About

This is a blog about philosophy I find interesting. It is written by Matthew McClure, a philosophy undergraduate at Edinburgh, from the Scottish Marches. I'm mostly interested in contemporary analytic philosophy, but I have other interests too.

The title comes from §107 of Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations I:

The more narrowly we examine actual language, the sharper becomes the conflict between it and our requirement. (For the crystalline purity of logic was, of course, not a result of investigation: it was a requirement.) The conflict becomes intolerable; the requirement is now in danger of becoming empty.—We have got on to slippery ice where there is no friction and so in a certain sense the conditions are ideal, but also, just because of that, we are unable to walk. We want to walk: so we need friction. Back to the rough ground! (my emphasis)