Here's the new thread for posting quotes, with the usual rules:
- Please post all quotes separately, so that they can be voted up/down separately. (If they are strongly related, reply to your own comments. If strongly ordered, then go ahead and post them together.)
- Do not quote yourself.
- Do not quote comments/posts on LW/OB.
- No more than 5 quotes per person per monthly thread, please.
--Marjorie Perloff, Wittgenstein's Ladder; apparently of the many attempts, the one referred to did not actually have British backing, although some did eg. the Oster Conspiracy or Operation Foxley.
(This is the full and original quote; the emphasis is on the section which is usually paraphrased as, "What is the use of studying philosophy if all that it does for you is to enable you to talk with some plausibility about some abstruse questions of logic...if it does not improve your thinking about the important questions of everyday life?")
The quote and comments raise two questions: 1) What was Wittgenstein chastising Malcolm for? and 2) Were their opinions rational?
On the first, I don't think there's enough information to tell. Was Wittgenstein protesting that Malcolm drew too close a connection between national character and state conduct or that Malcolm was victim of an idealized view of British national character? I think Malcolm was "primitive" for both reasons, and it seems fairly plausible that Wittgenstein might have had both in mind.
But there's a third form of primitivenes... (read more)