[lbo-talk] Abolition as self-help

Shane Mage shmage at pipeline.com
Wed Jul 22 08:38:54 PDT 2009


On Jul 22, 2009, at 11:22 AM, Miles Jackson wrote:
>
> I like Wittgenstein's solution to this: it's the beetle in the box.
>
> Suppose everyone had a box with something in it: we call it a
> "beetle". No one can look into anyone else's box, and everyone says
> he knows what a beetle is only by looking at his beetle. --Here it
> would be quite possible for everyone to have something different in
> his box. One might even imagine such a thing constantly changing. --
> But suppose the word "beetle" had a use in these people's language?
> --If so it would not be used as the name of a thing. The thing in
> the box has no place in the language-game at all; not even as a
> something: for the box might even be empty. --No, one can 'divide
> through' by the thing in the box; it cancels out, whatever it is.
> That is to say: if we construe the grammar of the expression of
> sensation on the model of 'object and designation' the object drops
> out of consideration as irrelevant.
>
> Phil Inv, section 293.

This seems to be saying that if you report that you feel pain in your right foot it is "irrelevant" whether or not your foot was amputated long ago. Would your doctor agree?

Shane Mage


> This cosmos did none of gods or men make, but it
> always was and is and shall be: an everlasting fire,
> kindling in measures and going out in measures."
>
> Herakleitos of Ephesos



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