Tuesday 10/16

Philosophical Investigations, 89-108

Discussion Questions

First Question: The Normative Science

What do you make of Wittgenstein's interpretation (81) of Ramsey's comment that logic is a 'normative science'? That is, how would you explain it, especially to someone who has not worked through the Tractatus?

Second Question: Of Logic and Language I

Having dismantled much of the project of the Tractatus, at 89 asks, "[i]n what sense is logic something sublime?" What features of logic does Wittgenstein identify in this (and following) passages that so captivated the Wittgenstein of the Tractatus?

Third Question: Of Logic and Language II

How do questions about precision in language (91) lead to questions about the essence of language (92)? Can you think of any examples we've considered to help illuminate the point Wittgenstein is making here? What does he say about the project of seeking the essence of language?

Fourth Question: Of Thought and Language

At (96) we are told that among other tractarian illusions, "[t]hese concepts: proposition, language, thought, world, stand in line one behind the other, each equivalent to each", to which Wittgenstein responds, almost sotto voce, "([b]ut what are these words to be used for now? The language-game in which they are to be applied is missing.)" How should we understand his parenthetical response? Does his point suffice in rejecting the Tractarian view of the relationship between world (consider: the metaphysical turn), thought (consider: the epistemic turn), and language (consider: the linguistic turn)?

Fifth Question: On Rough Ground

At 107, Wittgenstein admonishes us--and, presumably, himself--thusly,

107. The more narrowly we examine actual language, the sharper becomes the conflict between it and our requirement. (For the crystalline purity of logic was, of course, not a result of investigation: it was a requirement.) The conflict becomes intolerable; the requirement is now in danger of becoming empty.—We have got on to slippery ice where there is no friction and so in a certain sense the conditions are ideal, but also, just because of that, we are unable to walk. We want to walk: so we need friction. Back to the rough ground!

What do you take him to mean in this frankly poetic passage? What is the friction we need to walk here, and what is walking?