Opinion of Memphis

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

So, are people not encouraged to point out the obvious any more then?  I mean, we've seen what happens whenever people do that for religious folk and so on, and I guess this is what got memphis his personal lynch mob to start with.  But are we all now to pretend Santa is real just to keep the delusional happy?

I'm sure you know better than this Joe. Don't be an idiot.

Actually, the fact that Joe is content to write off anybody who subscribes to notions that don't fit into a strict 'A=A' rationalist Wittgensteinian episteme as 'delusional' and leave it at that is one that he's demonstrated many times.

Haha, what?  Pretentious much?

I don't understand what's pretentious about using philosophical language that I understand perfectly well and that you should too if you want to share your opinions on other people--in this case children, for God's sake--being 'delusional', unless you're one of those people who characterize as pretentious any choice of language that distinguishes your interlocutor from Dean Koontz, which you really don't seem to be.

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I'm not trying to 'psychoanalyze' you or speculate on your motivations. This is a thing that you do. Similarly, you could say--well, what you say in the next sentence--and you're not trying to 'psychoanlayze' me; you're stating a fact about my personality of which you don't seem to approve.

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This is correct. I'm easily frustrated, easily disappointed, and overly sensitive, and I expect a high degree of understanding or at least willingness to use Google. I would, however, submit that I have less of a problem when people criticize my old-fashioned religious beliefs or don't understand other people's talk about 'cis-genderism' (which isn't a way of writing this word I've ever seen before, and which I didn't actually introduce to this conversation, if you noticed) in somewhat more polite ways. (I admit that I struggle to maintain the standard of politeness that I strive for myself, and occasionally give up for a little while.)

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Do you honestly think I consider this an insult? (You and I seem to have very different ideas of what makes a church dull. Mine had trumpets this Easter.)

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Only late Wittgenstein is pretentious, early is the vox populi.... 

Seriously though, you've been cloistered up in academia for too long if you expect people to talk like this. Sure it can be all rather interesting, but you narrow and alienate your audience when you are actually speaking about real issues.

I don't expect people to talk like this, or understand me when I do outside specific contexts, of which demonstrating willingness to pass judgment upon the psychological and epistemic sources of other people's beliefs very much is one. You're right that I have, however, been cloistered up in academia for too long.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Only late Wittgenstein is pretentious, early is the vox populi.... 

Seriously though, you've been cloistered up in academia for too long if you expect people to talk like this. Sure it can be all rather interesting, but you narrow and alienate your audience when you are actually speaking about real issues.

I don't expect people to talk like this, or understand me when I do outside specific contexts, of which demonstrating willingness to pontificate upon the psychological and epistemic sources of other people's beliefs very much is one. You're right that I have, however, been cloistered up in academia for too long.

You are clearly very bright and that will shine through in your writing. I guess what I am saying is that sometimes less is more, particularly outside of academia. Either that or I still have PTSD from reading Wittgenstein some 15 years ago.

I'm still trying to sort out having read Wittgenstein last year, so I definitely see where you're coming from.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

If you're so into "willingness to use Google", you could have perhaps googled "Wittgenstein law of identity" and found that the third hit is the entry for "law of identity" in the Historical Dictionary of Wittgenstein's Philosophy, which begins:
 

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and the fifth hit is an abstract at Oxford Scholarship Online for a paper called "Wittgenstein on Identity", which states:

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So actually the combination "strict A=A Wittgensteinian" displays a fairly blatant historical misunderstanding, and it's pretty clear that you don't fully understand the phrase "strict 'A=A' rationalist Wittgensteinian episteme". I have actually studied the Tractatus and the Investigations in detail and I already knew this, and I also understand that a pretty minimal consideration for respectful and inclusive language is that you try to use words understood not only by the speaker but also by the listener.

All right. Redact 'Wittgensteinian'. I had not remembered that aspect of Philosophical Investigations. Redacting 'Wittgensteinian', or better yet, replacing it with 'positivist' or some such term (please don't make me think too hard about this right now; see below), makes my argument more correct as well as easier to read. Apparently.

For the record, the reason I didn't Google 'wittgenstein law of identity' (which I clearly should have) was that I was pretty sure I was remembering Philosophical Investigations correctly. This turned out, obviously, to not be the case. For that much, at least, I apologize.

And having made a complete idiot of myself (which is why I'm being terse; the meatspace being behind the screen is currently crying in self-recrimination, actually, for having misunderstood Wittgenstein so badly and in such a public manner), I'm not entirely sure what to do now.

tl;dr you're right, I'm wrong, and I feel like complete sh**t now, but I still stand by everything except the word 'Wittgensteinian'.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Mission accomplished, then, I guess.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

In all seriousness Nathan I apologize for my sharp sarcastic tone; I try to avoid that sort of thing, and I really don't want anyone to feel bad.

It's okay. The problem was that I'm really insecure and was already freaking out over an academic conference, actually. In fact, I'm rather proud of myself that I've been here so long and this is the first time I've really acted self-flagellatory (by my own standards, which are admittedly rather high).

I'm going to ask a friend of mine who's really into Wittgenstein to help me understand him better (even if only so I can dislike his thought in a more informed manner). Although he might ask me to do him the same favor with Weber (it's probably fair to say I'm vastly more competent in social, political, legal, moral, and religious philosophy than in areas like logic and philosophy of language), so that could be...interesting.

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And this is a really good point.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

I don't really mind 'Nathan et al' so long as it's not being used in such a way that I feel I'm being, for lack of a better word, accused of something. When it's being used as shorthand in the way that Bacon King was using it I guess it's actually kind of flattering.

Also I'd like to inform the forum that I've officially changed 'Wittgensteinian' to 'Vienna Circle-esque'. It has the twin virtues of being more accurate and working better as an insult, since Wittgenstein actually did do a lot of really important, impressive work in fields that I wish I understood better.

I feel better now.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

The term 'armchair philosopher' really confuses me. I mean, 'armchair general' obviously makes sense, but what, outside of certain subdivisions like political philosophy and such, would the alternative to an 'armchair' philosopher be, exactly?

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

This is still going on?

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gutCFMc5khY

This is still going on?

Seriously.

Why would you enter a thread discussing a fairly important political issue on a forum devoted to political discussion to explicitly state that you don't care?

Most threads on Atlas are about things I don't care about, but I never felt the need to descend from my heights just to state that.

I, at least, saw in still in the first page of Forum Community and was simply surprised that discussion was still being had. I'm always going to take some level of interest in this thread because of the amount of effort that I put into arguing in it, although I'm too exhausted to continue doing so myself, at least right now.