Seeking the Principles of Power and Danger

The following quote relays an anecdote with regards to Piero Sraffa and his influence upon Ludwig Wittgenstein. I’ve hear of a similar story in which Wittgenstein was supposedly sent into a tailspin over a cyclist’s contemptuous gesture that he felt belied his work in the “Tractatus Logico Philosophicus”. Anyways, here it is: “Wittgenstein was insisting that a proposition and that which it describes must have the same 'logical form', the same 'logical multiplicity', Sraffa made a gesture, familiar to Neapolitans as meaning something like disgust or contempt, of brushing the underneath of his chin with an outward sweep of the finger-tips of one hand. And he asked: 'What is the logical form of that?'” -Norman Malcolm. Ludwig Wittgenstein: A Memoir . pp. 58–59. Perhaps I’m mistaken, but Sraffa’s gesture to Wittgenstein is not a proposition. By definition, a proposition is a statement that functions as a truth-claim. Sraffa’s gesture is more akin to a negation and...

"People say reading Nietzche (sic) changed me". Drawn by Ann Debono, March 30th, 2007. Update (13/04/2016): some newer stuff from Ann: here .

“When we reflect on this struggle, we may console ourselves with the full belief, that the war of nature is not incessant, that no fear is felt, that death is generally prompt, and that the vigorous, the healthy, and the happy survive and multiply.” - Charles Darwin (1). Darwin of course was unjustified in his belief; fear seems to be the most universal of emotions both for human beings and the greater animal kingdom. This emotion though is not simply reserved in human life in the struggle for existence; we feel fear and anxiety when we make choices about the direction of our lives. This is our struggle for meaning. The current piece will focus on discourses of and relevant to that struggle and concepts surrounding it. Linking discourses diverse as logic and the Abrahamic religions to find the structure of this struggle. In ‘Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus’ Wittgenstein argued that: “Propositions cannot represent the logical form: this mirrors itself in the propositions” (2).T...