tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11295909.post1253836214258851121..comments2024-02-23T03:28:33.435-05:00Comments on Culture Industry: Wittgenstein & biographyMark Scrogginshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01431113440875342809noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11295909.post-15868140177006460972008-11-17T00:34:00.000-05:002008-11-17T00:34:00.000-05:00Also (very belatedly): I smell a rat in Cavell's a...Also (very belatedly): I smell a rat in Cavell's anecdote. Detecting that one note has been altered by a half-step is a matter of having a good ear, not of artistic sensitivity. Put the other way, one can imagine Bloch reharmonizing a chorale, less well than Bach; but this could hardly be a matter of just a half-step change in one note.<BR/><BR/>I know you're a musician -- did you take classical music theory? I suspect Cavell remembered Bloch's remark at the end and fabricated the details.Vance Maverickhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07477306994564623348noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11295909.post-30832518964396104382008-11-16T00:27:00.000-05:002008-11-16T00:27:00.000-05:00Ah, thanks, there it is ("philosophical biography"...Ah, thanks, there it is ("philosophical biography") earlier in the sentence, though not self-evidently in apposition.<BR/><BR/>Book on biography? Do it!Vance Maverickhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07477306994564623348noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11295909.post-55270300388738948072008-11-14T22:30:00.000-05:002008-11-14T22:30:00.000-05:00I guess, Norman, that the question – raised devil&...I guess, Norman, that the question – raised devil's advocately – is probably unfair, as it plays on a false analogy with the ancient notion of philosophy as something *lived* as well as *thought*, & I'm not at all clear that there's a tradition of *being* a poet that goes deeper than the functional act of making poems. But oddly enough it's something I've begun to think about in connection with a (possible, tentative) book on biography.<BR/><BR/>Vance – "Late James ain't in it" – brilliant phrase: Gang of Four meets The Master of the passive voice. I take it that by "alternative genre" Conant – no Jonathan Swift, he – means no more than "a genre other than philosophical biography." His 30 pages are devoted to answering 2 questions: Is philosophical biography possible? and Can it be a good thing? Answers: Yes, it's possible because it exists (flawless logic, no?); and maybe, probably, I think so, but since I can't prove it I'll leave it up to my readers to decide. <BR/><BR/>Small wonder academic philosophy in the USA has such a sterile reputation.Mark Scrogginshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01431113440875342809noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11295909.post-5538370670905392032008-11-14T20:23:00.000-05:002008-11-14T20:23:00.000-05:00Did, say, Jack Spicer make more of a "poem" of his...<I>Did, say, Jack Spicer make more of a "poem" of his life than Louis Zukofsky did?</I><BR/><BR/>Were Spicer's writings more "poems" than Zukofsky's were? I suspect if we don't know how to judge the appropriateness of the term in its literal sense, our grasp on the figurative application can only be weaker.<BR/><BR/>That Conant passage is indeed on the outer margins of legibility, for me, anyway. Late James ain't in it. Do you know what he means by "alternative genre"? Alternative to standard-biographical, or to standard-philosophical, or ...?Vance Maverickhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07477306994564623348noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11295909.post-53384775923783267682008-11-14T10:21:00.000-05:002008-11-14T10:21:00.000-05:00Is there, I wonder, a way of "living" poetry? Did,...<I>Is there, I wonder, a way of "living" poetry? Did, say, Jack Spicer make more of a "poem" of his life than Louis Zukofsky did?</I><BR/><BR/>I find this sort of speculation irresistible but also somewhat scary, and perhaps ultimately imponderable. Consider, in addition to Zukofsky and Spicer, Stevens, or Dickinson, or Coleridge, or Rimbaud. Each one of the lives of the poets could lead us to a different conclusion, or maybe the same one: that there is a peculiar relationship between the poetry and the "poem of a life" that depends on an infinite number of variables, mainly historical and psychological, but even physiological (what if Olson was as short as Keats, or Keats as tall as Olson?). Then again, quite aside from the relationship of life to work, is there a way of "being poetically in the world"? And must one write poetry to live that way...?Norman Finkelsteinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03673105579717018812noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11295909.post-56179946736472993532008-11-13T18:08:00.000-05:002008-11-13T18:08:00.000-05:00a fun book John Heaton's and Judy Groves' WITTGEN...a fun book John Heaton's and Judy Groves' WITTGENSTEIN for Beginners<BR/><BR/>1994 ICON Books..<BR/><BR/>I see some of these "kids" imitating "Tractatus Logico-Philossophicus" not only it's form but it s content.. you know, that:<BR/><BR/>"5.251 A function cannot be its own argument, but the result of an operation can be its own basis."<BR/><BR/>also a terrific book Kenny's (editor of): The Wittgenstein Reader<BR/><BR/>what a life! "we" surely are lucky for this Gift of Wittgensein (could be a title for a book!Ed Bakerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11285310130024785775noreply@blogger.com