MISFIT DOC: from the wittgenstein variations

Part Two

8.

Why are there rules for some?

Explain using examples from the Brief Gospel.

8.1

The decisive moment in the conjuring trick has been made, and it was the very one that seemed to us quite innocent.

8.1.1

What is your aim in philosophy?

To show the fly the way out of the bottle
or to help the butterfly flutter free from the pane?

8.2

seeing

not knowing

hearing

not believing

touching

not feeling

breathing

not speaking

tasting

not thinking

seeing

not believing

hearing

not feeling

touching

not speaking

breathing

not thinking

tasting

not knowing

etc.

9.

To become clear about the meaning of the word ‘think’ do we have to watch ourselves thinking?

9.1

What makes this note the epitome of this thought?

9.1.1

Can one think without speaking?

9.1.1.1

Is thinking a kind of speaking?

9.1.1.1.1

Imagine people who could only think aloud.

9.1.1.1.1.1

thinking

when writing

understanding

another’s words

by transcription

then the body

knows

9.1.1.1.1.1.1

If a lion spoke would we understand what the lion said?

9.2

Do you have the thought before finding the expression?

9.2.1

The thinking is in the doing.

9.3

the dogs of Marrakesh sing

no-one can hear them

10.

What sometimes happens might always happen.

10.1

God sees – but we don’t know.

10.1.1

a message is raining

10.2

glottal seized

one morning

claiming the unfinished

11.

Regard the words ‘to think’ as an instrument.

Play St Anthony’s Variations.

11.1

The chair is thinking to itself. What is it thinking? Don’t ask; a refusal may offend.

Part Four

empty handed

I entered the world

barefoot

I leave it

 

my coming

my going –

two simple happenings

that became

entangled     

 

Kozan Ichikyo 1360

14.1

every day

is the right day

cloud of mist

floating moon

 

15.

we lack the words

so why don’t we invent them

why are some things

‘beyond words’

 

have we lost

the look of words?

 

do the outer limits

of words

match the outer limits

of our understanding

clearly not

because we do not understand

everything (anything?)

by words

15.1

where is ‘our understanding’?

what is the purpose of the sky?

15.2

As If I Could Read the Darkness – a play in three acts.

15.2.1

the good

is divine

15.3

a fragment of silence

a theory of secrets

— at night

16.

Regard the language game as the primary thing. And regard the feelings, and so forth, as a way of looking at, interpreting the language game.

16.1

As a man can travel alone, yet be accompanied by my good wishes;

or as a room can be empty yet flooded with light.

16.1.1

No wonder one finds it difficult to know one’s way about.

16.1.2

Imagine a conversation between Beckett and Wittgenstein. Annotate.

16.1.2.1

Can’t go on as the shine fades; can’t not go on.

16.1.3

no

no

no

theory

that is not the exact thing

16.2

If you and I are to live religious lives

it mustn’t be that we talk a lot about religion

but that our manner of life is different.

16.2.1

philosophers tidy up a room

scientists build a house

of destruction

 

when the mechanicals take over

time for solitude

potter about

keep a distance

from construction

16.2.2

Everything is what it is and not another thing.

16.3

Goethe said: in the beginning was the deed.

16.3.1

the understanding

seeing connection

hence

 

connection between a word

and its meaning

found

not in theory

but in doing

in the use

of the word

16.3.1.1

practise in the dharma hall

16.3.1.2

alchemy of the tractatus

conjuring

base elements

then

crystal waves

17.

Tautology and contradiction are without sense.

17.1

Is mathematics truth or a series of techniques?

Prove algebraically.

17.1.1

all done with numbers

he says counting the leaves

17.2

Are ethics and aesthetics one?

Discuss citing Paul Valery.

17.2.1

Is death an event of life? Consider.

Is death lived through?

17.2.2

live eternally

live in the present

17.3

Does the solution to the riddle of life in space and time lie outside space and time? Take a voyage to the outer reaches of the solar system and think.

17.4

In King Lear the Earl of Kent says ‘I’ll teach you differences’. Consider given Wittgenstein’s problem with Shakespeare’s heart.

17.4.1

What does the sentence ‘I am afraid’ mean?

18.

Does God reveal himself (sic) in the world?

18.1

not how the world is

is the mystical

but that it is

 

feeling the world

as a limited whole

is the mystical

 

the inexpressible

showing itself

  • the mystical

19.

Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.

19.1

On the other hand I will have to wait,

because nothing is still very clear.

20.

Do not ask; give.

20.1

Is a doubt without an end a doubt?

Discuss with reference to Spinoza’s Ethics.

21.

The darkness of this time paid for by frivolous pride cheaply wrapped in cellophane isolated from God.

21.1

Wisdom is cold and to that extent stupid.

Faith on the other hand is passion.

21.2.

What marvellous light!

22.

How many deaths does it take to die?

22.1

Never lose the facts of the world.

22.2

A good life, he said, at last.

 

Colin Campbell Robinson is an Australian artist living on the Isle of Bute off the west coast of Scotland. Colin's work appears in a wide range of journals most recently in Glasgow Review of Books, A Bad Penny Review, Creative Literary Studio, Shearsman, BlazeVox17 and Ink Sweat and Tears. His book, Blue Solitude - a self-portrait in six scenarios, has recently been published by Knives Forks and Spoons Press. For further information about Colin visit http://www.move-in-pictures.com/move-in-pictures-home

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