Re: analytical vs continental philosophy & microsound

[david turgeon <david.t@xxxxxxxx>]

joshua,

> >as wittgenstein himself suggested (translating freely): "what you 
> >can't speak of, you mustn't speak of."
> Yes, but at the close of the "Tractatus," he lists the topics about 
> which one must remain silent, and these include most of the key areas 
> of philosophical inquiry (for example, aesthetics, the self, and 
> ethics, if I recall correctly after more than a decade).  To me - and 
> I realize many will disagree with this reading - this work is an 
> excercise in methodical exhaustion, in which an elaborate logical 
> exercise in pushed to a brilliantly tautological extreme at which 
> point one finds oneself to have reached the punch line of what must 
> be a joke:  none of what has gone before works within the philosophic 
> purpose.  

you will find the same punch line in the tao te ching, by the way,
though it might not be as obvious in certain translations.  (as a
sidenote, i'm patiently waiting for the translator who will have the
guts to translate "tao" for "movement" & rewrite the chaos theory in the process...)

the tractatus to me is not an end in itself but a tool to get somewhere,
philosophically.  i call it a philosophical grammar.  it is so basic &
modular that it can be the starting ground of pretty much anything.  the
possibility of deleuze is present in those last paragraphs of the
tractatus, but only in terms of, if i may repeat myself, an illustration
(a metaphor, a poem, a story...  remember that in antiquity, philosophy
was nearly undistinguishable from poetry...)  even wittgenstein's later
work & classes leaned more towards what we'd call a "continental"
method.  it certainly devotes a lot of time to pondering the ambiguities
that an analytical theory of language missed.

> In this sense the "Tractatus" distinguishes the logical 
> game from the philosophical game and hints that aesthetics (including 
> music) can indeed be discussed in philosophy but not inside of a 
> rigid and self-referential logic framework, and beyond that framework 
> Wittgenstein proceeded to go in his later work.

i agree with you.  & this also resolves the apparent contradiction
between the two schools.  they are not contradictory but complementary,
they do not speak of the same things, just as relativist & quantum
theories do not work with the same universes.  an analytical reading is
not enough & an illustration is not enough, but we have to be aware of
which is which.  this "schism" serves the purpose of a (later) synthesis
which would draw its sources from both schools.  which is, anyway, what
happens in most philosophers' work.  otherwise, nothing is being said,
there is no ground, no mirror, nothing to bounce on.  you can't have
manuel de landa without a solid analytical tradition, for one.

my point being, let's not dismiss analysis too quickly, although it may
not have much to say about the aesthetics of microsound other than f(x)
= x+1.  what analysis _is_ useful at is in pointing at fallacies which
are impossible to detect in a "continental" universe (indeed, "fallacy"
doesn't mean anything there.)  maybe that's a cumbersome heritage to
bear when trying to understand, eg. kim cascone's music, but it
certainly comes in handy when you watch the news or attempt a diplomatic
mediation, for example.

have a nice day
~ david