h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

That's fine, but Wittgenstein's point is that ethical statements are not in the category of the "provable or falsifiable". They are not logical tautologies, and they are not derivable from emiprical observations either.

The Wittgensteinian understanding of the word 'ethical' is not necessarily coincidental with mine; although, having just looked over the Lecture On Ethics, I'm inclined to wonder how sure we can be of what Wittgenstein actually meant (as ever).

If you try to look for absolute values, you'll fail, because they're not objects in logic or in the empirical universe; but you'd be wasting your time anyway, because values are axiomatic; they don't have an ultimately rational basis. People hold values: this is the raw data with which one has to work, and it can be understood empirically.

Gaah! The thread's been hijacked by philosophers!

I'd just like to point out that the hoorays beat the whingers, and the bogtrotters beat the sheepshaggers in the weekend's rugby.

I tried to deflect it to the Philosophers' Guild thread F99908?thread=212558&skip=803 but maybe that looks too much like home ground? Choose your spot, RFJS__

Wittgenstein was a beery swine who was just as schloshed as Schlegel

I tried to tie the debate up for this thread with the post that began 'Point taken' -- which is why it began 'Point taken', and continued, 'Just to clarify'. Then you answered it with another philosophical point, which I took to be an indication that you wanted to continue the debate here, and had presumably linked to the Philosophers' Guild on grounds of general relevance.

Ludwig Wittgenstein was an interesting case of national pride.

He was Austrian, but believed the British were the best race on earth.

He joined the Austrian army as a volunteer in the First World War, to fight aginst the British, who he beleived were in the right and ought to win. He was decorated twice for bravery.

By the time of the Second World War he was Professor of Philosophy in Cambridge, and he worked as a volunteer in London hospitals, beginning as a porter. Being a hostile alien by extraction, though he had by now a British passport, he couldn't be assigned to any information-sensitive job; he went on to help in medical research.

Meanwhile his sisters in Vienna paid Hitler 1.7 metric tons of gold to convince him that they were not so Jewish; their grandfather had converted to Protestantism, and they argued that he had been in fact the illegitimate son of an aristocrat. Ludwig urged his brother, who had fled to America, to agree to the payment. The persuasion worked and the Wittgensteins were permitted to remain in Austria.

Funny old world.

The First World War happened at a time not so very long after Austria's defeat in the Austro-Prusian War. Moreover, although the 'German Empire' ended up excluding Austria (and being dominated by Prussia), German nationalism during the 19th Century had been split over the question of whether a unified Germany ought to include Austria or not (and, if it ought, whether it ought to include the Habsburg dominions with non-German populations). The Austrian Empire at the time of the war was ruled by a Teutonic imperial government but included numerous other ethnic groups, which posed constant problems for the Habsburg Emperors, to the extent that they had had to recognise Hungary as equal to Austria in what consequently became the Austro-Hungarian Empire, with the Hungarians being semi-independent. All of which makes the background to German and Austrian nationalism at the time of the First World War quite convoluted. I don't know how or to what extent this may have affected Wittgenstein, though.

I feel like I've been run over by a fast-moving philosopher.

Did anyone catch his registration?

So...where does this leave us with regard to actual nationalism? Other than fascinating biographical details on Wittgenstein, that is?

Let's try another tack on the initial question:

I am a member of the dominant culture of a nation (doesn't matter which one). Am I right to expect that immigrant cultures will make some effort to integrate by -

learning the language and speaking it.
learning the nation's history.
adopting or at least paying lip service to the cultural mores of the host nation?

OR...should my hypothetical nation simply be happy that the immigrants are there, paying taxes and living lawfully?

My last post was to do with history; the only relevance to philosophy was the reference to Wittgenstein in the last sentence, in accordance with the subject matter of the post to which I was responding.

Gradient's last question would probably have been easier to answer before the 'right to asylum' was invented, and when Britain was surer of what her cultural mores actually were.

"Am I right to expect that immigrant cultures will make some effort to integrate" -- why yes. Otherwise they aren't so much immigrants as colonists.

"'right to asylum' "

Asylum seekers and immigrants are different.

Someone seeking asylum is usually doing so because they HAVE to leave their country. An immigrant leaves their nation through choice.

While I understand that some asylum seekers are not actually seeking asylum (because that status implies they plan to go back when the situation there changes) and are intending to stay (thus blurring the line between asylum and immigration) the group I wanted to discuss are those who come to a country out of choice rather than necessity.

Okay, as long as we agree on those definitions for the purposes of this debate.

(I just took 'immigration' to mean entering a country and staying for a substantial period; im = in, migration is what some birds do every summer. There is a difference of context, yes.)

Yes; though this strikes me as being as much in the interests of the immigrant as anyone else.



Ideally yes; but given the number of natives (in the UK at least) who have no knowledge of their own history probably a little unfair.



At least to the point where they are - conformity to the mores of citizenship, in other words.

Noggin

It is true that Sco was once under the rule of JamesIV. And later the people got their freedom.But that is diffrent.I want to know if it should be suspected that it is right or wrong for a country to rule its province just like the Great Britain rules sco.

It is true that Sco was once under the rule of JamesIV. And later the people got their freedom.But that is diffrent.I want to know if it should be suspected that it is right or wrong for a country to rule its province just like the Great Britain rules sco. Tibet is just like sco,and China is like the Great Britain

Somebody mentioned earlier in this thread that few British new much of the History of Great Britain. Sadly this is very true.

>> It is true that Sco was once under the rule of JamesIV <<.

This is very true. As where all the James before him and all the James of up to and including James V1. Henry VIII was King of England at the time of James IV. James IV tried to invade England in support of the "Auld Ally" France but was beaten at the battle of Flodden in 1513. James IV married Mary Tudor, daughter of Henry V111. It was this marriage that resulted in James VI of Scotland also becoming James 1 of England on the death of Elizabeth I. Prior to this, Scotland had been an independent Kingdom since the defeat of Edward II by Robert the Bruce at the Battle of Banockburn in 1314. 11 years after the death of Sir William Wallace

The problems then started because James I of the House of Suart was a Catholic and England under Elizabeth I was Protestant.

"The problems then started because James I of the House of Suart was a Catholic."

There can hardly have been a less Roman Catholic monarch than James I. You refer to James II perhaps.

Whoops, sorry it was indeed James II that precipitated the Catholic/Prodastant problems. James I was the intended victim of the Gunpowder Plot devised by one Guy Fawkes, a Catholic.

Badapple says Tibet to China is just like Scotland to England.

Not quite, surely. Has Scotland had its population outnumbered in its own territory by English colonists?