From lojban-out@lojban.org Mon Sep 16 03:04:36 2002 Return-Path: X-Sender: lojban-out@lojban.org X-Apparently-To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Received: (EGP: mail-8_1_1_3); 16 Sep 2002 10:04:35 -0000 Received: (qmail 89306 invoked from network); 16 Sep 2002 10:04:35 -0000 Received: from unknown (66.218.66.217) by m4.grp.scd.yahoo.com with QMQP; 16 Sep 2002 10:04:35 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO digitalkingdom.org) (204.152.186.175) by mta2.grp.scd.yahoo.com with SMTP; 16 Sep 2002 10:04:35 -0000 Received: from lojban-out by digitalkingdom.org with local (Exim 4.05) id 17qslT-0002iz-00 for lojban@yahoogroups.com; Mon, 16 Sep 2002 03:05:59 -0700 Received: from digitalkingdom.org ([204.152.186.175] helo=chain) by digitalkingdom.org with esmtp (Exim 4.05) id 17qskp-0002iX-00; Mon, 16 Sep 2002 03:05:19 -0700 Received: with ECARTIS (v1.0.0; list lojban-list); Mon, 16 Sep 2002 03:05:18 -0700 (PDT) Received: from manyas.bcc.bilkent.edu.tr ([139.179.30.24]) by digitalkingdom.org with esmtp (Exim 4.05) id 17qskm-0002iN-00 for lojban-list@lojban.org; Mon, 16 Sep 2002 03:05:16 -0700 Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by manyas.bcc.bilkent.edu.tr (Postfix) with ESMTP id D8F4512B78 for ; Mon, 16 Sep 2002 13:03:45 +0300 (EEST) Received: from bilkent.edu.tr (neo.fen.bilkent.edu.tr [139.179.97.69]) by manyas.bcc.bilkent.edu.tr (Postfix) with ESMTP id BA2D212B66 for ; Mon, 16 Sep 2002 13:03:43 +0300 (EEST) Message-ID: <3D85D7BF.6040808@bilkent.edu.tr> Date: Mon, 16 Sep 2002 16:08:15 +0300 User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.0.0) Gecko/20020529 X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: lojban-list@lojban.org Subject: Re: positivist philosophy (was: Re: [lojban] Re: Le Petit Prince: Can we legally translate it?) References: <02091600540900.01109@linux> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-MIME-Autoconverted: from quoted-printable to 8bit by Ecartis X-Virus-Scanned: by AMaViS snapshot-20020300 X-archive-position: 1231 X-ecartis-version: Ecartis v1.0.0 Sender: lojban-list-bounce@lojban.org Errors-to: lojban-list-bounce@lojban.org X-original-sender: robin@bilkent.edu.tr Precedence: bulk X-list: lojban-list X-eGroups-From: robin From: robin Reply-To: robin@bilkent.edu.tr X-Yahoo-Group-Post: member; u=116389790 X-Yahoo-Profile: lojban_out Björn Gohla wrote: > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- > Hash: SHA1 > > On Friday 13 September 2002 03:41, pycyn@aol.com wrote: > [...] > >>Nice if we can get modern stuff, but things out of copyright range from >>unintelligible to clearly abominations -- especially the stuff in English. > > > our considerations are probably quite insignificant, since deciding what to > translate will be up to the translator, who i would expect to be at least > somewhat knowledgeable about the subject treated of. > > >>>Among modern philosophers, I would presume from references in Usenet >>>discussions that Wittgenstein is probably the most widely read, with there >>>being much reference to Popper for falsifiability in philosophy of science, >>>though I don't think many have actually read him. (I've never read either >>>and have no idea whether they are positivists.) Wittgenstein was briefly associated with the positivist circle in Vienna, but was never really a positivist. > > if you looked into a wittgenstein group i would suspect many people there > read some of his works. > > >>>The problem is to find things to translate that people want to read. I >>>would be even less likely to read philosophy in Lojban than in English, and >>>I don't read it in English %^) >> >>I suspect Usenet has it about right. Mad Ludwig wrote only in German, so >>he might be a useful person for a German speaker to take on, if copyright >>allows, and much of Popper was originally German. Popper is clearly a >>positivist, Wittgenstein is proto- in the Tractatus and post- in the >>Investigations, with a bunch of papers that lie between. > > > my impression is there is quite a bit of hype about wittgenstein, which seems > not too unlikely considering what charismatic a person he was. the only thing > nice about his works is that everything is neatly numbered, so it can be > referred to, but his writing seems unnecessarily obscure. as was noted by > members of the vienna circle, he seemed to think everything as if for the > first time. i can not help but think that he was aware of how hard to > understand a writer he was. > > the first english translation of the tractatus logico-philosophicus was > furnished under the authors supervision, so assuming he had the final say as > to how it be translated, a lojban version might well be based in the english > edition. The Tractatus would be translatable. There are some later works in English (compiled from lecture notes) but Wittgenstein's later thinking on language would make translation into Lojban extremely difficult (zo'o if you could do it, it would probably prove W. wrong!). >>Mill is a possibility (picture of me at his statue somewhere or other -- I >>lose track), the earlier people are probably not writing in modern English >>(most of Locke's stuff is not in Latin, Hobbes is fifty-fifty, and Berkeley >>and Hume wrote Latin not all all for anything interesting). The >>quarter-page sentences with six dependent clauses, stacked three deep was >>hard to read then (when people, lacking tv, had too much time) and >>impossilbe now. But it might go smoothly into Lojban, which si set up >>better for it than English. The preces might be good, but some much of the >>neat stuff is in the details. Hume's Dialogs on Natural Religion or >>Berkeley's Bewtween Hylas and Philonous might get around both those >>problems somewhat. The dialogues on religion might be a good choice - they are wirtten fairly simply, they're fun to read, and lojban might give some interesting nuances. > > > as above, it is the translators choice anyway. Of course, especially since it would not be an easy project. Writing original philosophy in lojban would be good, but again it's not easy. I tried (when my command of the languagewas much better than it is now) but gave up after lujvo-fatigue set in. robin.tr -- "So I repeat myself? I am great, I contain tautologies." Robin Turner IDMYO Bilkent Üniversitesi Ankara Turkey http://www.bilkent.edu.tr/~robin