Philosophie der InformationsgesellschaftPhilosophy of the Information Society

Beitrge der sterreichischen Ludwig Wittgenstein Gesellschaft

Contributions of the Austrian Ludwig Wittgenstein Society

Band XV Volume XV

Philosophie der Informationsgesellschaft

Beitrge des 30. InternationalenWittgenstein Symposiums

5. 11. August 2007 Kirchberg am Wechsel

Band XV

Herausgeber

Herbert HrachovecAlois Pichler Joseph Wang

Gedruckt mit Untersttzung der Abteilung Kultur und Wissenschaft des Amtes der N Landesregierung

Kirchberg am Wechsel, 2007 sterreichische Ludwig Wittgenstein Gesellschaft

Philosophy of the Information Society

Papers of the 30th International Wittgenstein Symposium

August 5 11, 2007 Kirchberg am Wechsel

Volume XV

Editors

Herbert Hrachovec Alois Pichler Joseph Wang

Printed in cooperation with the Department for Culture and Science of the Province of Lower Austria

Kirchberg am Wechsel, 2007 Austrian Ludwig Wittgenstein Society

Distributors

Die sterreichische Ludwig Wittgenstein Gesellschaft

The Austrian Ludwig Wittgenstein Society

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ISSN 1022-3398

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Copyright 2007 by the authors

Copyright will remain with the author, rights to use with the society. No part of the material may be reproduced or utilised in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, and informational storage and retrieval systems without written permission from the society.

Visuelle Gestaltung: Sascha Windholz

Druck: Eigner Druck, A-3040 Neulengbach

Inhalt / Contents

5

Inhalt / Contents

The Semantic Web in a philosophical perspectiveTerje Aaberge ............................................................................................................................................................................. 9

The balloon effect. Eight problems related to philosophy tyrannized by informationKrzysztof Abriszewski ............................................................................................................................................................... 12

Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darber hat Freud nicht geschwiegenJos Mara Ariso ....................................................................................................................................................................... 15

A Database for a Prototractatus Structural Analysis and the Hypertext Version of Wittgensteins TractatusLuciano Bazzocchi .................................................................................................................................................................... 18

Language games of literatureOndrej Beran............................................................................................................................................................................. 21

Risk and Technoscience in the Information SocietyEwa Binczyk.............................................................................................................................................................................. 24

Franz Brentanos philosophisches Werk im digitalen ZeitalterThomas Binder.......................................................................................................................................................................... 27

Philosophy, Spoken Word, Written Text and BeyondVaclav Brezina .......................................................................................................................................................................... 32

From HyperNietzsche to Discovery: Digital Semantic Corpora for Virtual Research in PhilosophyKatja Brunkhorst ....................................................................................................................................................................... 35

Privileged Access to Information: Dretskes Accounts of Self-KnowledgeKai-Yuan Cheng........................................................................................................................................................................ 38

Reading Wittgenstein: Texts, Contexts, and HypertextsIstvan Danka ............................................................................................................................................................................. 41

Philosophy and Computational OntologiesStefano David / Cesare Rocchi................................................................................................................................................. 44

Philosophy at the crossroads. Is it possible to love wisdom in the information age?Aleksandra Maria Derra ............................................................................................................................................................ 47

Substance and Phenomenology in TractatusDan Dusa .................................................................................................................................................................................. 50

Alles, was der Fall wird: Wittgenstein und die informatische Wende in der PhysikHarald Edelbauer ...................................................................................................................................................................... 53

Utilizing Experiences from Knowledgebay for Digital Wittgenstein ScholarshipChristian Eric Erbacher ............................................................................................................................................................. 56

How could he try to try to whistle it?Lemaire Francis Eric ................................................................................................................................................................. 59

On Roses, PI, and UnderstandingCraig Fox .................................................................................................................................................................................. 62

Annihilation der Zeit in der Informationsgesellschaft?Georg Friedrich ......................................................................................................................................................................... 65

Inhalt / Contents

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Medien & BildungMarek Graszewicz / Dominik Lewiski...................................................................................................................................... 68

Internet as a mediumMaurycy Adam Graszewicz ...................................................................................................................................................... 72

On the Very Idea of an Information SocietyHajo Greif .................................................................................................................................................................................. 75

Language Games and Serious Matters: Cultural Pluralism, Relativism and Rituals in the MediaOra Gruengard.......................................................................................................................................................................... 78

Ornamentality: A New Puzzle for the New MediaEran Guter ................................................................................................................................................................................ 81

Nichtsein und Grenze bei WittgensteinWodzimierz Heflik .................................................................................................................................................................... 84

Synergetic information society: from analogue to digital mindMarek Hetmanski ...................................................................................................................................................................... 87

Reasonable and Factive EntitlementsJih-Ching Ho ............................................................................................................................................................................. 90

From netocracy to network-shaped thinkingPhilip Jones............................................................................................................................................................................... 93

Die Helsinki-Edition der Philosophischen UntersuchungenPeter Keicher ............................................................................................................................................................................ 96

Wittgensteinian Will is Rousseauist WillLaurian Kertesz....................................................................................................................................................................... 100

Is There a Second Moral Life?Peter P. Kirschenmann ........................................................................................................................................................... 103

Understanding Knowledge SocietyEndre Kiss............................................................................................................................................................................... 106

Old Patterns, New BewitchmentsZsuzsanna Kondor.................................................................................................................................................................. 109

Forms of Life as Forms of CultureKristijan Krka / Josip Lukin .................................................................................................................................................... 112

Medienphilosophie als ethisches Projekt? Vilm Flussers WittgensteinMatthias Kro.......................................................................................................................................................................... 115

Wittgenstein registrierenWilhelm Krger ....................................................................................................................................................................... 119

Wittgensteinian Reflections on the Unavoidability of Gettiers CounterexamplesLev Lamberov ......................................................................................................................................................................... 122

Wittgensteins programme of a New LogicTimm Lampert ......................................................................................................................................................................... 125

The Erosion of CertaintySilvia Lanzetta......................................................................................................................................................................... 128

Wittgenstein and Logical AnalysisMontgomery Link .................................................................................................................................................................... 131

A Digital Turn In Philosophy and Wittgenstein about IsVladimir Olegovich Lobovikov................................................................................................................................................. 134

Wikiwebs fr KommunikationsprozesseMichael Luger / Andrea Adelsburg / Daniel Kuby / Daniel Schmid......................................................................................... 138

Farewell to the Resolute Reading of the Tractatus?Tuomas William Manninen...................................................................................................................................................... 141

Wittgenstein on the Meaning of Life: From Theory to TherapyMichael Maurer ....................................................................................................................................................................... 144

Inhalt / Contents

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(Re)-Constructing the Semantic Architecture of Wittgensteins Vermischte BemerkungenKerstin Mayr............................................................................................................................................................................ 147

Logic of finiteness: intellectual systems in the information era: 2. Limits to diversity, exactness, and economyLidia A. Mazhul / Vladimir M. Petrov ....................................................................................................................................... 150

Russell, Wittgenstein, and the Project for Analytic PhilosophyNikolay Milkov ......................................................................................................................................................................... 153

Internet: some collateral effectsFbio Jesus Miranda............................................................................................................................................................... 156

Wittgenstein versus Mauthner: Two critiques of language, two mysticismsElena Njera ........................................................................................................................................................................... 159

The Epistemology of Text Meaning: The Context is the Proof-Conditions Upon Which We Prove the Truth of Our Interpretation of the TextDan Nesher............................................................................................................................................................................. 162

Unnatural Nonsense? On the expectancy of consistency in the TractatusYrsa Neuman .......................................................................................................................................................................... 166

Ethical Tasks of Media Advocacy in the 21st CenturyGiridhari Lal Pandit ................................................................................................................................................................. 169

PhiloSURFical: browse Wittgensteins world with the Semantic WebMichele Pasin.......................................................................................................................................................................... 174

Logic of finiteness: intellectual systems in the information era: 1. Types of structural changes and tendenciesVladimir M. Petrov / Lidia A. Mazhul ....................................................................................................................................... 177

The Wikipedia: Knowledge as social, fallible, externalist and holisticManuel Pinedo-Garca / Cristina Borgoni-Gonalves, Granada, Spain.................................................................................. 180

Retrieving Culture from LanguageMarcos Paiva Pinheiro / Jorge Alam Pereira dos Santos, Braslia, Brazil .............................................................................. 183

Analytische Medientheorie? berlegungen zum Verhltnis von Medientheorie und analytischer PhilosophieMartin Pleitz ............................................................................................................................................................................ 185

Seeing-as and forms of lifeRegina Queiroz ....................................................................................................................................................................... 189

Medien zwischen Medien-, Wissenschafts- und TechnikphilosophieUlrike Ramming ...................................................................................................................................................................... 192

Scepticism and Later WittgensteinPriyambada Sarkar ................................................................................................................................................................. 196

Globalisierte Produktion von (akademischem) Wissen ein Wettbewerbsspiel.Ursula Schneider .................................................................................................................................................................... 199

Philosophy as Development of Conceptual TechnologiesMurilo Rocha Seabra / Marcos Paiva Pinheiro ....................................................................................................................... 203

The Possibility and Limits of Communication: A Wittgensteinian PerspectiveRui Silva.................................................................................................................................................................................. 205

Re-Discovering WittgensteinDeirdre Christine Page Smith ................................................................................................................................................. 208

Ethics, Language and the Development of Wittgensteins Thought in Ms 139aDeirdre Christine Page Smith ................................................................................................................................................. 211

Wittgensteins Approach to the Language-Reasoning Use of PropositionsAlexandr Sobancev................................................................................................................................................................. 214

Storing, processing and transmitting linked chunks of structured textSindre Srensen ..................................................................................................................................................................... 217

Melvins A.I. dilemma: Should robots work on Sundays?Ivan Spaji / Josipa Grigi....................................................................................................................................................... 221

Inhalt / Contents

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What Do Digital and Linguistic Turns Have in Common?Marcin Trybulec ...................................................................................................................................................................... 224

Sraffas Impact on WittgensteinMatthias Unterhuber ............................................................................................................................................................... 227

Against the Idea of a Third WittgensteinNuno Venturinha ..................................................................................................................................................................... 230

Die subjektiven Wirklichkeiten einer WeltThomas Wachtendorf.............................................................................................................................................................. 233

Culture and Value Revisited Draft of a new electronic editionJoseph Wang .......................................................................................................................................................................... 236

Wittgenstein and Kant on Judgments of Taste: Situations versus FacultiesChristian Helmut Wenzel ........................................................................................................................................................ 239

A Note on Wittgenstein and NietzschePeter K. Westergaard ............................................................................................................................................................. 242

Diffidere aude Wahrheit im Internet und der Konsens der NetzgemeinschaftChristian Zelger....................................................................................................................................................................... 245

Utilizing OWL for Wittgensteins TractatusAmlie Zllner-Weber / Alois Pichler ...................................................................................................................................... 248

Spontaneous Orders in Social Capital ArchitectureGloria L. Zuniga ...................................................................................................................................................................... 251

21

Language games of literature

Ondrej Beran, Prague, Czech Republic

Language games are bound to particular contexts. An utterance (a move in the game) is made under certain input circumstances and has certain practical purpose. The use of language in a game is governed by rules. They are not explicit (they are learned practically, as a skill) but perhaps they can be expressed explicitly ex post. I.e.: (almost) everyone is able to form sentences understood by others in the intended sense and to use them in such situations, in which they are usually (correctly) used. But not everyone is able to state explicitly, how a correctly formed expression is to be recognized, and what are the rules of its correct usage. Can we at least potentially grasp explicitly the rules of the correct formation and the correct usage of the expressions of any language game? (and are there always any such rules at all? cf. Wittgen-stein 2005, p. 25)

A popular counterexample i.e. of a game, that is no doubt meaningful, but its rules cannot be grasped ex-plicitly (as it seems) is literature. This is so in two senses. Firstly concerning the rules of the correct formation and the correct usage of literature (i.e.: what can be taken as litera-ture?); secondly concerning the rules of the right usage of value judgments like This is a beautiful poem. However, we presume that literature can be distinguished meaning-fully from non-literature, as well as good literature from bad one.

The problem may be trivial: for there is a lot of in-structions for the creative writing, and a lot of theories in aesthetics, philosophy of art, theory of literature. The diffi-culty lies in the abundance. The rules of the correct use of the language game of shopping in a store seem to be rather simple and uniform; whereas the existing rules of the right literature production and the right evaluation defi-nitely not.

If we want to keep the view that literature nonethe-less is a meaningful language game, we must demonstrate that its possible to distinguish between literature and non-literature as well as between big and not big even if the borderline wasnt sharp. But the game of literature is not like the others. So the distinction literary/non-literary will probably differ, too.

The idea, that the language of literature differs from any other use of language, is not unusual. For example Heidegger says that whereas poetry (and art) just shows, reveals things in their pure existence, as they are, the ordinary language expresses and shapes the whole of the interpretation of this world, which is a system of practicalconnections and consequences. (Heidegger 1977 34; 1954, p. 190ff)

This is surely an impressive view, but also literature (and the theory of literature) has its position in the context of our practical experience (the word literature has a more or less definite meaning, that one can learn). Practi-cal does not mean that the use of a literary language ex-pression or of an esthetical judgment can bring us some immediate (physical?) benefit. This cannot be said about many linguistic activities, including the non-literary ones. Practical means here, that also literature and aesthetics originate in some intersubjective frame of circumstances and consequences and must obey some rough rules in order to get into this frame. What we call literature must

fulfill some formal necessities (it is a language unit, either printed on a paper, or traded orally) and is usually received in a certain manner it is read or listened to under certain circumstances: if the recipients have time and mind for it, if they want to evoke some mood or effect, and so on. These criteria are not unlimited: in a certain mood, under certain circumstances, or in order to evoke some effect, literature is just not used for example in the army, if a private asks an officer for/tells him anything, he definitely does not use a language manner that we usually call literary. What we qualify as literature, has a restricted use (lets say in the sense sketched above).

But if we try to understand literature this way, prob-lems arise. For this is a sketch of the rules of the usage of the literary language game; and the rules of the correct formation of the expressions are not touched. Bring me sugar is definitely a correctly formed sentence, that can be used correctly under certain circumstances (and under some others not). Milk me sugar seems not to be a cor-rectly formed sentence. But it can be meaningfully used, as well as the seemingly incorrect sentence the slithy toves did gyre and gimble in the wabe namely just as literature. And this is the problem. In any other language game as it seems the correct formation of the expres-sions is a prerequisite for possible meaningful and correct usage. In the literary language game, the correct usage becomes independent from the correct formation of the expressions. Perhaps the notion of the correct formation loses its sense at all within literature? (cf. Wittgenstein 1958, 498)

Literature seems to be an open and dynamic game. We cannot say in advance, what is a correctly formed liter-ary language expression, we cannot also state easily (if at all), which language phenomena dont belong into litera-ture. We have seen that under normal circumstances a correctly formed expression is one that can be used mean-ingfully in a language game. But imagine the most improb-able expression from the most distant context (mathemat-ics, warfare, chemistry, economy, sport, ...) we can never say it cannot be used in the literary language game (in a literary work, even in a good one) and who knows: maybe it has already been used... An astonishing result seems to follow from this: the language game of literature encapsulates somehow (in potentia?) all the other games.

We can say, in a sense, that the distinction between literary and non-literary differs from most of other distinc-tions between something and non-something. When something is qualified as not big, it cannot be qualified as big in the same meaning. This is an idealization, too. The cellular phones in 1995 were not big in comparison with those in the year 1990, but are big in comparison with the present types. The concrete use of almost all concepts changes through time. But this process is extremely rapid in the case of literature it seems to subvert over and over a possible distinction between literary and non-literary. It is noteworthy that this process does not proceed in both directions. We can state, that some language move was a non-literary one, but in the very same moment it can be incorporated in a literary work and become literary. Non-literary seems to tend steadily into literature. But not in the reversed direction. From this reason, we cannot state firmly what is literary is the sentence I like yellow

Language games of literature Ondrej Beran

22

cats a literary one? Nobody knows (whereas we can much rather state, whether it can be a scientific sentence or an army one). But once something is admitted offi-cially as literary (like To be or not to be... ), can it be non-literary anymore? So we can say what is non-literary, but not always what is literary; and literature seems to occupy more and more the position of non-literature. So: isnt there anything paradoxical in what we call literature? (One can say: when everything becomes literature, noth-ing will be literature anymore.)

As well as all the language games, literature should have its rules, too in order to be a language game at all. The rules are established by means of a custom or institu-tion, which is intersubjective (Wittgenstein 1958, 199). Grammatical sentences (rules) seem to be fixed, whereas the ordinary sentences not. Of course, rules change, too. However, the dynamics of their change is much slower. They are almost in all cases implicit they are often even not perfected. There can be language games that are meaningful only more or less. And their rules are made up (or changed) as we go along. (Wittgenstein 1958, 83) In a sense, literature proves itself to be just this type of language game.

The non-literary language moves (like Two pints of beer, please) also can be made under very various cir-cumstances and for very various goals. But their use is more correct in certain contexts and less correct in other contexts. The sentence is uttered more naturally by someone sitting in a beer house, having a certain ex-pected result (two pints of beer brought), than lets say by a student in an university lecture about mathematics. But this doesnt mean, that the latter utterance cannot be meaningful that it cannot cause the effect, for which it was directly designed and planned by the speaker the deportation of the speaker from the lecture hall by the uni-versity security guard, for example. The difference be-tween meaningfulness of these two kinds is actually not qualitative, I think (not so Wittgenstein see 1958, 498). The first type of use is so to speak a default one, whereas the second is deviant but both are meaningful in their appropriate way. We can talk about default use of literature, too. A sonnet about moonlight can be foisted into a company annual report or declaimed to the sales-man in a food store (to the question, what I would like) but this is a less default (and in this sense less meaning-ful) use of literature.

In the case of literature, there is a strong zeal to state explicitly, what is literature and what is not, and also what is its social purpose, so to speak. But once some-thing is stated explicitly, the subversive nature of literature manifests itself someone uses the definition and tries to create something that can be called literature, but is dif-ferent from the view of the theory of literature. Perhaps we can grasp the notion literature just by means of this crite-rion of its self-revaluating (hermeneutical) and rules-breaking nature. It is in a sense true; but not fully: literature cannot break all the limits, without measure otherwise the distinction between literature and non-literature would vanish at all. On the other hand, the distinction between literature and non-literature is not like the distinction be-tween big and not big: anything non-literary can become literary and to state what is literary is not easy.

This paradoxical nature of literature is probably what Heidegger had in mind: our non-literary language games and concepts are ruled by a certain pragmatical respect: the delimitation of the distinction big/not big can change in time, but not dramatically, it is rather fixed and sharp. This is mainly because big is a pragmatical concept, that we use to cope with pragmatical needs (cf. Rorty 1980). Literature doesnt function quite like this. Our literary lan-guage games dont cope with anything, at least not in the same way as the games operating with concepts like big or similar. Literature has a certain frame delimiting it from non-literature, and this frame is given intersubjectively, but compared to other coping-with games, that are rather sports (see Lance 1998), literature is a pure game, its notion is given by a pure convention (there is a very vague coping relation in its case, if any). However, the limit exists.

As this limit is given conventionally, it faces two problems: firstly, the subversive, self-hermeneutical nature of literature is still trying to reinterpret (or break) this limit. This activity is made possible both by the absence of a clear pragmatical coping-with function, and by many ex-plicit definitions of what (real, valuable, ...) literature is, purported by the theory of literature. And how can we ex-plain the fact that there are many examples of officially admitted literature, not trying to break the definition limits at all? Most of the literary production totally lacks this am-bition, and still is literature. This points to the second prob-lem of the conventional definition of literature. The fact is, that there is no one convention on what is literature, there are many, and each one quite probably has counterexam-ples (including the subversive/rules-breaking conception sketched above). The generality of the one word litera-ture proves itself to be misleading. We are tempted by our craving for generality to believe that there must be onecorresponding thing, as there is one word. But it is neither the case of Beauty or Good (see Wittgenstein 2005, p. 17f), nor of literature.

There is no one, but a plenty of games called litera-ture, bound with each other by the family resemblance. However, the nature of literature is queer literature, or rather some of the literary games behave parasitic with respect to the theory of literature. Whereas we can clear the darkness about Good, if we try to describe all the facets of the use of the word good and sometimes we can show this way that some particular uses of the word dont make sense literature behaves contrariwise. The attempts to grasp or describe the sense of literature cause a multiplication and some more complications in the family of literary language games.

We can conclude with the following remarks: the limit between literature and non-literature exists, but is somehow unilaterally open one can rather distinguish non-literature from literature than literature from non-literature. This is because some (hermeneutical) language games of literature still tend to reinterpret their own rules, or rather to extend them continuously into the realm of non-literature. Literature doesnt cope (directly?) with pragmatical needs like some other games, it is rather a more purely conventional game. So there are very many literary language games of a very large, complicated and diversified family. The activity of the theory of literature proves to be a Sisyphus work: it provides a material for further complication and diversification rather than a clear-ing.

Work on this paper was supported by the grant No. 401/03/H047 of the Grant Agency of the Czech Republic.

Language games of literature Ondrej Beran

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Literature

Heidegger, Martin 1954 Dichterisch wohnet der Mensch, in Vor-trge und Aufstze, Pfullingen.

Heidegger, Martin 1977 Sein und Zeit, Frankfurt a.M.

Lance, Mark 1998 Some Reflections on the Sport of Language, in James Tomberlin (ed.), Philosophical Perspectives, 12: Language, Mind, and Ontology, Oxford.

Rorty, Richard 1980 Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature, Prince-ton.

Wittgenstein, Ludwig 1958 Philosophische Untersuchungen, Ox-ford.

Wittgenstein, Ludwig 2005 The Blue and Brown Books, Oxford.

Email: ondrejberan@yahoo.com