I don't know what you're talking about. Put a proposition on the table, give it some support, and I will respond. — Constance

I did and you conveniently said you did not understand it or that you did not see any relevance to the topic at hand.

You choose to show that you ignore people's opinions by talking too much. I choose to not bother repeating myself more than once, on the account of a claim that my interlocutors don't understand what I say.

And I think Wittgenstein's intent here is very similar to the Buddhist intent; that the 'silence of the Buddha' in response to the question was exactly comparable to Wittgenstein's 'that of which we cannot speak'. (And there's another, delightfully-named 'Honeyball Sutta', which I think would also be close in meaning to Wittgenstein, but I'll leave it there for now.) — Wayfarer

Don't know how I missed this. To me, this is right where I think it all goes.
I've read it and many others like it. The Prajnaparamita makes extraordinary negative claims that can be baffling. For Wittgenstein, we know that he thought he could put an end to overextended philosophical thinking, making empirical science the best we could hope for in making sense of the world. He never did, as far as I have read, cozy up to Eastern religio-philosophy. Heidegger, Schopenhauer (haven't read all of his The World as Will and Representation. Likely never will) did go there, though.

But the ladder: It seems to me there is a fascinating line of thought in this: if there is a speed limit to what can be said in philosophy, where metaphysics brings things to a screeching halt, AND, if the human condition is apodictically (a good word. Means necessary, but not referring to logic only) bound to its metaphysics (I mean our world is not exhaustively finite, for once all finitude is accounted for, the "Otherness" of the world, its actuality, remains), then the implication is that we live IN metaphysics, and this is a special point to make: finitude is coextensive with eternity, co existent; physics with coextensive with metaphysics. They are one and the same! What can one do? for the implication is clear: meditation takes off where language and logic end, and Wittgenstein tells us that this end, this limit, is structurally built into experience.
I am convinced that meditation's purpose is to realize this not as a proposition, but as a liberation from the finitude imposed by existential/interpretative engagement, attachment, as the Buddhists put it. Attachment is not only our explicit indulgences, it is conceptual, the looking up in the morning and seeing the time and having this knowing of time and things everywhere "as we are taught they are" step into perception, as Heidegger would say, always, already there, immediate.

I don't take the above to be simply speculative.

Okay, then let me look more closely.

He did not say this. He said, "what we can say can be said clearly". Big difference.

But he is wrong. You can say things that can't be said clearly. A clear example of it is talking to a blind man about colours. The speaker can say it; to the listener it will never be clear.

It is clear to the speaker though. Is that sufficient to say that W was wright? No, because he did not identify the respect in which the said thing was clear: to the speaker, or to the listener.

Bad, bad, mistake by Wittgenstein. Apparently he was not very clear when he said what he wanted to say. — god must be atheist

Why do you object to my saying that the issue you raise lies with the assumptions Wittgenstein is accepting about communicative conditions required for making a point? When you say the blind man is part of the communication, this is true. But, for examples, we have to assume our audience speaks the language, has the intellect, is within hearing distance, and so forth, as so when I talk to a blind man about color it is my assumption about the term 'color' being received properly that is off. But W is not talking about making things of everydayness, of empirical discourse. He is arguing against claims in philosophy that are logically not possible, therefore nonsense.

What these are is unspeakable, which is Wittgenstein's point. The world "shows " us this, but this will not be contained in language. — Constance

The limits of my language are the limits of my world. If I widen my linguistic abilities, I will be able to talk about things that previously seemed ineffable.

The wonder turns to shocking revelation that there is no foundation to our existence, and nihilism asserts itself. Nihilism is very disturbing only if one thinks about it. Ethical nihilism is, by my thinking, impossible. Call this dread: the meeting of deep suffering and no foundational redemptive recourse. — Constance

and

It's a good point. Dread has always been a poor concept to describe the "feeling" of that penetrating understanding that we are thrown into a world, not of digital realities, but actuality, where reason is undone. To me, this is an extraordinary thing, but the dread of it issues from the, I dare call it, objective need for redemption. Redemption is a moral term, and the world is morally impossible as it stands before us. This is not a psychological matter, an emotional deficit or deformity on my part: it is at the very core of our actuality — Constance

It seems that what you're talking about is called samvega in early Buddhism, here as defined by Thanissaro Bhikkhu:

/.../ Samvega was what the young Prince Siddhartha felt on his first exposure to aging, illness, and death. It's a hard word to translate because it covers such a complex range — at least three clusters of feelings at once: the oppressive sense of shock, dismay, and alienation that come with realizing the futility and meaninglessness of life as it's normally lived; a chastening sense of our own complacency and foolishness in having let ourselves live so blindly; and an anxious sense of urgency in trying to find a way out of the meaningless cycle. This is a cluster of feelings we've all experienced at one time or another in the process of growing up, but I don't know of a single English term that adequately covers all three.

https://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/thanissaro/affirming.html

The joy? Absolutely! This, I think, is what Buddhism is about.

I'd like you to be more careful/specific when using the word "Buddhism". I'm not sure you appreciate the vast and unbridgeable differences between some Buddhist schools.

The world doesn't need to be saved. /.../ Is that Buddhist? — frank

I think it's consistent with early Buddhism and Theravada, but not with Mahayana/Vayrajana.

Which one says it's all an illusion?

Which one says it's all an illusion? — frank

That would be more Mahayan-ish.
It's ironic, to say the least, that the one Buddhist religion that maintains that the world needs saving and which is willing to go to tremendous lengths to save others, also maintains, for all practical intents and purposes, that it's "all an illusion".


Early Buddhism and Theravada hold that one person cannot save another person, and so there can be no question of "the world needing to be saved".

That would be more Mahayan-ish.
It's ironic, to say the least, that the one Buddhist religion that maintains that the world needs saving and which is willing to go to tremendous lengths to save others, also maintains, for all practical intents and purposes, that it's "all an illusion". — baker

That's weird.

The limits of my language are the limits of my world. If I widen my linguistic abilities, I will be able to talk about things that previously seemed ineffable. — baker

I completely agree with this. But there is a certain inevitability. There is the nature of language itself which is inherently mediatory, standing "between" actualities like the feeling of happiness or dread, or deliciousness or disgust; I am referring to the actuality of these events that are qualitatively distinct from the thoughts we have of them. We call a thing by its name and its concept subsumes all particulars, but this is NOT the feeling of being abandoned by a a loved one, e.g. We don't "know" what this is, but in the calling it something, we reduce it to a manageable form that can be discussed and fit into pragmatic contexts. The point is, and this is straight out of Kierkegaard's Concept of Anxiety, reason and actuality, understanding and the "real" events of the world are ontologically different. (Heidegger and Heideggerians will take issue on this, I should note).

What is fascinating to me, off the charts fascinating,is that we can "understand" this, making, as Wittgenstein put it, for ( I know this is rather esoteric; apologies) the "other side" of the requirement for posting something. Consider when he says, "in order to draw a limit of thought, we should have the limits of both sides thinkable." THIS is his line: Metaphysical "talk" is talk about something the "other side" of which is completely unknown; no, not unknown, but just nonsense, because such an "other side", is not conceivable, for in the conceiving, one deploys "this side's" language, logic, ideas, and so forth.
So, one cannot "say" the color yellow. And this makes references to the color AS color impossible. Why I say this is so fascinating is this: It is my palpable, intuitive grasp that there is someting "other" there that is not language that affirms my own metaphysical Being, for the intuitive grasp of the thing, or the color, or the pain or bliss, does not issue from the thing out there, but from me. The nonconceptual Being of the world is my own Being affirmed in the relationship.
I am aware this likely sounds far flung, but this is the way it is, and I am quite willing to defend it.

/.../ Samvega was what the young Prince Siddhartha felt on his first exposure to aging, illness, and death. It's a hard word to translate because it covers such a complex range — at least three clusters of feelings at once: the oppressive sense of shock, dismay, and alienation that come with realizing the futility and meaninglessness of life as it's normally lived; a chastening sense of our own complacency and foolishness in having let ourselves live so blindly; and an anxious sense of urgency in trying to find a way out of the meaningless cycle. This is a cluster of feelings we've all experienced at one time or another in the process of growing up, but I don't know of a single English term that adequately covers all three.

The term sought for here is Existential Anxiety. Again, and especially the reference to childhood, see Kierkegaard's Concept of Anxiety, this above plays into existential thought in a central way, not merely a sideline issue. It is THE issue, for this deathbed realization is a withdrawal from from the grand "narrative" we all live in, going work, raising a family, outings with friends, all "blindly" priveleged and hermeneutically sealed. Phenomenology is about the method of suspending all of this so that the world "itself" can be recognized. Of course, a very big issue for continental philosophers,

I'd like you to be more careful/specific when using the word "Buddhism". I'm not sure you appreciate the vast and unbridgeable differences between some Buddhist schools. — baker

I know you would like thinking more controlled in this way. Tell you what, I'll call what I do with Buddhist thinking, "philosophical Buddhism". Just thought of it, and it seems there should be no objections. I mean, you can certainly disagree with claims I make and argue about, but not that I have coopted Buddhism.

...or is it that you failed to express your point clearly?

Phenomenology is about the method of suspending all of this so that the world "itself" can be recognized. — Constance

...but of course, this is nonsense. Recognition requires the "all of this" that was suspended; SO phenomenology must fail. Phenomenology is not meditation. In so far as phenomenology tries to say how things are, it cannot succeed.

I am convinced that meditation's purpose is to realize this not as a proposition, but as a liberation from the finitude imposed by existential/interpretative engagement, attachment, as the Buddhists put it. — Constance

Agree.

For Wittgenstein, we know that he thought he could put an end to overextended philosophical thinking, making empirical science the best we could hope for in making sense of the world. — Constance

Although Wittgenstein’s thought underwent changes between his early and his later work, his opposition to scientism was constant. Philosophy, he writes, “is not a theory but an activity.” It strives, not after scientific truth, but after conceptual clarity. In the Tractatus, this clarity is achieved through a correct understanding of the logical form of language, which, once achieved, was destined to remain inexpressible, leading Wittgenstein to compare his own philosophical propositions with a ladder, which is thrown away once it has been used to climb up on.

In his later work, Wittgenstein abandoned the idea of logical form and with it the notion of ineffable truths. The difference between science and philosophy, he now believed, is between two distinct forms of understanding: the theoretical and the non-theoretical. Scientific understanding is given through the construction and testing of hypotheses and theories; philosophical understanding, on the other hand, is resolutely non-theoretical. What we are after in philosophy is “the understanding that consists in seeing connections.” — Ray Monk

Wittgenstein's Forgotten Lesson

I agree that Wittgenstein never crossed paths with Buddhism but there are clear parallels. I would characterise the similiarity in terms of reaching the same point by different means. Actually there's another paper I mentioned previously, that I think you might have also missed, Epoche and Śūnyatā: Scepticism East and West, by Jay Garfield. It opens with a quote from the Tractatus and discusses Wittgenstein in places. It casts a lot of light on what philosophical scepticism really means (and what it doesn't mean, i.e. that nobody knows anything.)

Keep up the interesting dialog, your contributions are valuable.

..but of course, this is nonsense. Recognition requires the "all of this" that was suspended; SO phenomenology must fail. Phenomenology is not meditation. In so far as phenomenology tries to say how things are, it cannot succeed. — Banno

It is an interesting issue, and not without its counterintuitiveness. One does have to, well, follow along and put aside certain normal assumptions. Start with Husserl's reduction, and not to go into its detail, for in Ideas there is a lot of this. The matter here is simple: Attending to the phenomena themselves, as he puts it, is a method that fist requires one to understand that the present moment is composite as it is a "predelineated" aggregate of one has gone before. This is not the counterintuitive part, but just obvious (and Kant derivative; just take a look at the latter's transcendental deduction to see where this comes from) because when we think, conceive, understand, it is not the "pure present" that informs us, but a personal history of language acquisition, enculturation, and so on. This, I take it, is the basis of your objection, as it is well thought out in Heidegger, who thinks Husserl is trying to "walk on water" as well as, from my recent reading of John Caputo's Radical Hermeneutics. The complaint is rather well known. The pure present is, and this is very much the centerpiece of postmodern thought, impossible, senseless, nonsense. To speak it is a performative contradiction to the "purity" of the apprehension! As I understand it, this is very close to Wittgenstein's Tractatus.
Husserl, it should be remembered, held this: suspending "naturalistic attitude" and this is all the knowledge claims that rush to define, all the presuppositions that fill the sciences, leaves the residual "predicatively formed eidetic affair/actuality", so it is NOT intended to be an complete eidetic suspension at all; quite the contrary, Husserl took the present to be imbued with ideas. His reduction was meant to acknowledge the singularity of the eidetic and the actual, a perceptual moment being "of a piece" in concept and "hyle" (again, Kant hovering close by). I trust this is acceptable without much fuss. Makes perfect sense to me. What is this phenomenon before me? It is a composite of idea and hyle, of-a-piece.
Now the counterintuitive part: There is a lot written about this, and I think it holds great importance to understanding meditation. In meditation, you night say the whole lot of it, Heidegger's desein and then some, is "suspended". The production of hyle and eidetic content lose their generative source, altogether. This is the goal, a kind of suicide with a pulse. So, first consider that in the apprehension of objects we are not having an eidetic experience. There is the Other, Husserl's hyle, the actuality that is before me in the cat on the rug and the sun in my eyes, and we take these in and understand them not exclusively in the conceptua' mode. We take them in palpably. My claim is that this needs accdounting for. We may not be able to "say" palpable pure presence, but its "presence" is undeniable. From whence comes this? It is the transcendental ego. Meditation reveals this in the sustained presence, in the fact that the self never vanishes, never is truly reduced to nothingness.

Quite the opposite: Nirvana is evidence for this ego's ontology.

So, first consider that in the apprehension of objects we are not having an eidetic experience. — Constance

If I understand this aright, it seems contradictory. It's agreeing that the world is always, already interpreted and yet saying that it does not relate to what is seen...

From whence comes this? It is the transcendental ego. Meditation reveals this in the sustained presence, in the fact that the self never vanishes, never is truly reduced to nothingness. — Constance

The "transcendental ego" merely names, without explaining...

SO again phenomenology seems to me to be claiming to say what cannot be said... what ought be passed over in silence, to avoid talking nonsense.

If I understand this aright, it seems contradictory. It's agreeing that the world is always, already interpreted and yet saying that it does not relate to what is seen... — Banno

There is a contradiction, hence the counterintuitive nature of the claim: if everything that can be brought to mind and made sense of is conditioned a body of conditioning memories, then the present, my cat on the sofa right here before me, is not just a conditioned event, but, in the understanding of it, nothing but conditioning, for it's not as if the cat thing "out there" projects its "catness" which is directly intimated (Plato is near by with his "having a share" of the forms as the nature of the object) to me. I am projecting catness on to that "Other, out there" in my conceptual schemes, my language and logic and education.

"To the understanding" is a crucial part of this. Wittgenstein knew, as we all do, that there is something there that is not what I project, and this is simply unspeakable. Here is the essence of the point: how is it that what I "know" is "more" than the conceptual and the conditioned? Analytic philosophy calls this qualia, but terms should be put aside, especially that one, because it connotatively trivializes the issue (discussion on this if you like). How do we know such things if knowledge is exhaustively eidetic? The answer is that it is not exhaustively eidetic. Knowledge possess a residuum after all that is idea is suspended, and this is, I claim, Absolute Being. The difference in the claim here from the Kant, the Heidegger and others is that I hold that in meditation, we can reacquire this that has been lost to us through the modern tendencies that turn people into utilities, into "its" rather than "thous" as Buber put it. Meditation has this restorative metaphysics.

The "transcendental ego" merely names, without explaining...

SO again phenomenology seems to me to be claiming to say what cannot be said... what ought be passed over in silence, to avoid talking nonsense. — Banno

Just to say, phenomenology is a wide field of different positions. It has been speculated that Wittgenstein was a phenomenologist.
You cannot speak of it, and yet you can, sort of. My thought is that Wittgenstein leaves no room for this very weird acknowledgement of Being, weird because it is intimated by the presence of things. this is best illustrated by ethics. The essence of ethics lies with, I say, the palpable existence of pain and suffering (and everything that fits therein) but, W say this impossible essence cannot be spoken, the "good" of being in love., e.g. Right, but, and this is a very big point with me, the good does present the injunction to do that is received as an absolute.
It is a sticky wicket, but if not sticky, than philosophically unworthy. All such wickets are sticky.

The "transcendental ego" merely names, without explaining... — Banno

In Enlightenment transcendental metaphysics, the transcendental ego both names and explains. It cannot, however, itself be explained from within the confines of the theory from which it is given. The treatise is rife with self-imposed limitations, those of which nothing can be said without invalidating the principles on which it is built. Or, which for all practical purposes carries the same weight, that which if said, would be nonsense, inasmuch as the theory does not grant the warrant for it.

Witt is correct in suggesting we not speak of what we don’t know. Still....

“....It (philosophy) must set limits to what can be thought; and, in doing so, to what cannot be thought. It must set limits to what cannot be thought by working outwards through what can be thought....”
(Tractus 4.114)

......the aforementioned self-imposed limits are exactly this, and the transcendental ego is its representation.

In passing.....

The difficulty I have with much of this is its de facto assumption of the world as something apart from us. I think that conception is embedded in any claim of being thrown into the world without choice, as if we're from one place and have come unwilling into another. I think it's also assumed whenever we speak of the world being suspended for our viewing and understanding, and perhaps most clearly when we complain of alienation.

Part of what attracts me to both Pragmatism and Stoicism is their acknowledgement that we're parts of the world. Once we come to that realization (which some may think too humbling) much of what's been called philosophy, i.e. the propagation of dualism, dissolves. In Stoicism, the acknowledgement we're part of Nature has a spiritual aspect, divinity being immanent.

...for it's not as if the cat thing "out there" projects its "catness" which is directly intimated... to me. I am projecting catness on to that "Other, out there" in my conceptual schemes, my language and logic and education. — Constance

Thanks for this, because it shows clearly the difficulty.

It's as if one sort warrant to conclude that since the cat is projected onto "out there", there is no cat.

Yet there is a cat. We should be at pains to avoid the illusion of idealism as much as of realism.

One is debarred from talking about what is beyond language, yet "out there" talks about it. The argument divides the world into what is out there and what is in here. @Ciceronianus the White has a similar discomfort.

"Project" is misleading; the cat does not came into existence as a result of your experiencing it. "Interpret" would be better; so long as one keeps in mind that there is never an uninterpreted "out there".

There is always a cat; there is nothing to speak of that one might "project' onto. That this is learned - "conditioned a body of conditioning memories" - does not render it somehow false.

This is the issue I raised with qualia - when they are understood as uninterpreted, they are nonsense.

That's still just naming, without explaining... but with bigger words.

The difficulty I have with much of this is its de facto assumption of the world as something apart from us. I think that conception is embedded in any claim of being thrown into the world without choice, as if we're from one place and have come unwilling into another. I think it's also assumed whenever we speak of the world being suspended for our viewing and understanding, and perhaps most clearly when we complain of alienation. — Ciceronianus the White

I agree; alienation is not an appropriate response, let alone the only one. It's not the only conclusion a phenomenological program can reach. For instance First Nations people could not feel alienated from their homeland, their mother - not until the invasion, at least. Part of the poverty of phenomenology is that a story of alienation, developed in a European culture of restriction, is taken as the only true human state. That this misguided view of humanity should take root is a result of the logical - grammatical - structure of phenomenology: it possesses no structure for critiquing itself.

I completely agree with this. But there is a certain inevitability. There is the nature of language itself which is inherently mediatory, standing "between" actualities like the feeling of happiness or dread, or deliciousness or disgust; I am referring to the actuality of these events that are qualitatively distinct from the thoughts we have of them. We call a thing by its name and its concept subsumes all particulars, but this is NOT the feeling of being abandoned by a a loved one, e.g. We don't "know" what this is, but in the calling it something, we reduce it to a manageable form that can be discussed and fit into pragmatic contexts. The point is, and this is straight out of Kierkegaard's Concept of Anxiety, reason and actuality, understanding and the "real" events of the world are ontologically different. — Constance

I would think that everyone thinks so, at least intuitively. It's not like people actually confuse words for reality.

Confusion emerges when people say things they don't mean, or when the parties involved have irreconcilably different understandings of the matter at hand -- and this in plain terms, not in some fancy, abstract sense.
"Yes, I told you that loved you, but that doesn't mean I want to be with you, so bugger off."

What is fascinating to me, off the charts fascinating,is that we can "understand" this, making, as Wittgenstein put it, for ( I know this is rather esoteric; apologies) the "other side" of the requirement for posting something. Consider when he says, "in order to draw a limit of thought, we should have the limits of both sides thinkable."

Yes. That's why a line "drawn" in the air isn't a meaningful demarcation.

THIS is his line: Metaphysical "talk" is talk about something the "other side" of which is completely unknown; no, not unknown, but just nonsense, because such an "other side", is not conceivable, for in the conceiving, one deploys "this side's" language, logic, ideas, and so forth.

I'm not sure I understand what he meant here ... He may be saying something that is strongly influenced by Christian and anti-Christian thought. Metaphysics have such a bad reputation ... and I'm not sure I can redeem it in one forum post.

So, one cannot "say" the color yellow. And this makes references to the color AS color impossible.

Still, language is good enough. It serves a purpose.

Why I say this is so fascinating is this: It is my palpable, intuitive grasp that there is someting "other" there that is not language that affirms my own metaphysical Being, for the intuitive grasp of the thing, or the color, or the pain or bliss, does not issue from the thing out there, but from me. The nonconceptual Being of the world is my own Being affirmed in the relationship.
I am aware this likely sounds far flung, but this is the way it is, and I am quite willing to defend it.

You're not an alien. You're part of this universe. :)

"You're an intruder, you don't belong here" is an assumption that seems to be tacitly held in so much of our culturally specific discourse.
This assumption could be inherited from Christianity, or from European classism, or from reductive materialism, or a combination thereof. Be that as it may, it's a culturally specific discourse that is making us alien to our own lived experience.

I came across this picture the other day, I love it: https://fakebuddhaquotes.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Image-from-iOS-26-1024x976-1-e1611927131807-660x559.jpg

/.../ Samvega was what the young Prince Siddhartha felt on his first exposure to aging, illness, and death. /.../

The term sought for here is Existential Anxiety. Again, and especially the reference to childhood, see Kierkegaard's Concept of Anxiety, this above plays into existential thought in a central way, not merely a sideline issue. It is THE issue, for this deathbed realization is a withdrawal from from the grand "narrative" we all live in, going work, raising a family, outings with friends, all "blindly" priveleged and hermeneutically sealed.

There is an important difference here, though: the early Buddhist samvega narrative and the existential anxiety narrative are different.

The narrative of existential anxiety is conceived within a framework of one lifetime.
The early Buddhist one is conceived of in the framework of rebirth.

The person who conceives of life in the framework of one lifetime experiences the threat of loss of everything that is meaningful and dear to him as unique, ultimate, and fatal.

The person who conceives of life in the framework of many lifetimes experiences the threat of loss of everything that is meaningful and dear to him as serial, cyclical: they get it and then they lose it, and then they get it again, and lose it again, and so on.

That's how such a person sees those things as inherently unsatisfactory, whereas the person who thinks in terms of one lifetime, doesn't.

This is how the existential anxiety of a Western secular existentialist is qualitatively different from the existential anxiety as experienced by a rebirthist.

hermeneutically sealed

Heh.

I know you would like thinking more controlled in this way. Tell you what, I'll call what I do with Buddhist thinking, "philosophical Buddhism". Just thought of it, and it seems there should be no objections.

The Buddhism of philosophers, a la the God of philosophers ...

The difficulty I have with much of this is its de facto assumption of the world as something apart from us. I think that conception is embedded in any claim of being thrown into the world without choice, as if we're from one place and have come unwilling into another. I think it's also assumed whenever we speak of the world being suspended for our viewing and understanding, and perhaps most clearly when we complain of alienation. — Ciceronianus the White

(You say this so nicely.)

Yes, the assumption of separation between self and the world. It seems to me that an essential part of being "civilized" is to hold this assumption.

If it is, it may explain many of the problems associated with civilization as well as philosophy. The belief the world isn't truly real or important as something else, like heaven, is; the belief that nature and our fellow creatures are ours to do with as we please; the prevalence of self-conceit; the indifference to the state of the planet; all can be seen as resulting from an assumption we aren't parts of the world or somehow superior to it.

Why do you object to my saying that the issue you raise lies with the assumptions Wittgenstein is accepting about communicative conditions required for making a point? — Constance

Because he did not point this assumption out. He can't assume we will assume the same thing he is assuming. That is not kosher in philosophy.

He is arguing against claims in philosophy that are logically not possible, therefore nonsense. — Constance

Whoo, boy. This is the most watered-down description of all the utterances of any philosopher ever in existence.

This I say with the ASSUMPTION that philosophers don't say illogical things. If it is illogical to a listener, it is because the listener does not base his logic on superstitious beliefs while the speaker does, or the listener does not suffer from the same mental illness as the speaker or else vice versa for both conditions.

↪god must be atheist ...or is it that you failed to express your point clearly? — Banno

You are so haughty and high-from-the-horse. If you think I will now research all my quotes in this thread and try to figure out which one you are referring to, then in my opinion you are an idiot.

In his later work, Wittgenstein abandoned the idea of logical form and with it the notion of ineffable truths. The difference between science and philosophy, he now believed, is between two distinct forms of understanding: the theoretical and the non-theoretical. Scientific understanding is given through the construction and testing of hypotheses and theories; philosophical understanding, on the other hand, is resolutely non-theoretical. What we are after in philosophy is “the understanding that consists in seeing connections.” — Ray Monk

This is a very good statement, and is the core of my complaint. "seeing connections" has been the bane of analytic philosophy. The conditions of verifiability are strictly enforced, so what is taken as true and verifiable, like, "I am holding up my right hand" is, becomes the standard for philosophical work, and this has gone nowhere. They reduce philosophy to scientific speculation. Phenomenology has no issue with science at all, only the presumption that it should be the foundation of philosophy. But, on the other hand, there is nothing that is not theoretical, because by "theory" I mean hermeneutics. Long Story there.

I agree that Wittgenstein never crossed paths with Buddhism but there are clear parallels. I would characterise the similiarity in terms of reaching the same point by different means. Actually there's another paper I mentioned previously, that I think you might have also missed, Epoche and Śūnyatā: Scepticism East and West, by Jay Garfield. It opens with a quote from the Tractatus and discusses Wittgenstein in places. It casts a lot of light on what philosophical scepticism really means (and what it doesn't mean, i.e. that nobody knows anything.) — Wayfarer

Reading Epoche and Śūnyatā: Scepticism East and West now. I'll get back to you. I did notice one his references to Dick Garner. I actually knew this person. Small world.

The difficulty I have with much of this is its de facto assumption of the world as something apart from us. I think that conception is embedded in any claim of being thrown into the world without choice, as if we're from one place and have come unwilling into another. I think it's also assumed whenever we speak of the world being suspended for our viewing and understanding, and perhaps most clearly when we complain of alienation. — Ciceronianus the White

It is not the from one world to another idea that we are being invited to consider. There are no metaphysical claims about here and there. Heidegger sees it like this: you are born and you receive an education, and you become this education, and once you have been duly assimilated into a culture with its language and history, and then, there is your private history that ends up becoming a repository for future possibilities, the plot and character development, if you will, of the narrative you will write into existence. But the rub: this is the way of everyday living, and everyone lives this life of unfolding affairs with implicit trust and unquestioned confidence, and one is entirely absorbed in the grand narrative. Then one opens a copy of Heidegger's Being and Time, and begins to question, and if s/he is lucky, or unlucky, there is an epiphanic moment of startling awareness that there is a discontinuity in our questioning self and the world that is there to meet questions at the basic level. All, and I mean ALL questions that issue from any object of inquiry leads inevitably to nothingness, or eternity, as Kierkegaard would put it. This is not an abstract idea, but a part of the reality we live in: a very big deal for existentialists! The world is not a concept to be tested, as Dennett or Quine would see it. It is a living experience, so this failure to find foundational understanding of anything at all goes to values: having a family, a job, a life of worries and delights, and so on, all of this has no "value" foundationally. Most are not disturbed by this, that is, until they start reading Heidegger. The question, he writes, is the piety of thought. Questions, poignant philosophical ones reveal our authentic nature.

Part of what attracts me to both Pragmatism and Stoicism is their acknowledgement that we're parts of the world. Once we come to that realization (which some may think too humbling) much of what's been called philosophy, i.e. the propagation of dualism, dissolves. In Stoicism, the acknowledgement we're part of Nature has a spiritual aspect, divinity being immanent. — Ciceronianus the White

For me, it is the question, "why are we born to suffer and die?" I don't get it. Out of the blue, there you are, and the world of which we are "part" begins a campaign of torture against you. So they throw a girl into a cell to be burned alive for illicit midnight lanterns and dancing. I take a close look at this, not as a historical event, nor as an evolutionary success story (pain and pleasure serve survival), but as the existential crisis of first magnitude. Such a thing cannot dismissed simply because we got lucky. This "place" this reality is a torture chamber. Put a match to your finger and ask the Real question: what IS that?
I don't recommend being morbidly transfixed by evil in the world. But one thing is clear to me: Language, whether pragmatic or otherwise, neutralizes the world, makes the specific actualities into general concepts that are passed around AS IF thought were reality so we can pass over the horrors of the world in mild distain, rather than being shocked and driven to crisis, which is the only genuine response. this is not invoking some other reality, not dualism posited or groundless metaphysics. It is simply observation.

I wonder what Wittgenstein would've thought of how animals behave when they encounter something new to them. I recall watching a video of a pet dog sniffing, listening and looking intently at a remote-controlled toy, circling it, approaching and then backing away, repeating these moves in, I presume, an attempt to understand what the toy was. The toy didn't make sense to the dog, at least not within the context of its experience and abilities but that didn't stop the dog from trying to understand the toy and, I'm sure, the dog didn't leave the encounter empty-handed.

Couldn't/shouldn't we too do something similar? Sure, there could be things beyond language and even the mind but we can follow the example of the dog in the video and try to grasp whatever it is that's got us tongue-tied and/or flummoxed. In short, I find it worthwhile to try and put into words that which are ineffable and think about that which are unthinkable. Something is better than nothing. Right?

It's as if one sort warrant to conclude that since the cat is projected onto "out there", there is no cat.

Yet there is a cat. We should be at pains to avoid the illusion of idealism as much as of realism. — Banno

I have never read anyone that think there is nothing there, outside of our experiences. But what it is, if one withdraws all that the perceiver contributes in the perceptual act, and tries then to "say" what it is, there is nothing to say. It is no longer a cat, nor is it not a cat. It is nonsense. Cannot be conceived.
But this nonsense is transcendental. We cannot conceive it, yet we are not at liberty to dismiss it, for IT is an imposing part of the "presence" of the world. My thought on this are rather out there.

One is debarred from talking about what is beyond language, yet "out there" talks about it. The argument divides the world into what is out there and what is in here. Ciceronianus the White has a similar discomfort. — Banno

Take the matter one step further: granted, out there beyond the horizon, I mean, straight idealism is not tenable. One has to keep in mind, however, how radical Wittgenstein's point is: IT is utterly unthinkable. Even the designation "it" is not possible, and when W calls logic transcendental, he tells us he is speaking nonsense just to inform us as to what we cannot say! But, the term 'transcendence' applies, and I think most critically applies, to our own interior. I cannot confirm the Being of objects that are not me, but my own interior: nothing could be more intimate or unmediated. Yet, when we conceive of this interior, it is done through language and logic, so it is just as remote is the out there thing (a nonsense term) I call a cat. Language "stands in" (as Derrida put it) for the world. But within, I AM this, and the implication is that if I shut down the interpreting apparatus of thought, and stop the process of presumed knowing, then I can encounter my own transcendence. this is why I think meditation is a very big deal; not the Buddhists, but the Hindus have it right!
Of course, to confirm something like this, one would have to spend a lot of time "deep diving" into one's interior.

There is always a cat; there is nothing to speak of that one might "project' onto. That this is learned - "conditioned a body of conditioning memories" - does not render it somehow false. — Banno

Right, and this is Heidegger's view. The idea and the actuality are "of a piece". Phenomenology takes eidetic structures are an integral part of the phenomenon. I find myself in agreement, save for two things: one is the above regarding the transcendental ego and the meditative method of its "discovery". The other is about ethics. Long story, but what I know about ethics, is hermeneutical, and I cannot conceive of the actual pain and pleasures (and eveything else) simpliciter, however, when the presence of a pain or pleasure is in me, it is not a neutral fact, but has a nature that is noninterpretative, and this is its metaethical dimension. Extreme examples are clearest: we shouldn't torture others. Why? Because it hurts. What is "wrong" with that? The justification turns to the pain itself, and is not deferred to something else. This, I say, knowing full well it is nonsense, an absolute, but one that is, while nonsense in the "saying" not nonsense in the injunction not to do it.

Value, in my view, presents an absolute injunction to do or not to do X. Of course, such injunctions are mixed with entanglements in the world. Oh well.

If it is, it may explain many of the problems associated with civilization as well as philosophy. The belief the world isn't truly real or important as something else, like heaven, is; the belief that nature and our fellow creatures are ours to do with as we please; the prevalence of self-conceit; the indifference to the state of the planet; all can be seen as resulting from an assumption we aren't parts of the world or somehow superior to it. — Ciceronianus the White

This too, but I was thinking the other way around: "The world is real and important, but the individual is not. The individual is an intruder, an impostor, and it would be best if he didn't exist in the first place, and failing that, he should at least see to it that he makes himself as invisible as possible."

Sometimes, this is modified to "a specific individual" or "a specific group/category of individuals".