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Bedeute es mir bitte

creasy boy — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 02:53:34 -0800

Need help translating/interpreting Wittgenstein's "Bei der magischen Heilung einer Krankheit bedeutet man ihr, sie möge den Patienten verlassen", esp. the use of bedeuten with a dative object. It comes from his Remarks on Frazer's Golden Bough, on p. 128 of Philosophical Occasions and p. 35 of the Suhrkamp Votrag über Ethik.

I've been trying to get a handle on this sentence by translating it into English but any paraphrase or explanation in either English or German might help me. My problem is that I don't really know what bedeuten could mean with a dative object. I'd be interested also in knowing whether Wittgenstein made this up or it's an accepted use.

The translation offered in Philosophical Occasions is "With the magical healing of an illness, one directs the illness to leave the patient", and I don't see how this could be right.

My intuitive sense would be something like "one signifies to it that it leave the patient", but I'm not sure if that makes any sense either.

The context:

Die Magie in "Alice in Wonderland" beim Trocknen durch Vorlesen des Trockensten was es gibt.
Bei der magischen Heilung einer Krankheit bedeutet man ihr, sie möge den Patient verlassen.
Man möchte nach der Beschreibung so einer magischen Kur immer sagen: Wenn das die Krankheit nicht versteht, so weiß ich nicht, wie man es ihr sagen soll.

Thank you for any help.

Wittgenstein's joke

creasy boy — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 02:04:37 -0800

Looking for a joke by Wittgenstein, something like "Are they crazy?" "No, they're just doing philosophy." It's not a joke per se, but it's funny. Wittgenstein imagines a philosophical dialogue between two people, someone else walks into the room and says "are they crazy" and is told: no, they're just doing philosophy. I thought it was in the PI but I just re-read that and didn't find it. I'm also pretty sure it's not in Philosophical Remarks, Philosophical Grammar, Remarks on the Philosophy of Psychology, Blue and Brown Books, Culture and Value, Zettel, or the Wiener Kreis notes, because I just looked through all those in the past half-year. Maybe On Certainty?

I couldn't have made this up, it's exactly the sort of thing Wittgenstein would write, but for the life of me I can't find it.

What are some good books to read along with Wittgenstein's PI?

nebulawindphone — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 07:35:58 -0800

What are some good books to read (for context, interpretation, or guidance) along with Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations? I'm especially interested in picking up the background that W and his audience would have taken for granted. I've got an undergrad degree in philosophy, but a lot of the relevant stuff from the early 20th century was just historical footnotes. (And Wittgenstein himself? Especially the late stuff? Forget about it. You may as well have told people you were interested in phrenology or dowsing.)

I'm also interested in learning more about the different ways people have interpreted PI, but I'd prefer a general teach-the-controversy overview to axe-grinding in support of a single reading. So for instance I'm familiar with Kripke's Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language, and I figure I'll have to get into it sooner or later, but right now I'm not looking for more books like it.

History and biography are cool but not really what I'm looking for right now.

Help a poor soul with his truth tables

creasy boy — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 07:40:29 -0800

I'm confused about Wittgenstein's Tractatus and the truth table for the Sheffer stroke. It's been a minute since I read the Tractatus and I'm trying to get back in with Mounce's introduction. Mounce claims that Wittgenstein uses only one operator, the Sheffer stroke. For him the Sheffer stroke p|q means "neither p nor q". As I understand it, and Wikipedia agrees with me, the Sheffer stroke actually means "not both" and its truth table is:

T T F

T F T

F T T

F F T

Mounce seems to disagree with this. For him Wittgenstein's notation (----- T), which for two propositions p and q would mean (FFFT), "takes us...to the Sheffer stroke -- neither p nor q or -p&-q. Thus:

T T F
F T F
T F F
F F T

I understand how this is the truth table for -p&-q. However, according to Wikipedia, this is the truth table for the Peirce arrow, not the Sheffer stroke. (I understand that you could express the same thing using Sheffer strokes.) But in 5.101 Wittgenstein defines p|q as -p&-q or as (FFFT)(p,q). Does the sign | not mean the Sheffer stroke? Is Wittgenstein himself confusing the Sheffer stroke with the other thing? Or are Wikipedia and my own recollection wrong?

I am not a logician. I am interested in Wittgenstein's views on ethics. All I want to know is: what the fuck operator does he use in the Tractatus, and what is its truth table? I turned to Mounce for clarity and it's just making me winded and dull.

"Ludwig the last crumpet was mine!"

greytape — Wed, 14 May 2008 09:38:12 -0800

StoryresearchFilter: Information needed on relations between superstar Cambridge dons of the 1930s-1950s. i.e. Russell, Wittgenstein, Turing, Keynes. I'm trying to write a short story that involves these four men. To this end I'm looking for information on the relationships between them, and any other genuine superstars that I might have missed that were hanging around Cambridge between these years .

I love this quote from Wikipedia:

"Bertrand Russell named Keynes the most intelligent person he had ever known, commenting, "Every time I argued with Keynes, I felt that I took my life in my hands, and I seldom emerged without feeling something of a fool." Keynes also famously commented to his wife that he had "met God on the 5:15 train" when he received Russell's protégé Ludwig Wittgenstein on behalf of Cambridge." I'd love to capture something of this spirit.

Obviously what I need to do is get the relative biographies out of the library and turn to the index, which I will do as soon as I get to a library, but in the meantime I have a bit of time on my hands and would like to do some online research.

Therefore I'm looking for anecdotes, paths to follow, recommended books or documentaries that might shed a little light on the lives of these tweedsuited Gods. Or if any of them has previosuy been depicted in fiction, that'd be good to know.

P.S. I'd also be interested to know if there has ever been a similar accumulation of talent in one place at one time, it seems extraordinary to me that not only were all these great men in the same university at the same time but that they were personal friends.
P.P.S. I've already read "Wittgenstein's Poker", that's partly what gave me the idea. Oh and Cryptonomicon, which depicts Turing in fiction.

How to find images of the first German edition of Wittgenstein's Tractatus?

treepour — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 14:36:40 -0800

How might I obtain images or facsimiles of the first and last page of the very first German edition of Wittgenstein's Tractatus? I want to find decent-quality images (not necessarily pristine or exact, jut not especially blurry, tiny, or heavily pixelated) of the very first and last sentences of Wittgenstein's Tractatus -- and I want them to be from the very 1st German edition ever published. I've found a few possible candidates via Google image search, but nothing that indicates whether these are from the 1st edition.

I realize this probably a pipe-dream, but any suggestions short of buying the book from a rare book dealer (way out of my price range) would be greatly appreciated.

Shew?

ITheCosmos — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 21:19:39 -0800

In Anscombe's translation of Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations, why does he use "shew" instead of "show"? I understand that "shew" is an archaic version of "show", but this book was published in 1968. What's the desired effect? Sure is annoying.

Just the Facts, Ma'am

wittgenstein — Sun, 14 Oct 2007 12:31:54 -0800

Wittgenstein filter: Tractatus 6.43 (end) "The world of the happy man is a different one from that of the unhappy man" What does this mean? years ago, I thought I understood this. W makes a big deal that (as I understand it) the facts are the same in the two worlds. I concluded from this that even if you picked up the unhappy man and plopped him down in the happy man's world, he would still be unhappy. I still think this is true. But now, I am not even sure I understand what I mean by that.

1) If the facts are really the same in the two worlds, why is one man happy and the other man unhappy? (I can't believe W was thinking in the Norman Vincent Peale way, i.e., a happy man keeps his mind full of happy thoughts while an unhappy man keeps his mind full of unhappy thoughts... or did he mean that?)
2) W seems to believe that his "will" can have no effect on the "facts", as I understand it. How could anyone believe that?

This section of the Tractatus has always been the part that spoke to me the most. I am curious to know what other people make of it. Thanks.

(for those in the know, I think my thoughts on this have been most strongly shaped by Mounce's Introduction to Wittgenstein's Tractatus.)

Introduction to Wittgenstein's Tractatus

davar — Fri, 24 Mar 2006 14:11:13 -0800

I am looking for a clear understandable introduction to Wittgenstein's Tractatus Logico Philosophicus. Is there any particular book or website you can recommend to someone who is not schooled in philosophy?