Ludwig Wittgenstein's Philosophy - John Searle & Bryan Magee (1987)
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 13 พ.ค. 2024
- In this program, John Searle discusses the life and thought of Ludwig Wittgenstein. This is an episode from the 1987 series on the Great Philosophers with Bryan Magee. The rest of the series can be found here: • The Great Philosophers...
00:00 Introduction
03:37 Picture Theory of Meaning
08:56 Meaning as Use
11:09 Family Resemblance
15:44 Language Games
20:35 Religious Language
23:03 Philosophical Puzzlement
24:12 Private Language
29:27 Writing Style
32:28 Influence Outside Philosophy
34:16 Searle's Evaluation
#philosophy #wittgenstein #bryanmagee
Note, this is a reupload. I preferred the audio of this version, so that's the main reason I decided to reupload it. I’ll still leave the previous video up as unlisted, so as to not break any external links with it. Sorry about any inconvenience!
Thanks for the upload, what a great conversation!
Thank you for everything. Aside from immense reading and writing, this is, essentially, my college.
Are you crazy? No philosopher, no nothing.you seem to be one the illusionist!
Without a doubt the clearest summary of Wittgensteins thought that I’ve come across. Kudos for making a very difficult philosopher understandable to a wider audience !
Tremendous. For me the peak of this program. Thank you PO, really.
John Searle, dil felsefesinin "Büyük Açıklayıcısı" olarak görülmeli. Çok güzel ve sade bir şekilde Wittgenstein, Schlick ve bütün Viyana Çevresini anlatabiliyor.
This is a really good discussion of Wittgenstein.
Fascinating and insightful. Thank you for the upload.
Brilliant TH-cam, thank you for posting ❤
Drawing from the metaphysics of Advaita Vedanta, LW's first work seems to be about using language to describe "All This".
His second work seems to be a negation similar to the Sanskrit term: neti neti.
Perhaps, his third work might have been the inexpressible reality which grounds all that is. Again using Sanskrit the term is: Iti Iti.
Though there is a general misconception that Wittgenstein was influenced by Schopenhauer only in his youth, I think a Transcendental Idealist structure always shines behind his ideas.
Love this show.
Enjoyed the perspective on the transition from learning about a reality that dictates language and the evolution of a sometime non-reality expressed in language.👍🤓
Well done
Beautiful
Thx for explaining unexplainable.
very nice
The top is currently held by me
It is incredibly self-affirming to independently come up with a philosophical idea and then learn that someone widely viewed as being smart came up with the same idea already.
What idea are you talking about?
Language is everything.
Maybe i'll understand LW's mission before I die, maybe not. This helps
Buddhist philosophy is to use meditation to experience BEING without language, practicing this skill is transformative
Is Bryan Magee playing Sir Laurence Olivier or is Sir Laurence Olivier playing Bryan Magee?
The differentiation beetwen the First and second Wittgenstein, as is often said, seems to consist on a different conception of the language and Is relationship with the world. If It Is sufficient to share the interpretation of the late Wittgenstein as neoconventionalist, the interpretation of Wittgenstein's Tractatus Is not so clear, because It Is not clear whether language have the same shape of the world or the world have the same shape of the language, and If these two interpretation are the same
wow
Language is a form of adaption. What matters is that it works. " A cup of coffee, please."
Correct, I think of language like a 'guided user interface' that evolved as a way for our genetic code to make sense of physical and conceptual reality.
Of course, today we have the notion of a context signature or vectorized representation. So it isn't a word that matters, it's the context. Just as letters make words, words make meaning. Doesn't Wittgenstein say something like I know a word by the words around it? This is behind the idea that is fueling current advances in large language models of artificial intelligence.
20:41
So, what occurred 'pre' language so to speak, when humans existed but hadn't developed language yet? Or perhaps I'm misunderstanding.
Interesting question. I don't think you are misunderstanding. I think the point is that any conceptualization of the world goes along with the communicability of what one is doing, seeing, making, etc. A pre-language human would still 'understand' the world in the forms of them being able to communicate it. Giving orders or threatening someone through pointing, grunting, screaming, for instance. Just the meaning of this type of 'understanding' would be so removed from how we use 'understand' that it is almost not the same thing anymore. It is like animals move around in the world with complete self-evidence and intentionality, but likely not any kind of reflection upon what they were doing that accompanies many human actions. Thus "if a lion could speak we would not understand it" (PI Part 2). It is important to note that for Wittgenstein, the cultural, behavioral or even biological practice always stands on its own and needs no reasoning for. But as we are able to communicate as humans, and entangle ourselves in all manner of inaccuracies about what we do, the role of philosophy should be that of helping to untangle the misunderstandings arising through this reflection.
If human and language are synonymous there is no such thing as pre language human
" This is for the real adepts in madness, who have gone beyond all psychiatry, psychoanalysis, who are unhelpable. This third book is again the work of a German, Ludwig Wittgenstein. Just listen to its title: TRACTATUS LOGICO PHILOSOPHICUS. We will just call it TRACTATUS. It is one of the most difficult books in existence. Even a man like G.E.Moore, a great English philosopher, and
Bertrand Russell, another great philosopher - not only English but a philosopher of the whole world - both agreed that this man Wittgenstein was far superior to them both.
Ludwig Wittgenstein was really a lovable man. I don't hate him, but I don't dislike him. I like him and I love him, but not his book. His book is only gymnastics. Only once in a while after pages and pages you may come across a sentence which is luminous. For example: That which cannot be spoken should not be spoken; one should be silent about it. Now this is a beautiful statement. Even saints, mystics, poets, can learn much from this sentence. That which cannot be spoken must not be spoken of.
Wittgenstein writes in a mathematical way, small sentences, not even paragraphs - sutras. But for the very advanced insane man this book can be of immense help. It can hit him exactly in his soul, not only in the head. Just like a nail it can penetrate into his very being. That may wake him from his nightmare.
Ludwig Wittgenstein was a lovable man. He was offered one of the most cherished chairs of philosophy at Oxford. He declined. That's what I love in him. He went to become a farmer and fisherman. This is lovable in the man. This is more existential than Jean-Paul Sartre, although Wittgenstein never talked of existentialism. Existentialism, by the way, cannot be talked about; you have to live it, there is no other way.
This book was written when Wittgenstein was studying under G.E.Moore and Bertrand Russell.
Two great philosophers of Britain, and a German... it was enough to create TRACTATUS LOGICO PHILOSOPHICUS. Translated it means Wittgenstein, Moore and Russell. I, on my part, would rather have seen Wittgenstein sitting at the feet of Gurdjieff than studying with Moore and Russell. That was the right place for him, but he missed. Perhaps next time, I mean next life... for him, not for me. For me this is enough, this is the last. But for him, at least once he needs to be in the company of a man like Gurdjieff or Chuang Tzu, Bodhidharma - but not Moore, Russell, not Whitehead. He was associating with these people, the wrong people. A right man in the company of wrong people, that's what destroyed him.
My experience is, in the right company even a wrong person becomes right, and vice-versa: in a wrong company, even a right person becomes wrong. But this only applies to unenlightened men, right or wrong, both. An enlightened person cannot be influenced. He can associate with anyone - Jesus with Magdalena, a prostitute; Buddha with a murderer, a murderer who had killed nine hundred and ninety-nine people. He had taken a vow to kill one thousand people, and he was going to kill Buddha too; that's how he came into contact with Buddha.
The murderer's name is not known. The name people gave to him was Angulimala, which means 'the man who wears a garland of fingers'. That was his way. He would kill a man, cut off his fingers and put them on his garland, just to keep count of the number of people he had killed. Only ten fingers were missing to make up the thousand; in other words only one man more.... Then Buddha appeared. He was just moving on that road from one village to another. Angulimala shouted, "Stop!"
Buddha said, "Great. That's what I have been telling people: Stop! But, my friend, who listens?"
Angulimala looked amazed: Is this man insane? And Buddha continued walking towards Angulimala. Angulimala again shouted, "Stop! It seems you don't know that I am a murderer,
and I have taken a vow to kill one thousand people. Even my own mother has stopped seeing me, because only one person is missing.... I will kill you... but you look so beautiful that if you stop and turn back I may not kill you."
Buddha said, "Forget about it. I have never turned back in my life, and as far as stopping is concerned, I stopped forty years ago; since then there is nobody left to move. And as far as killing me is concerned, you can do it anyway. Everything born is going to die."
Angulimala saw the man, fell at his feet, and was transformed. Angulimala could not change Buddha, Buddha changed Angulimala. Magdalena the prostitute could not change Jesus, but Jesus changed the woman.
So what I said is only applicable to so-called ordinary humanity, it is not applicable to those who are awakened. Wittgenstein can become awakened; he could have become awakened even in this life.
Alas, he associated with wrong company. But his book can be of great help to those who are really third-degree insane. If they can make any sense out of it, they will come back to sanity."
Can somebody explain why should we care who is the best lived philosopher in the first place? Is that a philosophical problem?
This McGee fellow is wonderfully clear and organized in his facilitation of these programs. Searle is pretty clear, as well. I wish the “great” thinkers were as clear. Isn’t philosophy supposed to be about clarity ?
At 84 years of age, Searle (now 91) had his Professor Emeritus title revoked by University of California due to sexual harassment. Smart people can do stupid things.
They might as well be talking about what color shoes do the mice wear on Mars?, to me.
As well you know there are no mice on Mars.
If there were any they wouldn't wear shoes
And if they had shoes the colour would be immaterial.
@@stephenridley1153 Ha-ha-ha!
14:36 - the essence of the word is the meaning, isn't it? A nose may look different from one person to the next, but doesn't change the essential meaning of the word.
You are right for some words like nose, or triangle, but what about terms like justice, freedom, or love. Those words do not necessary mean anything. I might find something justice, but you might not. Some words only exist out of examples, and do not have a meaning. Acording to Wittgenstein those words do not have an essence, but instead a lot of uses (at least this is how I interpreted Ludwigs Theory).
Wine has a nose
@@stephenridley1153 Wino's have abstracted 'nose' out to apply to the awful pong of that horrible drink. That's their fault.
It seems to me that Wittgenstein could in some capacity is meaningless.
27:30 the private language argument
Oh, and has the energy wrapped up I remember why I hate John Searle… 😅 just makes the rest of the video that much more appetizing.
I'm not sure he was in Manchester for 3 years.
No one in their right mind would be...but then again Wittgenstein was not in his right mind except when he was in Manchester
Does anyone other than Magee believe that 'it's in the nature of a picture that it pictures just one thing'? 11.00 mins
why wouldn't that be the case? Unless you mean aa picture of multiple things, but then it's just a case of phrasing, we could say it's a picture of the whole group of things represented.
Unless, of course, you are thinking of cases such as the duckrabbit image.
@fernandoizu we can both look at the same picture and see different things. A picture does not necessarily have the same meaning for everyone. Interpretation counts.
Would you mind giving me an example, just to be clear on what you mean?
@@croissants1280
A picture speaks a thousand words.
We just act
Wittgenstein and merleau ponty
Much more educative than all youtubers bs we need to endure each day
why do I see these types of comments in most of the academic videos on youtube? I mean you chose to watch those bs didn't you, if you didnt youtube wouldnt recoomend those bs to you right
TH-cam has a recommendation system of things you have never seen and I stop watching as soon as I realise it's bs . Who ever chose to watch Andrew Tate for example ?:)))
Words are smorgasbord. Choose what you like like what you can stand and stand at whatever depth your personal level can tolerate. Freedom to swim at your own swim bladder can endure--after all to endure is essence of survival.
The dictionary is full of words that are defined using words in that dictionary
Searle gotta stop sa'd
It’s so sad that Robert Pirsig isn’t taken more seriously.
Magee is always corruscatingly brilliant - this series is one of the finest on yt. That said, even Magee (not to mention the robotic Searle) can’t bring coherence to a fundamentally disjointed thinking - obviously resulting in incoherence. Wittgenstein’s later book is a sad “ripoff” of Heidegger. Academic philosophers may dispute that but…each of the two Wittgenstein books, quite opposed, were greeted with admiration by academic philosophers. Perhaps the conclusion is along the lines of “emperor’s new clothes”.
Grow men who waste their lives...talking about nonsense - that paints a picture I can grasp.
Oh for heaven's sake guys...go save a Jungle.
Nice addition to the conversation, u sure thought about that one
Explain yourself, please. Is it a joke?
Useless gringa! Shame on you! How many “jungles” have you ever seen? Respect philosophy and logics! Those constitute a theoretical ground for our liberation! Shame on your anti-intellectualism!
Have you ever seen a jungle, ma’am?
I’m organised in the Communist Party of Brazil. I’m a lawyer and a wannabe scholar (llm by now).
It’s really hard to educate oneself in this country. It’s harder than in the capitalist center.
We appreciate so much when your scholars share knowledge for free.
We don’t understand why, instead of learn and criticise your public intellectuals, some of you take anti-intellectual instances.
It’s hard to see someone from the capitalist core acting like a preacher or saint, signaling virtues like “save the jungles”. Are you for real?
The guajajaras are in arms defending their territory. LCP (liga dos camponeses pobres) is defending their fields, saving the reservations from invaders. My party is in the Science Ministry, and we are building sustainable supply chains for our farmers, integrating the small producers to the market, protecting them from market totalitarian.
So… we are saving jungles and studying English, philosophy, economics… what have you done?
Sorry for my bad English. Please, do not delete again. I’m being polite and sincere.
Ps.: we despise chauvinism and love all workers and fighters, regardless nationality. Dom Phillips, an Englishman, and sister Dorothy Stang, an north-American woman, gave their lives for the jungle, the natives and peasants. We are open to all brethren. Let’s build New Democracy. We need teachers. But we also have a lot to teach you.
wittgenstein is one of the most overrated non-entities ever!
Wittgenstein is so boring this is about as much as needed, thanks to Searle for at least not wanting to appear as an acolyte to Wittgenstein's English behavioralist cult.
I don't think it's boring. Especially as there is a genetic component to language
This is a very boring reaction
Not at all. I think Wittgenstein is all he was lauded to. Both his theories make sense. I understand them.
I agree with Searle that it seems like Wittgenstein is saying something obvious. Only, I would contend that’s because he is.
2000 years of philosophy spent trying to cope with Platonism. They want to dethrone essentialism so bad but haven’t done it.
And Bryan is right to bring up the prejudice against philosophers for being frivolous, BECAUSE MANY ARE AND THEY’RE CONSTANTLY REINVENTING THE WHEEL.