analyze this quote

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I am a member of a discussion group focused on Robert Pirsig's "Metaphysics of Quality". Today someone in the group wrote:

It reminded me of something that Ludwig Wittgenstein said: "Philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of our own language."

Please discuss. Agree, disagree, dissect, branch off, deconstruct, whatever. I want to explore this topic and I don't know where to begin.

I agree with that. We have probably already proven our inability to prove all of truth, and most absolutes. The question does come down to how much or little we can prove and how we shape what we think we know.

I have to agree with both the quote and AG's analysis of it. There are boundaries to how much humanity can know about the world and our place in it. People are going to have to admit that there are some things that our species cannot grasp.

I'm not sure whether the sentence means that the battle is against "the bewitchment of our intelligence by our own language", OR whether "our own language" is what we're supposed to be using in the battle against bewitchment.
Both readings make a lot of sense to me. Seeing how bewitching language can be. That in fact it may be said to be the source of all illusion.
Or is the idea that we use language to fight against bewitchment? That can work too!

Last edited by ouinon on 28 Dec 2007, 2:08 pm, edited 1 time in total.

i would say to that guy---

dude. and THAT's an answer?
while "the dance" might be "the BS"...
...so is that.

poetic... but just because YOU can't come up with the answer AND explain it, does not mean there isn't one.

ahhh... to be secure in ones egotisim... how nice it would be...

i just hear--
it is easy to be bewitched, lulled into complacency by cleverly twisted words. language can be bent many ways. if your mind is not "fighting" this battle by being alert and paying attention, then you might start to just accept and spout back the words of others. Philosophy is the battle. it is the movement of people who wish to STOP and question and turn things over for themselves, rather than passively surrendering their own mind to be slaughtered and replaced by the language of others.

Which quote are we supposed to be analysing? ! !
This reminds me of school; the nightmare of not knowing which bit the teacher/exam wants you to respond to, and of finding at least ten more interpretations for something than the two you're asked to choose between etc, and wondering whether to take some statement at face value, but not knowing which IS the face value.
AArrghh!
Anyway, if it's the anonymous quote, i think agree with i_Am_andaJoy about the expression "the dance" which just seems to be so fashionable, and used for any dynamic, or process, which people are having trouble describing/quantifying/communicating, at the same time as praising.
Might as well say simply " the activity or process". ( but "the dance" suggests something "better"/more essential, ideal, or necessary; either way something superior to common activities !)

What does it mean, "there is no answer"? ( in all three tenses for more rhetorical impact!) Especially as they go on to give an answer; it is in "the dance".

this is what i was thinking, but you put it into words so much better!

haha! i will have to be careful though and let my own I in the center of my own onion fight for me in the future... but, mad-props to ouinon on this battle move.

I love you guys! Keep going. You're demystifying the intimidating part of the quote. I'm glad I brought it up here. I don't have a lot of net time lately but I hope to ask more questions when I get the chance.

Which quote by the way? Because I don't really see them as related, so... ?

We are animals of intelligence and social architecture. We have to deduce our surroundings and make them a more palitable paradigm. We do this by creating words or labels to explain what these things mean, but in the process, we lose a lot of information sometimes about the genuine nature or integrity of the subject. This has been the detriment of the scientific society, to whittle something down by complete unfettered analyzation and leave it to be a husk, the brittle remains, void of all deep and mundane existence. Meanings never capture or realize what they were ever really meant to grasp. The human language can't convey this, if it could, it'd be the breathe of god.

I like the criticism done on the "dance" part.

They're not directly related, necessarily. That's merely the direction in which my own mind branched out. I liken the "dance" in the first quote to the "battle" in the second.

ahhh! that makes sense now. but "the dance" seemed to be pretentious fluff, while "the battle" was something that was sensible to me. i also hate the ironic tragedy of what Averick was talking about, how the weapons themselves cut your hands as you try to pick them up, and the meaning bleeds away even as you try to pin it down to the paper, to a concrete thought. that is something i think about a lot, how everything is dead on paper and i cannot trap the truth of anything, just a husk of a shadow. so commuication of ideas is so difficult, as you have to kill so much to speak/write them at all. everything is "lost in translation," i often think of words as corpses.