Wittgenstein
This aphorism in the Philosophical Investigations is by far the most important aphorism to understanding this man’s life project concerning the role of meaning, language and philosophy.
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304. “But you will surely admit that there is a difference between pain-behaviour accompanied by pain and pain-behaviour without any pain?” – Admit it? What greater difference could there be? – “And yet you again and again reach the conclusion that the sensation itself is a nothing.” – Not at all. It is not a something, but not a nothing either! The conclusion was only that a nothing would serve just as well as a something about which nothing could be said. We have only rejected the grammar which tries to force itself on us here.
The paradox disappears only if we make a radical break with the idea that language always functions in one way, always serves the same purpose: to convey thoughts – which may be about horses, pains, good and evil, or anything else you please.
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And behold, we see Wittgenstein’s concern with Philosophy, and Philosophy’s concern with herself, brought together under a fascinating little question:
How do quality and quantity relate, and what role does language play in that relation?
Wittgenstein’s emphasis on praxis over theoria concerning language and its role in philosophical engagement is fascinating, and an element of Philosophy in need of careful consideration. Aristotle was right to distinguish the activities of men in to three (with poiesis as the third), but was he too hasty on their interrelatedness – and on the favouring of the theoria? For was theoria to be the way to experience the other two in a good way. Bergson too witnessed the tension between these - the effects the former (praxis) had on the latter (theoria), and vice verse. Both Mr. Ludwig and Bergson drew a sharp and careful distinction between the two. Where the future of philosophy lies depends on these tensions.
Science and Bergson
Scientists are akin to diggers, whose mountain is experience and tool-box is affluent with tools that hammer, pick and shovel away at quality. In favour of quantity they dig, dig away at the sweet flavour of quality only to find the latter staring them intently in the face; like the child you slap but keeps coming back, drenched in tears, trying to hug you once more, oblivious to the pain you’ve caused it. Quality and quantity are unconditioned and indistinct aspects of a being such as ours; they are either this, or else language and his wife reason has deceived and pushed us into another distinction not worthy of making – not ultimately my curious friends, be patient, a step at a time.
The Metaphysician will ask: why did this occur, what accounts for this? The Bergsonian will answer: action, our incessant need to act, to live, to propel forward and to become. We break ourselves from our qualitative unity such that quantitative disparity is possible, and because the latter is necessary for living, moving, acting, being what we are. Live my curious friends, live first then think, but let your thought be guided by life. Begin from unity, Bergson would say, begin from the unity of duration and of becoming, let that be your maxim, your primary principle – your philosophical hammer.
