According to (later) Wittgenstein, philosophy is basically a bad habit that needs breaking.
It's funny how many years I had to spend in philosophy grad school to become "intellectually lazy".
It is my understanding that early Wittgenstein of the Tractatus was mostly critical of logical positivism as opposed to philosophy as a whole, and that late Wittgenstein of the Investigations embraced philosophical inquiry, only abandoning the idea of language as a precise tool (and in fact embracing it).
I have heard that Kierkegaard was one of his favorite philosophers, which challenges the idea that people seem to have of Wittgenstein as a precise purely logical thinker who disdained ambiguity.
The work of the philosopher consists in assembling reminders for a particular purpose.
A philosophical problem has the form: “I don’t know my way about”.
The problems, are solved, not by giving new information, but by arranging what we have always known. Philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of language.
For the clarity that we are aiming at is indeed complete clarity. But this simply means that the philosophical problems should completely disappear. The real discovery is the one that makes me capable of stopping doing philosophy when I want to.—The one that gives philosophy peace, so that it is no longer tormented by questions which bring itself in question.—Instead, we now demonstrate a method, by examples; and the series of examples can be broken off.—Problems are solved (difficulties eliminated), not a single problem. There is not a philosophical method, though there are indeed methods, like different therapies.
https://ia803103.us.archive.org/23/items/philosophicalinvest...
It's also the case that Wittgenstein left academic philosophy, as did Richard Rorty.
If you view the story of Wittgenstein and Rorty as primarily one of leaving academia, I believe you are telling on yourself.
I'm not sure why you're quoting the quote that I just quoted. I was hoping for an analysis.
> If you view the story of Wittgenstein and Rorty as primarily one of leaving academia, I believe you are telling on yourself.
I said that they left academic philosophy. Rorty didn't leave academia entirely. But yes, I left academic philosophy too, so in a sense I am telling on myself, though I don't accept the negative connotation.
And if you accept that you are telling on yourself, then don't you think it's awfully convenient that your perspective on philosophy as a discipline is a little skewed by personal hangups?
You still haven't said what you think it means!
> Wittgenstein loved philosophy
I think the phrase "loved philosophy" is way too vague to be informative.
> when people cherry pick his work
I picked some quotes for a Hacker News comment, necessarily brief. I also provided a link to the entire Philosophical Investigations, which I've course I've read more than once.
> dunk on the entire field.
The field of academic philosophy has a tendency to dunk on Wittgenstein. His previously biggest personal booster Bertrand Russell certainly did: "I have not found in Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations anything that seemed to me interesting and I do not understand why a whole school finds important wisdom in its pages." Many analytic philosophers feel the same way, ironically finding the Tractatus, which Wittgenstein repudiated, more to their liking.
They're probably correct to feel threatened. My own view, as I've stated, is that Wittgenstein's later work is a broad-based critique of philosophy, not aimed only at logical positivism, for example.
> skewed by personal hangups
What personal hangups do you mean?
I said that I left academic philosophy. After many years. I didn't say why. Do you think Wittgenstein and Rorty left academic philosophy due to personal hangups?