"His account of the nature of philosophy is Wittgensteinian through and through. It’s a conception of philosophy which regards philosophical problems as confusions in language rather than deep mysteries encountered in the world. The job of the philosopher is to make these conceptual errors clear to us and in so doing help us out of our muddles. Philosophical questions aren’t solved; they’re dissolved. There is knowledge here, in a sense, but it’s not the sort of knowledge most philosophers think they are pursuing." - James Garvey

One of the benefits of using the Internet that set it apart from the media of the past is the ease with which it allows one to cross-relate seemingly disparate bits of information into a personalised set of assimilated ideas. A case in point is made up of the two articles in the 'Nota Bene' section of this website. I found the two separate articles interesting enough in themselves to have them registered as notable links but individually I couldn't quite absorb what they might mean to me until a common thread appeared upon reading again the part about language in the above quote.

With the links provided, please see the articles and the video in question for yourselves but when taken in together, all three pieces support the case for free thinking and poetic expression as necessary counterpoints to scientific reasoninng in reaching in one's mind what are essentially moral decisions:

Jame Garvey - article - Hacker's Challenge
'Double life' ad critics: get a life!
Daylesford. Lead a Double Life. - Promo Video

What worries most people, it seems to me, is the idea of corruption and its consequences. The idea that certain expressions are per se 'offensive'. Religious faith in most people's heads comes with a certain language of behavioural restrictions and perhaps even a dress code. The aim of faith in most people's minds seems to be that of being a good and kindly human being without questioning why it must be 'just so'. Did Jesus or Buddha intend their teachings to become rules or were they talking about methodoligies in harnessing God's gift of free will? By policing sin, do we automatically become 'good'. "Confusions in language" are no doubt in a state of symbiosis with confusions in the mind of which the greatest would be - envy and prejudice.

The creators of the Dayleford 'Double Life' ad got it right with its slogan in that they get a double kick at the public. The ad features contrasting caricatures of the same person; one as a virgin and the other as a vamp. Now clearly this is a provocation and they know it. At the same time they are also saying that anyone who dares to find this ad touching on their sensibilities is a censuring bore and thus they can get stuffed anyway. The advertising man wins either way by challenging both our presumptions and our self esteems. We do find the ad uncomfortable because we are somewaht overcome by the rawness of the contrast and mixed messages but we accept its validity since in modern society ambiguity has become a sign of an elevated artistic event. The question here is not whether it is right or wrong to depict situations of a contrasting moral kind but whether it is good or bad advertising to attach spiritual concerns to attracting tourism. The simple message being that at Daylesford you can be recreated by spiritual cleansing and getting laid at the same time. The complex message is that you can combine the two and feel great afterwards but only if you had the good sense to realise that it is only possible by visiting Daylesford. The ad takes the idea that sex sells to another absurd level altogether but whether intentionally or not, the sumptious graphic material in the film clip does raise interesting issues about the relationship between fun and faith.

Of course one can think too much as did Wittgenstein to a point whereby at the ultimate synthesis can seem absurdly simplistic. So instead of allowing the public to 'unpack' for themselves a series of reasoning a later philosopher such as Hacker has to 'repack' something into what the great original thinker might have intended by such truist statement as "Objects form the substance of the world." Interestingly Wittgenstein regards language as pertaining only to descriptions of substantive things and so deduces that confusion in language comes through the natural limits of using words only to describe metaphysical thoughts. What's interesting is how he ignores the role of versification in reorganising the normal patterns of flow. Apart from the seeming absense of literary concerns in Wittgenstein, what interest us mostly at this time in history is whether we could get him to help us through the growing divide between faith and scientism. Is it a philosophical problem that is occurring through a confusion about the words faith and science themselves and by association, theism and atheism? Have the dictionaries got them wrong in associating the latter words with belief and non-belief. Is it about belief or about the nature of truth?

Let's extend the Daylesford story. A young attractive girl goes to Daylesford, in the Australian state of Victoria and it seems like she is there for a Christian baptism but just for a lark the night before, she gets dressed to kill and goes out for her share of the action. She then just happens to meet a really cool guy at the restaurant to whom she is immediately attracted and later takes events to their logical conclusions. She turns up the next morning all dressed in white cotton, goes down to the river to pray and gets baptised by dunking: in the same water where the night before she might have bathed naked with her new boyfriend. Are the two events mutually exclusive perforce? To put the question in a more allusive way, had she tainted the very same water with which she was reborn a Christian? In whose eyes would she be a hypocrite? In a sense, to a Christian, water is more than just mere water. It is the stuff of holiness into which one is immersed but it is a clerical interpretation that somehow the water must therefore be pure. To that extent the Dayleford ad for its effect plays with the mindset of anglophone societies conditioned heavily by moral polarity and behavioural extremes that is the consequence of a peculiarly puritan interpretation of humanity. Virtue is equated with physical purity and sin with filth. The ad-maker thinks it's clever but in fact, it is only comprehensible within a narrow Christianesque cultural context.

A theist knows that he is engaged in a relationship with a complex set of mental and emotional conditioning that living with God impells. It's really not enough just to say that one is simply a 'believer' in God, as the dictionary indicates or indeed to think of oneself simply a 'good' person who will never do anyone or anything any harm. Perhaps this is the fatal presumption that precedes disbelief. This is an example of the Wittgensteinian confusion of language. One ends up arguing about the dynamics of the disagreements over the meanings of the words like 'belief' and 'good' instead of discussing God. Our spiritual focus ought not be about whether we believe in something or not, it ought to be about necessity: who we are, how we live and what we do. If this research compels a reference to a higher state of cosmic organisation, then God reveals himself in all his guises. All the rest is merely speculation.

In my little bit of understanding, if Wittegenstein is a precursor to de-constructivism, then the latter version of linguistic philosophy seems rather superfluous. In architecture, the facile application of fashionable ideas disconnections gratuites has only had a devastating effect on our collective sense of balance: a case of too much fun and no faith. It's not an accident that one of its celebrated exponents has as a surname Fuksas.