sexta-feira, agosto 11, 2006

Dividing the Blue Book: first proposal

Dear friends,

As you know, the Blue Book is a short book (it has only 74 pages in my edition [Harper Torchbooks, 1965]). I think the most important pages for discussing our guiding question are 46-74, totalizing 28 pages. Do you think it is too much text?

For me, a natural division of those pages could be made in three parts, as follows:

1. pp. 46-60: W. presents the "temptation" of solipsism, relating it to some insatisfactions the philosopher (here, the solipsist) feels about our ordinary language;

2. pp. 60-66: W. presents and criticizes, one by one and in his characteristic "dialectical" way, many specific origins to the insatisfaction noted above, offering (what I like to think as being) some "transcendental arguments" in order to show that the solipsist, in trying to revise ordinary language, ends up with some positions and notions, the conditions of which he has implicitly or tacitly denied, and, consequently, is driven to hold inconsistent positions;

3. pp. 66-74: this is for me the most important (and difficult) section, and it is also the core section supposed to give support to the non-referential interpretation of the "I". It begins with the presentation of the very known distinction between two uses of the first personal pronoun -- "as object"/"as subject", as he calls them. After presenting the distinction W. defends four thesis, all of which, apparently, give support to the non-referential interpretation of the "I", namely:

i. "To say "I am in pain" is no more a statement about a particular person than moaning is" (p. 67);  
ii. "The word "I" does not mean the same as "L.W.", even if I am L.W." (id. ibid.);  
iii. "[The word "I" does not mean] the same that the expression "the person who is now speaking"" (id. ibid.);  
iv. "In "I have pain", "I" is not a demonstrative pronoun" (BB, P. 68).

Your suggestions are welcome!

Best wishes,

Jônadas
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http://jonadas.blogspot.com/

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