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Philosophy begins in boredom

And perplexity (Plato). And wonder (Kant). In the search for justification by reason (Socrates). And in the riddle of existence and the felt need to try to understand and to do what is right.

In his later work, what did Wittgenstein want? To say what the essence of philosophy is, which would be a general theory about the nature of a phenomenon (Z § 458)? Or did he only want to make clear what the essence of that aspect of philosophy that interested him was, an essence which would be inductively verifiable by the examples he gave?

And why was he willing to talk "nonsense" about God and value as he did in his "Lecture on Ethics" and when talking to M. O'C. Drury, but not in his book Philosophical Investigations?

Boredom is the mother of poetry. (Goethe)

Friendships often bloom where there's nothing else to do. (Puskin)

Goethe, as I, meant in contrast to such things as holding a lovely girl in your arms, breathing in sea air, knowing the truth, and all the other beautiful things there are in the world.

What is the attraction of Wittgenstein's philosophy, a philosophy that solves not a single philosophical problem, indeed that does not even discuss the problem at the very heart of Greek philosophy from the Sophists and Socrates to the Stoics, namely ethics or Plato's "no small matter, but how to live"? Wittgenstein's later work has very limited definition of 'philosophy' and a very abstract view of reality.

The principal foundations of my thinking in philosophy are (1) the Socrates of Plato's Apology and in Xenophon's statement of the Socratic standard for knowing in philosophy, and (2) the logic of language or the question of which standard should be used to distinguish language with meaning from language without meaning or nonsense in philosophy.

Outline of this page ...

Philosophy, as Wittgenstein used the word 'philosophy'

Philosophy, as we use the word, is a fight against the fascination which forms of expression exert upon us. (BB p. 27)

Philosophy, i.e. what Wittgenstein gives the name 'philosophy' to, is "a battle against the bewitchment of the intellect by means of language" (PI § 109), a fight against the spell that language casts over the mind. Or again, philosophy is a fight to break the grip our misunderstanding of the logic of our language (or "grammar" in Wittgenstein's jargon) holds us in.

Now, this is very important because here Wittgenstein says that he is defining, not the thing philosophy, but the word 'philosophy' as he defines the word 'meaning', i.e. by saying that there are many meanings of the word 'philosophy', but that he is choosing this one rather than some other. This is important because here he says, This is what I am calling 'philosophy', just as he says "meaning, in the only sense of the word 'meaning' which interests me is ..." (PP i, p. 257; BB p. 65)

Definitions. To 'define a word' is to describe the word's use, or the rules or conventions for using the word, in the language. This contrasts with 'defining a thing (or a phenomenon)' which means to form an hypothesis (verifiable or not) about the nature of a thing or of a class of things. Aristotle's examples: the word 'thunder' means 'noise in the clouds', whereas "thunder is the noise of fire being quenched in the clouds".

And so this answers (maybe) the question I asked elsewhere: does Wittgenstein think this is the only thing philosophy is, the only thing that philosophers do or can do? Or is Wittgenstein only saying that this is the only aspect of philosophy that interests him?

Wittgenstein is not with this statement, at least not in the Blue Book, identifying the essence of all things classified as philosophy; he is not saying this (and only this) is what philosophy essentially is, which is what he does say about metaphysics in the Philosophical Investigations. (Wittgenstein does not identify metaphysics with philosophy -- because logic (of language) also belongs to philosophy -- but he does say that metaphysics is essentially conceptual confusion and never speculation about what reality in itself is.)

Again, in the Blue Book Wittgenstein appears to say: There are many meanings of the word 'philosophy', but Wittgenstein chose this one. It expresses his interest and directed his work (PI § 570).

The self-imposed limits of Wittgenstein's (work in) philosophy

Philosophy, as I use the word ...

Which kind of definition, real or verbal, is Wittgenstein stating? A "real definition" would be a thesis about the essence of philosophy, whereas a "verbal definition" would be a description of how the word 'philosophy' is actually used -- or the meaning its user has chosen or has assigned to it. A definition sets limits. Which kind of limits has Wittgenstein set here? Self-imposed limits. He has chosen and assigned one particular meaning to the word 'philosophy', one meaning, not the only possible meaning.

Cross of Gero, circa 970 A.D., Cologne Cathedral (Clark, 'Civilisation' (1969), illus. 20), 59 KB

And the other kind of faith?

Religious faith ... is a trusting. (CV p. 72, remark from 1948)

How often had he dared to walk out to God's grace without an umbrella open? (Marshall, A Thread of Scarlet (1959), xxx, 1)

As the Catholic Church uses the word 'faith' it means primarily the doctrine the Church believes has been revealed by God. But that is not all it means by that word. For having faith in God is daring to trust in God alone rather than in oneself. "Our Lord didn't like being crucified. People tend to forget that" (Marshall, The Bishop (1970), i), and without the kind of faith that is trust, could he have gone to the cross with the words "Thy will not mine be done"?

Two Theologies

Theology is speculation about what no one knows. Divine theology is "faith seeking understanding", and as like as not finding misunderstanding.

Metaphysics in contrast to Natural Science

The eternal questions without answers are not, and could never be, questions for natural science to answer. The reason why is given by the biblical definition of the word 'faith', namely that 'faith is confident belief that what is visible has its origin in what is not visible' [Hebrews 11.1,3] -- or in other words, that what is perceptible to the senses has its origins in what is (essentially) not perceptible to the senses.

The limit of natural science is the empirical -- i.e. its limit is what is (at least in principle) perceptible to the senses. And the answers to the eternal questions lie outside that limit, a "outside" that natural science does not recognize as even possibly existing -- because that recognition would negate the first principle of the scientific project, namely that reality, even ultimate reality, can be discovered by studying what is perceptible to the senses; the project of natural science is to assign to natural phenomena natural causes (What is essentially imperceptible is, if it exists, "supernatural").

An example. What death is according to natural science versus what death is according to metaphysics.

What is the defining characteristic of metaphysics -- what makes it unique -- in contrast to natural science? Is that metaphysics wants to see and understand existence and the world "from the point of view of eternity" (sub specie aeterni)? When the pre-Socratics looked for the essence (which Aristotle identifies with the ultimate cause of a thing's existence) of the world, they looked to find what is unchanging, what is eternal, in the reality we perceive with the senses. But the result of their search could be tested only by reason, not by experience. The pre-Socratics' theories were not verifiable hypotheses, because they presumed that "what is perceptible has its origin in what is not perceptible", that behind the "appearances" lies a suprasensible reality. Metaphysics looks for a different kind of answer from the kind of answer natural science does, because metaphysics negates the first principle (the "first presumption") of natural science (that all of reality is perceptible to the senses), and vice versa.

Study of final causes [seems "devoid of practical utility" whereas the] study of efficient causes enables one to control nature and to extend man's dominion over nature. [This is the outlook of Francis Bacon.] (Frederick Copleston, A History of Philosophy: Late Mediaeval and Renaissance Philosophy, Part 1 (1963) "Introduction" 3)

The presumption of the suprasensible makes the theses of metaphysics unverifiable speculation, whereas the hypotheses of natural science (or "experimental philosophy") are experientially testable. Because natural science is possible, it is possible to control nature.

So I don't think that Thales' way was the natural scientist's way of looking at things; Thales was a metaphysical philosopher. Question: if Socrates were to look at the world sub specie aeterni, what would he be looking for? The only example I can think of is death (although the pursuit of philosophical wisdom and moral nobility is itself seeing our existence from that point of view). How would Plato have responded to the question "Why is there anything rather than nothing?" He did use the concept 'the world as a limited whole' [TLP 6.44-6.45], which is Sophist 233e-234a's "all things" or "everything". For if it is logically possible for it to exist, it is also logically possible for it not to exist.

"How many things I can do without!"

What is the point of the story of Socrates' response ("So many things I do not need") when seeing the "goods" for sale in the marketplace (Diog. L. ii, 25)? The gods can, so to speak, do without everything, because they have no needs. The life of the philosopher is simple -- simple food, a modest cloak, and serviceable shelter: what more does a philosopher need of what merchants call "goods" (Xenophon, Memorabilia i, 6, 10)? But that question seems more from the point of view of the body than of the soul or mind.

And the philosopher's mind is set on higher things: wisdom and moral nobility, knowing the truth of our existence and what the good is. And so maybe that is the point of the story, for I think it is more than simply Socrates not needing shoes, and in that particular way being nearest in likeness to the gods.

Albert Schweitzer thought that Socrates' ethics or measure of good was "rational pleasure" (Civilization and Ethics (2nd ed., 1929), p. 33). Well, first, that is only half true; it was, rather, "rational moral virtue". But second, the word 'pleasure' might mean most anything (it does not even require the word 'pain' as its antithesis, because it also contrasts with e.g. 'indifference' and 'numbness'), and even in Xenophon awareness that one is "growing daily in goodness" is the highest "pleasure" (Memorabilia i, 6, 1-9), which isn't what we usually have in mind when we use the word 'pleasure'.

Going forward step by step Socrates asks what the good is for man? Is it life in accordance with the specific excellence ("virtue") that is proper and unique to the nature of man? Then what is that excellence? Is it seeking pleasure and fleeing from pain? That is the way many animals appear to seek to live. But if that way is proper to man, a reasoning being, wisdom is needed -- i.e. distinguishing what you know from what you don't know, and not imagining that you know what you don't know -- if man is to know the most pleasure and the least pain. This is discussed in Plato's Protagoras: "Is knowledge of pleasure and pain what virtue is (for many say that pleasure is the only good for man and pain the only evil?"

But unlike the animals, for man there is not only natural virtue -- but there is also moral virtue: unlike the animals, man knows good and evil. Enjoying pleasure may or may not be a natural virtue, but it is not a moral virtue -- or is it this way: {piety, courage, justice [fairness], self-control [temperance], pleasure} and {impiety, cowardice, injustice, licentiousness, pain}? Thus if we are asking for the specific excellence that is proper and unique to man as man, then the answer is rational moral virtue (Synonyms for 'rational' are 'logical' and 'reasoning' and 'wise').

Note that by 'self-control' or 'self-discipline' we usually mean the denial to oneself of a pleasure, above all a denial to oneself of the sweetness of one's own bad habits, which might include e.g. impatience, losing one's temper, things we don't normally classify as pleasures. Thus the concept 'pleasure' is so broad, so freely extensive, that we might classify most anything as a pleasure. (And this limits that concept's usefulness.)

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