tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3891434218564545511.post2067890655576518477..comments2024-03-28T13:23:50.623-05:00Comments on Alexander Pruss's Blog: Wittgensteinian views of religious languageAlexander R Prusshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05989277655934827117noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3891434218564545511.post-8730423180974805932010-12-12T13:39:01.181-06:002010-12-12T13:39:01.181-06:00By the way, the SEP and the prosblogion discussion...By the way, the SEP and the <a href="http://prosblogion.ektopos.com/archives/2010/12/wittgensteinian.html" rel="nofollow">prosblogion discussion of this post</a> have convinced me the view is only "so-called Wittgensteinian" rather than "Wittgensteinian".Alexander R Prusshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05989277655934827117noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3891434218564545511.post-81867857980550243722010-12-09T05:08:14.747-06:002010-12-09T05:08:14.747-06:00Nice post, but I'm still not sure about truth:...Nice post, but I'm still not sure about truth: you say "I do not have evidence for the lemma." but I would say that you do because you do "have evidence that the lemma is true".<br /><br />Incidentally, I would say that (1) is true because the notion of a community is pretty vague. What is the scientific community, for example. There are lots of groups, and bigger groups, and we all learn about science to some extent. There are lab technicians with no degree in a science, and bankers with a degree in the science, and so forth.<br /><br />Basically, our worldview concepts all overlap, and there are no distinct communities, except for aliens, and perhaps some tribe in some forest. But as soon as we contact that tribe, our concepts begin to overlap. (And there may have been overlaps in the past.) And of course, we can hardly understand the tribe's concepts before we meet them. (They may have some concepts in common with us by virtue of being human, but then the connections in the past become relevent.)<br /><br />None of that challenges your argument of course, but is rather another thing wrong with the Wittgenseinian position. Still, I therefore think that (6) is true, insofar as being completely external to a community is an extreme position from which one could hardly criticise the community's worldviews. (Perhaps I need something like the indeterminacy of translation there. Suppose we see aliens, through a telescope, torturing their children, apparently for fun. Are they really torturing their children, or are they educating or even pleasing them? And of course, how could we know it was just for fun.)Martin Cookehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11425491938517935179noreply@blogger.com