'For the person or persons that hold dominion, can no more combine with the keeping up of majesty the running with harlots drunk or naked about the streets, or the performances of a stage player, or the open violation or contempt of laws passed by themselves than they can combine existence with non-existence'.

- Benedict de Spinoza. Political Treatise. 1677.




Sunday, May 23, 2010

on certainty 477


477. “So one must know that the objects whose names one teaches a child by ostensive definition exist.” – Why must one know they do? Isn’t it enough that experience doesn’t later show the opposite?

For why should the language game rest on some kind of knowledge?



‘so one must know that the objects one teaches a child by ostensive definition exist’

what you teach by ostensive definition – is description –

if you were to ask – well what is it finally that is being described?

the answer is – the unknown

‘isn’t it enough that experience doesn’t later show the opposite?’

what experience shows – is uncertainty

‘for why should the language game rest on some kind of knowledge?’-

the language-game rests on the unknown –

and the language-games we play in relation to the unknown –

are uncertain


© greg t. charlton. 2010.