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@de Silentio,

Sorry, I guess I am not one of the non-philosophical comrades, so I am unable to dissociate this sentence from Wittgenstein's Tractatus.

What Wittgenstein meant is ultimately quite mysterious.
I believe it was intended as the ultimate sign-off.
It's quite possible that he thought that this was going to become the final sentence of the Western Philosophy...
We can speculate endlessly about that, the secret lies with Wittgenstein.

On the other hand, I wonder why JG has chosen that - I wonder about how he interprets that. He is quite fond of Nietzsche, I guess (check out his icon), not to mention that he is also truly competent about him.
The funny thing is that, I guess, N. never conceived he could have possibly remained silent about anything... never.

2 Replies

@kennethamy,

kennethamy wrote:

fresco wrote:

Quote:
I'm looking more for what the words mean to the individual who reads them. Give me YOUR interpretation of what they mean.

Perhaps you would like to elucidate at this point, or are you waiting for a particular response?

Well, right now I mean by them that I like fried eggs sunny side up. Will that do as a response? If not, then why not?

Sure, but it seems pretty silly for the words in the quote to mean what you they mean. Why would you arbitrarily ascribe meanings to words when you very well know the senses in which I use the words and the references of the words.

If you retort an argument thusly: "Well your argument opeldegook when you boobank opality dupulty", your interlocutor will think you're a fool.

That' what it seems like you did to answer my question. You picked some stupid thing as an interpretation for the meaning of the quote.

You seem intelligent enough to know what the words I used mean and in what context they were used. You gave yourself away when you provided us with a history on the quote.

So, now I'll change my question and ask why you responded the way you did?... with nonsense.

0 Replies

@attano,

attano wrote:

It's quite possible that he thought that this was going to become the final sentence of the Western Philosophy...

Interesting point, you're right. That highlights the fact that even though many philosophers think they know all the answer, they are inevitbly wrong.

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@attano,

It shows a Nazi mentality. The quote in isolation shows that he was trying to silence someone by saying 'you't know anything so shut up'. It shows a superior attitude like that of the Inquisitor. If the quote was his general attitude then it shows teacher-student relationship that is he knows while the student doesn't. Since he is an admirer of Nietzsche who espoused 'the super race' then the Nazi mentality is there. All it needed was Hitler to declare Aryan superiority and relegating Gypsies, homosexuals, Slavs (who were also blue eyed and blond), the mentally retarded as sub-human and to be eliminated.

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I think it means:

If you know nothing about the subject then don't speak of it.

Oops, I just did.

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@talk72000,

There was a typo "You don't know anythinbg so shut up"

1 Reply

@talk72000,

talk72000 wrote:

There was a typo "You don't know anythinbg so shut up"

Closer to Wittgenstein's meaning is, "If you cannot know anything about it, then you ought not to try to say anything about it".

1 Reply

@kennethamy,

kennethamy wrote:

Closer to Wittgenstein's meaning is, "If you cannot know anything about it, then you ought not to try to say anything about it".

Exactly. Big difference between cannot know and do not know. What I was thinking is that the quote is easily misinterpreted if one does not know the background of the quote.

What I wanted to see is if the non-philosophical members among us would interpret it the latter way. That's all.

Now, Wittgenstein's philosophical development is evidence that we may in fact not know what we cannot know. So, is it fair for one person to beseech another to keep silent about what the former thinks the latter cannot know? Because, it might be that the former is mistkan about what can be known and in error in telling other what they cannot speak of.

3 Replies

@de Silentio,

I, being a non-philosophical member, did interpret the quote the latter way.

I find the philosophy threads fascinating and am not quite sure why. When you say "Wittgenstein's philosophical development is evidence that we may in fact not know what we cannot know", my first thought is how much time did he spend figuring that out? I am not trying to be sarcastic, but it sounds like a no-brainer to me.

And no, it is not fair for one person to expect another to keep silent about any subject, because no one knows entirely what knowledge or experiences another person has

1 Reply

@de Silentio,

Perhaps you would like to define "know" in this context. The quotation is from the Tractatus . But, as I understand it W moved away from that earlier logical positivist stance of an "objective reality" isomorphic to "statements" (the picture theory), to a functionalist one in which "meaning" and by implication " the meaning of factual statements" was a matter of social consensus (common "language game"). We might also note, perhaps with some surprise, that Wittgenstein's views on religious belief did appear appear to proscribe discussion of them despite them seeming to be a likely candidate for "silence".

2 Replies

@fresco,

fresco wrote:

Perhaps you would like to define "know" in this context. The quotation is from the Tractatus . But, as I understand it W moved away from that earlier logical positivist stance of an "objective reality" isomorphic to "statements" (the picture theory), to a functionalist one in which "meaning" and by implication " the meaning of factual statements" was a matter of social consensus (common "language game"). We might also note, perhaps with some surprise, that Wittgenstein's views on religious belief did appear appear to proscribe discussion of them despite them seeming to be a likely candidate for "silence".

What would be the point of defining "know"? Whatever "know" means, W. is saying that we should not say anything about what it is impossible to know. What "know" happens to mean here is quite irrelevant. And what does it matter that Wittgenstein changed his mind after TLP? Why would that make him change his mind about whether we should talk about what we cannot know anything about? (Your last sentence makes no sense).

1 Reply

@kennethamy,

Next !

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@de Silentio,

It is nonsense as it suggests superiority as if an intelligent person cannot understand. Typical Nazi attitude of Superior race. Well where are the Nazis?

Anyway it is a case of cutting one's nose to spite the face. By cutting off opinions this Nazi thinker isolates himself and all those who follow him. No wonder philosophy has no use in the modern world with attitudes like that. Pretending to be superior but being ignored.

0 Replies

@talk72000,

talk72000 wrote:

It shows a Nazi mentality. The quote in isolation shows that he was trying to silence someone by saying 'you't know anything so shut up'. It shows a superior attitude like that of the Inquisitor. If the quote was his general attitude then it shows teacher-student relationship that is he knows while the student doesn't. Since he is an admirer of Nietzsche who espoused 'the super race' then the Nazi mentality is there. All it needed was Hitler to declare Aryan superiority and relegating Gypsies, homosexuals, Slavs (who were also blue eyed and blond), the mentally retarded as sub-human and to be eliminated.

1 Reply

@attano,

attano wrote:

talk72000 wrote:

It shows a Nazi mentality. The quote in isolation shows that he was trying to silence someone by saying 'you't know anything so shut up'. It shows a superior attitude like that of the Inquisitor. If the quote was his general attitude then it shows teacher-student relationship that is he knows while the student doesn't. Since he is an admirer of Nietzsche who espoused 'the super race' then the Nazi mentality is there. All it needed was Hitler to declare Aryan superiority and relegating Gypsies, homosexuals, Slavs (who were also blue eyed and blond), the mentally retarded as sub-human and to be eliminated.

I would not have thought it shows a Nazi-mentality, but that it was only commonsense to advise people that unless it is possible to know about something, they ought not to say anything about it. I would think that the world would be a lot better off if people did not talk about what they know nothing about. I would certainly find it a relief.

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@fresco,

fresco wrote:

Perhaps you would like to define "know" in this context. The quotation is from the Tractatus . But, as I understand it W moved away from that earlier logical positivist stance of an "objective reality" isomorphic to "statements" (the picture theory), to a functionalist one in which "meaning" and by implication " the meaning of factual statements" was a matter of social consensus (common "language game"). We might also note, perhaps with some surprise, that Wittgenstein's views on religious belief did appear appear to proscribe discussion of them despite them seeming to be a likely candidate for "silence".

I purposely didn't define "know" in the context. I think the idea of knowledge or "knowing" can be categorized in different ways.

I don't know if it is correct to say that Wittgenstein's stance was ever "logical positivist", because, as I understand, the logical positivists based their philosophy off of Wittgenstein's work, and thus they are seperate from Wittgenstein in that respect.

Even so, the fact that W.'s ideas of philosophy radically changed after the Tractatus shows that one cannot know what the limits of knowledge are.

2 Replies

@soozoo,

soozoo wrote:

I am not trying to be sarcastic, but it sounds like a no-brainer to me.

Thanks soozoo. As a non-philosophy member, I appreciate your contribution. The funny thing about philosophy is that common sense rarely serves as a warranted reason. Thus, "no brainers" often require a great deal of proof.

Having the conclusions at hand (as one thinks they do with "common sense") is only a small portion of the puzzle. Proving why something is so is where the difficulty lies.

1 Reply

@de Silentio,

Quote:

Even so, the fact that W.'s ideas of philosophy radically changed after the Tractatus shows that one cannot know what the limits of knowledge are.

That is your interpretation. Most philosophers agree that W's dismissal of his Tractatus was epistemologically significant because it re-focussed atttention on language with such adages as "The limits of my language are the limits of my world". W's subsequent investigations of language use were paralleled by Kuhn's analysis of paradigmatic shifts in science, such that "knowing" was seen as "a social activity"( language games) rather than "being in possession of facts".

1 Reply

@de Silentio,

Thanks for your reply also. Being a common sense kind of person, I suspect philosophy is way out of my realm, but I may sneak a comment in here and there anyway.

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@de Silentio,

de Silentio wrote:

fresco wrote:

Perhaps you would like to define "know" in this context. The quotation is from the Tractatus . But, as I understand it W moved away from that earlier logical positivist stance of an "objective reality" isomorphic to "statements" (the picture theory), to a functionalist one in which "meaning" and by implication " the meaning of factual statements" was a matter of social consensus (common "language game"). We might also note, perhaps with some surprise, that Wittgenstein's views on religious belief did appear appear to proscribe discussion of them despite them seeming to be a likely candidate for "silence".

I purposely didn't define "know" in the context. I think the idea of knowledge or "knowing" can be categorized in different ways.

I don't know if it is correct to say that Wittgenstein's stance was ever "logical positivist", because, as I understand, the logical positivists based their philosophy off of Wittgenstein's work, and thus they are seperate from Wittgenstein in that respect.

Even so, the fact that W.'s ideas of philosophy radically changed after the Tractatus shows that one cannot know what the limits of knowledge are.

Even so, the fact that W.'s ideas of philosophy radically changed after the Tractatus shows that one cannot know what the limits of knowledge are.

Why? What would the change in W. have to do with whether someone can know what the limits of knowledge are, or, for that matter, anything else? How would anyone's investigations into any philosophical questions be affected by Wittgenstein's changes?

1 Reply

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