"Die Philosophie ist ein Kampf gegen die Verhexung
unsres Verstandes durch die Mittel unserer Sprache."
— Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations (1953), Section 109
"Die Philosophie ist ein Kampf gegen die Verhexung
unsres Verstandes durch die Mittel unserer Sprache."
— Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations (1953), Section 109
Illustration from other posts now tagged
Cervantes Meets Pascal.
See as well Verhexung in this journal.
This post was suggested by . . .
"Refined interpretation requires that you know that
someone once said the offspring of reality and illusion
is only a staggering confusion."
— Poem, "The Game of Roles," by Mary Jo Bang
Related material for those perplexed by such Verhexung —
Backstory: Verhexung and Ein Kampf .
Prequel: The Verhexung quote above is from Wittgenstein's section 109
in Philosophical Investigations . The search result shown links to a page
containing part of the preceding Wittgenstein section —
For another look at "crystalline purity" and language, see the previous
two posts, Logic and Fruit Loom.
Wallace Stevens, “Country Words” —
“What is it that my feeling seeks?
I know from all the things it touched
And left beside and left behind.
It wants the diamond pivot bright.”
"The positional meaning of a symbol derives from
its relationship to other symbols in a totality, a Gestalt,
whose elements acquire their significance from the
system as a whole."
— Victor Turner, The Forest of Symbols , Ithaca, NY,
Cornell University Press, 1967, p. 51, quoted by
Beth Barrie in "Victor Turner."
(Turner pioneered the use of the term "symbology,"
a term later applied by Dan Brown to a fictional
scholarly pursuit at Harvard.)
* A scholarly pursuit at Hogwarts.
When shall we three meet again?
"Carnap, Tarski and Quine met together in 1940-1941 at Harvard
to discuss their views on the nature of language and the differences
between logic, mathematics and science. In this remarkable book
Greg Frost-Arnold presents Carnap’s extensive notes on these
meetings. Frost-Arnold also includes an elegant translation and a
detailed commentary that sets the notes in their philosophical context
and demonstrates their importance for many central debates about
the history of analytic philosophy. This book marks a decisive advance
in our understanding of the philosophical views of Carnap, Tarski and
Quine, and is essential reading for all who work on these topics."
— Christopher Pincock, The Ohio State University
“Die Philosophie ist ein Kampf gegen die Verhexung
unsres Verstandes durch die Mittel unserer Sprache.”
— Philosophical Investigations (1953), Section 109
An example of Verhexung from the René Guitart article in the previous post —
See also Ein Kampf .
"Philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment [Verhexung ]
of our intelligence by means of our language."
— Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations , Section 109
"The philosophy of logic speaks of sentences and words
in exactly the sense in which we speak of them in ordinary life
when we say e.g. 'Here is a Chinese sentence,' or 'No, that only
looks like writing; it is actually just an ornament' and so on."
— Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations , Section 108
Monday, June 30, 2014
High Concept
|
This figure from a post of April 29, 2008 is related to remarks
by art theorist Rosalind Krauss in tonight's previous post.
Related language —
"Kernel" in mathematics and "Innerste Kern." elsewhere.
Related philosophy —
"Die Philosophie ist ein Kampf gegen die Verhexung
unsres Verstandes durch die Mittel unserer Sprache."
— Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations (1953), Section 109
And now… the musical!
Update at 12:30 AM ET on Wednesday, November 16, 2022 . . .
Some background:
"Die Philosophie ist ein Kampf gegen die Verhexung
unsres Verstandes durch die Mittel unserer Sprache."
— Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations (1953), Section 109
A Chateau Marmont story related to a death that reportedly*
occurred on August 18, 2020 —
https://nypost.com/2020/08/28/
cathy-smith-who-injected-john-belushi-with-fatal-overdose-dies-at-73/
This journal on August 18, 2020 —
* Other sources, such as The New York Times , give August 16 as the
date of death. That date in this journal also deals with art and reality.
The above title was suggested by a film trailer quoted here Saturday —
" Jeremy Irons' dry Alfred Pennyworth:
'One misses the days when one's biggest concerns
were exploding wind-up penguins.' "
"Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition" describes, among other books,
an edition of the I Ching published on December 1, 2015.
Excerpt from this journal on that date —
Tuesday, December 1, 2015
Verhexung
|
Related material —
Hexagram 29,
The Abyss (Water)
This post was suggested by an August 6, 2010, post by the designer
(in summer or fall, 2010) of the Stack Exchange math logo (see
the previous Log24 post, Art Space Illustrated) —
In that post, the designer quotes the Wilhelm/Baynes I Ching to explain
his choice of Hexagram 63, Water Over Fire, as a personal icon —
"When water in a kettle hangs over fire, the two elements
stand in relation and thus generate energy (cf. the
production of steam). But the resulting tension demands
caution. If the water boils over, the fire is extinguished
and its energy is lost. If the heat is too great, the water
evaporates into the air. These elements here brought in
to relation and thus generating energy are by nature
hostile to each other. Only the most extreme caution
can prevent damage."
See also this journal on Walpurgisnacht (April 30), 2010 —
Hexagram 29:
|
Hexagram 30: |
A thought from another German-speaking philosopher —
"Die Philosophie ist ein Kampf gegen die Verhexung
unsres Verstandes durch die Mittel unserer Sprache."
See also The Crimson 's abyss in today's 4:35 AM post Art Space, Continued.
From an earlier Log24 post —
Friday, July 11, 2014
|
From a post of the next day, July 12, 2014 —
"So there are several different genres and tones
jostling for prominence within Lexicon :
a conspiracy thriller, an almost abstract debate
about what language can do, and an ironic
questioning of some of the things it’s currently used for."
— Graham Sleight in The Washington Post
a year earlier, on July 15, 2013
For the Church of Synchronology, from Log24 on the next day —
From a post titled Circles on the date of Marc Simont's death —
See as well Verhexung in this journal.
A check on the source of the Wittgenstein quotations
in the previous post yields …
Sounds like Verhexung to me. See also Plotnitsky in this journal.
The previous post suggests a review of Wittgenstein's
Verhexung remark in context.
The New York Times has a readable, if not informative,
review of a recent controversial account of history —
"For many, it exists in a kind of liminal state,
floating somewhere between fact and mythology."
— Jonathan Mahler, online Times on Oct. 15, 2015
[See Wikipedia on Liminality.]
Mahler begins his review with a statement by the President
on the night of May 1, 2011.
A more easily checked statement quoted here on that date:
"The positional meaning of a symbol derives from
its relationship to other symbols in a totality, a Gestalt,
whose elements acquire their significance from the
system as a whole."
— Victor Turner, The Forest of Symbols , Ithaca, NY,
Cornell University Press, 1967, p. 51, quoted by
Beth Barrie in "Victor Turner."
A Gestalt from "Verhexung ," the previous post —
Guitart's statement that the above figure is a "Boolean logical cube"
seems, in the words of the Times , to be "floating somewhere
between fact and mythology." Discuss.
(My apologies to those who feel that attempting to make sense
of Guitart makes them feel like Vin Diesel in the Dreamworld.)
"Die Philosophie ist ein Kampf gegen die Verhexung
unsres Verstandes durch die Mittel unserer Sprache."
— Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations (1953), Section 109
Related material —
"… the common bond between chess, music, and mathematics
may, finally, be the absence of language."
— George Steiner, Fields of Force: Fischer and Spassky at Reykjavik ,
Viking hardcover, June 1974.
"Historically, the idea of a concept script
derives from the Leibnizian project of developing
a so-called 'universal characteristic'
(characteristica universalis )…."
— Dorothea Lotter, "Gottlob Frege: Language,"
in Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Frege as quoted by Lotter —
"Arithmetical, geometrical and chemical symbols
can be regarded as realizations of the Leibnizian
conception in particular fields. The concept script
offered here adds a new one to these – indeed,
the one located in the middle, adjoining all the others."
Wittgenstein —
"Philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment
of our intelligence by means of our language."
"Die Philosophie ist ein Kampf gegen die Verhexung
unsres Verstandes durch die Mittel unserer Sprache."
— Philosophical Investigations (1953), Section 109
Frege, Preface to the Begriffsschrift —
"If it is one of the tasks of philosophy
to break the domination of words over the human spirit
by laying bare the misconceptions
that through the use of language
often almost unavoidably arise
concerning the relations between concepts
and by freeing thought from that with which only
the means of expression of ordinary language,
constituted as they are, saddle it,
then my ideography, further developed for these purposes,
can become a useful tool for the philosopher."
"Wenn es eine Aufgabe der Philosophie ist,
die Herrschaft des Wortes über den menschlichen Geist
zu brechen, indem sie die Täuschungen aufdeckt,
die durch den Sprachgebrauch über die Beziehungen der Begriffe
oft fast unvermeidlich entstehen,
indem sie den Gedanken von demjenigen befreit, womit ihn allein
die Beschaffenheit des sprachlichen Ausdrucksmittels behaftet,
so wird meine Begriffsschrift, für diese Zwecke weiter ausgebildet,
den Philosophen ein brauchbares Werkzeug werden können."
"Philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of our language."
"Die Philosophie ist ein Kampf gegen die Verhexung unsres Verstandes durch die Mittel unserer Sprache."
— Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations (1953), Section 109
"When the battle's lost and won" — The Scottish play
Related material— Monday's Language Game.
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