Math as God

[Page]

Thanks for the nice summary of Hegel. However, Schuyler (your reference 
below) makes a mistake in his reading of the Tractatus. He refers to 
proposition 7--the final proposition of the Tractatus, "Whereof one cannot 
speak, thereof one must remain silent"--and claims it evinces Wittgenstein's 
mysticism. We cannot speak about things like aesthetics or ethics because 
sentences one cannot map on to the world of facts--proposition 1 of the 
Tractatus, "The world is everything that is the case"--is, literally 
nonsense (non-sense). The nonsense is based on Wittgenstein's logical 
atomism, not on his purported mysticism.

If you really want to make your brain hurt, contemplate (the fact that) one 
of the propositions of the Tractatus (sorry, I do not have the reference in 
front of me) is the claim that anyone who understands the Tractatus will 
realize that every proposition in it is false.

[Two stories about Wittgenstein. At some point Russell asked G.E. Moore what 
he thought of Wittgenstein's intelligence. Moore replied, "I think he is 
[roughly] exceedingly bright. Russell: Why? Moore: Because he is the only 
student at my lectures who looks puzzled; On another occasion Russell asked 
Moore if he thought L.W. was a genius. Moore replied that he did but that 
Cambridge ought to give him a Ph.D. anyway.]

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----- Original Message ----- 
From: <robinlandseadel at comcast.net>
To: <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Friday, November 16, 2007 3:09 PM
Subject: Math as God


> Please bear with me as I explain Hegel's philosophy.
> Excuse me, stumbled on this while searching for an answer to:
> "Well, What Dooooooo you believe in---MR.. RUSSELL!?!?!?
>
> RUSSELL, WITTGENSTEIN, AND LINGUISTIC ANALYSIS
> Grant Schuyler
>
> Please bear with me as I explain Hegel's philosophy.
>
> Hegel thought that Geist (German, "mind" or "spirit"; thought of not only 
> as a mental faculty or abstract force but almost as a person) had advanced 
> through the successive cultures of history growing more and more 
> conscious, self-conscious, and rational. This process had culminated in 
> Geist's realization as what Hegel called the Absolute Idea (Geist in 
> another guise, perhaps as God). God or the Absolute Idea had realized 
> itself as the best contemporary, that is, the best 1820s European, 
> philosophy and political culture. By implication, the philosophers, 
> philosophy, and political and cultural systems of Hegel's time were the 
> best that had ever existed, the realization of complete liberty, and the 
> goal of all history. And the philosophic method of the philosophers of 
> Hegel's time -- reason (Verstand), was somehow superior (it was implied) 
> to the method of thinking used by ordinary people and scientists. In 
> contrast to philosophical reason, these lesser beings used the (by impl!
> ication
> inferior) mental faculty most philosophers since Locke call understanding 
> (Vernunft).
>
> "A tidy system it was," said Russell in 1959. "Once we [Moore and himself] 
> applied rigorous logic to Hegel, he became fragmentary and puerile."
>
> Having rejected Hegelian absolute idealism, Russell looked for a new basis 
> on which to have the absolutely certain knowledge of the world that Hegel 
> had believed his philosophic system delivered.
>
> Russell thought that one might discover the basis of certainty in 
> mathematics
>
> http://home.ca.inter.net/~grantsky/wittgenstein.html
>
>
>
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