Thus far, I have nearly checked out into my own prejudices of mental acts & ontology.  Patience only lasts so long, and for philosophers, near infinite patience is required. Upon my personal lack, I often find regression to my own ideas when another speaks over and over and over, saying nothing which is helpful to clarify the described circumstance.

Particularly for Wittgenstein, like most philosophers, the mind-body problem exists more in terms of names & their referents. On some base level, most of us see no point behind attempting to understand the conditions required for our brain to know what another is talking about when they say “my car.” Somewhere along the way, in early childhood development, language happened upon us, and here we are involved and embodying it. Certainly various sociologists want to know if language is “caught” from parents, but sadly some post-Chomskian studies show an in-born affinity.

Anyways, Wittgenstein comes upon us and decides to descend into the nether-regions of our brain, and claim that words aren’t much of anything until a knowing, understanding subject comes along and picks them up. Personally, at this point I wonder how voluntary the mind is. The traditional example of “don’t think of a white elephant” is often used– and when I sit in Starbucks, I am disattentive to my own studies in lieu of the gibberish thrust upon me by the next seat over. Ahh the joy of public life.

Back to Wittgenstein. For all his introductory remarks of “propositions” and “facts” it seems he begins to back-track and almost psychologize (gack!) the whole of communicative life. “Oh wait, when I said propositions, I didn’t mean the words like you reasonably assumed I meant! Those are just the propositional-signs! The proposition is in your head!” And wordless thoughts, like the song melody you can’t get out of your head, are created in a pre-expressive land of personal, mental creativity. To explicate Wittgenstein’s position, I should advocate a picture:

Speaker:Mind->land-of-thoughts->speech-acts (expressions/propositional signs) … land-of-invisible, silent, unexpressed representations -> Mind:Listener.

All this is still nearly insane in terms of getting anyone any closer to understanding Mind. Sure “in our mind’s eye” there are lots of pictures, assumed reconstructions running idyllically parallel to the world, but there are hardly any required ontological status of thoughts. Wittgenstein explicitly states that thoughts aren’t simply facts, but pictures of facts. Thoughts, thereby have no representative sign to hide behind. In some real terms, the mind’s nonverbal creative ability mixed with “a picture is worth a thousand words” is how Wittgenstein gets to this “picture theory of sense.”

If I’ve entirely lost any & everyone by now, I simply mean that from a picture (even what we see) a high number of propositions could be expressed. And from these propositional-signs, another high number of pictures can be constructed silently, wordlessly in the mind.

Word Count: 501:

footnote: if confusion and anger show through, it’s more related to tonight’s inane night-class more than Wittgenstein. I do however consider the Wittgenstein discussions to be mildly repetitious. I suppose I’m just impatient, as noted above.

Love, if viewed as an object, lives and survives in a “space” in our lives. Hopefully deeply-infused in our motions, thoughts and motives. Love can live in 2 realms: the ideal, and the real (the possible and the actual). Love is really love when I actually enact it, perhaps by easing the work-load of another, instead of reducing my workload. But Love in the ideal-realm is one independent of action. Perhaps this is what my wife is speaking of when she asks me, “Do you love me?” (Side-note: yes hon, I do!)

There’s a down-side to all this non-pragmatic love: that love can be had, felt, said.. but not enacted or lived in re. In fact, it seems to be much worse than that! Love seems to have a dualist parallel, and it’s not hate.. to use Christian language it’s Sin. You see, Sin is the exact opposite of Love in content, but exactly the same in internal form. That is to say, Sin also has an ideal & real existence, and Sin can entirely take the place where Love is to be. It’s a dandy replacer, focusing all our concerns on self instead of others, on an economy of gain instead of an abundance of mutuality.

To say it again: Love covers Sin, and Sin removes Love. They exist in the same “space” in our lives. Notice, though (thanks to their ideal & real forms) that love and sin can appear to coexist, and often they do! The possibility exists where we may have an ideal Love in our lives which isn’t sufficiently expressed, but instead living out specific sinful acts. This middle-stat won’t last long; Sin will take it’s foothold and twist what little Love we have remaining. ‘Tis a nasty brute! But Ideal Love can push Sin out- such is the life of the Good.

Note: Specific to Christianity, Love’s opposite is often described as fear. Fear is a specific subset of Sin, having misjudged Christ’s condemnation over our Sin.. that is to say, if we fear this encroachment of sin in our lives, if we fear the only hope of freedom from sin, then what hope or power do we have over sin? It will have it’s sway, and we will be left alone in our Sins.. (hint: don’t do this!)

But a second, more interesting view has emerged among us youngsters. It seems there’s a tad bit of agnosticism afoot, mostly in reaction to a lack of differentiation between “faith” and “knowledge.” Oh, those two ideas have quite a history of clashing, but it seems in the more conservative camps, where “truth” is trumpeted, knowledge of it is playing in harmony. Earlier, older fundamentalists would speak clearly of their “conviction” of what is or is not truth.. but that was apparently not good enough. Now, conservatives “know” what is true. That’s great, because now everyone else is, well, stupid! ..eyes-rolling..

But do you see what has happened? In honest-to-goodness matters of the empirically unprovable nature (transcendent ontology), knowledge is now being claimed, instead of faith. Well, if you have not faith (only knowledge), how is it you please God? Frankly, I don’t find it surprising that people say they “know” God; I’m glad. What surprises me is how people seem to leave faith behind! Faith– the act, the hope — is what is common to all mankind. We were fully able to communicate with our Jewish friends because we both understood this basic nature of humanity & reality: that throughout history there have been varying ideas about what is transcendent, and some may be more reasonable, but none of them are provable. This equal-footing in the face of the dark, empty other-worldly void is where communication can occur with all people. Knowledge-claims are confidence-claims, and our confidence is only partly a matter of rationality; reason can hint, and can improve our will-to-believe, but belief is still willed.

It’s tough being human. We see only what we’re tuned into. Such selectivity is the basis for prejudice and violence — I face it daily in my Sociology classes. Sociology is committed to clarifying the reality of social-aggregates for the masses, but the masses first learn most of their sociological-reality before truth can get to ‘em. Tribalism sucks, objectivity is handy.. but so very rare – rare unto the point of non-existence; our inter-subjectivity suggests much to trust in.

Now, how Wittgenstein gets to atomism isn’t a matter of empiricism or particle accelerator-colliders. There’s a parallel world which he sees necessarily requiring metaphysical atomism: semantic atomism. Maybe I should back up a bit. There is another “hill” by which Wittgenstein approaches his atomic conclusion. Human language is a very flexible thing. It’s not like machine-code, where each and every operator and label is important to the point of system-crashing. Human language also isn’t like code, since it is filled with vagaries, nuance. What human language presents itself as is a weird mix of names, relations, actions and general fluff.

Names are significant entities, otherwise known as “terms.” They’re a handy connection between language and physical, empirical reality. They are usually as clear and present as a stop-sign is (and if they’re not, well, they can be made to be so by simple presentation of the ‘thing’ they represent). Names, as signs, are just like those silly metaphysical atomic entities — simple, and undecomposable (who knew that was an actual word!) in meaning. Sure, we could try and decompose “unicorn” into words (through descriptors), for instance “A unicorn is a white horse, with a single straight, pointy horn on it’s nose, like a narwhal.” But such a description (however accurate or precise) is hardly a decomposition.. it’s really just pointing me towards the possible idea or possible reality of a unicorn, but not in any real way pointing a unicorn out. Put another way, descriptions are really good filters and painters, but really bad labels or signs.

So that’s the majority of the tough-stuff. After the clarification of what atomism is, I really just see worlds parallel to our own, in logical space and/or in language-space. And speaking of logic, Wittgenstein views the relationship of these atomic entities as logically oriented. The world’s content is atomic, so the world’s form (like language’s form) can also be parallel, and like science tries to find out the precise nature of nature, the form of nature is spelled out in logic. I may have presented logic here as secondary, contingent or as “accidental”, but really, logic is the third “way” up the philosophical hill of Wittgenstein’s ontology — were you to start with logic, Wittgenstein would expect you to also end up with atomism.

Word count:  431.

Now take that perspective and apply it to other things hoards of money are spent on. Case in point: weddings.

Ok, so not everyone who spends lots of money on their wedding doesn’t get divorced. That’s not exactly what I’m saying. And of course daddy’s usually gonna drop as much as he can for “his little girl.” But is there a chance, and underlying view of money & worth that says, “If I have/fund an expensive wedding, maybe that’ll keep ‘em together.” That doesn’t sound right, I’m sure. Perhaps nearly mercenary too.

But instead of looking from the top-down, try the bottom-up. “Man, that wedding cost someone lots of money– ya don’t wanna go through that again..” I’d wager 2nd, 3rd & 4th weddings are less costly than the first. And even independent of re-marriage, wedding-costs go up the more reminders of it you have laying about. And it’s those reminders which can help secure a marriage (even though there’s plenty of other ones too).

Now, don’t get me wrong. Plenty of people get married for under $50 and stay together for over 50 years. Fact is, they have something going, independent of money. But for those people out there who aren’t sure they have that same something, fear can be a great motivator to do silly things like spend $30k on a wedding. I’m really writing about those silly people who never decided to think twice about what marriage really is about.

Ultimately, I find the analytic nature of this text to be much clearer than 18th century continental philosophy. Was ist Begriff? I fear reading the entire work of Hegel would be required to understand it. Wittgenstein however states clearly “Fact is..”, “Propositions are..”, “Objects are…” As much as I can handle vague and amorphous ideas while reading texts, I often feel I cannot speak, let alone level critique on such writings. If I am to write even remotely definitively about my knowledge of a text, I must have relatively determinate, morphous knowledge, lest I fill pages with nonsense. The trouble to analytic writings however, is the summary nature of them. Wittgenstein is effectively creating a logical dog-pile the size of the universe. Few minds are capable of keeping in memory all the labels and precise definitions he uses. Outlines & notes will prove useful.

As to Schroeder’s writings, I am at once thrilled and relieved to read his works (especially chapter 2) as a vorwort to the actual text. So very often I have been instructed by the instructor to dive into the text of philosophy, only to have absolutely no clue what is the basic assumptions, language, or final end of the text. Regarding such assumptions and approach, I did begin to notice some of what Schroeder later elucidated as the tension between logic and metaphysics in the Tractatus. That is to say, is logic all that is, or naive realism, upon which logic builds? To some degree it sounds like a chicken-and-egg problem.

Later, Schroeder explicates Frege’s Bedeutung and Sinn. Simple referentialism seems weak in matters of all the words which are not nouns. Yet words like “all”, “each”, and even “like” can be referencing a logical function which precisely defines the term. Yet Schroeder’s problems with referentialism seem to be one of description over and against definition. Referentialism deals well with the latter; horribly with the former.

Word Count: 344.

Why? It seems that while there is “more wealth” in the world, there are more people of course, and I wonder if the ratio, as well as the ratios of stratification, are at all remotely constant over a long-period. In times of the nobility, town-and-countryside conditions for Europe were much like middle-Asia is today. By today’s Western standards, this is beyond poverty, yet by today’s Western standards, even kings lived without a/c, fast or reliable transit, respectably clean showers and toilets, etc. They just had gold (ok, maybe not, but they had plenty of “huge tracts of land”), and people that listened to them.

I know that any social-strat expert will say the rich are getting richer, and I don’t doubt that over the 20th century, but what and where has this been the case before? Where and when has it not been the case? Anyone, anyone??

Let’s start the tale at the lowest level though, and tell it through the lives of most of us: the daily worker. I hated my job in accounting, mostly because it was rote, but my interest here is in the fact that we eight would subject ourselves to each other, the boss and the working conditions.  One could explain our behavior through all means and sorts of 17th or 18th century social logic with terms like “common good” or the like. And that is my point: the early modern approach to society was one of a larger-than-self to which the selfish individual sacrifices. This “larger-than-self” isn’t fully transcendent like a Neo-Platonic God, but rather still very immanent: we see everyday those for whom we are to be sacrificing. Despite this direct vision, modern economic secularism advocates indirect sacrifice.. “for the masses, for society, for the Ideal!” not “for you” or “for him.”

The trouble I see with secularism isn’t it’s half-way transcendentalism, as if it’s not good enough, or as if it’s a poor attempt at deity-replacement or something. Rather, my complaint for any transcendental way of life is that no one really wants to be indirectly loved. I especially don’t want to be “loved” because someone, something, or some ideal is telling them to love me.. that’s the late 20th century interest in “authenticity” (thank you very much Habermas). Fully immanent love/sacrifice is direct, personal and soul-filling (and perhaps soul-emptying!!). And despite how energy-taking it may be, it is at the same time never life-energy taking. A level of confidence must exist lest sacrifice be used as a tool for selfish ends.

k. that’s all I’ve got so far..

Never heard of him until today. Apparently a highly conservative French counter-revolutionary. Aka, not in vogue today.

His significant contribution to the world of ideas is primarily in “a universal triadic logic of faits sociales which are ‘general’, ‘external’ and ‘visible.’ The universal ratio pouvoir/ministre/suject is found expressed as I/you/he, father/mother/child, sovereign/executive/subject and God/priest/faithful (Milbank, 56: ISBN: 978-1405136846).”

At modern first-read, this is preposterous. There are many more options available by which society can structure itself. Of course there are. This is one man’s motif applied in all things. A singular perspective, against and of which the late-Modern perspectivalism desires more. But let’s say there’s something to his view, instead of just reacting against it. Let’s take a non-Catholic, “Biblical” approach to this triad.

First, there are Christian New-Testament makes much more frequent claim to Jesus being our priest, and still claims that “the faithful” are ourselves all priests, as well as children of God, and furthermore representatives of God and clearly executives on this planet. That leaves us with the triad initially replaced with God/Jesus/faithful into God/Jesus::faithful. Now what of the other triads? The sovereign is never to be the head of power alone; the master is the direct, executing servant (not the indirect, apersonal, theoretical, rationally justified “public servant”). Second, in terms of family, we are left with either the ‘mother’ being pushed down into child-level, or raised up into father-level. Guess what? Jesus came down to us not to keep us as children, and certainly not just to diminish God, but to raise our own pouvoir: fathers and mothers are categorically equal. This is obvious.

Regressing for a moment, we can say that de Bonald’s triad is a rather standard-religious approach, as well as a standard-secular approach. Yes, secularism is likely more neo-religious than it would like to be. Thereby, were we to take this conservative Catholic, as well as standard-secular sociology as final in de Bonald, Christ comes and radically alters the power-structures in society, and thereby creating a wholly other and new sociology. Is it any wonder why there are Christian statements of co-equality of slaves, masters, husbands, wives, etc. This is not simply a new edition of the old; something new entirely, worthy of study, lived-ness and enjoyment. Altogether curious.

Aside:
It is not enough to say that conservatism & liberalism are the same, and thereby positivism is “the way” (As my idealistic self is prone to do!). Christian theology comes with specific content and form which finds similarity in all of them. One can always conform Christianity into any given smaller idealism, but that takes the fun out of theology.