As far as I can tell, rationality is dead against any and all claims made sans evidence and this epistemic rule applies to itself too. — TheMadFool

My two suggestions are that cognition is largely metaphorical and that rationality is not strictly defined. Philosophers often propose definitions for or explications of science and critical thinking, but I don't think there is or ever will be an exact consensus. Perhaps you've studied logical positivism and movements like that: it's hard to rule out 'metaphysics' or metaphor without relying on both.
I think we'll always be down in this mess together, talking about our talking, experimenting, compromising.

As far as I can tell, rationality is dead against any and all claims made sans evidence and this epistemic rule applies to itself too. — TheMadFool

I agree, claims without evidence are judged irrational, and I think evidence has an ethical-social aspect. We don't just impose our theories/myths on others. We make a case, respond to criticism, work together toward a common theory/myth. I only include 'myth' to emphasize the metaphorical aspect of cognition, something like basic framings of the situation like Rorty's 'mirror of nature.' I also agree that (ideally) the epistemic rule applies to itself. We try to be rational as we decide what it is to be rational (so we work with a rough understanding we have -- what's the alternative? --- in order to improve it.)

If anything this highly commendable feature of rationality - it demands of itself what it demands of others (justification) - clearly points to a willingness to heed & respond to criticisms levelled against rationality. — TheMadFool

:up:

Right! And the failings in logical positivism (one image of rationality) were assimilated by philosophers so that more sophisticated & flexible notions could appear which kept the good and jettisoned what was shown not to work. (That's just one example with a clear plot.)

logical positivism — j0e

A drive-by of the Wikipedia article on logical positivism informs me that it's a epistemological position that only observationally verifiable claims/propositions count as knowledge and anything other than that is nonsense.

The rationale for logical positivism is under one interpretation a very good one. Take falsehoods/lies for instance. That a claim is a faleshood/lie is predicated on it not being verifiable via observation. Thus, claims that can't be confirmed by carrying out an observation are indistinguoshable in this respect from falsehoods/lies. In a nutshell, anything that fails the verification principle falls into the same cateogory as faleshoods/lies - in both cases attempts to verify claims fail or are impossible. The choice, a hard one I suppose, is to either reject the verification principle and, by doing that, legitimize falsehoods/lies or stick to a policy that no matter what else it does or is in what ways it could be wrong, it at least keeps falsehoods/lies at a safe distance. Just saying...

I like the spirit of it, but did you notice:

Logical positivists within the Vienna Circle recognized quickly that the verifiability criterion was too stringent. Notably, all universal generalizations are empirically unverifiable, such that, under verificationism, vast domains of science and reason, such as scientific hypothesis, would be rendered meaningless. — link

Here are some other views (or leads/samples you might find interesting.)

The totality of our so-called knowledge or beliefs, from the most casual matters of geography and history to the profoundest laws of atomic physics or even of pure mathematics and logic, is a man-made fabric which impinges on experience only along the edges. Or, to change the figure, total science is like a field of force whose boundary conditions are experience. A conflict with experience at the periphery occasions readjustments in the interior of the field. Truth values have to be redistributed over some of our statements. Re-evaluation of some statements entails re-evaluation of others, because of their logical interconnections -- the logical laws being in turn simply certain further statements of the system, certain further elements of the field. Having re-evaluated one statement we must re-evaluate some others, whether they be statements logically connected with the first or whether they be the statements of logical connections themselves. But the total field is so undetermined by its boundary conditions, experience, that there is much latitude of choice as to what statements to re-evaluate in the light of any single contrary experience. No particular experiences are linked with any particular statements in the interior of the field, except indirectly through considerations of equilibrium affecting the field as a whole.

If this view is right, it is misleading to speak of the empirical content of an individual statement -- especially if it be a statement at all remote from the experiential periphery of the field. Furthermore it becomes folly to seek a boundary between synthetic statements, which hold contingently on experience, and analytic statements which hold come what may. Any statement can be held true come what may, if we make drastic enough adjustments elsewhere in the system. Even a statement very close to the periphery can be held true in the face of recalcitrant experience by pleading hallucination or by amending certain statements of the kind called logical laws. Conversely, by the same token, no statement is immune to revision. Revision even of the logical law of the excluded middle has been proposed as a means of simplifying quantum mechanics; and what difference is there in principle between such a shift and the shift whereby Kepler superseded Ptolemy, or Einstein Newton, or Darwin Aristotle?

For vividness I have been speaking in terms of varying distances from a sensory periphery. Let me try now to clarify this notion without metaphor. Certain statements, though about physical objects and not sense experience, seem peculiarly germane to sense experience -- and in a selective way: some statements to some experiences, others to others. Such statements, especially germane to particular experiences, I picture as near the periphery. But in this relation of "germaneness" I envisage nothing more than a loose association reflecting the relative likelihood, in practice, of our choosing one statement rather than another for revision in the event of recalcitrant experience. For example, we can imagine recalcitrant experiences to which we would surely be inclined to accommodate our system by re-evaluating just the statement that there are brick houses on Elm Street, together with related statements on the same topic. We can imagine other recalcitrant experiences to which we would be inclined to accommodate our system by re-evaluating just the statement that there are no centaurs, along with kindred statements. A recalcitrant experience can, I have already urged, be accommodated by any of various alternative re-evaluations in various alternative quarters of the total system; but, in the cases which we are now imagining, our natural tendency to disturb the total system as little as possible would lead us to focus our revisions upon these specific statements concerning brick houses or centaurs. These statements are felt, therefore, to have a sharper empirical reference than highly theoretical statements of physics or logic or ontology. The latter statements may be thought of as relatively centrally located within the total network, meaning merely that little preferential connection with any particular sense data obtrudes itself.

As an empiricist I continue to think of the conceptual scheme of science as a tool, ultimately, for predicting future experience in the light of past experience. Physical objects are conceptually imported into the situation as convenient intermediaries -- not by definition in terms of experience, but simply as irreducible posits comparable, epistemologically, to the gods of Homer. Let me interject that for my part I do, qua lay physicist, believe in physical objects and not in Homer's gods; and I consider it a scientific error to believe otherwise. But in point of epistemological footing the physical objects and the gods differ only in degree and not in kind. Both sorts of entities enter our conception only as cultural posits. The myth of physical objects is epistemologically superior to most in that it has proved more efficacious than other myths as a device for working a manageable structure into the flux of experience. — Quine

http://fs2.american.edu/dfagel/www/Class%20Readings/Quine/TwoDogmasofEmpiricism.htm

The idea that observation "strictly and properly so-called" is constituted by certain self-authenticating nonverbal episodes, the authority of which is transmitted to verbal and quasi-verbal performances when these performances are made "in conformity with the semantical rules of the language," is, of course, the heart of the Myth of the Given. For the given, in epistemological tradition, is what is taken by these self-authenticating episodes. These 'takings' are, so to speak, the unmoved movers of empirical knowledge, the 'knowings in presence' which are presupposed by all other knowledge, both the knowledge of general truths and the knowledge 'in absence' of other particular matters of fact. Such is the framework in which traditional empiricism makes its characteristic claim that the perceptually given is the foundation of empirical knowledge.

Let me make it clear, however, that if I reject this framework, it is not because I should deny that observings are inner episodes, nor that strictly speaking they are nonverbal episodes. It will be my contention, however, that the sense in which they are nonverbal -- which is also the sense in which thought episodes are nonverbal is one which gives no aid or comfort to epistemological givenness.
....

...If I reject the framework of traditional empiricism, it is not because I want to say that empirical knowledge has no foundation. For to put it this way is to suggest that it is really "empirical knowledge so-called," and to put it in a box with rumors and hoaxes. There is clearly some point to the picture of human knowledge as resting on a level of propositions -- observation reports -- which do not rest on other propositions in the same way as other propositions rest on them. On the other hand, I do wish to insist that the metaphor of "foundation" is misleading in that it keeps us from seeing that if there is a logical dimension in which other empirical propositions rest on observation reports, there is another logical dimension in which the latter rest on the former.

Above all, the picture is misleading because of its static character. One seems forced to choose between the picture of an elephant which rests on a tortoise (What supports the tortoise?) and the picture of a great Hegelian serpent of knowledge with its tail in its mouth (Where does it begin?). Neither will do. For empirical knowledge, like its sophisticated extension, science, is rational, not because it has a foundation but because it is a self-correcting enterprise which can put any claim in jeopardy, though not all at once. — Sellars

http://www.ditext.com/sellars/epm8.html

The images of knowledge in the Republic are his exoteric teaching cleverly disguised as an esoteric teaching.
— Fooloso4

I think that is at least open to debate. You already said:

I too once believed that the ascent from the cave and the power of dialectic was a description of the mystical experience of truth. I no longer see things that way. — Wayfarer

My once believing it is attestation of how we are fooled by the disguise.

There is an esoteric teaching hidden in the exoteric teaching. It is about protecting philosophy from the polis and the polis from philosophy.

Yes. The assumption which I keep raising that Wayfarer and other apologists keep repeating is that because science (or materialism) doesn't deal with esoteric issues, the alternatives must somehow therefore do so.

What arguments like yours show is that they don't do so either. Nothing does. Except perhaps art, in a subtle way.

As Wittgenstein said "Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent."

And as Ramsey (even better) added "..and we can't whistle it either."

@Wayfarer here is just trying to whistle. — Isaac

If a tone deaf person criticizes music ...

So one gets told that there are things one cannot understand. One is excluded from some group. Some thusly excluded people handle this by downplaying the importance of said group and its expertise. Some do it by playing it up.

Nothing. "Don't stick your nose into things that are none of your business" should be the motto.
— baker

Right! And that would be a good look from the outside, a selective group that guards its secrets.

This is where the guild theme becomes useful again: If you're a member of the guild of, say, candle makers, out of professional deference, you're not going to indulge in assumptions about those in the guild of horseback saddle makers. (Ideally, you wouldn't even have the time to do so, being busy with your own craft and all that.)
— baker

I agree, but consider the original context, in which an ambivalent saddle-maker can't resist trying to win the respect of the candle-makers. — j0e

But that's the real issue here, isn't it (or one of them)? The demand for recognition, for respect.

I don't mean to be disparaging of sages but I find it rather implausible that there could be knowledge that only a select few can get a handle on. Of course, the fact that I find mathematics near impossible to comprehend works against me is not lost on me. Maybe there is such a thing as knowledge that only a few chosen ones can fully understand. — TheMadFool

The idea of there being a knowledge that only a few chosen ones can fully understand is mostly not offensive, as can be seen in the way people are generally nonchalant about their ignorance of and inability to understand, say, advanced mathematics, the engineering of building skyscrapers, or the tuning of musical instruments.

A proposed exclusivity of knowledge does generally become offensive in matters that concern man's basic sense of morality, epistemology, and issues of "the meaning of life". The idea that only a select few should be able to discern correctly what is morally right and what is wrong, or how to know "how things really are", or what "the meaning of life" is -- such an idea gets to us, we cannot be nonchalant about it. We tend to feel offended by notions of exclusivity in this domain; or we feel hopeless about it and life in general.

If the knowledge is esoteric then rational discussion of it is pointless. — Isaac

One of the meanings of "rational" is 'proportional', 'in ratio'.

If both of us lack knowledge, say, of advanced mathematics, but nevertheless try to discuss it, such a discussion is necessarily not rational, it's not in proportion to the field of expertise of advanced mathematics. And it's pointless.

It's similar with "esoteric knowledge". Adepts in some esoteric discipline spend a lot of time discussing those esoteric topics, and within that reference frame, their discussion is rational. An outsider, however, cannot rationally, meaningfully participate in such discussions.

For example:

If you want to limit the meaning of "rational" to a particular flavor of secular academic discourse, then you should recognize this as a matter of your choice, not a given.

Agreed. At least with the mechanic you can see if your car starts. I suppose a person could get high on the aura of a guru and their 'car starts' in that sense (because they believe, through their projection), so that's why I like the 'works whether or not you believe in it' criterion of science/technology. — j0e

The 'works whether or not you believe in it' criterion of science/technology works only for things, not for persons. That's not much of an achievement. To limit one's life to things that 'work whether or not you believe in it' makes for an impoverished, zombified existence.

I like the quotes and the topic. I think it's understood that Pythagoras was a cult leader of some kind, and that Plato might have had a secret doctrine. I find it very hard to believe that the Epicureans did, given what I've read of and about Epicurus, and I couldn't find any confirmation of it. — j0e

Oh, that's easy. Someone who teaches moderation in enjoyment (sic!) must have a secret doctrine. Preventing the pursuit of enjoyment from devolving into brute hedonism requires some special insight.

But I have to say, that based on the comments to date, there seems little awareness of the 'esoteric/exoteric' distinction in the history of philosophy. — Wayfarer

Rather, the assumption seems to be that such a distinction doesn't exist or isn't justified.

So, either way, it is not within the province of philosophy
which should be, in principle at least, open to anyone with the requisite capacity for valid rational thought. — Janus

One thing I find peculiar about those that might be called "sages" is the way they can incorporate, contextualize Western philosophy.

For example I've seen Buddhist teachers incorporate, contextualize Western philosophy in a way that Western philosophy doesn't incorporate, contextualize Buddhism.

But I have to say, that based on the comments to date, there seems little awareness of the 'esoteric/exoteric' distinction in the history of philosophy.
— Wayfarer
Rather, the assumption seems to be that such a distinction doesn't exist or isn't justified. — baker

I think it is important to make distinctions as to what esoteric means. The term is used to mean occult or arcane knowledge, but it is also used simply to mean a hidden teaching. There are many reasons why what one says would be kept from the authorities or public. As to whether the latter exists in the history of philosophy:

The famous Encyclopédie of Diderot, for instance, not only discusses this practice in over twenty different articles, but admits to employing it itself. The history of Western thought contains hundreds of such statements by major philosophers testifying to the use of esoteric writing in their own work or others’. — Melzer

I like the spirit of it, but did you notice — j0e

I seem to have overlooked that side of the issue - universal claims can't be verified. However, if it were up to me, I'd prefer to forfeit the right to universal claims rather than lose the ability to distinguish lies from truths. Just to be clear, this is just a gut-feeling and I have nothing by way of a good justification for it except that it feels right to me.

As for how knowledge is built up of an interconnected network of propositions that provide support to each other and in being such is vulnerable to catastrophic structural failure even if only one proposition fails (is proven false), we're on the same page. However, it's not all doom and gloom as such events have occurred in the past and have been dealt with quite well and without the need for a major overhaul of the existing framework of knowledge. The future though may be an altogether different story.

Indeed, at this juncture I'm reminded of the creationist trope in re Darwin's theory of evolution which is, it's just a theory - a rather rude reminder to science that despite its reputation and despite its achievements if we can even call it that, at its heart it'll always be just one of countless different ways of understanding the universe, Homeric gods being one of them.

I hope I didn't misunderstand you.

one gets told that there are things one cannot understand. One is excluded from some group. Some thusly excluded people handle this by downplaying the importance of said group and its expertise. Some do it by playing it up. — baker

Yes, probably. Neither of which have any bearing whatsoever on the question of whether that group were correct about ttier esoteric knowledge claims.

One of the meanings of "rational" is 'proportional', 'in ratio'... Adepts in some esoteric discipline spend a lot of time discussing those esoteric topics, and within that reference frame, their discussion is rational. — baker

Sounds plausible. Unfortunately no-one is using that heterodox meaning of 'rational' in this discussion so I don't see how it's relevant.

one gets told that there are things one cannot understand. One is excluded from some group. Some thusly excluded people handle this by downplaying the importance of said group and its expertise. Some do it by playing it up.
— baker

Yes, probably. Neither of which have any bearing whatsoever on the question of whether that group were correct about ttier esoteric knowledge claims. — Isaac

Of course, but that's not my point. I'm saying that the relevant point here is how one deals with such exclusion. How does one deal with unknown things, things currently unknowable to one, things currently undecidable to one. How does one deal with ambivalence and uncertainty.

One of the meanings of "rational" is 'proportional', 'in ratio'... Adepts in some esoteric discipline spend a lot of time discussing those esoteric topics, and within that reference frame, their discussion is rational.
— baker

Sounds plausible. Unfortunately no-one is using that heterodox meaning of 'rational' in this discussion so I don't see how it's relevant.

"Rational" is one of the most debated terms. I refer you to Elster's classic Sour Grapes: Studies in the Subversion of Rationality.
Like I said earlier:

If you want to limit the meaning of "rational" to a particular flavor of secular academic discourse, then you should recognize this as a matter of your choice, not a given. — baker

@baker

One of the meanings of "rational" is 'proportional', 'in ratio'

This meaning is crucial for understanding pre-modern thought, for problems such as the One and the many, and the Forms. Reason for the ancients functioned by way of comparison - this in relation to that.

The sage, then, does not know any determinate truth about life after death or before birth, — Janus


According to you ex cathedra. ;-) — Wayfarer

If the sage did know something determinate which could be discursively demonstrated, then we would have examples of such demonstrations, as we do with science and mathematics. So, when I say the sage does not know any such thing, I mean we have no reason to believe the sage knows any such thing.

If you want to say the sage knows something determinate which she cannot rationally demonstrate, then I would ask what that could even mean.

It seems that your apparent desire to have your cake and eat it too leads you to hold a position which is inherently contradictory. And all this while acknowledging that you yourself possess no such special knowledge and are just one of the "hoi polloi", which begs the question as to how you could know that sages know anything determinate (beyond the ordinary everyday determinate things that the hoi polloi know). Is it just something you are attached to believing, perhaps?

Right, but there's nothing in that quote which tells against what I had said about Hadot. It is not claimed that Hadot thought that the sage knows any secret truths about the nature of reality, just that she is capable of looking at things in a different (I would say in a less ego-driven) way, and consequently of living a more balanced life.

For example I've seen Buddhist teachers incorporate, contextualize Western philosophy in a way that Western philosophy doesn't incorporate, contextualize Buddhism. — baker

Can you give an example?

If the sage did know something determinate which could be discursively demonstrated, then we would have examples of such demonstrations, as we do with science and mathematics. So, when I say the sage does not know any such thing, I mean we have no reason to believe the sage knows any such thing. — Janus

We seem to keep getting stuck on this. If the assertion is that higher truth that can only be apprehended by non-rational means, the notion of demonstration or evidence takes on a different slant. That's kind of the point of the 'sage caper' - it is beyond the fragilities of even the scientific method. To say it is bunk because it can't be demonstrated is fair enough from a physicalist perspective, but perhaps we are trying to use a ruler to measure air pollution? The test of a sage's wisdom is presumably found by doing the work - learning the lessons, following the contemplative life, etc.

This discussion has been one of definitions and suppositions which is fine to a point, But in the end we have lack specificity. Who is a sage we can explore? What can be said about this sage? Incidentally, how many female sages can we name?

However, it's not all doom and gloom as such events have occurred in the past and have been dealt with quite well and without the need for a major overhaul of the existing framework of knowledge. — TheMadFool

I think there have been major overhauls, so the reason I'm not doom & gloom is because I think we can keep adapting with new major overhauls.

at its heart it'll always be just one of countless different ways of understanding the universe, Homeric gods being one of them.

I hope I didn't misunderstand you. — TheMadFool

I think we're somewhat on the same page. To me science is mostly manifested and matters as reliable prediction and control, as tools that work independent of my trust in them. Other tools, like stories about the gods, are seemingly more useful for group morale or personal orientation in a pluralistic society. (I should add though that Q probably had 'using' the gods in mind by working them in to explanations of events. The wind didn't blow to move the ships because Poseidon was mad. So let's sacrifice a virgin princess, etc.)

To many it was a great accomplishment (perhaps 'the' intellectual accomplishment) to achieve such a view of nature as a system of 'laws' or tendencies that could be exploited in ways that were and are reliable unlike anything we had/have ever seen.

We can't appease the machine in the way we once hoped to appease the angry gods. Or that's my view and probably the mainstream view. To me this is independent of fancier metaphysics. Does nature care? Are we encompassed by something inhuman that has to be dealt with through useful models that might never grasp a final truth or essence?

My understanding is that your position is opposed to this vision of dead, apathetic nature. I guess I'm trying to locate exactly where we diverge & clarify both our positions. — j0e

:up:

I think it's true that we model nature in terms of mechanism, and the notion of mechanism inherently involves the idea of lifelessness, lack of agency. It's hard for us to conceive any way in which nature could care about us or about itself, in the way that we care about our own lives, since we tend to see it as radically other when it's dangerous side is revealed, and romanticize it as a kind of Arcadia created for our pleasure by something beyond nature when we are comfortable. That self-caring we "enjoy" seems to require a certain kind of intelligence which we share to varying degrees perhaps only with some of the so-called "higher" animals.

Some spiritual visions, for example Spinoza's, involve learning to let go of this caring which is rooted in self-concern and the anxieties it induces. I think such a vision also requires letting go of our models of nature, or at least of the belief that they reveal something about the nature of reality, since the map is never the territory.

The 'works whether or not you believe in it' criterion of science/technology works only for things, not for persons. That's not much of an achievement. To limit one's life to things that 'work whether or not you believe in it' makes for an impoverished, zombified existence. — baker

I think there are tools that work on people (drugs) whether on not those people believe in them or not, but I agree. I'm not arguing for scientism. Overall I like our free(-ish) society that allows for DIY religion. If someone wants to be a Catholic or a scientologist, because it works for them, fine. If they want to get their kicks from secular philosophy and novels, also fine.

But that's the real issue here, isn't it (or one of them)? The demand for recognition, for respect. — baker

Exactly. That's one of the reasons I mentioned Kojeve, who focuses on this as a driving force in the human history of war, work, and ideology-religion-philosophy.

A proposed exclusivity of knowledge does generally become offensive in matters that concern man's basic sense of morality, epistemology, and issues of "the meaning of life". The idea that only a select few should be able to discern correctly what is morally right and what is wrong, or how to know "how things really are", or what "the meaning of life" is -- such an idea gets to us, we cannot be nonchalant about it. — baker

Right. If the person holding such views is low status in 'worldly' or 'charisma' terms (can't boss me around, doesn't seem worth impressing) & if they are obnoxious or arrogant, then they are just mocked for vanity and delusion, behind their backs probably. If they can boss me around, then their ideology might be perceived as a threat to my freedom. The charismatic ideological opponent will cause me cognitive dissonance & might even persuade/convert me. Then we march under the same flag and perhaps argue about who's closer to that flag (the 'sacred')...but hopefully take some time to enjoy being insiders together.

It's similar with "esoteric knowledge". Adepts in some esoteric discipline spend a lot of time discussing those esoteric topics, and within that reference frame, their discussion is rational. An outsider, however, cannot rationally, meaningfully participate in such discussions. — baker

I basically agree with you here. I'd say that 'rational' roughly refers to the 'universal' inner circle, which connects to political freedom, especially freedom of speech. A non-universal circle would put some individuals' statements above criticism. A Scientologist doesn't challenge Hubbard's doctrines but merely interprets him in this or that tolerated direction.

I think it's true that we model nature in terms of mechanism, and the notion of mechanism inherently involves the idea of lifelessness, lack of agency. — Janus

Right. I'd say that we do (the 'educated' in 2021) while humans in the past and some even now dance for the gods to make it rain or trust prayer handkerchiefs to cure cancer. That might be the 'big' shift, which is an emotional shift as much as a conceptual shift.

Some spiritual visions, for example Spinoza's, involve learning to let go of this caring which is rooted in self-concern and the anxieties it induces. I think such a vision also requires letting go of our models of nature, or at least of the belief that they reveal something about the nature of reality, since the map is never the territory. — Janus

:up:

I'm with you there. I think some would like to take useful models in a metaphysical way so that the physicist can replace the priest. As Lange stresses (responding to the Spinoza comment) in his history of materialism, Epicurus only cared about physics to the degree that it liberated humans from the fear of death, demons, etc. This isn't to speak against physics but to emphasize the point above.

If a tone deaf person criticizes music ...

So one gets told that there are things one cannot understand. One is excluded from some group. Some thusly excluded people handle this by downplaying the importance of said group and its expertise. Some do it by playing it up. — baker

:up:

I think it's also fair to say that some groups are formed in the first place as a reaction against mainstream views. A 'godless' 'scientific' 'materialist' (etc.) worldview is just intolerable or depressing to some people. The fundamentalist is directly opposed, while Romantics and 'spiritual but not religious' options try to give the 'devil' at least some of his due.

If you have a room which you do not want certain people to get into, put a lock on it for which they do not have the key. But there is no point in talking to them about it, unless of course you want them to admire the room from outside! The honorable thing to do is put a lock on the door which will be noticed only by those who can open it, not by the rest. — Wittgenstein Culture and Value

Does Wittgenstein have such a room? Is he talking about his own writing? Why would he wish to keep "certain people" out? Does the difference between these people and some others have something to do with the ability of those who notice the lock? Is the ability to notice the lock somehow the key to open it? Is this merely a matter of attentiveness or is there something else that allows only some people to notice a locked room?

If Wittgenstein is talking about his own writing then it seems fair to say that his writing is, at least in part, esoteric. It appears to be a self-selective process. Those who gain access do so because of some ability or characteristic that others lack. It makes no sense to ask what is in the room if we do not even see that there is a looked room.

If Wittgenstein is talking about his own writing then it seems fair to say that his writing is, at least in part, esoteric. It appears to be a self-selective process. Those who gain access do so because of some ability or characteristic that others lack — Fooloso4

I think the main obstacle to 'getting' Wittgenstein (from my POV, of course) is an emotional attachment to metaphysics and/or religion. Folks don't want the ghost in the machine and directly present & exact meaning to vanish before them.

You don't have to pay to read the texts & they aren't passed around like secrets. Instead there are just readers who recognize (or not) the value or correctness of other readers' interpretations (which as you note can involved the creation of separate inner circles.)

I can make sense of this as 'pure' science only predicting and not intervening. I like the distinction, but I think pure science would be trapped at a certain level without the invention of various scientific instruments which would contaminate that purity. Consider the telescope that controls light and allows for new observations and new predictions. — j0e

Good point - a scientific experiment, I suppose (I'm not well read on this, admittedly), requires setting up an environment that controls for variables (by artificially removing them?) Yeah, on reflection, I think you're right here.

Part of my knee-jerk reaction against the relationship between science & control is that sometimes people make too much hay out of the relation of power to knowledge in science and then draw over-reaching conclusions. Now, I don't think that's what you were doing here, but I think I've built up a reflex to signs of that and reflexively responded along those lines.

So maybe we can say that W's work is somewhat 'esoteric,' — j0e

Well, there is no initiation or secret society, but there is something hidden that only some can understand. It is, using the metaphor of a locked room, an inner inquiry as opposed to an outward one.

they aren't passed around like secrets. — j0e

More often than not they are passed around without any awareness that they contain secrets, but what is behind a locked door is a secret.

It's easy to imagine several opposed groups of Wittgenstein interpreters — j0e

We do not need to imagine it, such groups exist.

In a draft for the forward to Philosophical Remarks Wittgenstein says:

For if a book has been written for just a few readers that will be clear just from the fact that only a few people understand it. The book must automatically separate those who understand it from those who do not. Even the foreword is written just for those who understand the book.

Anyone can read the book, but it is written for the few who understand it. If only a few will understand it then most who interpret it do not understand it, for they cannot hold different opinions about what the text means and all be correct.

Nietzsche said much the same:

On the question of being understandable–One does not only wish to be understood when one writes; one wishes just as surely not to be understood. It is not by any means necessarily an objection to a book when anyone finds it impossible to understand:
perhaps that was part of the author’s intention–he did not want to be understood by just
“anybody.” All the nobler spirits and tastes select their audiences when they wish to
communicate; and choosing that, one at the same time erects barriers against “the others.”
All the more subtle laws of any style have their origin at this point: they at the same time
keep away, create a distance, forbid “entrance,” understanding, as said above–while they
open the ears of those whose ears are related to ours. — Gay Science Aphorism 381

Sure. Of course there are those 'sages' who carefully orchestrate for others to testify on their behalf. Perhaps the origins of marketing.

The figure who I would choose as a kind of archetype of the Sage is Socrates. — Tom Storm

Yeah, that's a good point. That was always my criticism of U.G. Krishnamurti, back when I used to talk to people who talked about U.G. Krishnamurti. His thing was that he didn't care at all about guruhood, that people came to him and he didn't even want it. Still, on his deathbed he dictated a guru-y swan-song. He knew what he was doing the whole time. So it goes.

My feeling is that Socrates was self-consciously an anti-sage. I think he was a charismatic, genuine, figure who delighted in good-naturedly poking at the weakpoints of other would-be-sages (but was he only that? it's not clear from Plato what exactly Socrates' relation was to the idea of forms.... he might not have been solely someone who only knew that he knew nothing. He might have had an idea, and carefully popped all the other balloons until there was space for his own thing. It's hard to say, only having Plato's Soctrates. The Parmenides is a weird text in this respect.)

Peter Kingsley’s wiki entry

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Kingsley

Kingsley's work argues that the writings of the presocratic philosophers Parmenides and Empedocles, usually seen as rational or scientific enterprises, were in fact expressions of a wider Greek mystical tradition that helped give rise to western philosophy and civilisation. This tradition, according to Kingsley, was a way of life leading to the direct experience of reality and the recognition of one's divinity. Yet, as Kingsley stresses, this was no "otherworldly" mysticism: its chief figures were also lawgivers, diplomats, physicians, and even military men. The texts produced by this tradition are seamless fabrics of what later thought would distinguish as the separate areas of mysticism, science, healing, and art.