#wittgenstein — Public Fediverse posts

Reading Cheryl Misak’s biography of Frank Ramsey (1903–30), who made important contributions to mathematics, philosophy, and economics before his untimely death [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_P._Ramsey]. (E.g. Ramsey theory is named for him and #Wittgenstein and #Keynes talked to him as an equal.)

So far, it is very good, but I have been repeated jarred out of my reading by the ghastly (and thus fortunately only occasional) mathematical typography.

See attached, all from a few pages concerning his work on Wittgenstein's ‘Tractatus’:

1. Use of text figures makes + and = too high, and the no space before =.

2. ‘v’ (letter) instead of ‘∨’ (logical or).

3. Use of italic parenthesis in maths.

I don’t fault the author, who is not a mathematician. But I thought Oxford University Press had standards.

#typography #pedantry #rant

Reading Cheryl Misak’s biography of Frank Ramsey (1903–30), who made important contributions to mathematics, philosophy, and economics before his untimely death [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_P._Ramsey]. (E.g. Ramsey theory is named for him and #Wittgenstein and #Keynes talked to him as an equal.)

So far, it is very good, but I have been repeated jarred out of my reading by the ghastly (and thus fortunately only occasional) mathematical typography.

See attached, all from a few pages concerning his work on Wittgenstein's ‘Tractatus’:

1. Use of text figures makes + and = too high, and the no space before =.

2. ‘v’ (letter) instead of ‘∨’ (logical or).

3. Use of italic parenthesis in maths.

I don’t fault the author, who is not a mathematician. But I thought Oxford University Press had standards.

#typography #pedantry #rant

Reading Cheryl Misak’s biography of Frank Ramsey (1903–30), who made important contributions to mathematics, philosophy, and economics before his untimely death [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_P._Ramsey]. (E.g. Ramsey theory is named for him and #Wittgenstein and #Keynes talked to him as an equal.)

So far, it is very good, but I have been repeated jarred out of my reading by the ghastly (and thus fortunately only occasional) mathematical typography.

See attached, all from a few pages concerning his work on Wittgenstein's ‘Tractatus’:

1. Use of text figures makes + and = too high, and the no space before =.

2. ‘v’ (letter) instead of ‘∨’ (logical or).

3. Use of italic parenthesis in maths.

I don’t fault the author, who is not a mathematician. But I thought Oxford University Press had standards.

#typography #pedantry #rant

Reading Cheryl Misak’s biography of Frank Ramsey (1903–30), who made important contributions to mathematics, philosophy, and economics before his untimely death [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_P._Ramsey]. (E.g. Ramsey theory is named for him and #Wittgenstein and #Keynes talked to him as an equal.)

So far, it is very good, but I have been repeated jarred out of my reading by the ghastly (and thus fortunately only occasional) mathematical typography.

See attached, all from a few pages concerning his work on Wittgenstein's ‘Tractatus’:

1. Use of text figures makes + and = too high, and the no space before =.

2. ‘v’ (letter) instead of ‘∨’ (logical or).

3. Use of italic parenthesis in maths.

I don’t fault the author, who is not a mathematician. But I thought Oxford University Press had standards.

#typography #pedantry #rant

Reading Cheryl Misak’s biography of Frank Ramsey (1903–30), who made important contributions to mathematics, philosophy, and economics before his untimely death [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_P._Ramsey]. (E.g. Ramsey theory is named for him and #Wittgenstein and #Keynes talked to him as an equal.)

So far, it is very good, but I have been repeated jarred out of my reading by the ghastly (and thus fortunately only occasional) mathematical typography.

See attached, all from a few pages concerning his work on Wittgenstein's ‘Tractatus’:

1. Use of text figures makes + and = too high, and the no space before =.

2. ‘v’ (letter) instead of ‘∨’ (logical or).

3. Use of italic parenthesis in maths.

I don’t fault the author, who is not a mathematician. But I thought Oxford University Press had standards.

#typography #pedantry #rant

Lire, interpréter, déconstruire : de Machiavel à Gadamer

Lire un texte, ce n’est pas extraire des données : c’est entrer dans un dialogue avec lui, examiner ses présupposés, ses non-dits et sa grammaire. De Ricœur à Derrida, de Wittgenstein à Gadamer, le sens apparaît comme une relation vivante, jamais comme une évidence brute. #Hermeneutics #Deconstruction #Wittgenstein #Gadamer #Philosophy L’idée de départ est simple : lire n’est pas consommer de l’information, mais…

https://homohortus31.wordpress.com/2026/08/03/lire-interpreter-deconstruire-de-machiavel-a-gadamer/

Language is overrated. In this Substack piece, I scrutinise language and the fact that much of language is extraneous. As for spoken language, many utterances are not strictly necessary, though they are functional.

https://brywillis634737.substack.com/p/pass-the-salt

I shake hands with #Austin, #Derrida, #Searle, #Wittgenstein, #Nietzsche, and #Barthes on this journey – even a bout with #Pinker.

#philosophy #language #languageinsufficiency #salt #justice #blog #podcast #artificialintelligence #robots #parsing

Update to ‘An Annotated Mathematician’s Apology’, with a new section on Wittgenstein’s response: https://archive.org/details/hardy_annotated (accessible #TaggedPDF, #OpenAccess)

My thanks go to Wolfgang Kienzler, professor at Friedrich Schiller Universität in Jena, who pointed me to Wittgenstein’s remarks, sent me notes about relevant sources, and critiqued my draft for the new section.

#GHHardy #Wittgenstein #philosophy #mathematics #MathematicalBeauty

Entre foi et savoir

Le savoir scientifique s’appuie sur des preuves, des démonstrations, des faits vérifiables, tandis que la foi religieuse accepte ce qui ne peut être prouvé, voire ce qui dépasse la raison. Est-ce vraiment deux concepts opposés ?

Toute démarche scientifique repose sur des postulats que la science elle-même ne peut justifier sans circularité. Par exemple, l’uniformité de la nature qui implique que les lois physiques sont stables dans le temps et l’espace. C’est ce qui autorise l’induction, mais l’induction, comme la démontrée Hume, ne peut le prouver. Il y a aussi la fiabilité de nos facultés cognitives, car c’est par nos sens et notre raison que nous avons accès à quelque chose de réel. Il y a aussi la croyance en une rationalité du monde, qu’il y a un ordre là dehors, et que les mathématiques peuvent le saisir. Einstein lui-même notait que « ce qu’il y a d’incompréhensible dans l’univers, c’est qu’il soit compréhensible. »

Ces postulats ne sont pas des hypothèses scientifiques, ils sont les conditions de possibilité de la science. Ils relèvent d’une confiance fondatrice, d’un pari sur l’intelligibilité du réel.

Dans « De la certitude », Wittgenstein observe que tout savoir repose sur un fond de certitudes non questionnées, non pas parce qu’elles auraient été prouvées, mais parce qu’elles forment le lit de la rivière sur lequel l’eau du doute peut s’écouler. Remettre en cause ces certitudes de base ne serait pas un acte de rigueur, mais une dissolution du jeu de langage lui-même.

C’est une forme de foi, pas théologique, mais structurelle. Nous avons une confiance dans le cadre qui rend possible toute question.

Ainsi, on peut envisager que le savoir repose bien sur une forme de foi de nature épistémique, structurelle, qui est la confiance préréflexive dans l’intelligibilité du réel, dans la fiabilité de la raison, dans la continuité de la nature.

Toutefois, nous devons reconnaître que ce n’est pas la même foi que celle du croyant devant le mystère. Encore là, cette foi n’est pas un simple vide de savoir, c’est une base de savoir expérientiel sur lequel toute certitude s’édifie.

Une chanson de Peter Gabriel – i/o 

Les paroles sur https://www.letras.com/peter-gabriel/io/traduction-francaise.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y9KxnMnNUPc&list=RDy9KxnMnNUPc&start_radio=1

Par Daniel Jean dans Voies (x) de passage

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Come for kite aerial photos and a new word - stay for aerial (as in 'full of air') philosophy and a kite-flying Wittgenstein!

https://kapjasa.si/en/contemplating-apricity/

#kiteaerialphotography #kite #kites #aeria #words #birds #philosophy #Wittgenstein #Heraclitus #apricity #marsh #LjubljanaMarshes #Slovenia

If you're on Tiktok I'm doing a series on the Correspondence Theory of #Truth in #philosophy https://vm.tiktok.com/ZGdrQPxaD/

Covered so far: #Aristotle #Aquinas #Wittgenstein #Daston #Heraclitus

You can tell #Kuhn is thinking of #Wittgenstein, PI here: "to imagine a language means to imagine a form of life." This is from "Scientific Knowledge as Historical Product," 1977, first essay in The Essential Tension and also in The Last Writings of Thomas S. Kuhn.

#philosophy of #science @philosophy @science

Can recommend this article on #Mises/#Hayek in the LRB https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v45/n03/jonathan-ree/opium-of-the-elite Interesting that Hayek opposed #scientism but that there's no mention of his cousin, #Wittgenstein, who also opposed it, for different (better) reasons