In this thread I'll do my best to answer questions about Wittgenstein's philosophy and life. I have an undergraduate degree in philosophy and wrote my thesis on Wittgenstein's Tractatus. I developed an interest in Wittgenstein largely on my own, and have studied the Tractatus and Philosophical Investigations in detail (the former with the direction of my thesis adviser), though I have some familiarity with other texts, such as the "Blue and Brown Books." I have read Ray Monk's biography, as well as substantial portions of the critical literature surrounding Wittgenstein, especially exegetical works by Saul Kripke and Stanley Cavell, as well as derivative works by John McDowell and others.

I consider myself a Wittgensteinian in that my general approach to philosophical problems is quietist, and of prevailing interpretations of Wittgenstein find myself most convinced by Kripke and Eli Friedlander. Please feel free to ask any questions about Wittgenstein, philosophical or biographical. If you have questions about specific passages in his works, please provide the relevant excerpt, as I will not necessarily have a copy readily available.

Hope this proves to be a fun thread.

How big an effect do you think the war and his service had on him and his later work?

That wiki is rather short, but I am fascinated by language. When you are contemplating language as expression, are you refering to it as an expression as self, community and it's collective intelligence, or the influence on people? (of course, i can be way wrong on all of these approaches)

With regard to the Tractatus, the impact was substantial. Significant portions of Wittgenstein's notebooks from the period of his service as a soldier appear either verbatim or slightly modified in the Tractatus. In particular, Remark 6 to Remark 7 all show a heavy influence from the war. While a soldier, Wittgenstein became increasingly religious, and religious sentiment surfaced periodically throughout his later life. Indeed, Wittgenstein at one point attempted to become a monk, but was rejected on the grounds that he was too psychologically troubled to join a monastery. This religiosity surfaces in the portions of the Tractatus that remark on "the mystical," which are regarded by many critics of the book as a strange, out-of-place turn for an otherwise aggressively rigorous logical work. I can only guess that the religiousness was Wittgenstein's response to the horrors of war - his psychological means of coping with the trauma he experienced daily in the trenches. During this period, Wittgenstein's journals show that each time his unit ended up avoiding combat, he felt disappointment. He seemed to believe that service to his country demanded that he see action on the front lines.

The war seems all but absent from Philosophical Investigations, however, in that there are almost no mentions of religious topics, and Wittgenstein's allegiance to any concept of "the mystical" seems to have vanished. Presumably, events as dramatic as war have a lasting impact on one's psyche, but it is difficult to predict what the Philosophical Investigations would have been without WWI - or whether a book recognizable as that work would have existed. Counterfactuals aside, in general there are no clear signs of the thematic concerns that are easiest to link biographically with wartime experience in the Investigations, though it is possible there are subtle connections I am failing to see.

Wow. Quietism is cool.

Have you read any of the source material from wiki (other than the ones you've already mentioned)?

And do you know of any other good internet resources?

Personally, I think you eventually realize that your own illogical beliefs have no reason to be shared with you to anyone. They are illogical and you shouldn't try to convince anyone of them.

In general, quietists evaluate language in social contexts. Linguistic acts are meaningful in virtue of their use for particular communicative purposes, and the rules constraining meaning are given by the particular social context in which a speaker participates. This is not, as John Haugeland points out, "definition by mob rule," though; words don't mean one thing rather than another simply because a large enough group of people use them so. (Why this is true gets deep into Kripke, an issue I'd rather omit for now.) Rather, the actual social context shows how particular signs are used, such that which signs a particular society uses shows which concepts it has uses for. To the quietist, it is thus a misunderstanding to ask philosophical questions like "What is truth?" because truth - in each instance - is defined by its use in a given social situation.

I've read Wittgenstein, McDowell, Davidson, Brandom, Noë, Haugeland, and a few others in that tradition, some ordinary-language philosophy (most notably Austin), and some related thoughts from American pragmatism.

If you're interested, I would recommend seeking out introductory material on Wittgenstein, such as The Cambridge Companion, though quietism in general may be difficult to understand without some prior training in philosophy.

I have almost no formal grounding in philosophy, and close to no knowledge of formal logic. Could I, in theory, just jump straight into Philosophical Investigations and get something useful out of it, or would I be missing too much context?

Maybe tough to answer, and not the kind of question you're looking for anyway, but whatever.

Some philosophers you can jump in to--Hume, Locke, Descartes, Russell come to mind. I don't think I'd put anything Wittgenstein into that camp.

Apparent Monk, who did biographies of Russell and Wittgenstein, is a big fan of the latter and not the former. However, I thought Russell came off as a prince and Wittgenstein as a first class jerk. So, was Wittgenstein basically a jerk? (Not that there is anything wrong with that philosophically.)

I've never heard the term "quietism" before, but it seems to fit me to some degree, as well. Thanks for sharing, DrM.

My thoughts on language, from my own attempt at multi-linguism and talking to multi-linguists shows me alot of peculiarities of one language to another and states something of the society. For example, Japan is very intrenched in codes of honor, so they have, I think, 32 ways to say "I," depending on man to woman, child to elder, etc. Most of the Russian-like languages (technically, Lithuanian is the base, for the nits) have a word to describe every single thing, but not as honorific as Japanese. The history of the Hebrew speakers has a long sad history and it is strongly reflected in the language. But you take English, and many linguists have a love/hate relationship with it because there is few words and that causes the language to not be as rich as others, but the simplicity is attractive. I wonder why English and German countries are high in the technological and economic heap. I have been told our language is an "engineering" or an "advertising" language. Then consider 3rd world languages and they are..

When he said the point of the Tractatus is ethical, what did he mean?

.. Very simplistic. For example, Cambodian doesn't describe the parts of the tree such as a branch or roots; it is simply a tree. Then I wonder why Spanish speaking countries are more 3rd world than the rest of the countries with a Romance language. And what of Arabic which I know voirtually nothing about... How would this thinking be done by a quitest? (sorry about the break. My phone)

I initially pursued Wittgenstein entirely on my own, and studied logic only after having attempted to read the Tractatus without any background in it. My initial readings of the Tractatus were rewarding despite having virtually zero comprehension of substantial passages within it. Interestingly, even after studying logic, I still found significant parts of the Tractatus difficult to read because either its insights had already been incorporated into the canon (thus making the views Wittgenstein was refuting difficult to understand), or the symbolism had changed significantly since its writing.

Formal logic is of even less importance in understanding Philosophical Investigations in my opinion, though careful, attentive, and patient thinking is essential. I simply bought the book together with the Cambridge Companion at a bookstore and began reading, though I had already immersed myself in the Tractatus and was thus able to better understand the views to which Wittgenstein was responding in that latter work - that is, his own. In addition, having a critical guide was very helpful to me in getting a grasp on some of the basic themes of the book. Consideration of - and writing on - those themes by myself helped me develop and expand my comprehension.

There is only one remark on ethics in the Tractatus. Wittgenstein claims that ethics belong to the realm of "what is higher," which can be parsed as a gloss on his references to "the mystical" in the same section of the text. Ethics thus fall in the realm of things on which one cannot intelligibly speak. Ironically, then, the Tractatus closes with a normative command at Remark 7: "Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent" (emphasis added). I would suggest that Wittgenstein's suggestion that the purpose of the book was ethical must be interpreted as an explanation of Remark 7. When one has understood the [i]Tractatus[i], one will understand why one should comply with its dictate, which is to be silent on ethical matters, perhaps implicitly reserving judgment for God.

I haven't read Monk's biography of Russell, but I did not fully share your impression that Wittgenstein comes off "as a first class jerk" in Monk's portrayal of him. In general, though, there is some truth to the idea. Wittgenstein very likely suffered from some form of mental illness, possibly depression, though this went undiagnosed. His family had a history of depressive behavior, and several of his siblings committed suicide. Wittgenstein also seemed to lack social niceties. Early on in his relationship with Russell, he hounded him on philosophical questions. Later, he treated Russell very harshly, despite Russell's assistance to Wittgenstein in procuring academic credentials and a teaching position at Cambridge. Other examples of socially inappropriate conduct abound, such as overbearing and outrageous conduct at philosophical lectures, inability to keep his thoughts to himself in church, etc.

Important to note in this regard is Wittgenstein's largely repressed homosexuality, and his Jewish self-loathing (evidence of which can be seen in some of his notebooks, which were published posthumously as "Culture and Value," but which which Wittgenstein never intended even to see the light of day, much less as a coherent work).

Which kind of questions would the early Wittgenstein classify as "nonsense" and which the later? And what's his reasoning for that.

Edit: I think in politics you mentioned "Wittgensteinian social underdetermination" when debating phone booth. Does that refer to rule following..?

Do you take Wittgenstein's rejection of infinite cardnalities seriously? Do you think he would change his mind if he was still around today?

I do not understand enough about the subject to have an opinion. I know that Wittgenstein's overall approach to mathematics was driven by his approach to language in general, and he ultimately rejected the idea that mathematics was in need of "foundation" or establishment by logicians or mathematicians. This is not to say that he thought that discoveries in mathematics were not possible. After spending some time working on a book on the foundations of mathematics, Wittgenstein ultimately decided, then, that his work was unimportant, saying "Someone else can do that."

As for whether he would change his mind, in general, Wittgenstein was somewhat stubborn, and would likely only have capitulated after a fiery debate in which he was thoroughly proven wrong.

W's interpretation of a real number as a rule rather than an infinite decimal makes a lot of sense in computer science. As does his emphasis on syntax.

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wi...n-mathematics/

Edit: This relates to cardinality because there are countably many rules but uncountably many reals.

OP, I'm a Wittgensteinian too.

How much of W's original philosophy set out in the Tractatus does he later abandon? Does he abandon it completely?

Random comment: For all the crap that is the internet, pretty impressive that it basically puts the world largest encyclopedia on every desk.

Do you think that Wittgenstein really wanted to go after Popper with that fireplace poker, or was it more for show?