heartbeatocean said:

Wittgenstein would agree with Dirrida, to a point. He would not say that no meaning is stable. Math is pretty stable, after all. But he would definitely agree that traditional metaphysics is bogus, or at least cannot be meaningfully discussed.

The end of the Tractatus reads as follows:

There are, indeed, things that cannot be put into words. They make themselves manifest. They are what is mystical.

The right method of philosophy would be this: To say nothing except what can be said, i.e. the propositions of natural science, i.e. something that has nothing to do with philosophy: and then always, when someone else wished to say something metaphysical, to demonstrate to him that he had given no meaning to certain signs in his propositions. This method would be unsatisfying to the other -- he would not have the feeling that we were teaching him philosophy -- but it would be the only strictly correct method.

My propositions are elucidatory in this way: he who understands me finally recognizes them as senseless, when he has climbed out through them, on them, over them. (He must so to speak throw away the ladder, after he has climbed up on it.)

He must surmount these propositions; then he sees the world rightly.

Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.
[Edited 1/24/07 22:21pm]

heartbeatocean said:

me too.

Stax said:

Beautiful.

This leads to the fine line between philosophy and religion and a discussion of Adi Shankara is due. But that'll have to wait until tomorrow.

Russell is evil.

novabrkr said:

He is credited with inventing the symbol, so you could be right.

I have no respect for logicians at all in general. Well, no one today with a half sense of mind has. Unfortunately some mummified individuals are still drawing graphs and believing in alternate realities that can be exposed by bad mathematics.

novabrkr said:

Camille Paglia

jone70 said:

Wrong. Life can be only lived backwards, but it must be understood as if lived forwards.

Heh, your Heidegger mutilation of the day courtesy of Novabreaker. I should start a fortune cookie company.

novabrkr said:

Does this mean that life has already happened?

coolcat said:

It only means that language and meaning comes to us from the direction of death (the end of your personal time). The only thing we are able to understand (the end of existence) forms the basis of all understanding and enables conceptual reflection, for the end of your personal time is the only singular plural imaginable and the only thing that can be satisfyingly subsumed in understanding. However because this thing is indeed "satisfyingly" understood it is hidden from lingual conceptual capacities (i.e. the main reason why the system of formal logic doesn't work in the end, for it attempts formalization from the wrong direction), because within language we live, or attempt to live, as the common man (das man). And whilst every being has to face with their deaths as ultimately their own, death as shared among all human beings (daseins) forms our communal understanging and enables the denotative system.

If time would move indeed "forwards" as strictly as commonly thought, there would be no way to draw concepts from phenomenons (it would require endless regression towards birth, and even if you were to attribute the symbolic order as biologically inherited it would still seek out its direction from death as a rule for subsumation). Time doesn't really move in either direction, but if it were to move in either direction Heideggerians would say it rather moves backwards. The concept of time moving forward is based on so-called "vulgar time" where people place events on a timeline, and recall them as events of their personal history. This is why subjectivy is not really present within us all the time, and you don't need to reflect on your personal history to perform everyday chores. However because we speak we must not fully understand what we are trying to communicate, because we are separate entities, therefore we have to "live it forwards" when we are with the presence of other people. We are in the presence of the others within language - as Derrida would say you "read the others". And reading, and an attempt to understand, is something that happens "forwards" in a linear fashion. Hidden understanding happens "backwards" in the sense that you have to hide yourself actively your understanding of Things in order to remain alive.

... in short. Hey, you asked



[too stupid to be alive -edit]
[Edited 1/25/07 3:53am]

Stax said:

oh, those wacky philosophers!

I don't know if I have one. Except maybe this guy.

GeorgeWBush said:

you know that damn song went through my head when i read this thread...

http://www.adelaide.edu.a...os_song.au
[Edited 1/25/07 7:01am]

Imago said:

Me, too.....

What no pictures of:


Oscar wilde

Krishna murti

Henry miller

Gurdjieff

Shakespear

Carlos castenada


Philosophers make a fruity bunch of party guests.
Nice thread.

heartbeatocean said:

Derrida gives me a little bit of a . He, Sasseure, and Lacan were very popular with the art history professors where I went to grad school. (Rosalind Krauss loves her some post-modern deconstructivism...lol) My first WEEK of school I had to pass a language translation test in two sections: with dictionary & without. I was taking mine in French and the passage we were given to translate sans dictionaire was Derrida! The whole time I was thinking, his whole point is to deconstruct language so how could I possibly translate it from French to English and have it make any sense?!? Luckily it was an essay that I was somewhat familiar with--him discussing Meyer Shapiro & Heidegger's argument on Van Gogh painting of peasant shoes--so I was able to figure out the parts I couldn't translate. whew!



forgot Sasseure edit
[Edited 1/25/07 6:48am]

jone70 said:

novabrkr said:

I know! Rosalind Krauss is kinda evil like that...she is the one who chose and graded the French translations. I got a low pass on the precis (w/o dictionary part), but it still counted--a pass was a pass!

Wait, why did you have to pass a foreign language test during the first week? Is that mandatory where you live? (USA I assume)... we really don't have to pass language translation tests over here until, like, our 6th year.

Heidegger's argument on the Peasant's shoes is crap, btw.

I should read that too. For starters they weren't even peasant's shoes.

CarrieMpls said:

You know, I've never studied any philosophy. I'm sort of semi-interested, but when I've check out little bits and pieces I often found it infuriating cause I feel like it makes things way more complicated than they need to be. I prefer to think about things in the simplest terms possible. Partly cause I'm lazy ( ) and partly cause it's more egalitarian.

HamsterHuey said:

I've just started reading that again.

MR. HENDY:
Oh, that sounds wonderful. Would you like to talk about the meaning of life, darling?

MRS. HENDY:
Sure. Why not?

WAITER:
Philosophy for two?

MR. HENDY:
Right.

WAITER:
Room?

MR. HENDY:
Two-five-nine.

WAITER:
Two-five-nine.

MR. HENDY:
Yup. Uhh,-- uh, h-- how do we--

WAITER:
Oh, uhh, you folks want me to start you off?

MR. HENDY:
Oh, really, we'd appreciate that.

WAITER:
Okay!

MR. HENDY:
Yeah.

WAITER:
Well, ehh,...

MR. HENDY:
Mhmm.

WAITER:
...look. Have you ever wondered... just why you're here?

MR. HENDY:
Well, we went to Miami last year and California the year before that, and we've--

WAITER:
No, no, no. I mean, uh, w-- why we're here... on this planet.

MR. HENDY:
Hmmm. No.

WAITER:
Right! Aaah, you ever wanted to know what it's all about?

MR. HENDY:
Nope.

MRS. HENDY:
No. No.

WAITER:
Right-o! Aah, well, uh, see, throughout history,...

MR. HENDY:
M-hmm.

WAITER:
...there have been certain men and women who have tried to find the solution to the mysteries of existence,...

MRS. HENDY:
G-reat.

WAITER:
...and we call these guys 'philosophers'!

MR. HENDY:
Ohh.

MRS. HENDY:
And that's what we're talking about.

WAITER:
Right!

MR. HENDY:
Yeah.

MRS. HENDY:
Ohh, that's neat!

WAITER:
Well, you look like you're getting the idea, so why don't I give you these, uh, conversation cards?

They'll tell you a little about philosophical method,...

MR. HENDY:
Oh.

WAITER:
...names of famous philosophers,-- Uh, there you are. Uhh, have a nice conversation!

MR. HENDY:
Oh, thank you. Thank you very much.

MRS. HENDY:
He's cute.

MR. HENDY:
Yeah, real--

MRS. HENDY:
Yeah.

MR. HENDY:
Real understanding. Mmm.

MRS. HENDY:
Oh! I never knew Schopenhauer was a philosopher!

MR. HENDY:
Oh, yeah! He's the one that begins with an 'S'.

MRS. HENDY:
Oh.

MR. HENDY:
Umm, like, uh, 'Nietzsche'.

MRS. HENDY:
Does 'Nietzsche' begin with an 'S'?

MR. HENDY:
Uh, there's an 's' in 'Nietzsche'.

MRS. HENDY:
Oh, wow. Yes, there is. Do all philosophers have an 's' in them?

MR. HENDY:
Uh, yeah! I think most of 'em do.

MRS. HENDY:
Oh. Does that mean Selina Jones is a philosopher?

MR. HENDY:
Yeah! Right! She could be! She sings about the meaning of life.

MRS. HENDY:
Yeah. That's right, but I don't think she writes her own material.

MR. HENDY:
No. Oh, maybe Schopenhauer writes her material.

MRS. HENDY:
No. Burt Bacharach writes it.

MR. HENDY:
But there's no 's' in 'Burt Bacharach'.

MRS. HENDY:
Or in 'Hal David'.

MR. HENDY:
Who's Hal David?

MRS. HENDY:
He writes the lyrics. Burt just writes the tunes, only now, he's married to Carole Bayer Sager.

MR. HENDY:
Oh, waiter. This conversation isn't very good.

minneapolisgenius said:

can we have your liver then?

GeorgeWBush said:

i remember in the first election you ran in when you said that jesus was your favorite political philosopher georgie.

it was my first clue of both what a raginging moronr you are and how dangerous you were going to be.

Cloudbuster said: