At
Methods of Projection, N. N. points us to
SOH-Dan, whose proprietor Daniel has commented here occasionally, and to
Brain Scam, a properly philosophical complement to that blogger's arts & culture blog
The Parrot's Lamppost. Daniel has already blogged on Brandom, the "resolute" reading of Wittgenstein, and (at positively Holbonian length) on Hegel. Anton A., on the other hand, describes Brain Scam as "a rampart against naive materialist views of consciousness," and has some truly pungent things to say about the reductionism and eliminativism he sees in contemporary cognitive science. I'm not convinced (okay, I really doubt) that cognitive science is so uniformly reductionist as Anton claims it is, but in his opening rants (and I mean that in the best sense) he does say some gratifyingly Wittgensteinian things. He promises an upcoming post about
the idea that there is "something it is like" to have a particular form of consciousness, that this is perspectival or subjective, and that it therefore cannot be stated in the objective language of materialism, or at least we have no idea how that would be done.... Unfortunately, this response is itself fundamentally flawed, for much the same reason that materialism itself is flawed.
Quite right! I can tell I'll be spending too much time in these places. (Better stop reading The Valve ...).
Addendum: I see N. N. has another Wittgenstein blog,
Language Games, in the blogroll. I haven't checked this one out yet, but don't let that stop you.
I'm pretty sure the term for that length is "Holbonic." Rhymes with "colonic."
ReplyDeleteThanks for the linkage.
The "what it's like" post has been posted! It's way too long, like the others, and even more of a "rant", but hopefully still in the "best sense". But that is the last lengthy diatribe for awhile (he grimaced at having to restrain himself); I hope to cover the news for a while now. Thanks for your attention!
ReplyDeleteBTW, where is this blog on the "resolute" reading? That is another thing I have spilled a lot of ink over; second to Cook's reading it is IMHO the worst thing in Wittgenstein studies. (Diamond is at least interestingly incoherent, but Conant I find unbearably pompous.) I think Hacker adequately decimated their claim to adequate Wittgenstein interpretation, but I have a piece, still unfinished after many years, which deals with the implications of the view they incorrectly attribute to W for philosophy of language. I've never seen anything on that so I'm curious what's out there now.
I'll reply to your post over there, if I get a chance, but let me address the second part of your comment here. Is there a blog on the "resolute" reading? I hadn't heard about it. Maybe N. N. can tell us.
ReplyDeleteAbout that reading, I can understand why people hate it, but I am ambivalent about it myself. (I actually like Conant, but he sure could use an editor.) I won't go into it in this comment. I'm interested in your piece though.
To my knowledge, there is not a blog devoted to the resolute reading.
ReplyDeleteWhile I certainly disagree with the resolute reading, I do not think that it is the worst thing in Wittgenstein studies. It has forced "standard" readers to get clearer about some very important themes in the Tractatus, and in that regard, has been a beneficial thing.
I am Hacker fan, but I think that his criticism of Conant (while rightly correcting Conant on the distinction between sign and symbol) is not a successful refutation of his position (see Diamond's response to his criticism, "Logical Syntax in Wittgenstein's Tractatus").
It is bothersome that Conant and Diamond are unwilling to address the "external" evidence against their position, but the TLP passages they fall back on (most notably, 5.473) appear to support their reading.