Summary of The Experiment
Wittgenstein's thought experiment goes as follows: Suppose there were an omniscient being who knew the position and movements of all of the physical bodies in the world (i.e. all of the natural properties of the world). Suppose further that this omniscient being wrote all of these natural facts in a large book, such that the book contained a thorough and comprehensive description of all of the things in the world. Wittgenstein argues that nothing in this book would even reference the idea of ethics or contain any statement that could logically be construed to imply an ethical judgment. His conclusion is that the concept of a moral fact is nonsensical, since even if one were to know every fact concerning the world that person still would not know anything factual about the realm of ethics.
Read more about this topic: Big Book (thought Experiment)
Famous quotes containing the words summary and/or experiment:
“Product of a myriad various minds and contending tongues, compact of obscure and minute association, a language has its own abundant and often recondite laws, in the habitual and summary recognition of which scholarship consists.”
—Walter Pater (1839–1894)
“Mathematics alone make us feel the limits of our intelligence. For we can always suppose in the case of an experiment that it is inexplicable because we don’t happen to have all the data. In mathematics we have all the data ... and yet we don’t understand. We always come back to the contemplation of our human wretchedness. What force is in relation to our will, the impenetrable opacity of mathematics is in relation to our intelligence.”
—Simone Weil (1909–1943)