Wednesday, March 17, 2021

ON BULLSHIT 1

 In Harry Frankfurt's ON BULLSHIT, he wrote that "Wittgenstein once said that the following bit of verse by Longfellow could serve  him as a model."

"In the older days of art/ Builders wrought with greatest care/ Each minute and unseen part,/ For the Gods are everywhere."

In short, even the hidden parts of things they made, which would never be seen, had to be perfect. 

The notes Wittgenstein wrote for himself had to be perfect. He was, after all, a logician. To some extent the philosophy he wrote was an attempt to squeeze the bullshit out of philosophy. Of course, he was disliked. Much of philosophy is an attempt to say more than we can know. 

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