Monthly Archives: October 2011
A Certain … Certainty.
I have been a bit lax on the writing as of late. This is due to a combination of bad sleep habits and other such things. Anyway, here’s a little gem I noticed yesterday while reading. (I find that it … Continue reading
The History Behind an Odd Question
Warning: I am about to try something dangerous at my meager level of familiarity with certain texts. Brace yourselves. Part I: A Deceptive Query. Effectively, the general form of my question concerning Wittgenstein’s Tractatus is “Why can this book be … Continue reading
On the Universality of Language
My recent interest in Leibniz has been influenced by a question concerning Wittgenstein’s Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. This might sound odd. I promise it isn’t. You see, Leibniz had this crazy idea about language. He noted around 1677 that there was a … Continue reading
Leibniz and the (Less-Than) Ideal Language
From Preface to the General Science, 1677: Whence it is manifest that if we could find characters or signs appropriate for expressing all our thoughts as definitely and as exactly as arithmetic expresses number or geometric analysis between lines, we … Continue reading
David Foster Wallace and the ‘Choice’
“And I submit that this is what the real, no bullshit value of your liberal arts education is supposed to be about: how to keep from going through your comfortable, prosperous, respectable adult life dead, unconscious, a slave to your … Continue reading
What Melville Saw
From “The Gilder”, a chapter in Moby Dick: “There is no steady unretracing progress in this life; we do not advance through fixed gradations, and at the last one pause: — through infancy’s unconscious spell, boyhood’s thoughtless faith, adolescence’ doubt … Continue reading
Wittgenstein’s “Great Gift”
Ray Monk’s Wittgenstein: The Duty of Genius states that in August of 1934 Friedrich Waismann wrote the following lines to Moritz Schlick in order to describe Wittgenstein: “He has the great gift of always seeing things as if for the … Continue reading
Merleau-Ponty in the Shadows
From “The Philosopher’s Shadow” in Signs: “To think is not to possess the objects of thought; it is to use them to mark out a realm to think about which we therefore are not yet thinking about. Just as the … Continue reading
Some Clarifications
I am going to muddy the waters. The faculty of wonder can get us into all kinds of trouble. Don’t take me to say that it is always and everywhere good. I imagine it is also the aspect of the philosopher … Continue reading
What does it take?
I feel must apologize. A new post has been well overdue for a long time now. I intend that this be a return to output and discourse. Some of those who will read this will understand a bit that I … Continue reading
