NP Witt List (was something Pynchon-related at some point, maybe)

[davemarc]

> From: andrew at cee.hw.ac.uk
> To: davemarc <davemarc at panix.com>
> > > Peter Giordano writes:
> 
> > > > But wouldn't Wittgenstein say that the rocks and soil and fawna
were
> > > > always there but the concept: America, New World, etc. was
invented?
> 
> > > No, he wouldn't (despite strenuous efforts on the part of a few of
his
> > > early exponents to assure people that he would). What has always been
> > > there is not rocks and is not soil and is not fauna. What is there is
> > > rocks and soil and fauna because (and only in so far as) we recognise
> > > it as such. It's all to do with recognition, not being. [snip]
> 
> > Gotta disagree with Andrew here.  Maybe--just maybe--LW would've said
that
> > sort of thing in the Tractatus, but by the time of Philosophical
> > Investigations I think he'd recognize *both* the sense of Peter's
> > proposition and the sense of Andrew's.
> 
> Rock, soil and fauna are concepts just as much as America, the New
> World etc. The phenomena we classify under these concepts (to use a
> Tractatus era phrasing) are something else. You agree with Peter and
> allow this point for America or the New World, i.e. abstract concepts,
> yet disagree with me and stop short when it comes to more concrete
> concepts. Why so? Does the fact that a concept deals with phenomena
> rather than other concepts imply that it is thereby immanent in the
> things it conceptualizes? Cannot for the life of me see why you should
> draw such a conclusion.
> 
I disagreed with what I read as your dismissal (on LW's behalf) of Peter's
point.  LW would, as far as I can tell, recognize both the nominative and
substantive qualities.  Based on "our" understanding of the world, there's
no reason not to think the rocks didn't have an apriori existence.  It's
like the rabbit/duck in PI:  two things at once, and something else
entirely.  And more.

davemarc