Are you still climbing the ladder anon?
>>24926834Context vs Cast now the choice is yours
>>24926839Convince me on why Cast is the best option
>>24926845it's the same as context but you can reason with em
>>24926834I havent even started.How long does it take?
>>24926996You start with the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, he talks about propositions and logic which might take you a while if you are into metaphysics since the whole book is basically telling you that it is all just noise.Then you read Philosophical investigations which is what >>24926839 makes reference to, since Wittgenstein talks about a completely different model from the Tractatus once some cracks started to show (elementary propositions, Straffa's gesture) the key separating aspect of both works is that one talks about an absolute logical, universal form of communication and the other says that its actually thousands of local language-games all creating meaning. Basically its logical fundamentalists vs relativists.The whole ladder meme comes from the Tractatus (6.54) it could take you a month(s) if you want to really squeeze out every insight in it.
>>24926834Had he lived long enough, he would have realized that all the answers are in Plotinus.
>>24927780why plotinus and not any of the other (neo)platonists including plato himself?
>>24927842Because Plato never wrote down the deep stuff. The other Neoplatonists are also worth reading, but the key insights are mostly contained in the Enneads.
>>24927872You don't think that he was touching on some pretty heavy shit in Phaedo and Timaeus?As far as big witt goes, I think he (and many others) would have found clarity had Heraclitus and Parmenides' texts survived through the turbulence of history.
>>24927930>You don't think that he was touching on some pretty heavy shit in Phaedo and Timaeus?Oh, definitely. But he didn't explicitly lay it out, the way the Neoplatonists did. And also later thinkers like Ficino, Boehme, and Steuco. The 'Platonic Theology' is a multi-millennium effort that is still ongoing.
>>24927940There are days where I find the flexibility of neoplatonic thought and its seemingly inherent ability to find parallels within any of the major traditions to be some sort of proof of its veracity as the path to Truth. But then again I barely know enough to make a claim as grand as that one. It's all so daunting.
>>24926834the ladder metaphor is itself part of a private language so no I haven't used the ladder I don't even know what the ladder means.
>>24927969Yes, it provides, if not the truth itself, then the language and conceptual structure in which the truth is best articulated. Christ, though an article of faith rather than pure reason, fits in perfectly, as do the metaphysical insights of the Vedantic tradition.
>>24927994And in Islam through the Sufi and Shia sects.The thing is that it only makes sense on a purely conceptual level. There aren't many concrete and thoroughly detailed arguments for why it's relevant to our direct reality. Am I wrong?
>>24928009It helps to have had a spiritual awakening. Gnosis, moksha, etc. This results in a radical metaphysical reorientation from the outer to the inner. But it leaves unanswered how it is possible, how reality could be this way, if the external world is an elaborate illusion. Neoplatonism is a godsend in providing a framework that allows the intellect to wrap its head around what the Spirit has revealed.
>>24926834I'm not here as an assassin at present, that one was for the D&G anons. Lo and behold yon metaphysicians, philosophy posters, philosophasterers, and all the other sorts of posters. I said no start hylomorphism. I know, I know, it's always been, it's just like that other thing, I never escaped linguistic confusion. I've been working on it for some time and I may have let the beetle out but I wanted to offer something new to the world. I don't think I've encountered anything like it before. I broke the rule about not speaking of what one doesn't know. I don't even know if it can capture the human experience. It might be something new. That is all.
>>24928024I'm thinking Gnosis is only achieved after death
>>24928413That would be a false assumption. Many have awoken to the truth, and not just the great ancient mystics but many people alive today.
>>24928439How can you really trust them? Life is made out of swindlers. Even the spirits relish in being cosmic jesters.
>>24928444The Spirit of Truth is a very discerning guide.
This whole thread makes me feel fucking stupid
>>24930098dont worry wittgenstein also considered his work semi retarded
>>24930098they are all larping
>>24930098wait til you start reading tractatus beyond 20-30 pages
>>24930098Thanks for the compliment, brother
>>24927780I asked GPT-5.1 about this:Plotinus treats reality as an ordered outflow from a single, absolutely simple source he calls the One. He insists that this source is beyond being, quality, and knowledge, and that anything thinkable is already a step away from it. His most esoteric move is to treat the One not as a highest being among other beings but as an inexhaustible power whose sheer simplicity causes all plurality without undergoing any change itself. This makes the ultimate principle of the cosmos something that cannot be grasped conceptually but can only be approached through an inward ascent.He describes this ascent as a return of the soul to its own intellectual core. For Plotinus, intellect is not mere thinking but the living presence of all intelligible realities, each distinct yet unified. The soul becomes estranged when it orients itself toward multiplicity, sensation, and temporal flux; it begins to recover itself when it recognizes that its deepest activity is already rooted in an immaterial order that does not depend on the body. The esoteric dimension lies in his claim that the soul’s true identity is already in contact with the intelligible world and that self-knowledge, pursued rigorously, unveils this hidden continuity.He envisions the cosmos as a continuous hierarchy in which each level is the necessary expression of the level above it. Emanation is not an event in time but the consequence of metaphysical fullness: the One overflows into intellect, intellect into soul, and soul into nature. The hidden insight here is that reality is structured by degrees of unity, and that everything lower is an attenuated reflection of what is above. Understanding the visible world becomes an exercise in reading symbols of a more fundamental order, one that is always present but easily missed.He reserves his most elusive teaching for the experience he calls union with the One. Here the soul relinquishes even intellectual activity, since thinking requires distinction between thinker and object. In this moment, there is no vision of the One, because seeing would imply two. Instead, there is a suspension of all multiplicity, a stillness in which the soul discovers that its highest capacity is not to know the One but to be present to it beyond knowing. For Plotinus, this is the culminating insight: the structure of reality can be analyzed, but the ultimate principle can only be met in a state where analysis ceases.
>>24930612didnt read
>>24930612fucking embarrassing. get a grip.
>>24930612>I asked GPT-5.1 about this:Not bad. How'd you get it to ditch the usual annoying prose style?
