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As part of my recap / catch-up on Wittgenstein I’m at last reading Ray Monk’s “Duty of Genius“, much referenced in other readings of course, but reading the original for the first time. This is my mid-point review (his 1929 return to Cambridge) to capture my own agenda points with notes under 3 headings:

The Job Done – Did Wittgenstein believe he’d put philosophy to bed in the Tractatus?
The Incompleteness – Is Gödel consisent with the Tractatus on incompleteness?
The Kunmanngasse House – A metaphor for the Tractatus

[DoG – the Duty of Genius]
[TLP – the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus]

The Job Done

I’m finding very little to disagree with in DoG and indeed it is truly excellent in joining the man to his work, a recurring interest of mine to understand where was P coming from when they wrote X. Lots of clarification and deepening of detail as well as confirmation and reinforcement of the broader themes. Scholarly and human. Recommended. Excellent as I say.

As I’ve said many times, the one Wittgenstein meme that continually nags me is the suggestion he believed he’d solved philosophy in writing TLP and that this was why he ostensibly removed himself from philosophical activity for the decade 1919 to 1928.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

Discounting for a moment that his knowledge of academic philosophy as a whole was limited and selective beyond Russell (eg Kant, Schopenauer, Nietzsche) due to his age and experience, he knew philosophy was a lot more than the immediate target audience of TLP. For the logicians it was all that could be said, but what couldn’t be said with formal logical language – metaphysically, ontologically, epistemologically – was as he had also said, a lot more and a lot more important. He had solved the problem of logicians, if they could understand what he had done. Nothing more, nothing less.

Frustrated that they didn’t get it, again as he knew they couldn’t do immediately without the will to do so, he left them (hopefully) to study and absorb what he had done, whilst he went off to walk his talk. To walk his non-talk in fact – to live, experience the aesthetic of real life – to do the more important part of philosophy. Watch me. He was taking his own medicine, again probably frustratedly hoping they would notice his message.

Of course lived experience through and after WWI had a massive psychological effect on intelligent humans as well as the enormous physical effects on people and states in general. But, even in normal times there would be no best laid plans for developing the greater unspoken half of any human enterprise. Plans apply only to the formally describable elements. Very much puts me in mind of T E Lawrence.

Whilst he indeed had no interest in elaborating or extending TLP (its scope was complete, to him) he was of course keen to hear of it’s progress.

To Ogden in 1923, who had suggested his own “Meaning of Meaning” solved a problem with meaning in TLP, Wittgenstein said:

“I believe you have not caught the problems which I was at in [TLP] (whether or not I have given the correct solution).”

He was realistic enough to know his work wasn’t perfect (complete and consistent) but he was simply not interested in debating any detail criticisms of TLP until he saw evidence that his main objectives were accepted or even recognised.

Later the same year working on detail TLP clarifications with Ramsey whom he did find sufficiently open and sympathetic (and able), Ramsey is “illuminated” to confirm that:

He [Wittgenstein] is very interested in it [clarifying TLP] …

Although, what he is not interested in and why, he continues:

… he says his mind is no longer flexible and he can never write another book.

Corresponding with Keynes Wittgenstein makes it clear why he is resisting a return to formal philosophical activity. He would dearly love to in fact, he knows there is useful work to be done, but he can’t:

… because I myself no longer have any strong inner drive towards that sort of activity …. the spring has run dry.

He is fixated on the specific importance of TLP not being recognised, that he is effectively unable to move on until it is. Especially frustrating that the need to move on is all the greater since what is not said in TLP is the more important part of the necessary work. There is no doubt of his obsessive personality regarding whatever his current project. Not listening is normal for him. Accusations of madness are not in short supply either, and he understands the psychology that actively pushing and promoting (the written contents of) TLP to anyone not already sympathetic to his agenda, can only backfire on his credibility. Harranguing those previously sympathetic has already consumed all their available attention and patience. He’s obsessive to the point of madness, and he knows it.

Relationship-wise Wittgenstein undoubtedly needed mutual intimacy for any human interaction to work. The formal content of any argument is the smaller part of what it takes to add any value. The humanity is all. The contradiction is all too clear to him as his frustrations lead to his own inhuman treatment of others when the inability to communicate what is necessary. That’s his point, the Catch-22 of TLP. He himself is consistent about this, whatever the topic or context. As he says to Eccles

It is no use writing to you about [it]
as I couldn’t explain the exact nature of [it].
You will [have to] see it for yourself.

The job of philosophy is far from being complete in TLP. Living life beyond the page, you have to see it for yourself before the job can progressed to completion.

The Incompleteness

This inability to properly define what is needed axiomatically in philosophical logic has obvious parallels with Gödel in mathematical logic. So having seen the view from Gödel’s side, I was interested to see the connection from the Wittgenstein perspective. Monk makes only two Gödel references in DoG.

Firstly, Wittgenstein’s work was planned as 1/4 of the whole agenda at the 1930 Königsberg conference, whereas the conference was in fact overshadowed by von Neumann’s unplanned announcement of Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorem(s). Since his proof was based on numbers, it has been debated whether it really only applies to arithmetic rather than the whole of (mathematical and philosophical) logic. I happen to believe that IF you want to express your philosophy in that kind mathematical logic you are indeed bound by incompleteness – consistent with both Gödel and Wittgenstein. As Monk says, Wittgenstein’s only comments on Gödel were primitive and dismissive, so:

Whether Wittgenstein accepted this [common] interpretation of Gödel’s result is a moot point.

[Follow-up – S. G. Shanker reference.]

Secondly, in the 1940’s, Wittgenstein had some significant and regular interaction with student Georg Kreisel who later went on to become an important Gödel scholar. Although Wittgenstein considered Kreisel to be …

“… the most able philosopher he had ever met who was also a mathematician.”

… it seems ultimately they were really talking past each other and that Wittgensien was, as ever, the droll commedian. Kreisel’s work was to be part of mathematical logic whereas Wittgenstein’s was seen as an attack on the same field, and Kreisel was dismissive (and perhaps embittered):

“Wittgenstein’s views on mathematical logic are not worth much.”

“The [Blue and Brown] books are deplorable.”

As Monk says, Wittgenstein’s precise relation to Gödel is moot, which looks like a lost opportunity.

The Kunmanngasse House

And, finally for now, at this mid-way point, the Kunmanngasse House architected in typically obsessive and austere detail by Wittgenstein is a wonderful metaphor for his work so far.

Hermine [Wittgenstein, sister] said … even though I admired the house very much […] it seemed to be much more a dwelling for the gods than for a small mortal like me. [I felt] opposition to [its] perfection and monumentality; to this “house embodied logic”.

Monk adds … the qualities of clarity, rigour and precision that characterise it are indeed those one looks for in a system of logic rather than in a dwelling place. Wittgenstein made extraordinarily few concessions to [humans].

Given the ongoing hit rate on my two posts on Chris Packham’s autism [last week] and [back in 2013], I must say he came across very personable in his appearance today on the BBC 90th birthday special for Sir David Attenborough.

[And – Post Note – seeing him in Springwatch recently – he’s obviously great when doing what he loves best, loving the natural world. Clarifies that my objection is public scientists being stood up as spokespeople for life beyond science or when such scientists, of their own free-will, dismiss the concept of anything of value beyond science. The problem is scientism, not science or scientists per se. Scientism within and beyond science. Scientists have human failings like the rest of us, and science has its own problems, some of which are due to the scientistic memeplex, if only science and its scientists could see it. Chris Packham is simply an archetypal example amongst the usual suspects.]

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[Post Note however, here in 2017, his autism / aspergers is related to his extreme scientism – repeating again the fact he values less intelligent animals over humans, even his closest loved one. He rejects being thought a “freak” but even his wife is quoted as saying

“he can seem so alien as to be extraterrestrial”

Nothing personal, he just is the archetype.]

[Jump to 2018 Summary here. I get a lot of hits on this post, probably because of searches on the Paine quote in the title, but I worry the real point is missed. Daring to offend, being prepared to offend, is NOT a license to be offensive, UNLESS you are clearly seen as the joker in the current context. By default offense must be accidental and caring of (all) the individual human consequences.]

Shit is complicated, “simplistication” is bad, and the phrase of the day is:

“Nuance is the Friend of Truth“

Apparently Thomas Paine said:

“He Who Dares Not Offend Cannot Be Honest”

Yet again today, people who should know better confusing the ideas that freedom of expression is universal and that no-one has the right not to be offended, with the idea that there is some universal right to offend.

It is in fact perfectly true to say:

“Freedom of speech does not mean freedom of offending religion, culture and tradition.”

[Tweet (quoted above) by Chief Inspector Umer Khan deleted in response to twitter responses, including from the BHA.]

There is however no corollary that says the offender has any rights to harm or curb the freedoms of the offendee. I first ran up against this confusion when the main topic of the World Humanist Congress 2014 was Freedom of Thought and Expression. The Congress debated and created an “Oxford Declaration” that elaborated on the equivalent UN Declaration on freedoms of religious and non-religious thought and expression. Both declarations are actually very good, and subtly nuanced in all their glory:

In the same way, IHEU, BHA, NSS and all free-thought secularists everywhere are offended when the UN declaration is abbreviated to “Religious Freedom” implying any universal freedoms for religion in general, we should all be equally offended when the absence of any right not to be offended is abbreviated to:

“Freedom to Offend“

There is no such right or freedom to offend anyone (religious or otherwise) in any declaration anywhere.

As a political campaigning organisation BHA has the same right as anyone to abbreviated soundbites to get our messages across and our immediate aims achieved. But we must not confuse the rhetorical soundbites with actual truth beyond immediate campaigning aims. The truth is much more nuanced.

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Previously on Psybertron – “There is No “Right to Offend“.
(With links to two follow-ups, and a fourth summary of all three.)

Also, more recently on Psybertron -“Respect for Value-Based Boundaries of Free-Discourse“ – summarising the generalisation of free-speech to repecting the rules of free-discourse generally.

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Just a quickie to support several ongoing conversations:

Road Map – the terrain, the lie of the land, the landscape, the features of the context space, possible multiple destinations that different plans might aim to arrive at. Only the topological / schematic logic is important – that the destinations exist, and that they are linked functionally – some logical ordering in how they would need to be achieved – if there were agreed plan(s) / project(s). Obviously the choice of what to show on the RoadMap always presumes some worthwhile set of objectives.

Strategy – the “what and why” rationale and an outline “how” plan for a chosen (set of) main target destination(s)

Plan – an actual plan, intent and project resources organised to do specific things to deliver specific destination(s). A specific route through the road map to reach the given strategic objective.

Tactic – any other what, why and how priority actions alongside the plan or strategy, especially if they don’t self-evidently fit their strategic logic and objectives.

There is no once and for all hard-line definitions of what falls within each of these, but they are distinct at any time. Once a tactic is elf-evidently part of the plan or strategy, then it is. Until then it’s not. Plans can be strategic and/or tactical. Once specific strategic objective(s) and or plan(s) are agreed, then a road-map can be redrafted to reflect or emphasise only that chosen scope, etc. But what is unsaid in a given context remains unsayable and is always more significant than what is not.

If anti-semitic / islamism issues are the biggest and most immediate issues of our time, it’s worth remembering that the whole Israel / Palestine “Middle-East Problem” will just be a part of “The 20th Century World War” from the future perspective of history. Post-war UN and EU are simply more pieces of that same jigsaw.

It’s a massive tangle – a mess – in many parts, so it can never have “a solution” and it will always be all too easy to come up with things we shouldn’t or can’t do – that’ll never work, that’s not our problem, say the critics – but we need to work on the things we must do. Work hard carefully and subtely. The plan must be a way of dealing with the issues, never a full & final solution or any kind of master plan. Meta is the word and the word is the way.

As a scholar of T E Lawrence I was fascinated to hear about this new play “Lawrence After Arabia” by Howard Brenton, being staged (until 4th June) at The Hampstead Theatre. It claims to right some of the prejudiced negative reactions to the so-called heroic myths in El Aurens actions and motives. Fascinated but baffled that Brenton says he is unfamiliar with Terence Rattigan’s 1960’s play “Ross” which also dealt with subtler aspects of Lawrence post-Arabian life. If we don’t know and understand the subtleties of our history how can we have any hope of building a future?

One thing’s for sure; it’s that secularism and freedoms of expression enshrined in UN human rights declarations must be part of the way. One thing freedoms of expression  – what to say when and how – protects is subtlety & nuance from bigotry & dogma. and that’s true on both sides of every argument. Polarisation gets us nowhere. Secularity is simply the way that kind of freedom is preserved in free and democratic government even where the state has an established church. It is equally dogmatic to see science and objective logic as the antidote to bigotry and dogma based on myth and superstition. Scientism is equally mythical and superstitious. “Whereof we cannot speak, thereof we must remain silent“.

Wow. How fucking bloody awful can things get.

Within minutes of Sadiq Khan’s election as London Major, 5000 miles away Pakistan’s ruling party give this shamelessly anti-semitic reaction.

https://twitter.com/MsJulieLenarz/status/729025545476964352/photo/1

Within minutes of Sadiq Khan’s election as London Major, 5000 miles away Pakistani blogger Khurran Zaki posts a positively thoughtful piece congratulating Khan and extolling secularity – and within hours he’s shot dead. RIP Zaki.

https://m.facebook.com/agahii/posts/10206940292485606

For a balanced UK Secular Muslim reaction see Maajid Nawaz excellent piece. He could have written it during the campiagn and added to the fuel for bigots, or settle his own score, but he didn’t. It needs to be read now. We need to act now.

“Nuance is the Friend of Truth”
#Secularism #Solidarity

Easy to see why Maajid often annoys others with his apparent self-appointed importance
– eg in this tweet ….

Indeed. He stabbed me in the back, but I’m asking him now to peer through that hole to a brighter future. https://t.co/dKhLKXFtKS

�” maajid nawaz (@MaajidNawaz) May 8, 2016

…. but read the actual facts and apply charity to Maajid’s motives and understanding.

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[Post Note: This was good response to Maajid’s piece. No visible reaction from Khan yet?]

Just a post holding a link for a future piece.

Mind, Self and Person. Tweeted by someone a few days ago.

A lot of twaddle being peddled these days about how mind remains some mysteriously mythical intractable problem, so this review of current best thinking may be of some use. (Not had chance to digest yet.)

And this interview with John Searle, with whom I don’t much agree, also on consciousness topic as well as negative views on Wittgenstein, someone with whom I almost entirely agree.

I’d been taking the good sense of Wittgenstein for granted in recent years having read his main works and read a great deal about him in other contexts. The only ongoing task remaining for me has been to put the sense into practical use in everyday life and policy, – what’s it best for me to do next / now? ‘Twas ever thus. [*1]

But recently Wittgenstein keeps cropping-up in other articles and conversations, so I’ve been recapping and filling gaps in my reading. [Ray Monk’s “Duty of Genius” and “How to Read” specifically right now.]

Now, it’s not that I read Wittgenstein and he gave me my worldview. I was 45 before I read any philosophy. My worldview has evolved from life experience. Reading Wittgenstein (and the rest of philosophy) these past 15 years has simply given me some literacy to express it in philosophical terms and to refine it in evolutionary terms. In essence, I already knew what Wittgenstein knew.

Consequently when people – particularly scholars and commentators I admire and respect – express doubts about Wittgenstein’s wisdom and consistency, I react in his defence.

Two examples in recent days:

(1) Ray Monk repeating the myth that, after publishing Tractatus, Wittgenstein retired from philosophy believing he had solved all problems in the field; a meme suggested by Wittgenstein’s own words in his preface to the Tractatus:

I am of the opinion that the problems [of philosophy] have in essentials been finally solved [in Tractatus].

(2) Simon Glendinning – expressing problems struggling with [accepting, interpreting, understanding] this remark by Wittgenstein:

When you can’t unravel a tangle, the most sensible thing is for you to recognise this; and the most honorable thing, to admit it. [Antisemitism.] What you ought to do to remedy the evil is not clear. What you must not do is clear in particular cases.

The latter also prompted a twitter conversation with @JudyStout1 from whom I often pick up relevant shared links.

The two quotes are of course related, but first let’s clear up some possible extraneous issues with the second first: It’s not difficult to see why Wittgenstein would have Anti-Semitism as a topic of personal interest and despite (because of) the conflict in the topic as it relates to himself, there is no conflict in him using it as an example and no conflict or inconsistency in the statement he makes about it. And I KNOW that Ray and Simon have much deeper and subtler understanding of Wittgenstein than their statements on either of these small quotes can convey in isolation, so in unpicking them, I’m not suggesting any general disagreement with either of them. [Aside – Not seen any mention of Gödel by Monk (so far) in either Wittgenstein reference.] [Aside – The idea that when Wittgenstein came back to philosophy Tractatus came “crashing down”.] Back to the issues at hand:

The two quotes are related by a third, and perhaps the most famous, Wittgenstein quote, the final and unqualified assertion in the Tractatus, and the equivalent in his introductory letter to his first prospective publisher:

Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.

My work consists of two parts: of the one that is written here and of everything which I have not written.

Philosophy and Anti-Semitism are both big complex topics full of problems in need of solutions. They are examples of tangles which we cannot unravel and we need to be both sensible and honorable in how we address that.

What is particularly important are the sentences following both the introductory quotes:

I am of the opinion that the problems [of philosophy] have in essentials been finally solved [by my Tractatus].
And if I am not mistaken in this, then the value of this work secondly consists in the fact that it shows how little has been done when these problems have been solved.

Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.
My work consists of two parts: of the one that is written here and of everything which I have not written.
And precisely this second part is the important one.

It is not possible to solve the problems of a tangle – in any important practical way – by saying / writing the general solution to the whole. Even if the total problem were complex but tractable logically-objectively, Gödel tells us we can never write a complete and consistent solution. Given that these tangles are inevitably also filled with subjective human angles, it is even less possible to document a whole solution. Conversely it is easy to identify specific actions that do not provide a solution and should therefore not be taken, though this doesn’t exclude specific actions that could. There are of course always an infinity of particular “what should I do next” [*1] possible courses of action once you accept there is no one general solution or any specific silver bullet solution.

Neither philosophy nor antisemitism are sciences, amenable to the logical objective methods of science. In all cases Wittgenstein was pointing out that solving a tangle in an expressable logical technical sense is …. no useful solution at all.

Far from believing Tractatus had solved the problems of philosophy, Wittgenstein knew he had merely pointed out the one big problem for philosophy. Without all the stuff he hadn’t said (knew he couldn’t say in any formal way) he knew what he had written was of minimal value. So there was nothing more to say, nothing more he could say even though what he couldn’t say was much more important than what he had said [*3]. It would be a waste of time to say more to the analytic and logical-positivist types – they and their methods were the problem. When it was obvious they didn’t get it, which he knew before it was actually published, he went off to pastures new, knowing there was nothing more he could say to them. He came back to philosophy only when the conversation had moved on and his audence had had time to think about the things he couldn’t say. When he did, Tractatus didn’t come crashing down. All that crashed was the misunderstanding (or maybe denial) of it by those that didn’t get it. He then tried a more poetic tack to address the problem with philosophy.

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Recently on Psybertron:

Speaking the Unsayable

The Labour Antisemitism Row

The Simon Glendinning AntiSemitism Example:

In the antisemitism example, I suggested an example of a particular identifiable action that should not be taken would be accusing an individual of being antisemitic. Does that mean you should never accuse anyone of antisemitism? No. But it’s no solution.

Case A, – the person isn’t & doesn’t consider themselves anti-semitic, so you’ve either offended them or used the rhetoric to start a constructive conversation.

Case B, – the person is and admits it, and your rhetoric has imparted no new knowledge for either of you. The “so what” rhetoric may then initiate a more constructive conversation.

Case C – the person is, but denies it, and depending on circumstances a more constructive conversation will follow, though 99% of the time the topic will be about defining what was meant by antisemitic.

Case D – the situation is the person screaming antisemitic abuse to a stranger on a bus. We’re already in an irrational & inhuman situation. Accusing them of antisemtitism is unlikley to be more immediately useful than restoring civility and getting to a constructive conversation.

In no case does the accusation solve anything. Any solutions depend on the possible conversations and actions. The accusation may have rhetorical value in starting the conversation, and in virtue-signalling, but if the conversation doesn’t ensue, then there has been no progress to any solution to any part of the tangle. In each case there are many other possible statements or courses of action that might better lead to the right conversation and actions, to solve the antisemitism itself.

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[Post Notes:

*1 – See “Tabletop” for generic “what should I do next” scenario. 

*2 – Meta. The only sayable solution is meta, about the nature or direction of the way towards solutions. Consequently any possible action can only ever be assessed positively or negatively against this meta property but can never actually be seen to be a solution. 

*3 – This is the recurring “Catch-22”. How to describe a new solution in existing terms of accepted discourse. All accepted discourse can do is destructively criticise the new solution. The “burden of proof” is impossibly biased against progress.]

Massive number of hits on the blog yesterday when Chris Packham publicly announced his problems with Apserger’s. Good for him to acknowledge however obvious it had become to the rest of us, and sad for him to suffer the problems. Seems he suffered from it earlier in life and sees his “all consuming interest in wildlife” as helping him deal with it. I wish him well.

As therapy it may be good for the patient, but it’s bad for the rest of us.

My interest isn’t specifically with the “disease” of the individual on the Asperger’s / Autism disorder spectrum, though obviously they’re connected naturally with my main interest; the general human psychological error / fetish / addiction of scientism. That is, humanity actually believing that the objective / logical / scientific end of the rationality spectrum is to be valued over all others that contain any hint of subjectivity (for want of better terminology).

I’d held-up Packham three years ago as an archetypal scientistic public scientist based on his wildlife media appearances, and the motivations and attitudes he spoke about on Desert Island Discs. I knew nothing of his Asperger’s history until a commentor on that thread mentioned person-to-person experience of his autistic behaviour. It came as no surprise to me (see the comment thread) – and indeed I’ve had hundreds of Packham / Autism / Asperger’s search hits on the post since 2013 before being inundated with hundreds more yesterday.

Hearing the public announcement of his suffering from, and dealing with, his spectrum disorder yesterday on BBC Radio 4 Today [41:28] Chris Packham’s Asperger’s story was followed by two wonderfully counterbalancing items of historicity and poetry. War and the beautiful game.

Jim Naughtie Meets the Author [43:25] had Pat Barker talking about the predicted historical perspective looking back 500 years hence on the 20th Century seeing WWI & WWII as a single war. Like many other historical wars – the hundred years war, the wars of the xxxx, etc – labelled historically as a single war even if there were lulls in the belligerence and multiple triggers to action, there were common underlying issues being worked-out. (I’m sure the ongoing Middle-East / Islamic problems of today are still a part of that same war too – the increasing speed of our media perversely, but predictably, slowing down our human chances of achieving solutions.)

The caterpillar on the leaf,
Repeats to thee thy mother’s grief.

“Blake’s words can’t be translated into any terms other than itself.
We have no idea what that means, but we know it’s true.”

Immediately after that was Martin Rome’s Thought for the Day [49:13] – Sport is more than the sum of its parts – [Shankly / Hillsborough / Leicester City / Ranieri / Wenger] – It’s about us. It’s about our character in cooperative competition.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Rage,
…. rage against the dying of the light.

Like the poetry of Dylan Thomas, “sport says the unsayable”.

Science [objective logic] says only the sayable, as Wittgenstein tried to warn us.

As several have noted today on social media, the loss of Jenny Diski will probably not make the waves other celebrity deaths have done in recent months, but she will nevertheless be a loss to us.

Thanks to @trillingual for this link to her list of LRB writings.