shokwave comments on The Neglected Virtue of Scholarship - Less Wrong

177 Post author: lukeprog 05 January 2011 07:22AM

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Comment author: gwern 05 January 2011 04:06:57PM *  6 points [-]

There is an obvious one, actually - a frequent (perhaps inaccurate) interpretation of the last parts of the Tractatus is as a denial of the possibility of any real philosophy (including Wittgenstein's).

Since one would naturally cover the Tractatus before The Philosophical Investigations or other works, a rather juvenile response would be exactly that anecdote.

Comment author: shokwave 05 January 2011 04:17:39PM 3 points [-]

Yep. The lecture presented the view that Wittgenstein had explained away most of philosophy - in his own words, that he had resolved all philosophical problems.

Comment author: PhilGoetz 05 January 2011 06:26:42PM *  7 points [-]

How silly of Wittgenstein! Didn't he know that Hegel had already completed philosophy?

Comment author: PatrickAchtelik 05 January 2011 08:54:45PM 17 points [-]

Oh, Hegel. I remember a lecture where the professor read from Hegel's Wissenschaft der Logik like it was a holy scripture. When he was finished, he looked up and said: "With this, everything is said". I didn't understand anything, it was a jungle of words like being and not-being and becoming and how one thing becomes the other. I said that I didn't understand anything, and what did the lecturer reply with a smile? "It's good you don't understand it!" I seriously had the intense urge to shout at him, but instead I just didn't show up anymore.