Philosophical Investigations, 3rd Ed. — Part III

I cannot continue reading this book.

I mean no disrespect to Herr Wittgenstein’s Erinnerung, but his 232 pages seem to me to be utterly repetitive of all he tried to say in the first handful of pages. I get that he was trying to define the meaning of meaning and words and their context as associated with meaning, but it’s far too repetitive for me.

As I read more about the man and this and his other work, I’d found that he’d even pulled the book from the publisher! That this book had been published after his death in 1951 and that the second part of the book had been added by the editor. So, I’m not really clear what he’d meant for this book to be comprised of. These all seem to me to be notes he’d written to himself over time to try to philosophically ferret out what he was trying to get across, and I simply cannot bear to keep reading the same trope over and over again (which may thoroughly be the fault of the publisher)…even if I do largely agree with some of his statements. I do feel that words and language are defined according to their use (if I put that right)…and not so much on their own. I do feel that words mean something and to theoretically try to use them otherwise would be unintelligible. Maybe that’s too much of a simplification of his efforts, but that seems to sum it up for me. If that is not the case, then I’m sorry but I cannot muddle through his journey up to his epiphany, because it’s far too repetitive and provides no further enlightenment for me. I have skipped ahead and read sections, and they’re no better.

And at times, he even seems to be making things up, like saying that philosophy is not meant to explain things, but is to instead state the obvious and “assemble reminders.” That it explains nothing but “simply puts everything before us.” And that since “everything lies open to view, there is nothing to explain.”

Then why is he and others explaining everything?

If everything so exists and there is nothing to explain, and that if one were to advance any so-called “theses” it would never be debatable, because everyone would agree to it, then how does he explain not only his own behavior, but the behavior of every other philosopher out there? Unless I am missing something so hideously basic, this is exactly contradictory to what is and has been done through time immemorial. There are so many philosophers because everyone does, indeed, have their own—different!—take. How did he not see this? What am I missing?

So the upshot is, I could go into more detail, but I do not want to spend the energy. Philosophy may be a verb and not a noun to him, but it is something that does, indeed, try to explain something else, or it wouldn’t exist. Nothing is obvious. Everything is perception. And there is not only one pure way of defining anything, by the very evidence of so many disparate philosophical theses proves (explains, reminds, or otherwise clarifies…) this to be the case.

And that I’m no longer in college and no longer have to read something beyond my exhausted interest anymore. I’ve studied my philosophy, found my own…wisdom…and am perfectly comfortable with it. I’m more into the metaphysical aspects of life and philosophy, where his seems more oriented toward logic and language. I am not. Again, I could go deeper, but just don’t feel the need to do so at this stage in my life. I’m not writing a paper that needs to be incorporated into a grade.

So, I leave his book and will go on to something else. It’s not that he lost me…he exhausted me with repetition and nothing new that I haven’t already heard, read, lived, or studied before, and I really do not feel the need to revisit…especially at this level of detail…but I thank him for defining it for those who need this journey.

Here is an explanatory link to the Philosophical Investigations.

Here is a definition of philosophy.

Here is another definition of philosophy.

Here is a link to Wittgenstein’s life.

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Philosophical Investigations, 3rd Ed. — Ludwig Wittgenstein

Philosophical Investigations, 3rd Ed. — Part II

Philosophical Investigations, 3rd Ed. — Part II

As I’d stated in my previous post, I am reading Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations (the 3rd edition), and it seems to me that he continued to ask the same question over and over and over: how to define the meaning of meaning. He obsessively approaches his attack from all possible angles and even tries to invent new ones, but they are all the same in my view. I mean the man and his memory no disservice, but I do wonder if he had been plagued with a form of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD).

Having said that, he does take on a point of view that I am describing as a foundation to the Human Zen of Communication: yes, the definition of meaning. For some Power either separate or very much a part of us surely had to define the subatomic building blocks of how “all this” most surely should operate: when any one of the corporeal world is to utter a “thing”…how do other members of said corporeal existence relate to and address said “thing.” And further, exactly what is a “thing”?

But to me, he did that in the initial pages of his 250-page treatise. I am only to page 46e, Section 108, and it is an utterly exhausting rehash of the first section or three. And the fact that his brilliant mind had not discerned that is bothersome and therefore warrants my earlier conviction: philosophical OCD.

On the other hand, I could very well see that what this book is a compilation of, is, that these are simply on-the-fly (if you will) notes where Wittgenstein is trying oh-so-desparately to firmly define exactly what it is he is trying to say about “meaning.” And by this I mean (pardon the pun) that they were never all meant to be included in the same binding. That they were meant to be read, distilled, then reframed into the most specific form of corporeal definition and what it is to do when we utter a “thing” between one or more of us in our corporeal existence.

To put it another way: it is like a writer who jots notes to him/herself as they go about their living. They then take their notes, meditate upon their storyline, their accumulation of “meanings”…then distill their multiple accumulations into one coherent and arranged story. All of their notes were never meant to be included “as-is,” but are meant to be assimilated into the end product.

But in Wittgenstein’s case this is not what I’m seeing, and since the book was published after his lifetime, this very well could have been his intent. So, to have included all of this constantly rehashed minutiae clearly must have been the publisher’s intent…and furthermore…his specific intention to allow all his specific ruminations to remain “as-is” to further “advance” his attempts in defining “meaning.” Since the content was in book form during Wittgenstein’s life, it would seem that this was also his intent to some degree. I mean, once you’ve said it…you really do defeat its purpose by continually restating it. It goes fantastically beyond the case of implying the reader is stupid and cannot grasp what has already been said and (and as I do here) into the realm of a philosophical OCD. It is truly stunning to me the utterly repetitive nature of his dissertation. It is exactly like Kierkegaard’s graphomania, where he (Kierkegaard) had an OCD of having to write to the extreme’s of all else in his life, including the ditching of his upcoming marriage to a woman he loved and who loved him and his own mental and physical well-being, dying at the age of 42.

But even having stated all this, I can also understand the questioning mind wanting—oh, so desperately needing—to utterly quantify and categorize what it is to communicate, in such a way that it, on the most primordial level, it is clearly laid out for the philosophical scientist, so that somewhere it is documented the specifics of “meaning,” just like physical scientists define and categorize Life. The lay person does not need to know its minuitea to operate within its corporeal confines, but it is withing the very nature of the Zen of Humankind to understand it’s origins so as to benefit its existence in Space and Time.

To put it basely, it is the nature of the beast to understand itself.

And I submit…that this, in turn does benefit the race as a whole in incorporeal ways as I’d previously discussed in my first post. No action, no thought is ever wasted, though we may never see that from our corporeal point of view. Everything we do has an equal an opposite reaction, as it were. Even the more basest and “evil” of actions help define us in a way that it helps us better understand what not to do…and which, therefore, further advances the Zen of Life. On the one hand it is sad to inflict such evil, but on the other hand, if it so inflicted, it must therefore “need” to be inflicted so that we, as a race, properly learn what not to do. I’m somewhat straying from the main point of this post, but I look at it this way: actors who take less-savory roles state that it expands their knowledge of themselves and Humankind on-the-whole in ways that could never have done by just reading about it. That such roles end of changing them to some (and one would hope…) good degrees in ways I’m not going to get into now, because that would be an entirely new and lengthy post. But at the very least, it clarifies the so-called “Yin and Yang” of life.

Again, as I have stated, I am nowhere near complete with this work, and again I refer to Kierkegaard (I do so because I have a slight affinity for him, having studied him in college in a “Philosophy of Religion” course with Professor Nietmann), as he states that life can only be understood “backward” yet must be lived “forward”…so I cannot truly define my thoughts on Wittgenstein’s work without having completed reading it…but these are my thoughts as I forge my way through it (though an “informed implication” of his work can well be made based on having read “so much” of what I have already read…I am giving him the benefit of the doubt). I just wish Wittgenstein had used less words (as others might also wish of me at this point!)…but in truth then it would not have been Wittgenstein.

So, that is where I currently am with Philosophical Investigations (3rd Ed.).

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Philosophical Investigations, 3rd Ed. — Ludwig Wittgenstein

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Philosophical Investigations, 3rd Ed. – Ludwig Wittgenstein

Philosophical Investigations, Third Edition, by Ludwig Wittgenstein (Image © 2020 F. P. Dorchak)

I cracked open a book I’ve had since my Northern Arizona University philosophy classes. Though my degree of study was astronomy, with a German minor, I also loaded up with philosophy courses—and I excelled at them. In fact, I’m one class short of having gained a double minor with philosophy.

I loved my philosophy courses! In my senior year I had two courses instructed by the same professor, Dr. William F. Nietmann, who published his own work long after I’d graduated, in 1994, called The Unmaking of God. I’d started reading it, but long ago got sidetracked. I plan on continuing my reading of it. This post is not about his work, which will come later, after I’ve finished reading his work (and I’d managed to get him to autograph through the mail; we’d corresponded a little at that time). I mention Dr. Nietmann because he was an incredible man and I loved discussing philosophy with him. In my senior year I received an “A” in both of his classes, and (at the time) he told me I was his only student to have ever taken more than one class from him at the same time and receive “A’s” in both classes. Professor Nietmann was my kind of people. And I am pretty positive that it was in his “Man and Ideas” class that I had bought Wittgenstein‘s book. I’m sure I must have read portions of it, though I no longer remember doing so. But I’d read a New Yorker article last week about Frank Ramsey, who influenced Wittgenstein, and it piqued my interest to reexamine his work.

So I am.

I am only ten pages in, but it gives me pause for consideration at his current discussion about the meaning and use of words, which—so far—I’ve largely agreed upon. In short, they are not absolute, but dither between plenty of variables. And I do want to discuss this further, but should very well give Herr Wittgenstein his due course and “read him out” before launching forward. But I will say that while I agree with most of what he puts forth at present up to page 10…I add a metaphysical element to my arguments.

Beispiel:

Words are defined by humans for use. And depending upon the use ascribed…even the same words can be attributed different meanings and employment, depending on how exactly used.

Take the word “Frank.”

Obviously it means open, sincere, clear, straightforward, evident, et cetera. But it can also be used as a form of address, as in a name. And as such, when you address someone as “Frank,” in terms of nomenclature and not as an adjective or adverb, you are addressing a person. In this case said individual now becomes the definition of the word. All that you know (and do not know) of this person has come to define the “Frank” that you know…that is THIS or THAT (Wittgenstein also gets into the use of those two words) person. So, to you, the “Frank” you address that is me, defines THAT version of “Frank,” while another more grammatically defined “frank” is not the same as me, anymore than a “Frank Ramsey” is the same as Me Frank.

But I take this further:

From where do we come…and to where do we go?

Things keep dying and things keep birthing, so by direct inference we can say that something exists “beyond” “life and death.” And no, I’m not going to get into the proving of this, there is plenty of such discussion already out there. To me the simplest answer is usually the answer: however defined, something is beyond the corporeal boundaries that buoys corporeal existence.

This being the case, there is more to each of us—and everything in life—than we can see or know…and therefore there is far more to the definitions of words (e.g., “Frank”) than we know, so that when we employ any defined thing we do not know ALL of what it is we are employing. When you say “Frank” to me, you don’t really know my definition…yet you know enough of it to adequately convey the intention of getting my attention.

Which is a splitting hairs with what Wittgenstein is currently discussing, but I’m taking it into an entirely different dimension than I see him employing (so far).

And further…it brings up the condition of “agreements.” That in this life, in this existence, we make certain corporeal and incorporeal agreements in order that we can interact with this existence and understand each other.

In another example, it’s like addressing an iceberg.

We see the tip of it, we employ the term “iceberg” and we know enough about it to make the inference that we are talking about something that only displays 1/7 to 1/10 of itself at any one time (in corporeal existence, not to mention what is missing from incorporeal display!). And that is suitably  sufficient…depending upon your intent. For most of us, it suffices. For scientists, it may not.

So, as you can see, this is all pretty basic, and pretty rarefied for most discussions, but it is where my thoughts are presently going with the first parts of Wittgenstein’s arguments. That no matter how you define anything, there are incredible depths to each consideration that we just cannot know from our current perspectives…which may not even matter on the face of it…but which are very much a part of each and every definition. So we use what suits us to the best of our abilities to navigate communication…and I haven’t even gone into the telepathic implications that surely must also be present in all communications that aid in definition-understanding (Which you may see in some of your own conversations, where someone you are talking with says something to you that could go “either way”…and you consider that—and don’t physically raise the concern—but end up figuring it out for your self. Was that logic? Telepathy? A combination? Arguments can be made that logic—as in the flip of a coin—does not necessarily define the outcome just because it is a “flip” or fit a mental algorithm; it must have direct bearing, direct merit of some kind that inherently reflects the required outcome, and doesn’t just “happen to get it,” based on some physical “mechanic.”).

That was fun. Haven’t “gone there” in a quite a while….

By the way, while in high school, I had the nickname of “The Philosopher.”

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