Series Index The final section of Philosophical Investigations brings the language-game approach to questions of ethics, and once again, the real benefit of reading and thinking about what Wittgenstein is doing lies not so much in a single claim or thesis that he develops (as one finds, for instance, in Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason)…
Series Index Philosophical Investigations, as I read it, doesn’t have a thesis so much as it explores both the limits of stating theses and the limits of denying the need for theses. Whether the subject matter is the nature of thought, the nature of private experiences and our common names for them, or anything else,…
Series Index Philosophical Investigations was the reading and discussion matter for a group of students and faculty at Emmanuel College during the 2014-15 school year, under the auspices of the Emmanuel College Christian Humanists. Because I led most of the discussions, I prepared reading notes for each of the twelve sessions that ended up happening, and…
Series Index In case you’re just tuning in, or in case you’ve forgotten what a Wittgenstein Wednesday is, some faculty and students got together every couple weeks during the 2014-15 school year at Emmanuel College to read through Ludwig Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations together. Since I was the de facto discussion leader, and since most of my open…
Series Index A few months passed between installments seven and eight of this series, so for the sake of those who might come across this later, I’ll just say that I might repeat some things in the second half that I already dealt with in the first, and all parenthetical references below are to the…
Series Index Without a doubt rules do something when we undertake disciplined thought. But when we try to articulate universal claims about rules, they fall flat. Wittgenstein asks us to remember the sight of railroad tracks stretching out to the horizon (easy enough for one who grew up in Indiana) and suggests that when we…
Series Index Wittgenstein, in this session’s readings concerns himself with relationships between our general terms and the ranges of realities to which they relate. Once again in his sights seem to be philosophies of language that treat “pure” language as a desirable (even if impossible) outcome and regard as defective philosophies of language that either…
Series Index At this point I’m not posting things before the meetings or even the day of the meetings but catching up from missed meetings. Mea culpa. For those just joining us, this series follows the Emmanuel College Christian Humanist reading group for the 2014-2015 school year as we read together through Ludwig Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations. Citations…
Series Index Once again I’ve waited until the day that Emmanuel College’s Wittgenstein group meets to write the latest blog post. It’s November. Give me a break. As with previous posts, numbers refer to section numbers, not page numbers. Who Needs What? No sentence needs an explanation; instead, we need explanations if we misunderstand the sentence (87). Thus begins the…
Series Index Emmanuel College’s Wittgenstein group meets today, which means I’m behind on getting the latest blog post up here. So it goes. As with previous posts, numbers refer to section numbers, not page numbers. The Persistence and Boundaries of Concepts When something stops existing as its intelligible self (for instance, today’s newspaper might burn in a…
Series Index Emmanuel College’s Wittgenstein group keeps rolling along as we approach our next Wittgenstein meeting. Before that happens, though, I should get a guide in place both for those reading along at home and for those who missed the last meeting but plan to jump back in this round. So here it goes! (A per…
Series Index Recently an intrepid group of students and faculty at Emmanuel College began a school-year-long adventure in philosophy, planning together to read Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations together, a bit at a time, over the fall and spring semesters. As we got the group rolling, I volunteered to provide some sort of online catch-up for those who couldn’t…