GARY. C. MOORE:


MARIANO:
The title of the message called my attention, I wish to offer some comments, think I may not answer your question about "Wittgenstein's objection to Russell's theory of judgment", because this question, I think, is about: what L. W. wanted to say to B. R.?

GARY.C. MOORE
No. It is proposition [7] of the TRACTATUS LOGICO-PHILOSOPHICUS and MUST be read in context.

MARIANO:
I wish to comment from the point of view of what I understand by "what we cannot speak we must pass over in silence".

GARY.C. MOORE
It is not simply a point of view but is a well worked out logical conclusion whose argument one must, at least broadly, be understood or it becomes merely disconnected, out of context 'poetry'. Even poetry makes logical arguments within its particular form that, though often harder to deal with than straight philosophical prose that, if too cumbersome and tortured, you know automatically is just wrong. With poetry, context is highly developed and intentional. Where a poem says something is as important as what and how it is said. Taking Wittgenstein's comment out of the proper line of argument makes it meaningless.

Mariano:
What is what we can not speak? Is it a fictional being, like a centaur, something which can be spoken? Can we, even, mention "what we cannot speak", without speaking it? Do we "speak" whenever we speak?

GARY.C. MOORE
Wittgenstein, if you will read the TRACTATUS – and I have made several versions on line available in other recent letters, is talking about metaphysics. Metaphysics is essentially saying something about not only all the subjects it engages but PRIMARILY about itself, it is primarily self-referential and in doing so trying to logically justify itself, which Wittgenstein says is 'nonsense', and in the context of the immediately preceding propositions 6.45 through 6.54 explains exactly why it is 'nonsense' even though metaphysics can be a DISPOSABLE tool for establishing what is essentially a WELTANSCHAUUNG.

MARIANO:
In my view, L. W. writings are ambiguous about this, and may be ambiguity is right on this.


GARY.C. MOORE
You are right, but that is too general, too vague. Wittgenstein is delineating strict boundaries of specified speech, whose defining characteristic is that its terms do not contradict each other AND ARE PERFECTLY CLEAR, unambiguous, since 'speech' in general is total nonsense.


MARIANO:
The notion of 'language game' nullifies the distinction between 'object language' and 'metalanguage', somewhere in the "Philosophical Investigations" L. W. wrote something like that Philosophy may be also about "Philosophy" as Orthography may be about "Orthography", and L. W. nullifies this distinction by putting action beyond language. GARY.C. MOOREA very acute observation of an important point throughout Wittgenstein from beginning to end. Zeno's paradoxes, as far as I am concerned, are irrefutable. The measurement of action is really the measurement of a number of things within, around, about, and in conclusion of action, never action itself. And yet real action is never just the some of its parts but something more. Russell tried to apply this line of reasoning to 'wholeness', but was wrong because 'wholeness' is in one place at one time and can be SEEN to be composed of parts without which it is no 'whole'. But action has specific material results measurable by science that can ONLY come about by action. It is just the analysis must necessarily be incomplete ontologically. MARIANO: The notion of a language game is that of an action which includes language as a part of it; if there is a meta-position, then this position is action. In my view, if L. W. makes a mistake, this mistake may be to develop a 'metaphysics of action', thus following Aristotle's abstractions and betraying in some sense the notion of language game. GARY.C. MOOREWittgenstein NEVER develops 'metaphysics' except as a mere pointing tool. He would never have metaphysics of action. Such a thing is empirically impossible.

MARIANO:
In my view, L. W., in the "TRACTATUS", treats the answer to the question: 'Is it a fictional being, like a centaur, something which can be spoken?' as something we must pass over in silence. But, later on, with the notion of language game, L. W. changes the view, and takes the point of saying that such question and its answer are a part of a language game. As they are a part of a language game, in some sense they are not something which is being spoken. For example, if we say "there is a centaur" we do not mean that somewhere it exists a centaur, and if we say "what can not be said" we do not mean that somewhere it exists what can not be said, much like when we say that "something does not exist" we do not mean that somewhere it exists something which does not exist. Otherwise we would be talking contradictorily with every utterance! GARY.C. MOOREIt would have to obey the rules of the SPECIFIC language game which in this case would be fantasy or poetry. David Hume's definition of imagination follows exactly Wittgenstein's definition of 'object', i. e., 2.0121] 'There is NO object that we can imagine excluded from the possibility of combining with others.' A centaur is merely a man and a horse combined.

MARIANO:
The notion of language game is not a formal notion. By the notion of language game, in some language games we may say what can not said, without contradiction.

GARY.C. MOORE
You would be breaking the rules of that specific language game.

MARIANO:
In some language game if we say what can not said there is a contradiction. The link between a game and another game is not a formal link, it is a game.

GARY.C. MOORE
The link, if there is ANY link, is not at all necessarily logical but would more probably be situational, contextual, or experiential. MARIANO: Therefore, L. W. notion of language game may allow us to understand whatever B. R. -or other formalist logician- wanted to say, but, B. R. ideas -or other formalist logician ideas- may not allow us to understand the notion of a language game. B. R. -or a formalist logician- may tolerate L. W., may not accept him.

GARY.C. MOORE
It is the other way around. Wittgenstein abhorred abstraction for abstraction's sake. In the TRACTATUS he wanted to develop a literalistic language that would adequately confront a real individual object. In the PHILOSOPHICAL INVESTIGATIONS, he rejects the TRACTATUS except, again, as a 'metaphysical' guide to where we want to go, that is, speaking clearly. In most ways, both texts can be construed as compatible to varying degrees. It is not an either/or confrontation. But 'real life', as if there were anything 'real' about it [refer: eliminatism, folk psychology], and however 'nonsensical', is the only show in town, the only place we can ACT. Therefore the PHILOSOPHICAL INVESTIGATIONS confronts how language is actually used in 'real' life.

Ciao, Gary