From LOJBAN@CUVMB.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU Sat Mar 6 22:49:27 2010 Return-Path: Delivered-To: veion@XIRON.PC.HELSINKI.FI Received: (qmail 6408 invoked from network); 10 Apr 1997 02:59:07 -0000 Received: from segate.sunet.se (192.36.125.6) by xiron.pc.helsinki.fi with SMTP; 10 Apr 1997 02:59:07 -0000 Received: from segate.sunet.se by SEGATE.SUNET.SE (LSMTP for OpenVMS v1.1a) with SMTP id <3.6235A230@SEGATE.SUNET.SE>; Thu, 10 Apr 1997 4:59:07 +0100 Date: Wed, 9 Apr 1997 17:43:13 -0500 Reply-To: Steven Belknap Sender: Lojban list From: Steven Belknap Subject: lujvo for philosphers X-To: LOJBAN@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu To: Veijo Vilva Content-Length: 1915 Lines: 32 Message-ID: >Wittgenstein died of prostate cancer in 1951. True. Wittgenstein was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 1949. Interestingly, although he said that "he had no desire to go on", he continued to work intensely on his philosophy until his death in 1951. He expressed feelings of alienation and longing for suicide throughout his career. His brother did commit suicide. The correct statement is thus "Wittgenstein was suicidal." rather than "Wittgenstein was a suicide." He did conclude that philosphical inquiry was a sign of mental illness, and appears to have met the DSM-IV criteria for severe depression. His work seems to have been an urgent attempt to correct cognitive distortions now considered diagnostic of depression. He earns my respect as the most honest philosopher I have read. Unfortunately, he lived and died prior to the development of cognitive psychotherapy or fluoxetine. Regarding the choice of tanru or lujvo for philosophy, I would suggest that some persons will choose metaphors which differ from those of other persons, and that these metaphors may reflect their cultural, intellectual, and linguistic biases. I see no problem with this whatsoever. In the process of distilling mutually agreeable lujvo, we may learn a lot about our unacknowledged biases. One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter. If one wants to refer to the concept represented by the English word "philosophy", I would suggest resorting to a fu'ivla. Same goes for words like "communism". If you construct a lujvo for these words, they will be very new concepts, as much of their meaning resides in their historical and linguistic context. "Biology" or "Statistics" on the other hand, are self-correcting, and their essence ought be straightforwardly expressable in a lujvo. Steven Belknap, M.D. Assistant Professor of Clinical Pharmacology and Medicine University of Illinois College of Medicine at Peoria