Words Don’t Have Meaning

I have to start with a warning to those brave readers who have decided to accompany your humble guide on this introductory tour of analytic philosophy. Periodically on this tour, you will hear this noise.....YEEAARGGGHH! Do not be alarmed. That is the sound of your ernest tour guide having a mild heart attack at the necessity of having to glaze over fascinating details that deserve more attention but cannot be addressed in the interest of time. Okay? Got it? Okay, let me do it one more time so you remember.....YEEAARGGGHH! Okay, then? Let’s proceed.

First, let’s review the title of this chapter....

Words Don’t Have Meaning

Well that looks patently ridiculous doesn’t it? Of course words have meaning. Right? Right!

Uh.....right?

Well, let’s just see about that. Read More...

Well, it only took the encouragement of two comments on my previous post to think that maybe I can pull this off. So thank you, Erin and Tricia.

Introduction:
You know, there is nothing like educating yourself to help you start worrying about things you weren't worried about before. I'd like to do my part in spreading a little anxiety by sharing what I've learned about a topic that has, quite honestly, actually been a source of joy, stimulation, insight, and, yes, a bit of anxiety for me. That topic is twentieth century analytic philosophy and its consequences.

Now don't be put off by the long words there. I promise to make this introductory tour of, admittedly, a rarely discussed topic to be both palatable and digestible. All I ask on the part of the reader is a bit of curiosity, and perhaps some tenacity at getting through what is likely to be a series of blog posts offered in bite sized chunks.

Let's start with a little motivation. Let's say you are at a party where you meet a charming and handsome west coast blogger who wants to talk about his appreciation for the insights of the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein. Now what are you going to do? Well, you might start by spilling your glass of wine on yourself so you can excuse yourself from the situation and then drive home to spend another evening watching t.v. alone in bed.

OR, you can familiarize yourself with the contents of these articles so you can both engage in some satisfying philosophical insights that tingle the toes while at the same time firmly plant your heels to the ground. You can share some amusing and heady observations and delight in that oh so unique feeling when you realize that what you thought you knew, you didn't know and what you thought you didn't know, you in fact did. Or to put it in even simpler terms, good philosophy can do for you what good art and literature do as well, they all help make the old world new. And doesn't that sound better than waking up alone again?

We might as well start with an observation made by Wittgenstein himself, and there will be a lot more to say about him much later in this series. But for now let's just start with his good advice that one of the best ways to gain philosophical insights is to temporarily make yourself artificially stupid. Now listen, when it comes to needing a tour guide through the land of stupidity, my readers can hardly do better than to rely on the experience and guidance of yours truly.

I intend to walk us through a series of mental gymnastics and exercises and part of this will entail that bit about becoming artificially stupid. I'll occasionally ask readers to accept as certain some dubious ideas that no normal, reasonable person would ever accept. If I do my job right, then at the end of the exercise we will find that the things we thought were ridiculous will become the solid foundation under our feet while at the same time discovering that some unconsidered but firmly held beliefs disappear like fairy dust.

Sounds like a tall order? Maybe. Maybe. I'm not promising I can pull this off, but let's just see.

Come back next time for the first part of our tour of the absurd but true. Chapter one is titled appropriately enough…

Words Don't Have Meaning.

See you tomorrow.

Well, I didn’t intend to leave the blog for so long. I’ve got a couple of things cooking in the ol’ noodle, but it seems like lately, I’ve been in the mood to write long, wandering, pondering, pieces and they just don’t seem suited to a blog post.

I started writing a blog post about friendship in the adult years, but it quickly evolved into a drunken love letter to each of my friends and how much they mean to me. Wow, way too long!

I’ve also started (again) a post about my love of twentieth century linguistic philosophy and why it means so much to me. That one quickly became a meandering lecture on the history of philosophy and a collection of interesting minutae and observations about where words get their meaning, and why we should care about it in our technological age. Hoo boy! I don’t think anyone would like this but me. So for now, I’m keeping it to myself.

So, in the interest of superficial blog posts that can be consumed faster than a cup of coffee, let me at least offer these tidbits...

1. My latest CT showed a 75% reduction in cancerous tumors since I started the new drug at UCLA.

2. I was fortunate enough to see an advance screening of Toy Story 3 at Pixar headquarters last night. It was very funny.

3. This past week, a client made me a protein smoothie that was made out of raw cocoa beans and cocoa butter. Three hours later after going into anaphylactic shock complete with facial swelling and throat constricting, I learned I am severely allergic to raw cocoa beans and cocoa butter.

4. I am the owner of a new iPad (yeah me!). But I’ve been too busy to really put it through the paces yet. Maybe later today I’ll take it out for a test drive.

Well, that is all for now. I’ll be back soon.

Many years ago I was on a San Francisco city bus, called the MUNI system, and it was very late at night.

It won’t surprise any of my readers from San Francisco that, before too long, a completely crazy person boarded the bus and sat right next to me.

He opened a newspaper and proceeded to quickly flip through the pages. When he came to the end, he threw the paper down on the floor of the bus in disgust and shouted with paranoid certainty, “Lies, all lies!”

I turned to him and said, “Oh, that would be a good thing.”

(I’m telling you, you haven’t lived until you get a look from a crazy person when they think they have just encountered someone crazier than they are.)

I continued,” You see, if it really was all lies in the paper, then you could read it reliably by simply believing the opposite of whatever it said. But here is the real frightening idea: Every newspaper prints exactly 50% lies and 50% truth. Now when you read a newspaper you can never know which is which and you will not know what to believe.”

This new idea so clearly disturbed the man that it actually made him get up and change seats further from me.

Yup. Just performing my public service by further frightening the already frightened.

“Okay, okay, you can work here,” the deli man said at last.
Chuck was thrilled. Now he would have a summer job. He lept from his chair and slipped behind the counter.
The owner motioned to a crate of onions.
“Start peeling those.” he said while arranging some cheese.
“Okay, how do you peel an onion?”
“You’re fired,” the man said.

I love long drives.

I haven’t taken one in a LOOONG time. But now that I am feeling good and the weather is awesome, I’m starting to daydream about going somewhere off the familiar path.

Yes, I did the six hour drive to Disneyland a few months ago, but that was with the kids in the back seat. This time I think I want to go solo and I’d prefer to see something new.

Living in the Bay area, I’m limited to going north, east or south. And since I’m pretty familiar with everything south of here, I’m thinking I’ll either do the northern Pacific coast, or head into the Nevada desert and beyond.

Any suggestions on what I should see and discover?

-also a reminder that older posts are available in the archive at the bottom of the right hand column.