Reading Wittgenstein’s "Philosophical Investigations" Considered As Log Entries Of A Failed Expedition to the Antarctic

.--We have got on to slippery ice where there is no friction and so in a certain sense the conditions are ideal, but also, just because of that, we are unable to walk. We want to walk: so we need friction. Back to the rough ground!

A good ground looks like this.

[Can a dog lie?]

Could one teach a dog to simulate pain?

One could imagine an animal, angry, frightened, unhappy, happy, startled. But hopeful? And why not?

[How does this line intimate the way to go?]

Does the sign-post leave no doubt open about the way I have to go? Does it shew which direction I am to take when I have passed it; whether along the road or the footpath or cross-country? But where is it said which way I am to follow it; whether in the direction of its finger or (e.g.) in the opposite one? --And if there were, not a single sign-post, but a chain of adjacent ones or of chalk marks on the ground-- is there only one way of interpreting them?-- So I can say, the sign-post does after all leave no room for doubt. Or rather: it sometimes leaves room for doubt and sometimes not. And now this is no longer a philosophical proposition, but an empirical one.

[Speed is not important here.]

“Now I know how to go on!”

Can I say "bububu" and mean "If it doesn't rain I shall go for a walk"?

I say "There is a chair". What if I go up to it, meaning to fetch it, and it suddenly disappears from sight.? --"So it wasn't a chair, but some kind of illusion". --But in a few moments we see it again and are able to touch it and so on. --"So the chair was there after all and its disappearance was some kind of illusion". --But suppose that after a time it disappears again-or seems to disappear. What are we to say now?



Justification by experience comes to an end. If it did not it would not be justification.


TURN #65
WEEK: 52; WORDS: 57,552