Bernard Williams on the Spell of Linguistic Philosophy: Section 5 of 5

[S2Cents]

As much pleasure as it is to listen to Bernard Williams it pains me knowing what a great philosopher the world lost. Damn cancer, bloody waste!

[MrManFig]

Oh how I wish these videos were around when I was a philosophy student. What a gem!!!

[fredwba84]

Thank you so much flame0430, these videos are excellent. My only regret is there seems no chance of such programmes appearing on tv today. If they did the producers would probably feel the need to have some trendy 'down with the kids' presentation. Williams is outstanding. Will try and read some of his work.

[TimothyBragan]

R.I.P. Ludwig Wittgenstein

jk

[philomypillow]

he reminds me of christopher hitchens, in appearance at least.. a bit... a younger skinnier one tho lol :)

[CPLains]

@philomypillow reminds me of Feynman, by the sneaky insight-smile and the way he speaks with a certain restrained passion :D

[K2nsl3r]

what a fantastic set of videos again...

I have watched countless hours of these, and I can't wait to get more!

thank you so much for all the hard work in uploading these and spreading this wisdom to the "masses" (in which category I include myself for present purposes).

I hope we shall get more in due time.

[mottiain]

Many thanks for yet another excellent and useful video.

[colourmegone]

Thanks for the vids, I feel as if I'm finally getting something like an education.

[avastyer]

Great discussion. Thanks so much for these wonderful interviews, Flame 0430!

[tetus48]

Well this is certainly a great Interview. What I find strange though is, that the whole thing sounds as though linguistic philosophy is a fad now overcome by a more sensitive way of doing philosophy. While it's certainly good that people have rediscovered Hegel, I find it worrysome they think Wittgenstein is as dead as a fossilized dinosaur: the idea that you need a theoretical apparatus to come clear on meaning remains as preposterous as he thought it was.

[nasbster915]

@tetus48 hey, I think you're mistaken. When Williams said that distinctions of meanings can only be understood against the background of a theoretical way of making distinctions, I don't think he was implying that we don't have meaning without a theory of meaning. That claim is trivially false. I think he was commenting on a problem that linguistic philosophy brought upon itself by undervaluing the importance of theory.

[nasbster915]

@nasbster915 The meaning-distinctions that linguistic philosophers drew were arbitrary in absence of a theory to ground/justify/explain the distinctions. I think Williams' criticism is that linguistic philosophy can't be a purely nuts and bolts practice. As a methodology, it requires a background theory to justify its own methods. 

[tetus48]

@nasbster915 Yes, you are right that Wiliams targeted early linguistic philosophy. Wittgenstein certainly didn't propose a "nuts and bolts" practice for philosophy. But Williams did not only target early linguistic philosoph. It seems to me rather that he believes philosophy is essentially theory driven and downplays at least in the interview Wittgenstein's motive for refusing to do philosophy as based on hypothesis and construction of theories. This is exactly why I disagree with him.

[nasbster915]

@tetus48 i see now. Sry I misinterpreted you.

[wash0087]

thanks. i'm gonna show my annoying friend who incessantly dribbles linguistic philosophy as panacea. he drives me friggin nuts, now i can show him it not the end all b e all. gosh h pisses me off!

[Hythloday71]

cheers ! though i think i missed the points which negated linguistic philosophy as the panacea ! I was thinking of doing a vid on how, when u consider what we are and our understanding of the universe, well, all our discourse is just linguistics constructions and only have self contained meaning within the box we place ourselves. I.e. my main thrust comes from acknowledging that we are just assemblences of energy/ matter lacking free will. We are not a free agents in the playground of the Univer

[Myndir]

@Hythloday71 The greatest lesson from linguistic philosophy is that rarely is anything "just" anything.

Nor is meaning something we have, but something we do.

Nor is freedom something that you either always have or never have. If it makes sense to say that something doesn't have freedom, there must be a sense in which it can have freedom. Otherwise, it is prattle, like saying that a rock doesn't have freedom.

****

I love this video and I love Bernard Williams. Flame0430 is a hero.

[analogious]

Thank you. That dissolved a lot of un-questions.

[EsWe1990]

flame0430, thank you so much for posting all those videos. They are not only interesting and enriching in what they deal with, but, especially for a non-native speaker like me, are also great examples of the beauty of the English language.

[Facevampire]

@EsWe1990 stimme vollkommen zu.

@flame0430: by now an almost ritualistic phrase: thank you very much for a great interview :)

[renumeratedfrog]

RIP Bernard Williams

[timbo8757]

@renumeratedfrog He comes across as a very decent person in these interviews.I like that we see his sense of humor particularly, because that is not evident in his rather dense "Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy," which I am rereading because I rashly promised to give a talk about Williams' critique or morality.

[katafraktus]

a really nice surprise^^

[soultorment27]

thanx for posting!!!!!! =)