, to any extent, unless it be from time to time regulated by the dial, which alone the unerring guide.

(from Introductory Lessons on Morals and Christian Evidences by Richard Whately pub. 1857)

"But if I suppose that someone is in pain, then I am simply supposing that he has just the same as I have so often had." — That gets us no further. It is as if I were to say: "You surely know what 'It is 5 o'clock here' means; so you also know what 'It's 5 o'clock on the sun' means. It means simply that it is just the same there as it is here when it is 5 o'clock." — The explanation by means of identity does not work here.

(Philosophical Inverstigations by Ludwig Wittgenstein para:350)

The sun-dial/sun/clock analogy may be a common one though it’s not particularly familiar to me. Wittgenstein here might be said to rebut the scripture of pain. There is none. To further expand the Whately/Wittgenstein correspondence in an admittedly fanciful way the word evidences is suggestive of the British Empiricist tenet - if we have valid knowledge
we have evidence. Wittgenstein is impugning this, it seems to me, conscious as I am that one is walking on a quaking bog ascribing a position to him.

Wittgenstein Vs Whately

from Wittgenstein Lectures on Religious Belief:

Although, there is a great temptation to think we do. Because we do talk of evidence, and do talk of evidence by experience. We could even talk of historic events. It has been said that Christianity rests on an historic basis.
It has been said a thousand times by intelligent people that indubitability is
not enough in this case. Even if there is as much evidence as for Napoleon. Because the indubitability wouldn’t be enough to make me change my whole life. It doesn’t rest on an historic basis in the sense that the ordinary belief in
historic facts could serve as a foundation. Here we have a belief in historic facts different from a belief in ordinary historic facts. Even, they are not treated as historical, empirical, propositions. Those people who had faith didn‟t apply the doubt which would ordinarily apply to any historical propositions. Especially propositions of a time long past, etc. What is the criterion of reliability, dependability? Suppose you give a general description as to when you say a proposition has a reasonable weight of probability. When you call it reasonable, is this only to say that for it you have such and such evidence, and for others you haven’t? For instance, we don‟t trust the account given of an event by a. drunk man.

Ludwig I know you don’t do footnotes but if you had referenced Whately’s Historic Doubts concerning Napoleon Buonaparte then that would have added to the texture of the argument in that one could look at the solution that is offered there which is essentially the one that you struggle with. The seeker must put on ‘the mind of Christ’, be ‘of Christ and of the truth, be in Whateley’s usage ‘candid’. He is pointing towards the archaic:

free from bias; impartial.
3: Free from malice; favourably disposed, kindly - 1800
4: Frank, ingenuous, sincere in what one says 1675. (S.O.D.)

Ludwig: Yes, yes, yes, But. I can’t argue with that. It escapes me. It’s a country I’ve heard of but have no way of getting to. I don’t believe its imaginary. Don’t come at me with your imaginal, that’s altogether too big of a serving. Don’t you see, there’s no there there.

Moi: Don’t bring her into it or we’ll never get out of here.

Arthatpatti// Language goes on holiday

Elisa Freschi was discussing the pramana (means of valid knowledge) arthapatti
arthapatti
It has been variously translated as ‘postulation’ and ‘presumption’. One commentor ‘Bama’ preferred ‘presumption’. Elisa offered a palette of terms including ‘cogent evidence’. This led me to thinking - maybe arthapatti is too simple for words.

My first bit of philosophical semaphore was:

We know how arthapatti works. It’s a bit like a switch where there is disjunction between the two values, on/off, true/false, yes/no. Plump Devadatta does not eat during the daylight hours therefore he must be eating at night. If one state is known i.e. alive and not at home then the other state is immediately know i.e. outside the home somewhere. Postulation does not apply. Postulation may be shown to be correct or it may be impossible to show whether or not it is. Think of Hig’s Boson and Kant’s Transcendental Postulate. We are attempting to reach towards a picture of how things must fundamentally be for things to appear as they do. Arthapatti is not tentative in any sense.

I can see where ‘assumption’ or ‘presumption’ may not be a perfect fit for what arthapatti does. There is no ‘before’ for arthapatti, there is no ‘after’ for arthapatti. Implication doesn’t fit. Knowing that plump Devadatta is fasting during the day is knowing that he eats at night. Implications have to be worked out so this is not one. Arthapatti has a bi-polar nature. It is basic and irreducible.

to which I added as an afterthought:

I wrote the following paragraph before I read your response. There is a general difficulty in the explanation of basic powers. Ostensive definition has the problem of knowing what it is you are pointing at. (I admit to being an unreconstricted Wittgensteinian)

If I might add. Even if the Sanskrit has the sense of apatti – artha then it too is explaining the simple in terms of the more complex and that cannot be a good explanation. Here as Wittgenstein wrote – ‘my spade turns’. If the complex has the simple embedded in it then circularity ensues. Simply by having a human mind you get ‘switches’ in the ‘kit’.

The ‘ostensive definition’ entry in the index to Philosophical Investigations is worth looking at. Here the well known ‘logos’ occurs (38)

For philosophical problems arise when language goes on holiday.

Language has stopped doing what it normally does when it tries to express something that is too simple for language. Switch then may express the cybernetic aspect of arthapatti, or what in Advaita is called the inert nature of mind, its mechanical quality.

Connected with this cybernetic notion in my understanding of it is the counterpositive pratiyoga concept. Broadly speaking the illusory is founded on there being an actual reality. It works like figure and ground and it is again a mechanical thing. The counterpositiveness.......abiding in the illusory silver, is characterised by conventional reality(from Vedanta Paribhasa on Perception)

You haven’t heard the last of this.

Taylored Wittgenstein

Of course, it might be said, whatever game you choose to play at, the rules of that particular game must be your supreme reality, so long as you are engaged in it. But it depends on your own choice what game you will play and how long you will keep at it. There is no game at which we all, irrespective of personal choice, have to play, and there is therefore no such thing as an ultimate reality which we must all recognise as such; there are only the special realities which correspond to our special individual purposes. You have no right to set up the particular rules of the game of scientific thought as a reality unconditionally
demanding recognition from those who do not choose to play that particular game.

from Elements of Metaphysics by A.E. Taylor

'This game is played'

Ludwig Wittgenstein and A.E. Taylor

Wittgenstein did not it seems read much philosophy but reading the classic work by A.E. Taylor, Elements of Metaphysics (1903) I was struck by the uncanny similarity between their statements on the difficulty of metaphysics which leads me to think that this at least was one book that Wittgenstein read. He could have done worse. It is also a matter of record that he approved of the distinction between being a clever man and being a good philosopher. Taylor’s puzzlement about Hume as to whether he was the one or the other or even both seemed to Wittgenstein a general truth. He did not commit himself to the sorting of Hume.

First from Elements of Metaphysics:

(1)
It is always difficult, in treating of any branch of knowledge, to put before the beginner a correct preliminary notion of the nature and scope of the study to which he is to be introduced, but the difficulty is exceptionally great in the case of the body of investigations traditionally known as Metaphysics.^ The questions which the science seeks to answer are, indeed, in principle of the simplest and most familiar kind, but it is their very simplicity and familiarity which constitute the chief difficulty of the subject. We are naturally slow to admit that there is anything we do not understand in terms and ideas which we are constantly using, not only in the special sciences, but in our non-systematised everyday thought and language about the course of the world. Hence, when the metaphysician begins to ask troublesome questions about the meaning and validity of these common and familiar notions, ordinary practical men, and even intelligent students of the special sciences, are apt to complain that he is wasting his time by raising idle and uncalled-for difficulties about the self-evident.

(2)
. We can now see some of the reasons which make the science of Metaphysics a peculiarly difficult branch of study. It is difficult, in the first place, from the very simplicity and generality of its problems.

From Philosophical Investigations#121:

The aspects of things that are most important for us are hidden because of their simplicity and familiarity. (One is unable to notice something - because it is always before one’s eyes.) The real foundations of his enquiry do not strike a man at all. Unless that fact has at some time struck him. - And this means: we fail to be struck by what, once seen, is most striking and most powerful.

It was of course Wittgenstein’s great genius to be able to evoke the sense of oddness of the everyday. The ‘Now go on’ instruction to complete the series or name the odd one out etc. How do you learn that concept of ‘going on’? It takes a philosophic mind to feel that we are stuck on that reef. “In my art or sullen craft” said Dylan Thomas. It is a type of stubborn brooding - there you are sulking over some wretched puzzle and it won’t leave you alone. Go out, dig the garden, make a cup of tea.

Find Elements of Metaphysics here: Elements