Topic: | Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:history and future history: Wittgenstein as influence - |
Posted by: | John Schertzer |
Date/Time: | 24/03/2003 14:23:45 |
John, I wasn't suggesting that you had studied Wit, or that Chomsky was a Wit-ite, though perhaps his development had to ring with some influence, perhaps mainly in what he developed in counter to the Vienna Circle. I would include that as an influence. While I agree with you about the Tractatus (which I don't know really that well, and Phil Investigations I know only by reference), there were many cases in The Blue and Brown Books that went like this (pardon me for paraphrasing): "If I put my finger in my mouth and feel pain, but when I open my eyes I see that my finger is actually in your mouth, does it mean I am feeling your toothache, or that I have a toothache in your mouth?" While it is an absurd question, I believe I learned a lot about language by studying such cases as an undergraduate, particularly about our intuitions of what's semantically plausible. But I believe LW wasn't as much a scholar, as he was a teacher in the same sense Milton Erickson was: mainly by indirection. best, J |