Wittgenstein, Ordinary Language, and Poeticity

2022 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
David Hommen
Keyword(s):  
Ordinary Language ◽  
Traditional Philosophy ◽  
Philosophical Language ◽  
The Sublime ◽  
Present Essay ◽  
Ideal Language ◽  
Run Up ◽  
Colloquial Style ◽  
Philosophical Poetics ◽  
First Time

Abstract The later Wittgenstein famously holds that an understanding which tries to run up against the limits of language bumps itself and results in nothing but plain nonsense. Therefore, the task of philosophy cannot be to create an ‘ideal’ language so as to produce a ‘real’ understanding for the first time; its aim must be to remove particular misunderstandings by clarifying the use of our ordinary language. Accordingly, Wittgenstein opposes both the sublime terms of traditional philosophy and the formal frameworks of modern logics—and adheres to a pointedly casual, colloquial style in his own philosophizing. However, there seems to lurk a certain inconsistency in Wittgenstein’s ordinary language approach: his philosophical remarks frequently remain enigmatic, and many of the terms Wittgenstein coins seem to be highly technical. Thus, one might wonder whether his verdicts on the limits of language and on philosophical jargons might not be turned against his own practice. The present essay probes the extent to which the contravening tendencies in Wittgenstein’s mature philosophy might be reconciled. Section 2 sketches Wittgenstein’s general approach to philosophy and tracks the special rôle that the language of everyday life occupies therein. Section 3 reconstructs Wittgenstein’s preferred method for philosophy, which he calls perspicuous representation, and argues that this method implements an aesthetic conception of philosophy and a poetic approach to philosophical language, in which philosophical insights are not explicitly stated, but mediated through well-worded and creatively composed descriptions. Section 4 discusses how Wittgenstein’s philosophical poetics relates to artificial terminologies and grammars in philosophy and science.

Hungary, philosophy in

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laszlo Perecz
Keyword(s):  
German Idealism ◽  
Early Years ◽  
Educational Institutions ◽  
History Of Thought ◽  
Philosophical Language ◽  
History Of ◽  
Institutional System ◽  
Philosophical Life ◽  
The One ◽  
First Time

The situation of Hungarian philosophy can be best illustrated by two sayings: ‘there are Hungarian philosophers, but there is no Hungarian philosophy’, and ‘a certain period of Hungarian philosophy stretches from Descartes to Kant’. The two ideas are closely connected. Thus on the one hand, there is such a thing as Hungarian philosophy: there are scientific-educational institutions in philosophical life and there are philosophers working in these institutions. On the other hand, there is no such thing as Hungarian philosophy: it is a history of adoption, largely consisting of attempts to introduce and embrace the great trends of Western thought. After some preliminaries in the medieval and early-modern periods, Hungarian philosophy started to develop at the beginning of the nineteenth century. As a result of the reception of German idealism – the so-called Kant debate and Hegel debate – the problems of philosophy were formulated as independent problems for the first time, and a philosophical language began to evolve. After an attempt to create a ‘national philosophy’ – and after some outstanding individual achievements – the institutionalization of Hungarian philosophy accelerated at the end of the century. The early years of the twentieth century brought the first heyday of philosophy to Hungary, with the rapid reception of new idealist trends and notable original contributions. In the period between the two wars the development stopped: many philosophers were forced to emigrate, and Geistesgeschichte (the history of thought) became prevalent in philosophical life. Following the communist take-over, the institutions of ‘bourgeois’ philosophy were eliminated, and Marxism-Leninism, which legitimated political power, took a monopolistic position. During this period, the only significant works created were in the tradition of critical Marxism and philosophical opposition. The changes in 1989 regenerated the institutional system, and the articulation of international contemporary trends – analytic philosophy, hermeneutic tradition and postmodernism – came to the fore. Besides some works by thinkers in exile, Hungarian philosophy has produced only one achievement which can be considered significant at an international level: the oeuvre of György (Georg) Lukács.

Voting, violence and violations: peasant voices on the flawed elections in Hadiya, Southern Ethiopia

2001 ◽  
Vol 39 (4) ◽  
pp. 697-716 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kjetil Tronvoll
Keyword(s):  
Power Relations ◽  
Southern Ethiopia ◽  
Opposition Party ◽  
Political Campaigning ◽  
The People ◽  
The Government ◽  
Run Up ◽  
And Control ◽  
First Time ◽  
Hadiya Zone

This article presents peasant grievances on the flawed 2000 elections in Hadiya zone, southern Ethiopia. For the first time in Ethiopia's electoral history, an opposition party managed to win the majority of the votes in one administrative zone. In the run-up to the elections, government cadres and officials intimidated and harassed candidates and members from the opposition Hadiya National Democratic Organisation (HNDO). Several candidates and members were arrested and political campaigning was restricted. On election day, widespread attempts at rigging the election took place, and violence was exerted in several places by government cadres and the police. Despite the government's attempt to curtail and control the elections in Hadiya, the opposition party mobilised the people in a popular protest to challenge the government party's political hegemony – and won. If this is an indication of a permanent shift of power relations in Hadiya, it is however, too early to say.

HOMER AND THE SUBLIME

Ramus ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 44 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 184-199
Author(s):  
James I. Porter
Keyword(s):  
Literary Criticism ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Critical Perspective ◽  
The Sublime ◽  
Present Essay ◽  
Intellectual Traditions ◽  
Ancient Astronomy

Was Homer sublime? The question is rarely asked today. Sublimity was once a staple of the ancient intellectual traditions, as Homer is perfectly suited to show. The present essay will take up the question of Homeric sublimity by examining four case studies drawn from ancient astronomy to literary criticism to Homer himself, who not only licensed but also inaugurated these later traditions. Longinus will lurk everywhere in the background, but part of the point of this essay is that Longinus, while broadly representative, is in fact a minority voice in the wider landscape of ancient thought, as is the purely literary critical perspective that he is usually assumed to represent. Just as sublimity transcends customary frameworks of experience by putting these radically into question, so does it challenge the ways in which we tend to carve up antiquity into domains and disciplines that are artificially removed from one another. Sublimity by its nature crosses over genres and discourses and brings out the underlying patterns of thought that they share. But now to our case studies, which will give us a clear entrée to the problem, and will supply us with criteria of what should or should not count as ‘sublime’, as we follow each case in turn.

The Two Manias: A Study of the Evolution of the Modern Concept of Mania

1981 ◽  
Vol 138 (2) ◽  
pp. 89-99 ◽  
Author(s):  
Edward Hare
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Modern Concept ◽  
Dementia Praecox ◽  
Sixth Edition ◽  
Present Essay ◽  
Manic Depressive ◽  
Almost Everywhere ◽  
The World ◽  
Functional Psychoses ◽  
First Time

In the year 1899 there occurred an event which has had great consequence for psychiatry. This was the publication of the sixth edition of Emil Kraepelin's textbook, where he introduced for the first time his distinction between manic-depressive insanity and dementia praecox. It was a distinction which rapidly became accepted almost everywhere in the world, and it still forms the basis of our thinking about the nature of the functional psychoses. Kraepelin's concept of mania was quite different from the concept of mania held during most of the nineteenth century; and so, historically speaking, there are two manias, more or less sharply separated by the Kraepelinian revolution. The purpose of the present essay is to give some account of the term mania in its pre-Kraepelinian sense and of the events which led Kraepelin to his new concept; and also (in Part II) to put forward a new idea of why this revolution came about.

Meaning-as-Use and Meaning-as-Correspondence

Philosophy ◽  
1960 ◽  
Vol 35 (135) ◽  
pp. 314-325 ◽  
Author(s):  
Panayot Butchvarov
Keyword(s):  
Present Article ◽  
Ordinary Language ◽  
Central Importance ◽  
Traditional Philosophy ◽  
Temporal Phenomenon ◽  
Actual Use ◽  
Major Argument

The purpose of this article is to examine two major arguments in favour of the philosophical thesis that the meaning of an expression is its use, and not its referent or what it corresponds to. A second philosophical thesis which is closely related to the first is that the study of the ordinary, “actual” uses of certain expressions is not of purely linguistic interest but in fact is a way, probably the only proper way, of solving the problems of traditional philosophy; in the sequel to the present article, we shall examine one major argument in favour of this second thesis. Both theses occupy a place of central importance in the dominant movement in contemporary British philosophy, to which we shall refer as “the philosophy of ordinary language”. Together they seem to constitute the basis of the most characteristic claim of this movement: that traditional philosophic discourse is logically improper and that philosophy is a legitimate cognitive discipline only if it is concerned with “the spatial and temporal phenomenon of language” by describing “the actual use of language”. Both theses are necessary for the justifi cation of this more general claim.

Knowledge Of Meanings And Knowledge Of The World

Philosophy ◽  
1964 ◽  
Vol 39 (148) ◽  
pp. 145-160 ◽  
Author(s):  
Panayot Butchvarov
Keyword(s):  
Hard Core ◽  
Ordinary Language ◽  
Philosophical Discourse ◽  
Traditional Philosophy ◽  
The World ◽  
Actual Use

One of the most characteristic (and certainly most original) claims of the dominant movement in contemporary British philosophy, to which we shall refer as the philosophy of ordinary language, is that traditional philosophical discourse has usually been logically improper because it has depended upon systematic misuses of certain expressions in ordinary language and that philosophy is a legitimate cognitive discipline only if it is concerned with the description of the actual use of language. To substantiate this claim, the philosopher of ordinary language has had to establish at least the following two general philosophical theses, which together seem to constitute the hard core of original doctrine in the philosophy of ordinary language. First, that the meaning of an expression is its use and not its referent or what it corresponds to. Second, that the description of the uses of certain expressions in language is not merely a study of words but genuinely solves the same problems which traditional philosophy had tried to solve through other methods.

Von der Rezitation auf die Bühne. Ein übersetzungstheoretischer Werkstattbericht zu zeitgenössischen deutschen Theaterversionen von Senecas Tragödien

2021 ◽  
pp. 303-323
Author(s):  
Christian Klees ◽  
Christoph Kugelmeier
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Heritage ◽  
Latin Text ◽  
Classical Philology ◽  
Present Essay ◽  
The World ◽  
After Effect ◽  
Stage Performance ◽  
European Theatre ◽  
First Time

Seneca’s dramas brood in the shadows of the Attic tragedies, which are frequently played in theatres all over the world. To this day, it is controversial whether Seneca’s plays were intended for the stage or only for recitation. But the enormous after-effect of these texts in the literature devoted to European theatre (above all in Shakespeare) shows that they themselves are not only part of our cultural heritage, but that it is worthwhile to consider how one might propose a more contemporary staging of these works in order to afford an authentic reception for the first time – and indeed, for a broader public. Admittedly, the texts can and will only find a larger audience if Seneca’s recitation dramas are brought to the contemporary stage in a form and language appropriate to this audience. In a project undertaken by Saarbrücken Classical Philology since 2011, for the first time directly playable German translations are to be produced for this purpose. These take into account the dramaturgical peculiarities of the plays by negotiating between philological considerations and the requirements of performance itself. At the same time, philologically flawless translations of the Latin text into German emerge as the crux of the matter. The present essay will discuss this multiplex process of translation on the basis of an example already tested in a stage performance and in the light of various theories of translation

scholarly journals Ideal Language Philosophy and Experiments on Intuitions

2010 ◽  
pp. 117-139 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sebastian Lutz
Keyword(s):  
Experimental Philosophy ◽  
Ordinary Language ◽  
Experimental Results ◽  
Current Debate ◽  
Language Philosophy ◽  
Ideal Language ◽  
Linguistic Philosophy

Proponents of linguistic philosophy hold that all non-empirical philosophical problems can be solved by either analyzing ordinary language or developing an ideal one. I review the debates on linguistic philosophy and between ordinary and ideal language philosophy. Using arguments from these debates, I argue that the results of experimental philosophy on intuitions support linguistic philosophy. Within linguistic philosophy, these experimental results support and complement ideal language philosophy. I argue further that some of the critiques of experimental philosophy are in fact defenses of ideal language philosophy. Finally, I show how much of the current debate about experimental philosophy is anticipated in the debates about and within linguistic philosophy. Specifically, arguments by ideal language philosophers support experimental philosophy.

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