Ludwig Wittgenstein’s famously apophatic conclusion to his TRACTATUS LOGICO-PHILOSOPHICUS is:
Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.
We are also told that Frank Ramsey famously replied:
What we can’t say, we can’t say, and we can’t whistle it either.
Considering Ramsey actually composed the 'official' translation of the Tractatus from German into English this has always struck me a tad disingenuous. Pulling his own leg?
This month's audible credit has been spent on Frank Ramsey: A Sheer Excess of Powers by Cheryl Misak so maybe after I have got through that I will be able to cast some light. (Misak's Aeon essay Philosophy must be useful may be worth your attention if you are intrigued at all.)
(My brother John's latest Audible credit was spent on Stephen Fry's Orwell Collection: Animal Farm & 1984.)
2 comments:
“To be is to do” — Socrates.
“To do is to be” — Jean-Paul Sartre.
“Do be do be do” — Frank Sinatra.
"Oh do behave" Dick Emery
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