Could you provide an example? — Dfpolis
Depression, anxiety, OCD, self-identity, death.
All of these influence what conclusions we arrive at. Reason itself is limited by what the emotive aspect of our beings tells us about a situation or issue. — Posty McPostface
While I agree that our emotional state can affect what we look at our admit is real, I don't see that this has much to do with the philosophy of language. — Dfpolis
Well, if you adopt a therapeutic stance towards speech and philosophical problems, then yes it is pertinent to the philosophy of language. — Posty McPostface
I am one of those who have read some Wittgenstein and was not unduly impressed. I take responsibility for that. As a student of Aristotle, who is also a genius and often difficult to grasp, I appreciate the need to study a philosopher in depth to fully appreciate his/her genius. So, as I see it, it is a matter of resource allocation. We have limited time, and so we have to judge, after minimal exposure, where to spend it.
One way to overcome this barrier is to have someone show you an instance of the philosopher's genius. — Dfpolis
I just do not appreciate the connection. — Dfpolis
Surely, we use language to direct attention in ways that will result in desirable emotional states. — Dfpolis
But does one have to be steeped in the philosophy of language to do that? — Dfpolis
I've come to the conclusion, as did Wittgenstein, that the problems of philosophy are psychological or have their root in the psychology of the speaker. — Posty McPostface
Without going into detail, the result was transformative. Clearly, this did not depend on my knowledge of Wittgenstein, which is minimal at best. — Dfpolis
I think this is the point that Wittgenstein was trying to get across. That of ethics to be found in the ordinary deed done out of charity in every day life. — Posty McPostface
Is this a quote of Wittgenstein's - "Philosophy is only descriptive, its purpose therapeutic. The only problem to be solved is that of the human psychology." I'm interested in the source. — Sam26
I don't follow this, specifically, "it belongs to a wider set of practices and capacities which must also be grasped in their specificity." — Sam26
The idea that any of this could have been resolved through supplying an appropriate definition, or impeded forever by supplying inappropriate definitions, is really far off the mark. It was mostly worked through by people hashing it out, and was enabled by the civil rights movements for people of colour and women. Political problems don't arise or go away through the analysis of language, they arise and go away through targeted change of social systems and behavioural change on a large scale. — fdrake
The question, lest we lose track of it, is how linguistic analysis will resolve my difference with a determinist? — Dfpolis
Philosophy of time: presentism, block universes etc.
Metaphysics of science: emergence, character of natural law
Political philosophy: the vast majority of issues in it. 'Are Marx's classes of proletariat and bourgeoise still present in capital? Have they changed over time?'
Logic: foundations of mathematics (eg, we used to think set theory was the only way to axiomatise things, now we have topos theory!), properties of formal systems.
Meta-ethics: cognitivism, non-cognitivism (Frege-Geach for a specific debate)
Ethics: real world ethical issues - environmental conservation, overpopulation, morality of torture, relationship of ethics and legal systems.
Philosophy of language/linguistics: performativity and speech act theory, pragmatics vs formalism.
Epistemology: epistemic dependence — fdrake
I am tempted to say... — Banno
The vast majority of philosophical problems derive from grammatical muddles; here I am using "grammar" in the broad sense of the structure of language and language games. Indeed I am tempted to say if it's not a grammatical problem, it's not a philosophical problem - it belongs to some other field.; That is, it is tempting to posit that philosophy is exactly the study of confusions of language — Banno
Well-said, but I'd put it slightly differently: philosophy isn't the study of such confusions, but the participation in / performance of such confusions. — Snakes Alive
I simply mean that language is a practice like any other: playing football, walking a dog, brushing teeth; to use language is to do something. And 'doings' are not specifically linguistic. Moreover they can only be made sense of in wider contexts that might involve everything from economics to power relations to biology and so on. Language is embedded in a world, and to understand language we must understand the world. Witty would capture this in his recourse to his reference to the form-of-life in which language-games operate. — StreetlightX
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