These notes were taken from my class with Dr. Reyes for Philosophy 118 last 16 February
.:Scientific Language Is Only One Type Of Language:.
It is like a net that filters out a lot. While something cannot be empirically viable, it could have perhaps poetic or religious worth.
.: More On The Nature Of Language:.
Though experiences are inalienable, this does not preclude them from being communicable. A sneeze is a personal sneeze, but you will be able to understand what it means when another person sneezes. The language makes sense because it is a shared language. It is shared because standard within the language exist to allow it to persist.
As such, each language is an autonomous language, insofar as each language has its own rules which will not necessarily correspond to the rules of another language. As such, a priest cannot impose his standard as a religious authority upon who he believes his parishioners ought to vote for during the elections. Insofar as a language is autonomous, it means we preclude ourselves from having our say in it if we do not participate in the language, which means that it is not appropriate for a person completely uninitiated to sports to attempt to speak about sports since that is not a language they find themselves privy to.
Language is not just a question of making empirical sense or not, but rather, of the ability to follow the rules set within the language it finds itself in. Philosophy is not about moving beyond language and approaching the infinite truth. The function of philosophy becomes mostly therapeutic rather than eschatological. It makes man aware that there are multiple languages, and one must not attempt to mix these varied languages. This is why Wittgenstein believes one should not stay in Philosophy but rather, to participate in the many other languages philosophy opens us up to. Philosophy doesn't offer you any new insight, per se, but merely awareness about these insights as well.
.:Quotable Quotes:.
This is the story of a Swiss doctor who found a cure for impotence in men. He takes the fetus of a baby elephant, takes the trunk, and implants it on the man. A man enters the clinic and asks the doctor to perform the procedure on him. So they go ahead with it, and the doctor tells him to come back one month.
A month later, the man comes back. The doctor asks him, “how was the operation?”
“Oh, excellent! Excellent performance! There's only one problem, though...”
“What is it?”
“Everytime I'm at a cocktail, it likes to go out of my pants to reach for some peanuts...”
- Dr. Reyes's joke
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