Ludwig Wittgenstein, 1920 -1927
Of that which one cannot speak, one must be quiet.
Tractatus, 1919
I saw the naked wrestler in the street
artfully conceal his pain.
He imagined the slap-dash arbitrary cipher.
He couldn't speak the audible language,
his grammar lacked that sort of perspicuity,
the inherent assertion of the hesitant:
If it is possible for some to make a false move in
some game,
then it might be possible for everybody
to make nothing but false moves in every game.
Philosophical Investigations, 1953
If God suddenly gave the parrot understanding,
and it said these things to itself,
and I imagined its imagination,
would this be enough for you,
what it was like to know this?
And, if I am in this pain,
am I justified before you?
There is no sharp distinction between
a random mistake and a systematic one. P.I.
"Look what you've done!"
He doesn't understand...
What you are saying then comes to this:
a new insight - intuition - is needed at every step P.I.
putting indefiniteness into correct and unfalsified words
The naked wrestler's kinesthetic sensations
remind him of the necessary position of his limbs.
Sweat adds its sheen to the bricks.
by John Richards