Ivan, why offline? Fair question. I guess I had nothing to say about Wittgenstein that I was willing to defend in public, and I just wanted someone who valued Wittgenstein to explain to me why. Lois Holzman answered my call, and (just like when I engaged with Martin Packer on Heidegger) I have been forced through this engagement to actually take the trouble to learn more about Wittgenstein for myself, and to this end have purchased a copy of Lois and Fred Newman's "Unscientific Psychology". I suspect that what Tony said may be exactly right, namely, that Wittgenstein speaks to people coming from the same place as him, but I been through where he is by a different route, but, I will know better after I have read Lois's book, where she appropriates Wittgenstein from a Vygotsky point of view. But I find Wittgenstein's elaborate refutations of Logical Positivism very boring because I never was a Logical Positivist. :) But the elements of Pragamtism in his approach are useful to me, and of course, I do not use the word "pragmatism" in a dismissive way; I describe myself as a "Hegelian Marxist with a pragmatist twist."
So at the moment, I am waiting for Amazon.com to deliver "Unscientific Psychology" before I can upgrade my assessment of Wittgenstein. For the moment, Chapter 1 of my current book project has a short section on Wittgenstein, registering my thoughts as they have been up till now, the thoughts I was seeking some critique of: http://home.mira.net/~andy/works/concepts-cognitivism.htm If you do a search on "Wittgenstein" you will find the section very easily. It's near the end.
Interestingly, the same question came up talking to Lois about the relation between discourse and activity that came up in relation to Anna Sfard's work. I remain of the view that this question needs more attention. Lois tells me that Wittgenstein saw word-use as inextricably a part of activity, not just as part of discourse. If this is the case, then I will find in him a friend if not a teacher.
Andy Tony Whitson wrote:
On Tue, 19 Jul 2011, Balzano, Gerald wrote:dismissive remarks about Wittgenstein in a note to Anna Sfard in the 'kitchen-sink/concepts' discussion of three months ago ...[Unrelatedly: don't think some of us failed to notice your ratherJerryI for one did notice that (or maybe a similar post from Andy, which I remember as saying something like 'other than a few interesting observations on this and that [I think one may have been 'meaning,' so these were not trivial], I've haven't found much in LW that has engaged me.'I don't see anything wrong with that. Is the presumption that any serious intellectual is expected to be interested in any and every thinker, indiscriminately (or, promiscuously)?I remember Andy's post because it's pretty much in line with what I would say myself about LW.Maybe hermeneutical charity here calls for taking the writer seriously: LW said about his own work that it was therapy for those who had become ensnared in the pathologies of the philosophical tradition he was writing against. So maybe people who have not been so afflicted, may have no need for (or interest in) this therapy?I do recognize that many people feel that LW has done a lot for them. I genuinely respect him for that; but I could say that much even for the less estimable Richard Rorty (just to gratuitously piss off a few more folks, perhaps).
-- ------------------------------------------------------------------------ *Andy Blunden*Joint Editor MCA: http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/title~db=all~content=g932564744
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