Blue and Brown Books
Preliminary Studies for the 'Philosophical Investigations'
by Ludwig Wittgenstein · first published 1942
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…since college, and have at this point read just about all of his work. I might suggest that people new to Wittgenstein start neither with the Tractatus nor with Philosophical Investigations, but with the Blue and Brown Books (you want the Blue part). These are lecture notes toward what would later become the PI. They're way less systematic than the big two, but they'll give you a great feel for Wittgenstein's thought. I'll…
on “The relentless honesty of Ludwig Wittgenstein (2017)” ↗Ludwig Wittgenstein - mainly Philosophical Investigations, Blue and Brown Books, and On Certainty. It gradually changed how I view the entire world around me, and dissolved my interest in philosophy, as well as in many other "sciency" things that - I realized - I was only interested…
on “Ask HN: What books changed the way you think about almost everything?” ↗- Book of the Subgenius - Meditations, Aurelius - Slaughterhouse-Five, Vonnegut - Blue and Brown Books, Wittgenstein - Stranger, Camus - Dhammapada, Buddha - Thus Spake Zarathustra, Nietzsche - Blue Cliff Record, Kequin - Trial, Kafka - Labyrinths, Borges
on “What Would You Recommend to a Bright 14 Year Old?” ↗…beyond the limits of their own knowledge by applying first principles to things they don't understand. This tends to take you a lot further than "here, learn this." Further reading on this: Wittgenstein: Blue and Brown Books (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_and_Brown_Books) Plato, Meno (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/1643/1643-h/1643-h.htm)
on “Why Experts Make Bad Teachers” ↗…Book was dictated between 1933 and 1934, and contains certain themes unaddressed in Wittgenstein's later works, including deliberations on thinking as operating with signs. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_and_Brown_Books
on “Amazing Source Code Related Easter Egg in Ex Machina” ↗He published Some Remarks on Logical Form in 1929. It's been 10 years since I was reading Wittgenstein, but my recollection is that work was still Tractarian. The blue and brown books came in the 30s.
on ““Time of the Magicians” – philosophy's great decade?” ↗Me too. My reading of the Blue and Brown books led me to believe Wittgenstein's conception of meaning is inextricably tied up with the notion of "learning" and exposure to language and its use. Rather than meaning being contingent on 'hard' logico-mathematical…
on “Deep Learning on Title and Content Features to Tackle Clickbait” ↗…subject. I was quite dismissive of him on LLMs until I realized the utter hubris and stupidity of dismissing Chomsky on language. I think it was someone asking if he was familiar with the Wittgenstein Blue and Brown books and of course because he as already an assistant professor at MIT when they came out. I still chuckle at my own intellectual arrogance and stupidity when thinking about how I was dismissive of Chomsky…
on “Chomsky on what ChatGPT is good for (2023)” ↗