“It is the Soft Porn of Irrationalism.”
Concepts and Community, in Relativism and the Social Sciences (1985)
Context: Wittgenstein's appeal lies in the fact that he provides a strange kind of vindication of romanticism, of conceptual Gemeinschaft, of custom-based concepts rather than statute-seeking Reform, and that he does so through a very general theory of meaning, rather than from the premisses habitually used for this purpose. Because there is no unique formal notation valid for all speech, each and every culture is vindicated. One never knew that could be done — and so quickly too! It is that above all which endows his philosophy with such a capacity to attract and to repel. His mystique of consensual custom denies that anything can sit in judgment of our concepts, that some may be more rational and others less so. So all of them are in order and have nothing to fear from philosophy, as indeed he insists. This is a fairly mild form of irrationalism, invoking no fierce dark Gods, merely a consensual community. It is the Soft Porn of Irrationalism.
Help us to complete the source, original and additional information
Ernest Gellner32
Czech anthropologist, philosopher and sociologist 1925–1995Related quotes
Shelley Lubben (1968–2019) author, singer, motivational speaker, and former pornographic actress
Truth Behind the Fantasy of Porn: The Greatest Illusion on Earth (2010), Ch. II
Tina Fey (1970) American comedian, writer, producer and actress
Weirdly, of the three of us, Lisa Ann knows the most about foreign policy."
"Ask Tina" segment from NBC's 30 Rock website
“Life is like animal porn, it's not for everyone.”
Doug Stanhope (1967) American stand-up comedian, actor, and author
Something to Take the Edge Off (2000)
“I fell into porn by mistake, actually.”
Keiran Lee (1984) British pornographic film actor, director and producer
"The Porn Star With The Million Dollar Penis Tells Us About, Well, His Penis" (July 22, 2016)
“Irrationality is the square root of all evil.”
Douglas Hofstadter (1945) American professor of cognitive science
"Irrationality is the Square Root of All Evil" (Sep, 1983) Scientific American 249 (3) article reprinted in Metamagical Themas (1985)
“Turn down the porn soundtrack! Trying to concentrate here!-Shane”
Rachel Caine (1962) American writer
John D. Carmack (1970) American computer programmer, engineer, and businessman
Quoted in David Kushner, Masters of Doom: How Two Guys Created an Empire and Transformed Pop Culture Chapter 8, p. 120.
Variant: Story in a game is like a story in a porn movie. It's expected to be there, but it's not that important.
“If there is any consistent enemy of science, it is not religion, but irrationalism.”
Stephen Jay Gould book Ever Since Darwin
"The Reverent Thomas' Dirty Little Planet", p. 141
Ever Since Darwin (1977)