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Mar. 17th, 2006
Wittgenstein, Remarks on Color:
"Sentences are often used on the borderline between logic and the empirical, so that their meaning changes back and forth and they count now as expressions of norms, now as expressions of experience.
(For it is certainly not an accompanying mental phenomenon--this is how we imagine 'thoughts'--but the use, which distinguishes the logical proposition from the empirical one)" (I, 32).
"And don't I have to admit that sentences are often used on the borderline between logic and the empirical, so that their meaning shifts back and forth and they are now expressions of norms, now treated as expressions of experience?
For it is not the 'thought' (an accompanying mental phenomenon) but its use (something that surrounds it), that distinguishes the logical proposition from the empirical one" (III, 19).
I have the notion that many philosophical problems may turn on the ability to read certain sentences either as normative or as empirical. Given the vagueness of the concept of 'seeing-as,' this is not an especially clear notion. If I could find some examples, though, perhaps more could be said about why this is the case. There are two ways this could be seen as operating:
(1) Their having a logical and an empirical side is what makes them philosophical problems because their two-sidedness makes them always seem to ask more than can be addressed by either logical or empirical methods. So what makes them philosophical problems is having these two sides. Having just one or the other would not suffice.
(2) What makes them philosophical problems is their having a logical, or normative, side, and the fact that they can also be read empirically is irrelevant. In this case the philosophical problem is whatever problem is designated by the normative aspect of the sentence.
"Sentences are often used on the borderline between logic and the empirical, so that their meaning changes back and forth and they count now as expressions of norms, now as expressions of experience.
(For it is certainly not an accompanying mental phenomenon--this is how we imagine 'thoughts'--but the use, which distinguishes the logical proposition from the empirical one)" (I, 32).
"And don't I have to admit that sentences are often used on the borderline between logic and the empirical, so that their meaning shifts back and forth and they are now expressions of norms, now treated as expressions of experience?
For it is not the 'thought' (an accompanying mental phenomenon) but its use (something that surrounds it), that distinguishes the logical proposition from the empirical one" (III, 19).
I have the notion that many philosophical problems may turn on the ability to read certain sentences either as normative or as empirical. Given the vagueness of the concept of 'seeing-as,' this is not an especially clear notion. If I could find some examples, though, perhaps more could be said about why this is the case. There are two ways this could be seen as operating:
(1) Their having a logical and an empirical side is what makes them philosophical problems because their two-sidedness makes them always seem to ask more than can be addressed by either logical or empirical methods. So what makes them philosophical problems is having these two sides. Having just one or the other would not suffice.
(2) What makes them philosophical problems is their having a logical, or normative, side, and the fact that they can also be read empirically is irrelevant. In this case the philosophical problem is whatever problem is designated by the normative aspect of the sentence.