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Your Theory Sounds Good But Your House Just Burnt Down

 




The whole theory-versus-practice thing. Here is a link from Existential Comics. 

Fireworks and a Theory of Language - Existential Comics 

When people say, "X works in theory, even though it fails in practice," what do they mean? The phrase is on its face open to the rather facile reply suggested by the above link: if the theory leads to disastrous practice, it is surely also bad as theory, and needs to be abandoned.  There is no split, there is only a feedback loop. If you are reading this blog post on your phone you can simply turn the phone around and the above calligraphy will say "Practice," right? 

Well, maybe. But what people mean by a cliché is itself context specific. Meaning is defined, as Wittgenstein above all would remind us, by use. Use is not limited by meaning.   

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  1. HenryMarch 8, 2021 at 1:53 PM

    The penultimate box of the cartoon is a fair summary of Wittgenstein's thesis, but the two preceding boxes are not a reflection of it, nor a satire of it. The artist's drawing of Wittgenstein is not even close, and the drawing of Russell, though slightly closer, is poor.

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