What a fascinating conversation between these two English scholars and gentlemen.

I could listen to Anthony Quinton read the phone book.

This really was an excellent summary of theories that are generally very hard to grasp.

Brilliant. Even as Lord Quinton confuses himself. Simply brilliant. Wittgenstein is really something extra.

I'm sometimes reminded of the Laurel and Hardy film "Chumps at Oxford" ,in which a blow on the head returns Stan to his real persona of the brilliantly donnish Lord Paddington,. At one point, Lord Paddington receives a note from  Albert  Einstein, asking  to have his own theory of relativity explained  back to him, as it has gotten Einstein himself confused.

I always found his difficult  to clearly grasp but this video is very effective in explaining things, for me.

Ive tried and tried. Numerous lectures decades ago and now yourube videos. For the life of me then and now, and this may reflect their views as well, i haven't STILL a bloody idea of what Wittingstein was talking about...

Much better than the Wittgenstein discussion with Searle, who always has something to prove or a bone to pick.

Priceless

This guy Quinton's early life is incredible. Read about it on his Wikipedia.

Lovely evening for me

The form and style of Tractatus is stinkingly reminiscent  of Spinoza's Ethics, perhaps not a coincidence. Grok: The structural parallels between Wittgenstein’s Tractatus and Spinoza’s Ethics are unusually tight.

Both works adopt a hierarchical, quasi-axiomatic architecture:

- Spinoza lays out definitions, axioms, and numbered propositions, each following from what precedes it in a geometric chain.
- Wittgenstein employs a decimal numbering system that makes the logical dependence and subordination of every proposition visible at a glance, producing an equally crystalline lattice of claims.

In both cases the form is not decorative; it embodies the ambition of a self-contained, exhaustive order in which the structure of the text mirrors the structure of what is being described (the one substance and its modes; the logical form of language and world). The same austerity of style serves the same end: to present the system as transparent and definitive rather than as a sequence of discursive arguments. Even the closing movement is parallel — each text reaches a point at which the formal apparatus gives way to something that can only be shown or lived (the intellectual love of God; the injunction to silence).

The resemblance is therefore architectural and methodological, not merely atmospheric. Wittgenstein’s choice of form deliberately recapitulates the Spinozistic ideal of a rigorously ordered, immanent presentation of the whole.

just out of curiosity, where do you get these from?

Mill was a geat writer as well.

Thank you.

Where can i get videos of Mr Quinton. His style of speech is easy to listen to and learn from

Some of the episodes of this programme are unhelpfully technical, with the professional philosopher getting bogged down in explanation that you only understand if you already understand it. This episode, though, is a model of sophisticated but accessible explanation for the general viewer, along with Bernard Williams on Descartes, Myles Burneat on Plato and a few others.

This is the best we can get so far if we wanna know about Wittgensteint.I watched John Searle's ,but didn't feel like this one.Thank you  Lord Quinton'

Two masters of the English language. “naïve pristine fundamentalness” - wow

Brilliant discourse.