Wittgenstein: Aero-Pioneer

Higgins

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Christ! I get back to my theoretical home and some giganto thread about off-limits topics has been brought in like roadkill by a friendly cougar.

One thing is clear: ya get on a nice board and everybody likes to dance around transgressing their hearts out:

Is this transgressing? Do I look good with this transgression? Or would a dab of pure mental emotion of some sort be better? How about the pure shock value of something a little more tart? How about a dash of ideological something or other? Take it right to the limit: very cute with a flounce of depravity.

And to think I actually bothered puzzling over L. Wittgenstein. I did find quite a gem though: Wittgenstein Flies a Kite, by Susan G. Sterrett, NY 2006. This marvelous book describes Wittgenstein's early obsession with being a pioneering aviator, particularly in the field of kites.

And the very interesting question is: is there one? You know, I'm a trangressor too. I just never am sure what it is that I'm transgressing.
What are the scandalous limits in the case of references to Wittgenstein's aeronautical career? They are there, man. I'm crossing them right now. How do I look? Depraved? Damn-you-ram-you? Knave-ish?
 

Dawno

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One of these days you'll post something that I understand and can discuss with you - and I'll be thrilled, because I love a good discussion. Since I have no clue what you're talking about here, I'm going to post a kitten picture.
 

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robeiae

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One of these days you'll post something that I understand and can discuss with you - and I'll be thrilled, because I love a good discussion. Since I have no clue what you're talking about here, I'm going to post a kitten picture.
Read this, Dawno. You'll enjoy it--I promise.
 

Higgins

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Wittgenstein

One of these days you'll post something that I understand and can discuss with you - and I'll be thrilled, because I love a good discussion. Since I have no clue what you're talking about here, I'm going to post a kitten picture.


Wittgenstein is kind of a mystical analytic philosopher and a friend of Bertrand Russell's. I'm not sure exactly how he became the totally Iconic mystical philosopher of our day, but he is an interesting read. I started with the Tractatus

http://www.voidspace.org.uk/psychology/wittgenstein/tractatus.shtml

And once, long ago, I also read some other stuff of his. He is quite influential, but a bit inscrutable. I enjoy reading him and the editions of his work can be beautiful things in a minimalist scholarly way. I just was looking at a facing translation of a typescript of his. It was a wonder to behold.
 

Meerkat

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So the insults just keep coming, do they? Fine, then THROW down the gauntlet. Who's with me? Everyone on the "Russell's Teapot side that the burden of proof lies upon the sceptic" form up in, oh how about the "Say the First Word that Comes to Mind" thread, and everybody on the "Tractatus side/meaning as representation" camp marshal your weapons over in, let's see, Werri, will you allow the use of "Hey, Dork" for a staging area?

Choose up sides people! We will KICK THEIR ASS over this!
 

Dawno

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Ok, Sokal - I get that part. But what sort of a discussion are you attempting to start? One about transgressions? or kites? or mystical analytic philosophy?

I know I'm not the sharpest crayon in the box here, but I still don't get it.
 

Higgins

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Die Welt ist alle, was der fall ist.

So the insults just keep coming, do they? Fine, then THROW down the gauntlet. Who's with me? Everyone on the "Russell's Teapot side that the burden of proof lies upon the sceptic" form up in, oh how about the "Say the First Word that Comes to Mind" thread, and everybody on the "Tractatus side/meaning as representation" camp marshal your weapons over in, let's see, Werri, will you allow the use of "Hey, Dork" for a staging area?

Choose up sides people! We will KICK THEIR ASS over this!

Oh Donner....I mean on Donner, party, eat Blitzen essen und fressesn und zeinfg digesten...THE MOON ON THE BREAST OF THE NEW_FALLEN SNOW

Ha ha...said "Breast"...fooled you. Or maybe, just maybe you saw that coming...ha ha said "coming"...wow this is easy....ha...easy
 

Higgins

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Oh dear this is my fault

Ok, Sokal - I get that part. But what sort of a discussion are you attempting to start? One about transgressions? or kites? or mystical analytic philosophy?

I know I'm not the sharpest crayon in the box here, but I still don't get it.

Sorry this is my unfortunate posting style. I wasn't really doing anything very constructive: just amusing myself by juxtaposing the odd juxtapositioning of Wittgenstein (who came up very well in the "Is there Any Subject..." thread after Robiae very correctly brought up Quine's critiques of positivism) and his early aeronautical career with the gigantic thread on transgression/limits...whatever...sorry....I just didn't think much about how anyone would be able to follow that juxtapositioning with a coherent discussion. Purely me....not the fault of your sharpness or crayon box.

And for that matter "mystical analytic" is kind of an odd juxtapositioning too................
 
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Meerkat

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Oh Donner....I mean on Donner, party, eat Blitzen essen und fressesn und zeinfg digesten...THE MOON ON THE BREAST OF THE NEW_FALLEN SNOW

Ha ha...said "Breast"...fooled you. Or maybe, just maybe you saw that coming...ha ha said "coming"...wow this is easy....ha...easy

My give up! My give up!

Touche, my nemesis! So tomorrow's headlines will read "Sokal beats force marshalled by a walnut-brained meerkat." Or something with more abbreviations. A hollow victory. And when my exile is over, and my friends back me up as never before (not at all before, in fact), then....then perhaps we'll see....
 

ColoradoGuy

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Sorry this is my unfortunate posting style. I wasn't really doing anything very constructive: just amusing myself by juxtaposing the odd juxtapositioning of Wittgenstein (who came up very well in the "Is there Any Subject..." thread after Robiae very correctly brought up Quine's critiques of positivism) and his early aeronautical career with the gigantic thread on transgression/limits...whatever...sorry....I just didn't think much about how anyone would be able to follow that juxtapositioning with a coherent discussion. Purely me....not the fault of your sharpness or crayon box.

And for that matter "mystical analytic" is kind of an odd juxtapositioning too................
It is difficult to understand a conversation apparently taking place within the mind of the poster.
 

Higgins

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Juxtaposing

Okie dokie. A scholarly non sequitur thread. Works for me. :)

I was hoping for an effect that was a little more engaging than just some non-sequiturs. For example, I didn't invent L. Wittgenstein's interest in flying kites when kites were still at the cutting edge of aerodynamic invention.

http://us.penguingroup.com/nf/Book/BookDisplay/0,,9780131499973,00.html?sym=EXC

As usual, I apparently overestimated the comic potential of my "insight" (or where I would have thought I might have had some insight)...and trusted too much to (what seemed to me to be) the naturally comic side of suggesting Wittgenstein's kite-flying
was just as scandalous a topic as the titanic, intimate, yet gigantic never-ending search for scandalous topics...not (God forbid) that anyone would really want to expostulate freely on some scandalous topic and not that (who can imagine? such a thing?) the world is not stuffed to overflowing already with scandalous topics. Why the very subject of scandalous topics is....well....almost too scandalous to be a topic at all.

But...I forgot at least two conventions (metalinguistic ones, maybe):
1) Wittgenstein was an "academic" and not a human being like the rest of us and so his experiences must be totally irrelevent to us
2) Kite-flying is all-too-clearly about as non-scandalous as it it possible for a human activity to be

Now if I'd said "James Joyce and E. Hemmingway wanted to design propellors together"...these two giants of literature, with their completely human credentials as bona fide non-academics...well you can imagine the fully human humanity of the scandal of their prop design plans. And just think how much richer their experiences must be than those of say, Wittgenstein. And the richer the experience, the riper the scandal.
 
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