Graylingstein: Wittgenstein on Scepticism and Certainty
@RussellA brought this article to my attention in the course of the thread An Analysis of "On Certainty". See
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/516983
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/517740
I think it presents a fine account of On Certainty, but in the end misses at least one key aspect of the way language games should be pictured.
I've moved the discussion here because the topic ceases to be OC and becomes Grayling's OC - Graylingstein?
This is a start up post just to mark a place; feel free to jump in with you own account of Grayingstein... Or wait for me to give mine.
Edit: link: https://acgrayling.com/wittgenstein-on-scepticism-and-certainty
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/516983
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/517740
I think it presents a fine account of On Certainty, but in the end misses at least one key aspect of the way language games should be pictured.
I've moved the discussion here because the topic ceases to be OC and becomes Grayling's OC - Graylingstein?
This is a start up post just to mark a place; feel free to jump in with you own account of Grayingstein... Or wait for me to give mine.
Edit: link: https://acgrayling.com/wittgenstein-on-scepticism-and-certainty
Comments (291)
Grayling finds two views in OC:
OC1: Our beliefs are to be found only within language games, each of which is formed by taking some beliefs as non-negotiable.
OC2: Truth and knowledge are relative in that they are dependent on the language game in which the claims of truth or knowledge occur.
Grayling claims that OC1 rests on a transcendental argument, an argument form that ought be treated with suspicion.
The general form of transcendental arguments is that X occurs only if Y; X occurs; hence, Y. The case Grayling has in mind seems to be that doubt can occur only within a system of believe; but doubts occur; hence there must be a system of belief in which to doubt.
I do not think this does justice to Wittgenstein's nuanced account. But I might leave this for others to comment on.
I’m not knowledgeable enough with the particular background sufficient to comment, but nonetheless an interesting read.
This section seeks to build tension between OC1 and OC2.This he does by having his sceptic move from doubting the book before us, to doubting the system in which we believe there is a book before us.
And here it all becomes very curious.
A topic to which I have returned repeatedly is the relation between Davidson's radical interpretation and Wittgenstein's language games, so it pleases me greatly to see Grayling addressing this. I'll throw my hat into the ring and agree outright with Davidson, I do not think that a sceptic can sensibly posit a language that cannot be translated into our own. At the least we could not conceive of such radical incommensurability as constituting a language.
Interestingly Grayling next draws attention to certain modal considerations, touching on a topic that has come up several times in recent threads.He draws attention to a mooted distinction between logically possible worlds - all those that exclude contradiction; and epistemic possible worlds - those that can be reached from the actual world by fiat. I remain unconvinced that this distinction can be made to work, since it is not clear that the totality of logically possible worlds is different from the totality of epistemically possible worlds.
Taken together, these considerations if correct woudl indeed rule out relativism, and hence OC2 as posited.
Does Wittgenstein's foundationalism get him out of this?
The argument goes to Feyerabend, who's ideas derive from both Popper and Wittgenstein. We're covering a vast, yet familiar territory here. A community might find the meanings of it's terms shifting under it, unbeknownst; and hence be in the very position Wittgenstein posited for an individual with a private language.
Grayling next posits a stronger version of OC1. Grayling does not see this as a way out for Witti, but I'm not so sure. It is apparent that we must take certain beliefs as non-negotiable in order to continue with a given game; but it is also apparent that in a different game those very same non-negotiable beliefs may be open to reconsideration. I'll try to follow through on this thought later.
And Grayling considers a naturalistic interpretation, roughly that we have no choice as biological entities bu to take certain things as givens.
I've just come from a conversation with @Fooloso4 who made a similar point to the one Grayling makes here; it is unclear what sort of propositions are going to count as hinge propositions. Are they to be contingent, empirical, or grammatical, rules? Grayling cites examples of very contingent - mistaken - propositions which appear to have been considered "hinge". But so far as they are hinge propositions, they are not subject to investigation. Grayling concludes that they are therefore a priori; there's too much baggage with such a term for me to agree to it too quickly. Indeed, in
... Wittgenstein comes close to Quine. However Grayling's point remains:
As @Mww said, I don't have a good background about this topic neither... But somehow I see so interesting this premises/logic.
Quoting Banno
It is a good example of how we can have beliefs on something though. It remembers me about syllogisms of Aristotle.
It remembers me about DARII, if the minor premise is affirmative (doubt occurs) then the major premise must be universal (hence there must be a system of belief in which to doubt)
It is so interesting. Thanks for sharing it I going to read it closer and focus more in the main OP
It seems to me that Grayling wants hinge propositions to be 'grammatical' distinguishable from distinguishable from contingent and thus dubitable propositions. And this is to miss the point completely.
"the bishop remains always on the colour it starts on." is a dubitable fact in the context of describing the game, to someone who has no knowledge of chess. None of the other pieces have this property, I might have misremembered things, or whatever.
But in the game of, say, learning to play chess, it is as indubitable as the law of gravity. If you want to play chess, you have to accept the rules as 'given'. If you are questioning the rules you are not playing the game.
It not this the 'solution' to scepticism, that a certain scepticism is appropriate and meaningful to a particular language game, but each language game has a framework that is indubitable in context. The global sceptic keeps jumping out of the conversation into another in which what is being said is doubtful. W. deals with the sceptic by turning the trick back on her. 'What are your grounds for doubt?' 'What do you mean by doubt?'
Boris Johnson is an habitual liar. Once i have satisfied myself that this is true, I have grounds to doubt everything he says. But woe betide that I find grounds that everyone is a habitual liar, because at that point the language itself has changed; belief is no longer a function at all; all that is left is a masturbatory entertainment of meaningless ideas.
Exactly. The entire point of OC (as I read it) is that some empirical or contingent propositions (hinge propositions) occasionally have the same indubitable status as do mathematical or grammatical propositions. Yet Grayling accuses W. of "muddling" them together.
I also find it ironic that Grayling views OC as "Wittgenstein's acceptance, at last, of philosophy's legitimacy as an enterprise". This also misses the point. I think it more likely W. begins his treatment with Moore's proposition of "This is a hand", for much the same reason that he begins PI with Augustine's view of language: because they are paradigm examples of errors made exclusively by philosophers.
The deficiency in this perspective is the idea that doubt must be justified. Once this idea is dismissed, doubt is merely uncertainty, and uncertainty need not be based in any form of certainty. So the proposition "doubt can occur only within a system of believe" is false. This assumes that "doubt" must be defined relative to something which is doubted, and does not respect the true nature of "doubt" which is lack of definition.
And you cannot get beyond this brute fact in the way unenlightened suggests: "If you want to play chess, you have to accept the rules as 'given'.", because the nature of free will, and the phrase "if you want..." does not produce the necessity required. So there is always the possibility that someone does not want to play the game, and this person's skepticism concerning the game itself, rather than the any specific rule, is still a valid "doubt", even though it remains unjustified.
The first part of OC1is interesting because I agree with it, with respect to the set of components attributed to Wittgenstein in support of it, “...The view I shall call OC1 and which constitutes a version of a foundationalist refutation of scepticism, and therefore a contribution to the theory of knowledge...”
And this is interesting because I don’t:
“....a clever encapsulation of the transcendental argument is given at 248: 'I have arrived at the rock-bottom of my convictions. And one might almost say that these foundation-walls are carried by the whole house.'...”
Metaphoric representation aside, it remains that foundation walls are not carried by the house; the foundation walls carry the whole house, in which case it is found that the clever encapsulation of Wittgenstein’s transcendental argument...is neither clever nor that argument.
While the transcendental argument is the means to arrive at what’s called the rock-bottom of my convictions in the form of propositions which are not susceptible to doubt, re: #341 (in the Kantian sense, the unconditioned), and is a foundation of that which is possible to follow from it, it is self-contradictory to then say it is that which is built upon the conviction, that is itself foundational.
————-
I had a bone of contention with Antony, a Wittgenstein advocate of high caliber, as to method. In the present article is found....
“.....Of course it only sketches a kind of view; it amounts to recognising that theories of knowledge like, say, Kant's–framework-invoking theories–are on the right lines. Now one would like to see the hard detail of such a theory....”
....which exactly describes my lack of reception of Witt’s philosophy: he tells me all this stuff but never once tells me how it comes to be that way. I mean....
“....#450. A doubt that doubted everything would not be a doubt.....”
......is an analytic truth, a tautology, and while correct in itself, never gets used to justify something relatable to it. It’s one of those foundational rock-bottom convictions of his, but without the bother of building a house the foundation would support.
Anyway.....now you know. Not to rain on your parade or anything, just some personal observations.
No it isn't. What is this 'doubt' of which you speak? I know of no such thing. what is it made of? What even is 'deficiency'?
From what perspective can a perspective be said to be deficient?
I could try to explain it to you, but if you are already doubtful of what I am saying without understanding what I am saying, then you probably already know what I mean, through your own doubt which requires no understanding, so there is no need.
Quoting unenlightened
The perspective I speak of is the perspective of being uncertain. From the perspective of uncertainty, the claim that uncertainty requires certainty is seen as deficient. It appears as a misunderstanding of uncertainty. If you are uncertain about this "doubt" of which I speak, as you imply with your question, do you really believe that it is necessary that you are certain of something in order to support this uncertainty as real uncertainty? Do you not think that it is possible for a person (Socrates for example) to have a general, overall attitude of uncertainty, and therefore truly be uncertain about everything? Many people demonstrate an attitude of certainty, and others demonstrate an attitude of uncertainty. Why conflate these two opposing attitudes by insisting that the attitude of uncertainty is really a form of certainty?
It appears completely logical to me, that a person could actually have such an attitude of uncertainty, such a lack of confidence. So I really don't know why the idea is quickly rejected by so many people, as if uncertainty is just a form of certainty in disguise. Doesn't certainty require faith? Are there not people living without faith? Rearrange Grayling's argument. Certainty only occurs when there is faith. Sometimes faith is lacking. Therefore sometimes certainty is lacking. Where certainty is lacking there is doubt. Grayling's premise "doubt can only occur within a system of belief" is false. Those outside a system of belief are there because they lack faith in that system, therefore they are uncertain and doubtful of it, and this doubt is not from within the system, it is external to it.
Yes, it appears quite possible to me too that a person could be uncertain. However, you do not appear to be uncertain, but quite dogmatically certain. you are playing the uncertainty card in order to dispute something that you do not in fact dispute. and that is the game I am playing back at you, that you are now disputing in turn. This is by way of a demonstration of something, rather than a proof of anything. You want to tell me "you probably already know what I mean," but you will not have it the other way about.
When a person lets go of a delusion, is it just the wrong beliefs that change? Or does everything change because all beliefs hang together?
Sometimes when I learn something new, it seems like my whole worldview is altered, so maybe it's the latter.
Societies can also become deluded. There's a movie called A Beautiful Mind, where the protagonist's delusions reflect those of the society he's in.
For the people in this society, questioning the idea that they're threatened by Russia is to question everything (so to speak) because it's so entangled with all of their fears and arrogance.
Point is, sometimes you need to be able to question the basics.
Agreed.
Quoting Banno
That sounds right, and the issue here ('sensibly') is intelligibility. Quoting Luke
I second that, and I also read OC somewhat in terms of trying to free errant philosophers from a 'picture' of inquiry and language. This picture is so dominant, so 'obvious', that criticisms of the picture tend to be understood by the enthralled in terms of that same picture that's being criticized. The toy skeptic takes a notion of language and the world for granted (as does all intelligible discourse, it seems.)
Quoting frank
When? How?
You misunderstand in trying to answer my scepticism of scepticism. Of course you need to be able to question anything. But you cannot question everything. So I might sensibly wonder if I am dreaming - but if I suggest that to you, I am betraying my own doubt. The solipsist by definition cannot argue his position with an interlocutor.
It's not that doubt of anything is impossible, it's that it becomes a performative contradiction in some language games.
If I start to doubt that these words mean what I think they mean, what can I say about that?
FWIW (responding to Grayling), I think the most potent [s]beliefs[/s] aren't explicit at all. I use language with the confidence of a squirrel leaping from treelimb to treelimb. I trust the 'meaning' of my statements. Some thinkers may imagine a set of explicit beliefs, only some of which are conscious at any time, but this doesn't sound right to me. You can also find a good critique of this in Being-in-the-world (Hubert Dreyfus). IMV, it's wrong to think in terms of some hierarchy of beliefs, some of which are on a lower, more foundational level. Even if this view is plausible and gets something right, Wittgenstein explicitly stresses groundlessness. Perhaps it's better to think of a centerless system of shared practices, where the linguistic practices are not sharply distinct from non-linguistic practices.
Exactly, and while you are expressing doubts about those previous meanings, you nevertheless enact confidence in the intelligibly of this current expression of doubt.
Good point! And we might say that one society is deluded from the perspective of another. I don't 100% buy Peirce's vision of inquiry, but there's some value in it. The truth is something like the ideal end of inquiry, what a future community will finally settle on.
That you have realised that there is no fact about that kind of matter?
The hand proposition is the big fat fact.
FWIW, I think refuting the skeptic is just a pretext. The radical skeptic is not a serious person. I don't think refuting radical skepticism is experienced as an important task. It's as if Grayling is trying to pull Wittgenstein back into the very game that W is busy demystifying.
It's better perhaps to think of Wittgenstein as doing a kind of phenomenology, which is to say call our attention to what would be obvious if it wasn't so terribly taken for granted. A certain kind of philosophy is trapped in a picture. This picture is mistakenly experienced as necessary (as the way of things) rather than as contingent (the conversation happened to lead us to taking these things for granted.) Both the skeptic and the earnest refuter of the skeptic are trapped in this picture together. Both make their cases in terms of this 'picture.'
One way of looking at things: hinge propositions are context dependent. In a given inquiry, there's a framework taken for granted in which the explicit inquiry makes sense. If I ask whether energy is really conserved, then a vast, vague background is taken for granted, the meaning of 'energy' for instance, but this includes a vague history and methodology of physics. But it's not that an explicit set of propositions is taken granted. It's fuzzier than that.
You've expressed it much better than I could. Thank you.
I understand. Uncertainty always has some kind of certainty nearby.
Global skepticism is just an idea, rather than something people experience. Once you realize there isn't any criteria for telling if what you're presently experiencing is real, the idea of global skepticism appears. The accompanying certainty can just be a blank placeholder.
I experienced that as a teen due to mind altering drugs that showed me how wrong I could be. It was a psychological challenge. Do you know what I mean?
Like a mental placeholder?
This by way of agreeing with you.
Yes, or a point-at-infinity. For Peirce, inquity is about settling beliefs. What's true for this ideal, future community is just reality itself (because there's no meaningful/practical difference.)
Thanks! I had a feeling we were on the same page.
There's a gnostic myth that in heaven all questions are answered. It's our origin and our ultimate destination.
Nice! From what I remember, Peirce is aware that this community is a kind of heavenly fiction.
He makes the important point that science (well, inquiry in general) is always future-oriented. We want hypotheses that will be true for ourselves and others (even if we also think that they were true and can use them retrospectively.). To me this connects to the OP. The meanings of words are not fixed. What matters most is how they can or will be used, which is in ways we can't predict. So we just do our best to keep up with the jazz, never getting our hands on the score.
:up: :up:
[quote=PI]
87. Suppose I give this explanation: "I take 'Moses' to mean the man, if there was such a man, who led the Israelites out of Egypt, whatever he was called then and whatever he may or may not have done besides."—But similar doubts to those about "Moses" are possible about the words of this explanation (what are you calling "Egypt", whom the "Israelites" etc.?). Nor would these questions come to an end when we got down to words like "red", "dark", "sweet".—"But then how does an explanation help me to understand, if after all it is not the final one? In that case the explanation is never completed; so I still don't understand what he means, and never shall!"—As though an explanation as it were hung in the air unless supported by another one. Whereas an explanation may indeed rest on another one that has been given, but none stands in need of another—unless we require it to prevent a misunderstanding. One might say: an explanation serves to remove or to avert a misunderstanding——one, that is, that would occur but for the explanation; not every one that I can imagine. It may easily look as if every doubt merely revealed an existing gap in the foundations; so that secure understanding is only possible if we first doubt everything that can be doubted, and then remove all these doubts.
The sign-post is in order—if, under normal circumstances, it fulfils its purpose.
[/quote]
Here's another one that really drags the philosophical fantasy into the light.
[quote=PI]
But now it may come to look as if there were something like a final analysis of our forms of language, and so a single completely resolved form of every expression. That is, as if our usual forms of expression were, essentially, unanalysed; as if there were something hidden in them that had to be brought to light. When this is done the expression is completely clarified and our problem solved. It can also be put like this: we eliminate misunderstandings by making our expressions more exact; but now it may look as if we were moving towards a particular state, a state of complete exactness; and as if this were the real goal of our investigation. 92.. This finds expression in questions as to the essence of language, of propositions, of thought.—For if we too in these investigations are trying to understand the essence of language—its function, its structure,—yet this is not what those questions have in view. For they see in the essence, not something that already lies open to view and that becomes surveyable by a rearrangement, but something that lies beneath the surface. Something that lies within, which we see when we look into the thing, and which an analysis digs out. 'The essence is hidden from us*: this is the form our problem now assumes. We ask: "What is language?", "What is a proposition?" And the answer to these questions is to be given once for all; and independently of any future experience.
[/quote]
The fantasy seems to be some place outside of language, not be subject to its tricks and metamorphoses (to escape time and ambiguity.) To be fair, I myself am projecting some vague theory of language on W (hopefully resistant to requiring revision in the light of future experience & minimizing unpleasant surprise), but I think this can be done a little less recklessly through its vagueness. Any kind of terminology or system will become stale. Maybe that's why Witt liked remarks. Less pompous, more tentative and flexible, which fits such a complex and elusive prey.
I've something like this in mind. A "family resemblance" of language games in which beliefs live.
I'd like to hear more about that.
Claiming to know only makes sense when doubt is possible.
This depends on the notion that our beliefs are to be found only within language games, each of which is formed by taking some beliefs as non-negotiable.
And is threatened by truth and knowledge being dependent on the language game in which the claims of truth or knowledge occur.
This is the claim. I can't at the moment see the argument.
And there is this:
But if knowing something presumes believing it to be true, how could knowledge be "definitionally something more than... psychological states"? Knowing is a psychological state.
I'd look at 'knowing' in terms of the highly complicated role it (the word) plays socially. Intuitively, there's a private 'sensation' of being sure, but I think we both agree that this beetle can't be getting things done. I lean more toward something like: we learn the use the word 'know' appropriately in the same way we learn to drive. It's a skill, just like making plausible definitions which nevertheless always fail to dominate unpredictable re-contextualizations of a word. Counterintuitively, knowing what knowing is may be far more like knowing how to drive than knowing how to offer a definition. What's nice about the driving metaphor is that it stresses how interactive and jazz-like language is. No one person governs meaning. It's an emergent phenomenon.
And if one is to talk about hands, there needs to be hands.
I think I agree. It's as if we know how to say that we know that something is such-and-such. I totally agree that facility with 'know' is part of a larger facility, the big language game. I also agree that talking about hands does something like imply the existence of hands. I would add, however, that this is like making definitions, a poetic act, an expression of skill. As individuals we can abstract rules from the conversations we observe. But perhaps you'll agree that it's not strictly metaphysical. It's more empirical. 'It doesn't make sense to talk about hands if there are no hands.' That's of the form of 'one doesn't do such things' or 'that doesn't fly around here.'
OC1 thus states that scepticism gets no purchase because our beliefs inhere in a system (the first component) which rests upon foundations (the second component), which latter non-negotiably constitute the conditions upon which our beliefs have content
[/quote]
What's this gap between the system and the foundations? IMV, it's more like the system is the foundation of inherited, shared practices (in this context the ways we use words, the 'way things are done around here.' )
[quote=W]
But I did not get my picture of the world by satisfying myself of its correctness; nor do I have it because I am satisfied of its correctness. No: it is the inherited background against which I distinguish between true and false. 105. All testing, all confirmation and disconfirmation of a hypothesis takes place already within a system ... The system is not so much the point of departure, as the element in which our arguments have their life.
I have a world picture. Is it true or false? Above all it is the substratum of all my enquiring and asserting (WR252).
341. The questions that we raise and our doubts depend on the fact that some propositions are exempt from doubt, are as it were like hinges upon which those turn.
[/quote]
I think it's unfortunate that W talks of propositions exempt from doubt. Knowing what cheese is (how to use the word 'cheese') doesn't seem to be constituted by some proposition. I use the example again of 'energy' in a doubt about physics. 'What if energy isn't conserved?' The whole 'world' of physics is tangled up with this doubt (meaning holism., Quine, etc.) I like the pragmatists' vision of belief as something like a ready reaction. Doubt paralyzes, while the absence of doubt proceeds more or less smoothly. It seems to me more a matter of 'knowing one's way around' (annoyingly fuzzy.)
[quote=AC]
OC1 thus states that scepticism gets no purchase because our beliefs inhere in a system (the first component) which rests upon foundations (the second component), which latter non-negotiably constitute the conditions upon which our beliefs have content and which therefore constitute the conditions even for doubting, which, therefore again, cannot take the foundations for their target. The justification for the foundations is thus effected by a "transcendental argument" : restated, it is that foundational beliefs (expressed by what Wittgenstein calls, in senses of 'logical' and 'grammatical' special to OC, logical or grammatical propositions; see e.g. 51, 56-8) are what make the system possible, and it is within the system that claims to knowledge and challenges of doubt are alone intelligible. A clever encapsulation of the transcendental argument is given at 248: 'I have arrived at the rock-bottom of my convictions. And one might almost say that these foundation-walls are carried by the whole house.'
[/quote]
I don't think W suggests (and I don't personally think) that the 'foundation' is piecewise impervious to doubt. We can question any little piece of the system that we can manage to become aware of. I think @frank was defending this aspect of skepticism, and I agree. Maybe W's view (and a more reasonable view) is something more like Neurath's raft. We can analyze any particular word, suggest new ways of using them, but we can't do this with all words at the same time. Because we depend on living, current conventions to be understood (even by ourselves.) The radical or complete skeptic is a babbling dada poet.
OC2 is relativism. Relativism is the view that truth and knowledge are not absolute or invariable, but dependent upon viewpoint, circumstances or historical conditions. What is true for me might not be true for you; what counts as knowledge from one viewpoint might not do so from another; what is true at one time is false at another. Paragraph 97 arguably shows that the relativism implicit in this aspect of OC is of a classic or standard type. Its presence in OC is entirely consistent with its presence elsewhere in the later writings: one remembers the lions and Chinese of PI. What was left open in those earlier relativistic remarks was the degree of strength of the relativism to which Wittgenstein was committed. OC2 constitutes a claim that the framework within which claims to knowledge and challenges of doubt equally make sense is such that its change can reverse what counted as either. That is classically strong relativism.
[/quote]
AC is responding to passages like
[quote=W]
65. When language-games change, then there is a change in concepts, and with the concepts the meanings of words change.
95. The propositions describing this world-picture might be part of a kind of mythology ...
97. The mythology may change back into a state of flux, the river-bed of thoughts may shift.
99. And the bank of the river consists partly of hard rock, subject to no alteration or only to an imperceptible one, partly of sand, which now in one place now in another gets washed away, or deposited.
166. The difficulty is to realise the groundlessness of our believing.
256. On the other hand a language-game does change with time.
336. But what men consider reasonable or unreasonable alters.
[/quote]
I think he exaggerates the tension. I read W as making general points about language and belief that he expects to remain true. Just because some of what's considered reasonable alters doesn't mean that there's no relatively fixed point or relatively neutral matrix (or just a fixed point if you'll allow vague theses.) Probably all philosophy tries to conquer time, so the issue is not whether it finds or declares something fixed but how much it finds or declares fixed. For instance, Braver reads (the later) Heidegger as modifying Hegelianism. There's still something like the Zeitgeist (an understanding of being, perhaps like a form of life), but now it wanders aimlessly. So what Hegel held fixed (the destination of historical drift), Heidegger and seemingly Wittgenstein jettisons.
In other words, earnest 'relativism' tends to be partial. You get called a 'relativist' if you don't hold things fixed that the other guy does.
Quoting bongo fury
Yeah but no but...
My point is that if you doubt the meaning of the question, you cannot answer at all. The answer to my question might just as well be "Wibble, wibble wibble, my old man's a mushroom." What you demonstrate by giving a sensible answer, is that you do not on this occasion doubt the meaning at all.
In the philosophy of language, demonstration is more powerful than proof, because...
Quoting Banno
Nah, only rather that when in Rome (i.e. ordinarily) I can play their language games, regardless their philosophy of games and rules. Not sure why you would say, or think that Witty would say, that in making a play I can't entertain competing hypotheses as to the Romans' hypotheses and dogmas about the game and the rules.
Because.
Mornington Crescent.
There's a bias against accepting that we're equipped with a kind of faith. Faith has the same relationship to doubt as the eternal has to change. They're a package deal.
As language games and forms of life change, that remains the same. So Witt was discovering an unchanging feature of the mind?
Nice way of putting it. It took me a moment to see the analogy, but yeah, that makes sense.
Quoting frank
As I read him, he's discovering or at least modifying a vision of some kind of permanent structure (of the mind if one embraces how social-public-embodied the 'mind' turns out to be.) IMO, this is related to what Hegel meant by zeitgeist/timespirit.
I'm not sure I'm understanding you though.
So his philosophy is phenomenology?
Yeah, I think he and Heidegger are often saying the same thing in very different styles.
Lee Braver's work is largely about their intersection. His book on anti-realism follows the trail from Kant to Derrida. Basically less and less is held fixed.
There are two books. Not sure which you'd like better. The short one is Groundless Grounds, which focuses on Heidegger and Wittgenstein. The big one is A Thing of This World. That's the tale of anti-realism. I thought both were great.
I hope you like it as much as I expect you will!
And what is it that is taken for granted? That a certain kind of philosophy trapped in a picture is experienced as necessary, when it should be experienced as merely contingent?
Perhaps it would it be better to think this kind of phenomenology when attempting to understand Wittgenstein, but seems rather inept when attempting to understand human nature in general.
Keeping with language games, all philosophies are trapped in their respective pictures by the mind that creates them. Never stays that way, re: interpretational distinctions, which raises concerns over what being trapped really means. If trapped in every mind, it isn’t trapped in any. The epitome of contingency.
I am arguing that a certain type of doubt is reasonable to assume, not that I have that type doubt. Anyway, the fact that it appears to you that my personal form of doubt is actually dogmatic certainty, is irrelevant because you may be misunderstanding me. When you see a dog standing its ground, barking at you, and forbidding you to come closer, would you think that these actions of the dog are based in a dogmatic certainty?
I propose we revisit the premise, "doubt can occur only within a system of believe", and maybe we can find an acceptable compromise.
Let's first distinguish true doubt from fake doubt. Fake doubt is what you accused me of, playing the doubt card when I am actually dogmatically certain. True doubt is when a person is truly uncertain. So for example, an atheist might play the doubt card of fake doubt, in a discussion with a theist, pretending to doubt the reality of God, when that person really has certitude about the opposite. Only an agnostic would have true doubt in this situation.
Now let's position the "system of believe" relative to the true doubt. The doubting person cannot be "within" the system of believe because that would mean that the system is already accepted by that person. The doubt must be aimed at the system as a whole, because as "a system" we must assume that there is consistency between the parts (individual beliefs) of the system, and one cannot reasonably doubt one part of a consistent system. So true doubt must be directed at the system as a whole.
Would you agree with that? If we say doubt can only occur from within a system of belief, that system of belief must be other than the system being doubted. The two systems may not even be remotely related. So the assumption "doubt can occur only within a system of believe", is really an irrelevant point, because that system of belief must be other than the one which contains the belief being doubted.. And if we take the game analogy, true doubt can only come from the person who refuses to play the game, because to play the game is to consent to the rules, and to consent to the rules is to forfeit your right to doubt them.
Quoting Banno
Here's how what I stated above is relevant to this thread. If we assume that any specific language-game is a representation of a system of beliefs (consistency being a necessary requirement of "system"), then true doubt can only be directed at any specific language game from outside that particular game. I.e. the person who refuses to play. I'll call that person the skeptic, is the only one who may cast true doubt. If we assert that the skeptic must pose one's doubt from a position of being within a language-game, within a system of beliefs, then that system providing the skeptic's approach, must be other than the one doubted, and there cannot be consistency between these distinct language-games, or else true doubt would be impossible. This implies that language in general, as a whole, cannot be represented as a single language-game, because of the inconsistency between distinct language-games which makes true doubt a real thing.
The other course we could take, is to allow inconsistency within any specific language-game, and system of belief, thereby allowing for doubt within the system. If there is inconsistency within the game, or system, then doubt from within would be true justified doubt. But that ought to be seen as epistemologically unsound, to allow inconsistency to inhere within a system. It produces a faulty definition of "game" or "system", one in which the rules of the "game" contradict each other, or the "system" has parts which oppose each other, or are not conducive to its function.
So the logical course is to maintain that a language-game, or a system of beliefs, is necessarily consistent, and true doubt must be directed at the system as a whole, from outside that system. This is also the most practical solution, because if inconsistency appears to inhere within a system of beliefs, it is extremely difficult to isolate the defective parts, with the goal of doubting just those parts. So the entire system must be doubted as a whole. This implies that refusal to play the game is required, and we're at the point of doubting the entire system anyway.
I think you are ignoring the difference between an explicit thesis ('a certain kind of philosophy is trapped in a picture') and unquestioned background assumptions. The fly is trapped in the bottle because it's transparent. The hard work is making the hidden assumptions visible.
Quoting Mww
While I don't think what you say is incorrect here, I also don't think it fits the situation. The issue isn't life in general but a certain kind of philosophy, 'trapped' in the transparent bottle of Cartesian assumptions or habits. To be trapped in such a way is not some cosmic tragedy. It's just wheels spinning in the mud. 'Prove to me I have a hand.' 'Do I see a chair or a representation of a chair?' 'Is morality objective?'
To me the center of the issue is something like: meaning is public, external, out there. To know how to drive is to attain the skill of being on the road with other cars. A view that I'm challenging is something like: we all have direct, private access to 'essences' and learn to map these similar private essences to the same symbols. Traditional ('bad', 'naive') philosophy tries to do a sort of 'math' or 'chess' with these essences. This is the picture (isolated minds with direct access to essences (exact concepts) and sense-data.) With that comes the whole man-in-the-box problem of getting to the real world, weird statements and counter-statements about the thing-in-itself, radical skeptics who don't see the absurdity of their doubts because they don't see that their 'concepts' are already extimate, worldly conventions.
The idea of proving my position (in that 'math' or 'chess') misses the whole point, which is that we are stuck with jazz. I can't do the word-math that proves the confusion in a word-math approach. Instead there's 'therapy,' analogies that gesture vaguely at vague insights. (Note also that I use the word 'insight.' Mentalistic man-in-the-box language is unfortunately necessary. I have to use the language of the tribe to criticize pieces of it.)
Aren't we talking about presuppositions now? If this isn't coherentism then I don't know what is.
This is just what is impossible, unless we want to consider screaming madness. The point is something like: to express doubts in an intelligible language is to take most of those conventions for granted (to obey them in order to be intelligible to self and others.) In general, a certain kind of skeptic is quietly taken obsolete philosophical ideas for granted (Cartesian assumptions of being alone in a mind with direct access to concepts.)
Does Wittgenstein confuse idealism with scepticism?
Idealism is scepticism towards what Moore called an external world, in the source text Proof of an External World - a text that ought be investigated further; Moore's target is idealism's scepticism towards an external world. Wittgenstein appears simply to have embraced this juxtaposition. Hence 19, 24 and 37. The idealist Wittgenstein addresses is he who was sceptical of the existence of an external world in Moore.
Grayling presents an exquisite analysis of the relation between idealism, realism, scepticism, anti-realism, physicalism. many would do well to note it. So many silly threads concerning idealism and quantum mechanics might be avoided.
Thereby hangs another thread...
Quoting T H E
To say that "Relativism is the view that truth and knowledge are not absolute or invariable, but dependent upon viewpoint, circumstances or historical conditions" is partially but not sufficiently correct in a Wittgensteinian context.
Each language game has its own rules, concepts, and meanings. In a narrow sense, at times and given circumstances, it might (or might not) be possible to have knowledge and to express truths. In other language games those same words could be meaningless or have different meanings, so propositions formerly expressed are not untrue but meaningless now, and what was known is a question mark now.
:up:
What comes to my mind is the slow drift of an entire 'framework' or 'form of life.' The 'meaning' of gestures and sentences 'inheres' in or is distributed through the entire framework or context. As I see it, it's not some invisible stuff in the individual mind but rather patterns/habits in social interactions.
[quote=Brandom]
A characteristic distinguishing feature of linguistic practices is their protean character, their plasticity and malleability, the way in which language constantly overflows itself, so that any established pattern of usage is immediately built on, developed, and transformed. The very act of using linguistic expressions or applying concepts transforms the content of those expressions or concepts. The way in which discursive norms incorporate and are transformed by novel contingencies arising from their usage is not itself a contingent, but a necessary feature of the practices in which they are implicit. It is easy to see why one would see the whole enterprise of semantic theorizing as wrong–headed if one thinks that, insofar as language has an essence, that essence consists in its restless self–transformation (not coincidentally reminiscent of Nietzsche’s “self–overcoming”). Any theoretical postulation of common meanings associated with expression types that has the goal of systematically deriving all the various proprieties of the use of those expressions according to uniform principles will be seen as itself inevitably doomed to immediate obsolescence as the elusive target practices overflow and evolve beyond those captured by what can only be a still, dead snapshot of a living, growing, moving process. It is an appreciation of this distinctive feature of discursive practice that should be seen as standing behind Wittgenstein’s pessimism about the feasibility and advisability of philosophers engaging in semantic theorizing…
…
[T]he idea that the most basic linguistic know–how is not mastery of proprieties of use that can be expressed once and for all in a fixed set of rules, but the capacity to stay afloat and find and make one’s way on the surface of the raging white–water river of discursive communal practice that we always find ourselves having been thrown into (Wittgensteinian Geworfenheit) is itself a pragmatist insight. It is one that Dewey endorses and applauds. And it is a pragmatist thought that owes more to Hegel than it does to Kant. For Hegel builds his metaphysics and logic around the notion of determinate negation because he takes the normative obligation to do something to resolve the conflict that occurs when the result of our properly applying the concepts we have to new situations is that we (he thinks, inevitably) find ourselves with materially incompatible commitments to be the motor that drives the unceasing further determination and evolution of our concepts and their contents. The process of applying conceptual norms in judgment and intentional action is the very same process that institutes, determines, and transforms those conceptual norms.
[/quote]
https://zenodo.org/record/2631340/files/2019Brandom.pdf?download=1
This talk of Wittgensteinian Geworfenheit is another way of saying that we are forced to keep up with this mad jazz we've been thrown into if we can. The semantic optimist wants a closed, finite system. To master the music from an armchair, to say with authority what makes sense, what is rational, etc.
Let us simplify the model we are working with. A sceptic challenges us to justify a particular empirical belief, for example that there is a book on the table here before us. We respond, exploiting the same resource for doing so as OC does, by saying in effect that these circumstances are such and those words mean such that this is tantamount to a paradigmatic circumstance for using those words in these circumstances–that is, for claiming that there is a book on the table. The sceptic pushes his point, invoking considerations about non-standard perceptual phenomena and other psychological contingencies, including error; at which point we change gear and invoke countervailing considerations about the framework of the discourse (the system of beliefs constituting it; the 'conceptual scheme') by stating the assumptions upon which not just the claim, but also the challenge to it, make sense. And at this level of sceptical challenge, that has to be enough: justifications in ordinary discourse come to an end at this point.
But now the sceptic mutates; he becomes a different and bigger monster. He is no longer interested in hearing what we have to say about the book on the table, but in what we have to say about the framework, the system of beliefs. What justifies our acceptance of the framework, or (more weakly) our employment of it? What if there were another framework, or other frameworks, in which different assumptions led to different outcomes with these words and these circumstances? And so on. The sceptic, in other words, has adopted the habiliments of relativism. Relativism, indeed, is the ultimate form of scepticism, because it challenges us to justify, as a whole, the scheme within which mundane judgments get their content and have their life.
The answer which says: 'this is the scheme we have; it is a bare given that we have it', and which might–but this is a different thing–add, 'and of course there might be others', and–yet a further and a bigger step again–'we might never know what these other schemes are like or even that they exist', is unsatisfactory, at very least as the first response to relativism.
...
As OC stands, it... only deals with scepticism at the lower, less threatening level, and fails to recognise that scepticism in its strongest form is, precisely, relativism.
[/quote]
If the sceptic acts like he doesn't see the book and we know that he's just being a metaphysical jackass, then we might brew some coffee and play the old game, which includes Witt's ideas as a critique of the game that still needs the context of the game and fits within it. If we didn't think the sceptic was playing the old game, we might worry that someone was blind or insane.
When the bigger mutated monster sceptic asks for a justification of the framework as whole, one might remind the dizzy creature that asking for justifications is part of that framework. He's presupposing a 'space of reasons' and a shared language that may even be central to that framework. That it's only because of certain conventions that he makes sense to himself and to his credulous companion at all.
The idea of other 'schemes,' other frameworks is like mist on the horizon. Frameworks and schemes do drift. The claim that future schemes are predictable now deserves scepticism. If the thesis that frameworks drift unpredictably is relativism, it's hard to see what's offensive about it, except that it makes the philosophical truffle-hunt for eternal truth (based on the structure of mind or language or ...can't predict) more difficult.
Personally AC's read on W's intentions don't click for me. Maybe it's best to read Wittgenstein as a relativist in some (partial) sense. So what?
I explained very clearly why doubting the entire belief system is the only reasonable form of skepticism. Beliefs within a system are necessarily logically consistent and interrelated. That's what makes it a "system". To doubt one belief within a system requires doubting the beliefs it is dependent upon, and it is implied that the beliefs dependent upon the doubted belief are doubted as well. So it's unreasonable to doubt one belief without doubting the entire system within which it is integrated,
This is why the idea that there are hinge propositions which are somehow indubitable is unacceptable epistemology. If the entire system is intrinsically consistent, and valid, which it must be to be a "system", then no part of the system can be doubted without doubting the whole. And this would require doubting the supposed hinge propositions as well.
The preceding result, is the logical conclusion of assuming that beliefs exist as part of a "system". If we remove that premise, and allow that beliefs have individuality, free from the influence of an overall system, then it is reasonable to doubt individual beliefs. But then the whole game analogy, and the idea of hinge propositions is completely inapplicable. .
Does this statement not assert the absolute truth about Relativism? Statements like this defeat themselves. In asserting the truth that there is no truth, you end up pulling the rug out from under your own argument.
Quoting Banno
This statement defeats itself. This statement's truth value is dependent on the language game being used and isn't useful outside of this language game. What is basically being said is that this statement isn't true outside of the use of English. So this statement would not be true for Spanish speakers, yet we can translate this statement to Spanish.
:roll:
I’m gonna go ahead and assume that right there exemplifies good philosophy, but I’m just too dense to grasp it, and the benefit in expending the hard work of making the hidden assumptions visible, isn’t obtained by the effort.
—————-
Quoting T H E
Quoting T H E
Quoting T H E
Yeah, just like that. Because ol’ Rene said he could doubt he had a hand presupposes it (the mud), so the proof thereof is given, making the request for such proof superfluous (a spinning wheel).
Quoting T H E
Dunno. Try sitting in a chair with your eyes closed, see if your butt lands on the floor. The spinning wheel here, is the mistaken relation between what is perceived and the representation of it. It isn’t the same. Never was.
—————
Quoting T H E
Seems that way, yes. If you could, you wouldn’t be questioning the chair. So maybe the confusion isn’t in the approach itself, but merely its proper application.
Quoting T H E
The word-math system shows the man-in-the-box that he doesn’t have to get to the real world, for the simple reason that real world is given to him. The real world gets to him so much so that it is absolutely impossible for him to ignore it. Sorta like that fly.....it is in no way self-contradictory to propose he (fly/man) isn’t so much trapped in a transparent bottle (box) objectified as his real world, as to propose he is, rather, protected by it. The boundary restricts his exorbitant creations (language games/inconceivable abstractions) concerning the other side, being necessarily governed by a very particular domain of possibilities he has been fated to populate.
—————
Quoting T H E
There’s an inescapable reason for that, and it’s unfortunate only because it is impossible to work around that very necessity intrinsic to a “word-math” system. Which, of course, says loads about such attempts.
Good talk. Coin-side one vs coin-side other.
Quoting Harry Hindu
There is no absolute truth outside of absolutist dogma. To an antirealist, pluralist, or relativist 'absolute' truth is complete nonsense because it does not belong to any naturally sensible or logically rational language game. Before you can challenge any of these people, it is entirely up to you to say what in the world an absolute truth is. Remember that Truth is not a Platonic or platonic object but the value of a binary evaluation. Binary evaluations don't work across all plural contingent realisms, and especially not outside all realism. They may be logically inapplicable.
Is your post not an example if absolute truth? Are you not telling everyone that reads this that the absolute truth is that there is no absolute truth? If not, then what are you actually saying? Should we believe what you wrote? Why or why not? Is what you said useful to others? Why or why not?
I couldn't possibly know that because I deny that your 'absolute truth' has any meaning to anyone else, further more, I challenge you to demonstrate that it does have philosophical meaning.
Your attack on 'relativism' is an ad hominem attack against persons unnamed. Once you name them they will throttle your self-refutation argument based on their own language games. For you to succeed, you would have to have them grant your philosophy and its terms such as absolute truth. But there is no reason in the world that they should or be expected to make an illogical claim of your philosophy prior to your argument just to please you.
Self refutation requires a person to say something deliberately or obviously illogical first so that you can then demonstrate that using logic. In Aristotle's argument he says just that.
Hence Grayling reads philosophy back into the anti-philosophy, in the place pointed to. Foremost in the notion of a form of life is that language cannot be elucidated without giving consideration to how it fits into our common dealing with the world and with others. Grayling is uncomfortable with the vagueness of 'form of life', and with vagueness more generally. But vagueness is an inherent in language, and without it we would not have its malleability and novelty.
It is this that distinguishes human language from that of birds and dogs... @creativesoul.
Language use is only amenable to explicit codification post hoc. This, , is what renders it a family resemblance. So when @unenlightened and @bongo fury consider gameplay itself, they quickly head off into nonsense. @Metaphysician Undercover commits a similar act, desiring uncertainty of the language he uses to formulate that very uncertainty. The difference is that Meta does not see that he is writing nonsense.
This is much the same consideration as found in Davidson's A Nice Derangement of Epitaphs, in which the utility of malapropisms is used to show that language can wriggle out of any codification.
There's a danger in treating Wittgenstein as phenomenology. The congenital problem of Edmund Husserl's bastard is that it tries to treat of the world from an individual's point of view; it takes subjectivism seriously. Hence it finds itself forever trying to talk about it own private language. This leads @Mww puzzling over the mistaken metaphor as to whether the house is built on its foundations or the foundations built under the house. Rather, Quoting T H E
I agree. Witty's certainty = Quine's centrality.
Two Dogmas: Jan '51. So, great minds.
And then obviously his agenda has nothing to do with Moore's. The question whether scepticism or anything else is refuted is way off the point.
It seems unlikely that Wittgenstein would have rejected analyticity, although he doesn't make use of the term.
But more importantly centrality is about a web imagined as encompassing all beliefs, the central ones being the most ardently held. The present text is more broadly concerned with the role played by sentences in the multifarious language games that constitute a form of life. This to point out that Quine's account is far too unified, whereas Wittgenstein's accounts of the vast divergence in how we actually use words.
Or putting this in more prejudicial terms, Quine is paying lipservice to scientism, Wittgenstein is self-consciously rejecting it.
Oh, I never thought of that.
Wow, thanks for that definition, as well.
Well, the term use defines analyticity in accord with hinge propositions here that are coherent within the intersubjectivity of the observer and another one, (not the world).
As in, I've no clear idea of what you are claiming.
Should that have been 'Well, the term "use" defines analyticity...' as in, are you claiming Witti defined analyticity in terms of use?
It's clear from the discussion here and in Sam's thread that hinge propositions need not be analytic. That's their point, really.
And what are intersubjectivity and observers doing here?
Quoting RussellA
The sceptic thinks he can step outside not just the framework at hand, but all frameworks altogether.
"In the beginning was the deed." (OC 402)
This is expanded upon:
"But that means I want to conceive it as something that lies beyond being justified or
unjustified; as it were, as something animal." (OC 359)
"I want to regard man here as an animal; as a primitive being to which one grants instinct but
not ratiocination. As a creature in a primitive state. Any logic good enough for a primitive means of
communication needs no apology from us. Language did not emerge from some kind of
ratiocination. " (OC 475)
Language games are an extension of man's acting in the world. Primitive hinges are pre-linguistic. They are not language games, they are an essential part of the form of life in which language games come to play a part. It is not that they cannot be doubted, it is simply that they are not.
The fact that I express my uncertainty with language, just like I might express other emotions with language, doesn't mean that the emotion is a feature of the language.
Yes, how else do you define it? It's all a web of beliefs, yes?
Have been busy starting to replace the 80 year-old electric junction boxes in my attic,
and having to learn about lighting wiring circuits, but now underway and getting a bit more time.
What....I was supposed to get that, out of this?
“....given at 248: 'I have arrived at the rock-bottom of my convictions. And one might almost say that these foundation-walls are carried by the whole house.'....”
That’s like the other day, this guy tells me...the fly is trapped in the bottle because it’s transparent.
I suppose there’s some kind of epiphany in both of those, but the expense of effort isn’t worth the find.
Exactly. That has been my point. Your statements are of no use to anyone else for the same reasons. So why make statements at all?
Quoting magritte
I have only "attacked" those that make such statements that essentially mean, "it is true that there are no truths". For you to succeed, you would have to have them grant your philosophy and its terms, such as "no absolute truth". You don't seem to understand that your own arguments apply to your prior arguments where you attempt to assert what the term, relativism, is for everyone.
Exactly.
This is not the metaphor and it is not mistaken. Wittgenstein knew a thing or two about architecture and engineering. What he says is:
248: 'I have arrived at the rock-bottom of my convictions. And one might almost say that these foundation-walls are carried by the whole house.'....”
It is not that the foundations are built under the house. or that there are fixed foundations upon which the house is built (see Descartes) but rather:
152. I do not explicitly learn the propositions that stand fast for me. I can discover them
subsequently like the axis around which a body rotates. This axis is not fixed in the sense that
anything holds it fast, but the movement around it determines its immobility.
Quoting Mww
Mww is returning to Cartesian foundations: "it remains that foundation walls are not carried by the house; the foundation walls carry the whole house". From previous conversations I take it that the foundations Mww wants to revive are Kantian.
It seems to me that Mww is here mistaken in how he understands the metaphor - it is a metaphor. But it remains entirely possible that I have misunderstood Mww, since i readily admit to having difficulty following his line of thought. It's unclear what Mww is doing, especially given that he says "I agree with it" then "I don't"...
My mistake. I only looked at the post to see if the quote was correct. I assumed, perhaps wrongly, that an accurate quote would not be taken to mean the opposite of what it says.
In case I misunderstood, hinge propositions don't appear as often in the Investigations as in OC. With the sentiment from what I recall from Wittgenstein to be in performing acts or deeds.
Unless otherwise states a hinge proposition is a tautology in manner.
It is otherwise stated. indeed, that's the point of OC.
I know only of Moore's paradox about the chap in his house doubting that its or it is raining outside whilst it is. Is that of any use?
You asked what I found interesting, so I told you. This part of the essay is interesting to me so I give it a thumbs up, that part of the essay is interesting to me as well, but I give it a thumbs down. Simple.
A guy that takes a metaphor and turns it into a riddle, by the employment of conceptions that contradict each other, re: “foundation walls carried by the whole house” is just wasting himself in doing crappy philosophy.
But nobody’s gonna buy that he was doing crappy philosophy, so it is given a nice comforting name, language games. The epitome of which is found in Grayling’s characterization of #248, “the clever rendition of the transcendental argument”. The reader is required to substitute the constituents of the proposition, while retaining its intent, arriving at something like....all my rock-bottom convictions are carried by my propositions. So the game is the choice of substitutions, the language is what is substituted, and the result......which has been the case since man dragged woman back to the cave by the hair......obtains as right back to crappy philosophy. Not because no one can make sense of it, but when he does make sense of it by playing language games, he finds it’s all been said before.
But, you know. Opinions are like noses......
we can only ever observe particular blues, it seems to me that we can communicate with others using a conceptualised public language even though each of us uses a particular private language.
Private language
As regards our private language, there is no fixed meaning to the words we use. The particular meaning of a word depends both on context and the life experiences of the person using that word.
For me, a house is a two-story brick building, for someone else a house may be a single-story timber building. What "house" means to me also changes with time. What I mean by "house" now is different to an hour ago since discovering a loose tile.
At this moment in time, if I use "house" in conversation, the word "house" can only have one single meaning to me. This particular meaning is unique to me. This is not to say that in an hours time, if I use the word "house" again, its particular meaning to me may be different again.
What does "mean" mean ? My understanding of the meaning of the concept "house" is just that set of the simpler concepts it is composed of, eventually leading to what Kant called a priori pure intuitions, such as space, time, causation, green, etc.
Even though the concept "house" is built from a set of simpler concepts, roof, door, window, etc, there is for me still a single meaning of the word "house". The fact that at one moment in time the word "house" only has as single meaning to me, and as meaning is a thought, and thoughts cannot doubt themselves, the meaning of "house" to me is beyond doubt, and therefore beyond the sceptic.
As Wittgenstein wrote in OC341 "That is to say, the questions that we raise and our doubts depend on the fact that some propositions are exempt from doubt, are as it were like hinges on which those turn."
Public language
As regards our public language, even though the person with whom I am in discussion with will have their own particular language game, different to mine, in general we can successfully communicate because of the "family resemblances" between the words we use.
For example, even though for me I think of a house as two stories, whilst others may think of a house as single story, we both agree that a house is "a building for human habitation, especially one that consists of a ground floor and one or more upper storeys." As this is a definition it is also beyond the sceptic.
As Wittgenstein wrote OC256 "On the other hand a language game does change with time" and OC65: When language-games change, then there is a change in concepts, and with the concepts the meanings of words change", establishing that there may be more than one language game.
AC Grayling
In considering the foundationalism of OC1 and the relativism of OC2, as Wittgenstein wrote in OC99: "And the bank of that river consists partly of hard rock, subject to no alteration or only to an imperceptible one, partly of sand, which now in one place now in another gets washed away, or deposited", I would suggest that successful communication using language needs both a bedrock of a private language game and a public flow of family resemblances between different private language games.
Rather than agreeing with Grayling that "the exercise in OC is at best partial, at worst self-defeating, with the self-defeat stemming from acceptance of OC2", I would suggest that both themes within OC, foundationalism and relativism, are complementary in successful communication.
I think the point was that when we explore the metaphor of the house, it turns out that it doesn't work. The house of justified beliefs is apparently floating, not founded on anything.
The next obvious question is about the vantage point implied here. We appear to be stationed beyond any frame of reference like we are when we think about Relativity. I guess we're watching the parade of worldviews in history, but that can't be right. Any assessment of history is deeply marked by out present worldview.
I don't think we can escape into the void as suggested here. We're still trapped. And yet, to say that is to imply that we escaped. It's a circle.
Grayling also wrote in section I that Wittgenstein's foundational beliefs are justified by a transcendental argument - OC248 "I have arrived at the rock bottom of my convictions. And one might almost say that these foundation-walls are carried by the whole house".
The transcendental argument - i) X occurs only if Y - ii) X occurs; hence Y.
Applying Wittgenstein's transcendental argument to Moore.
Moore says that because he knows "here is one hand" (X) he therefore knows "the existence of external things" (Y ).
The argument is that the sceptic cannot doubt that "here is one hand" (X) occurs only if there is "the existence of external things" (Y ).
Moore argues that because his knowledge "here is one hand" (X) has occurred - hence his knowledge "the existence of external things" (Y ).
However, whilst true that no-one can doubt Moore knowing "here is one hand", the sceptic may rightly doubt the meaning of the word "here", in that does "here" refer to the external world or Moore's mind. If "here" refers to the external world, then the transcendental argument follows. However if "here" refers to Moore's mind, then the transcendental argument fails.
IE the argument within OC1 for foundational beliefs does not negate the sceptic.
Wittgenstein: “The language used by philosophers is already deformed, as though by shoes that are too tight” [CV, p. 47].
Just as shoes that are too tight make it difficult to walk, the language used by philosophers makes it difficult to think.
I think that what Wittgenstein is trying to show is that there is both something correct and something wrong in the claims of knowledge, certainty, doubt, and skepticism.
Foundations are not incompatible with relativism. They only become incompatible under certain definitions and with certain expectations. To illustrate the point here are four hinges:
1) The Earth is flat
2) The Sun revolves around the Earth
3) The Earth is a sphere
4) The Earth revolves around the Sun
The first two at one time functioned as hinge propositions but were later shown to be false. A great deal hinged on them, a whole system of beliefs that were overturned. But the fact that it they formed a coherent picture of the world should not be overlooked
A mistake that is frequently made is to treat hinges as if they are all the same. There are propositional hinges and pre-linguistic hinges. Empirical hinges and mathematical hinges. Hinges are fixed, but some are more permanent than others.
The skeptic is right to the extent that he points to the limits of knowledge, but wrong to doubt everything. The philosopher is right to point out that there are things we know, but wrong in some of the claims about what knowledge entails. Interpreters are misled when they consider only some of the cases Wittgenstein examines and ignore others, and mistaken in their assumption that Wittgenstein is articulating a theory of this or that.
A striking example of Wittgenstein's skepticism for the Tractatus:
5.634
This is connected with the fact that no part of our experience is also a priori.
Everything we see could also be otherwise.
Everything we describe at all could also be otherwise.
There is no order of things a priori.
6.36311
It is an hypothesis that the sun will rise tomorrow: and this means that we do not know whether it will rise.
I don't think he ever rejects this.
There can be no such thing, because a hinge is a proposition and all propositions can be stated.
But apart from that, I think we agree.
"And one might almost say that these foundation-walls are carried by the whole house"; "...almost ...". So the metaphor is not quite right.
Along side it we find this:
and this:
It's an error to see §248 as pivotal. Seen in context, it is part of a lengthy expression of puzzlement, in which Wittgenstein shows us the difficulties involved in the process of doubting - and that doubting is a game we play with words, and so subject to all the indeterminacies and errors he set out in Philosophical Investigations.
Grayling errs is seeing only the transcendental argument. There is much more.
,
What am I to conclude?
This belief may never have been expressed; but it is not inexpressible.
If all you mean by "prelinguistic" is "unexpressed" then we have no disagreement.
Any disagreement is reserved for the oxymoronic "inexpressible proposition".
Well, that's boring.
But how would we know there are language games if there's no vantage point beyond them? Nothing to compare them to?
And if those are walls of the same house, how do we know about this kind of house?
If you would have answered, you would have seen the contradiction open up.
Too bad.
If you think you have a point to make, then make it. If you have nothing to say, say nothing.
This is why I prefaced my remarks with the quote from Wittgenstein.
From Stanford:
"The term ‘proposition’ has a broad use in contemporary philosophy. It is used to refer to some or all of the following: the primary bearers of truth-value, the objects of belief and other “propositional attitudes” (i.e., what is believed, doubted, etc.[1]), the referents of that-clauses, and the meanings of sentences.
One might wonder whether a single class of entities can play all these roles. If David Lewis (1986, p. 54) is right in saying that “the conception we associate with the word ‘proposition’ may be something of a jumble of conflicting desiderata,” then it will be impossible to capture our conception in a consistent definition.
The best way to proceed, when dealing with quasi-technical words like ‘proposition’, may be to stipulate a definition and proceed with caution, making sure not to close off any substantive issues by definitional fiat."https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/propositions/
It is not Moore's statements about his hand that function as a hinge. If Moore's propositions about his hands are hinges then what revolves around them? Most people do not know who Moore is. It makes little or no difference if he claimed to have hands. Not much hinges on the statements that any of us make about having hands.
It is the fact of our having hands around which things pivot. Our doing things with our hands, our holding tools and other things designed for hands. Even our statements about hands hinge on our having hands.
SO is On Certainty about what it is to show as opposed to tell? Hand-waving as showing what is to be the base from which we will work? That's what is left to articulate, at least for me, in Philosophical Investigations. It's there in Part II, the bit that seldom gets discussed.
Wonder if it is worth a new thread...?
Well, not in the Tractarian sense of the terms.
Quoting Banno
I would be interested.
Davidson's T-sentence "here is one hand" is true IFF here is one hand points out there is the linguistic aspect "here is one hand" and the non-linguistic aspect, ie, the empirical truth of here is one hand. For Davidson's T-sentence, the meaning of a sentence is equivalent to stating its truth conditions, where a theory of meaning for a natural language must be an empirical theory in that it must be empirically verifiable
Scientists have estimated that the first animals are likely to have emerged around 750 million years ago. Anatomically modern humans begin to appear in the fossil record in Ethiopia some 200,000 years ago - and if were using red ochre pigments for ritual and symbolic purposes, they probably had symbolic language as well. Therefore, language is very recent in the development of sentient animals.
Language isn't necessary for knowing and believing. As Wittgenstein wrote at the start of Part II of Philosophical Investigations "One can imagine an animal angry, frightened, unhappy, happy, startled. But hopeful ? And why not ?"
Moore wrote he knew "the existence of external things" because he knew "Here is one hand" - saying "How absurd it would be to suggest that I did not know it, but only believed it, and that perhaps it was not the case!" However, for me, when I raise my hand, although I know "Here is one hand", I only believe in the "existence of external things". Moore's argument is therefore insufficient justification for me.
I am certain that a cat knows "here is one paw" and "the existence of external things". As Moore having language and the cat not having language know these same things, I would suggest that such knowledge doesn't require language, in that is pre-linguistic. I would also suggest that my doubt about the existence of an external world is a consequence of my having language.
Without language, I would not know that Moore knew "here is one hand" and the "existence of external things". It is only through language that I know that Moore knew "here is one hand" and the "existence of external things". Language opens up my knowledge from the first to the second and third persons.
No sceptic could doubt Moore when he says he knows "here is one hand". No sceptic could doubt that Moore knows "here" is in his mind. But the sceptic can doubt that Moore knows "here" is in the external world.
I look at a picture and, having had experience of real rabbits, I see a rabbit. Knowing language I may say "here is a rabbit", which will only be true IFF here is a rabbit. Another person may look at the same picture and see a duck, and may say "here is a duck", which will only be true IFF here is a duck. IE, in order to establish the truth, language alone is insufficient.
"Here is a hand" is true IFF here is a hand. What more empirical a demonstration could there be than Moore waving his hand at you?
And Davidson would certainly not agree that language isn't necessary for knowing and believing. Nor I suspect would Wittgenstein.
But yes, doubt comes with propositional content and hence is also inherently a linguistic enterprise - a language game.
Whilst reading Part II of Philosophical Investigations, I see a "picture-face" on the pages, and as Wittgenstein wrote: "In some respects I stand towards it as I do towards a human face. I can study its expression, can react to it as to the expression of the human face"
Whilst watching Shrek on TV, I perceive a hand waving at me. If I had concluded that this was a empirical demonstration of an external world of dragons and talking donkeys, I would have been mistaken.
IE, perceiving a hand waving at me is not necessarily an empirical demonstration of the existence of an external world.
Quoting Banno
I assume that when Davidson refers to language he is referring to human language, and not the primitive language of cats for example, who hiss and spit.
As regards knowing and believing, personally, I am certain that a cat knows it has paws and knows it sees a mouse, though I cannot prove this.
As you wrote a while ago " Lilly apparently believed that there was something objectionable out the window, and that her hissing and spitting were imperative in order to drive whatever it was away.", it seems that we are both certain that cats know and believe.
Wittgenstein is said to believe that thought is tied to language. As language is inherently social there is no inner space in which thoughts can occur. Mental states are intimately connected to a subject's environment, especially their linguistic environment.
However, Wittgenstein did also write at the start of Part II of PI - "One can imagine an animal angry, frightened, unhappy, happy, startled. But hopeful? And why not? A dog believes his master is at the door. But can he also believe his master will come the day after to-morrow?—And what can he not do here?—How do I do it?—How am I supposed to answer this? Can only those hope who can talk?"
IE, it seems that Wittgenstein's position that thought is tied to language was not absolute.
I agree, as Davidson wrote, that language can only have meaning if empirically true.
However, the cat Lilly, an example of a sentient being not having language, knows there are local strays outside the house and believes there will be an imminent invasion.
IE, language isn't necessary for knowing and believing.
Oops, posted accidentally.
What I meant to say is that these premises are simply unacceptable, as false, just like your claim that knowledge is shared, which I can't seem to find now. It must have been deleted for low quality. If knowledge was necessarily shared, deception would be impossible. But deception is very real, and it consists of a person hiding what one knows. And since the skeptic can doubt what another is saying, knowing that deception is possible, without any understanding of what the other is saying, doubt does not require a language game.
The intent of honest communication produces language games. The intent to deceive produces doubt, destroying the possibility of language games.
OC 3:
If e.g. someone says "I don't know if there's a hand here" he might be told "Look closer". - This
possibility of satisfying oneself is part of the language-game. Is one of its essential features.
It does not go any deeper than looking and seeing.
I think Wittgenstein is being playful: "look closer". The problem is not with what is seen, it is with thinking there is good reason to doubt it.
The skeptic has it backwards, believing that reason is the ground and arbiter; that in order to know that there is a hand here we must satisfy the doubts raised by reason.
If they had said "I know when looking at the post-box my sense impression is red because the post-box is emitting light at a wavelength of 750nm", it is true that they don't need a reason to justify that they know their own sense impression.
If they had said "I know that the actual post-box is red, not just my sense-impression", the sceptic is justified to ask them for what reason they think they know that the actual post-box is red. If they cannot give a suitable reason, then the sceptic had justification to ask.
When someone says that they know something about which they have no direct knowledge,
the sceptic is justified in asking for a reason.
Speaking as someone, that is not at all what I mean. What I really mean is that I am able to distinguish between post-boxes that are red and post-boxes that are not.
What do you really mean when you say you have the sense impression red? How do you know it is red? Do you compare it to a red post-box? Does your sense impression emit light at a wavelength of 750nm?
Quoting RussellA
What serves as direct knowledge that a post-box is red? A sense impression? That may be direct knowledge of the sense impression but the sense impression is not the post-box. Only the post-box can serve as the source of direct knowledge of the color of the post-box.
Light having a wavelength of 750nm travels the 10m from the post-box to our brain through our eyes.
There is no information within light having a wavelength of 750nm that is able to determine that the observer will have the sense impression of red, rather than green, say. For example, one person may see red and another person may see green.
Therefore, the colour an observer sees is a function of the observer and not of the light travelling from the object.
Therefore, it is not that the actual post-box is red, but rather we observe the post-box as being red.
What color is the mailbox in the dark?
Quoting RussellA
Does this mean that if I them to paint the box red one will do so correctly and the other will paint it green? Or is there no correct here?
No - they will both paint it red.
But you previously said:
Quoting RussellA
and then:
Quoting RussellA
So, the person sees green yet knows that the post-box is red despite his sense impression not because of it.
Now it may be that she has learned that her sense impression for green is what other people call red. The problem is she is still able to distinguish between green and red post-boxes. If someone painted the box green would she see it as green or red or some other color? In any case, she is able to make a distinction and that distinction must have something to do with the color of the post-box.
You also said:
Quoting RussellA
In the dark we cannot observe the color. Isn't this because what the observer sees has something to do with the light travelling from the object?
Are you claiming to be unable to distinguish a hand waved by Shrek from one waived by Moore?
Elsewhere, you appear to move between belief and knowledge with blithe disregard for their differences. One's belief may be false, not so one's knowedge.
Especially if it's carnal knowledge.
A person can know several different things at the same time.
The person can know that the publicly accepted word for the colour of the post-box is "red" - though it could have been "rouge" or "rot".
The person can also know their own conscious experience of a particular colour.
There is no way of knowing whether one person's conscious experience of the wavelength 750nm is the same as anyone else's. It could be that two people have the same conscious experience of 750nm - let us call it red. It could be that that one person's conscious experience of 750nm - let us call it red - is different to someone else's conscious experience of 750nm - let us call it green.
IE, a person could know two things. First, that the external public name of the colour of the post-box is "red" and second, that their internal private conscious experience of 750nm is green.
Whilst watching TV, I see a figure waving a hand. As the figure has a green face, I know it is more likely to be Shrek than Moore.
However, the sceptic would be justified in pointing out that my TV is old and tends to give a green tinge to everything, and ask my reasons why I think it is Shrek rather than Moore.
IE, I can distinguish between Shrek and Moore, but I may be wrong.
Yea there is. We can look at a particular part of the body and ask “Is this involved in the experience of color”. We can do experiments to determine whether it is or not. Take toe size. If toe size had anything to do with the experience you get when a 750 nm wavelength enters your eye, then you’d expect that a person with a swollen toe would report seeing different colors than usual. That isn’t the case so it’s not a significant variable.
Repeat this process, then eventually you will positively be able to answer whether or not someone’s conscious experience of 750 nm is the same as anyone else’s. If they have identical significant variables, they’re the same. Or at least, we’d be justified in believing they’re the same.
Quoting RussellA
but now:
Quoting RussellA
So which is it? Does a person know it or is the skeptic justified in asking for the reason they think they know it?
The problem with the English language is that many of its' words have several meanings, such as the word "know". Context does not always make it clear which meaning is intended. Life would a lot easier if each meaning of the word "know" had its own individual sub-word. Though that would meaning a lot more words.
The enclosed article may do a better job of what I am trying to say.
https://www.uh.edu/engines/epi3161.htm
We are not talking about the various uses of the work 'know'. We are talking about skepticism. How is it that when:
Quoting RussellA
the skeptic is still justified in asking for the reason they know it? If the person is able to distinguish between a red post-box and a green post-box or for that matter a red post-box and an aardvark then what is missing from their knowledge that justifies doubting it?
Introduction
The truth of the statement "One's belief may be false, not so one's knowledge" depends on the meaning of "knowledge". The nature of knowledge has been discussed since at least Plato, so I don't think I will be able to resolve the matter in this post.
Knowing and believing
I am trying to keep my use of the words "knowledge" and "belief" within a framework, whereby a sentient being pre-language knows internal consciousness , knows external observations and believes external possibilities. A sentient being with language knows internal consciousness, believes external observations and believes external possibilities.
One advantage of a sentient being with language only believing in external observations rather than knowing them is possibly an answer to Russell's problem of how to think about non-existent things - a problem approached by Wittgenstein in his Tractatus regarding possible worlds.
Different theories of knowledge
Whether knowledge can be false depends on the definition of knowledge, as there are different defintions as to what knowledge is.
For example, there is internal knowledge. There is knowledge of a skill or ability, such as "I know how to play football". There is knowledge of one's own consciousness, such as "I know pain"
There is external knowledge. There is knowledge by acquaintance, such as "I know there is a tree in the garden". There is knowledge by proposition, such as "I know the Eiffel Tower is in Paris".
I cannot doubt internal knowledge, but I can doubt external knowledge.
It is possible to have different types of knowledge at the same time. For example, when looking at a post-box, I know the proposition "red light has a wavelength of between 620nm and 750nm", I know that I am looking at a post-box and I know my conscious experience of a particular colour
Wittgenstein and knowing
Wittgenstein in On Certainty was concerned with excluding doubt in his refutation of scepticism - OC 341. "That is to say, the questions that we raise and our doubts depend on the fact that some propositions are exempt from doubt, are as it were like hinges on which those turn."
However, in order to exclue doubt, one must also exclude knowing - OC354 "Doubting and non-doubting behaviour. There is the first only if there is the second"
As Grayling wrote - i) "The well-known, and persuasive, central tenet of OC is its view that claims to knowledge only make sense where the possibility of doubt exists." - ii) "His contribution is to insist on the internal connection between the concepts of knowing and doubting. "
For this reason, Wittgenstein argued against Moore when Moore said "Here is one hand", "How absurd it would be to suggest that I did not know it, but only believed it, and that perhaps it was not the case!"
For Wittgenstein, the word "know" is only an assurance - OC21. Moore's view really comes down to this: the concept 'know' is analogous to the concepts 'believe', 'surmise', 'doubt', 'be convinced' in that the statement "I know..." can't be a mistake.
For Wittgenstein, Moore should have argued from "here is one hand" rather than "I know that here is one hand"
IE, For Wittgenstein, it is not the case that knowledge cannot be doubted, but that knowledge is only an assurance, and as such can be doubted.
Justified true belief
Since Plato, knowledge has been defined as justified true belief. If the three conditions of justification, truth and belief are met for a given claim, then we have knowledge of that claim.
However, in 1963 Gettier argued that, by giving counter-examples, whilst an individual can have a JTB, the individual may still fail to know it because the reasons for the belief, whilst justified, turn out to be false.
There are different solutions to the Gettier problem. Some look for a fourth condition, others look to replace "justification" with something else. As yet, no definitive solution has been agreed upon.
Summary
As some kinds of knowledge may be doubted, there remains an overlap between knowledge and belief, in that the statement "I know that the post-box is red" overlaps with the statement "I believe that the post-box is red"
If someone says "I see a post-box, and it exists in a world external to me", the sceptic is justified in asking the speaker, first, how they know there is an external world, and second, how they know there is a post-box in this external world. What is missing from the speaker's knowledge is evidence for their belief.
The evidence of their belief is the fact that they are able to distinguish a red post-box from all else.
But we are now just repeating ourselves.
I've replied to this so often that I use the reply for my Bio:
I note the use of internal and external in you examples. You have reinforced my suspicion about the distinction between subjective and objective views. It seems to confuse people dreadfully.
:point:
:point:
[quote= SEP]
The term “lifeworld” thus denotes the way the members of one or more social groups (cultures, linguistic communities) use to structure the world into objects (Husserliana, vol. VI, pp. 126–138, 140–145). The respective lifeworld is claimed to “predelineate” a “world-horizon” of potential future experiences that are to be (more or less) expected for a given group member at a given time, under various conditions, where the resulting sequences of anticipated experiences can be looked upon as corresponding to different “possible worlds and environments” (Husserliana, vol. III/1, p. 100). These expectations follow typical patterns, as the lifeworld is fixed by a system of (first and foremost implicit) intersubjective standards, or conventions, that determine what counts as “normal” or “standard” observation under “normal” conditions (Husserliana, vol. XV, pp. 135 ff, 142) and thus as a source of epistemic justification.
[/quote]
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qm-copenhagen/
[quote=Husserl]
In whatever way we may be conscious of the world as universal horizon, as coherent universe of existing objects, we, each "I-the-man" and all of us together, belong to the world as living with one another in the world; and the world is our world, valid for our consciousness as existing precisely through this 'living together.' We, as living in wakeful world-consciousness, are constantly active on the basis of our passive having of the world... Obviously this is true not only for me, the individual ego; rather we, in living together, have the world pre-given in this together, belong, the world as world for all, pre-given with this ontic meaning... The we-subjectivity... [is] constantly functioning.
[/quote]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lifeworld
[quote=Husserl]
In my naive self-consciousness as a human being knowing himself to be living in the world, for whom the world is the totality of what for him is valid and existing, I am blind to the immense transcendental dimension of problems … I am completely … bound by interests and tasks … [and] a certain habitual one-sidedness of self interest … I can, however, carry out the transcendental re-orientation in which … I now have, as a new horizon of interest … a new, infinite scientific realm—if I engage in the appropriate systematic work …
One kind of thinking … tries to bring ‘original intuition’ to the fore—that is, the pre- and extrascientific lifeworld … The proper return to the naïveté of life—but in a reflection that rises above this naiveté—is the only way to overcome this … naiveté …
In science we measure the lifeworld … for a well-fitting garb of ideas … It is … a method which is designed for progressively improving … through ‘scientific’ predictions, those rough predictions which are the only ones that are possible within the sphere of what is actually experienced and experienceable in the lifeworld …
Considering ourselves … as scientists … the manner of scientific thinking puts questions and answers them theoretically in relation to the world … Cofunctioning here are the other scientists who, united with us in a community of theory, acquire and have the same truths or … are united with us in a critical transaction aimed at critical agreement …
For the human being in his surrounding world there are many types of praxis, and among them is this peculiar … one, theoretical praxis. It has its own professional methods; it is the art of … discovering and securing truths with a certain new ideal sense which is foreign to [extra]scientific life, the sense of a certain ‘final validity’ …
Thus, a new way of experiencing, of thinking, of theorizing, is opened … here, situated above his own natural being and above the natural world, the scientist or philosopher loses nothing of their being and objective truths and likewise nothing at all of the spiritual acquisitions of his world-life or those of … historical communal life … Yet, as a scientist or philosopher, I stand above the world, which has now become for me, in a quite peculiar sense, a phenomenon’ …
[/quote]
https://newlearningonline.com/new-learning/chapter-7/husserl-on-the-task-of-science-in-and-of-the-lifeworld
@RussellA, looking back over your posts, it seems to me that you are looking at these arguments with only part of Wittgenstein's analysis of meaning to hand. Wittgenstein, along with other analytic philosophers, rejected the notion of fixed meanings. Instead of looking to meanings he exhorted philosopher to look to what is being done with the words. Much of what you have said stands; if anything, it's stronger to point to the use of a word changing from one instance to another than talikng of the meaning changing.
So to this:
Quoting RussellA
That looks very similar to the description of language found in his Tractatus. It's pretty much the notion Wittgenstein critiqued in his later work, Philosophical Investigations. One argument he offered, for example, was to question what it was to count as a simple; he pointed out that what counted as a simple in one situation might not be a simple in a different situation (around §48 in PI).
Just a few thoughts.
I think we'd need infinitely more words. Doesn't every speech act have a certain uniqueness? This quote seems relevant.
[quote=link]
One important aspect of the difference between Quine’s and Wittgenstein’s conceptions of philosophy, is their opposite attitudes towards linguistic diversity. According to Wittgenstein, philosophical problems arise because we go astray in the ancient city of language. To find our way about, we have to remind ourselves of how the streets that we habitually walk every day actually look, and how they are connected to each other. Naturally, this will involve reminding ourselves of the more or less detailed differences between various buildings and blocks. Hiding or obliterating such differences only makes the necessary orientation more difficult, or even impossible. Indeed, it might have been precisely such obliteration which made us go astray in the first place. Being able to resist the inclination to impose uniformity on language is therefore, according to Wittgenstein, a central philosophical virtue.
Quine’s viewpoint is quite different. He wants philosophers to be like city-planners who replace old, irregular housing areas by new, uniform blocks. In a scientific spirit of systematicity and simplification, Quine thinks we should dispense with all “quirks of usage that we can straighten.” [Quine 1960:158] Allegedly, philosophers should not try to give a wholly faithful description of actual language use, but rather improve language by fitting it into an austere “canonical notation” that employs only the constructional resources of first-order predicate logic. [1960:226ff.] Only such “regimentation” - a process of “coax[ing]” and “trimming” that may even require “some torturing” - makes it possible to perform the supposedly necessary “clearing of ontological slums.” [1987:157; 1960:180, 275]
[/quote]
http://web.abo.fi/fak/hf/filosofi/Research/Spraxis/DAVIDSON.HTM
What if the system is not perfect? In OC, Wittgenstein still treats humans being on the moon as an obvious absurdity. It seems to me that you are thinking of some philosophical system when the issue is rather what 'reasonable' people take for granted, some of which the 'reasonable' people of the future will find absurd or cruel.
[quote=OC]
208. I have a telephone conversation with New York. My friend tells me that his young trees have buds of such and such a kind. I am now convinced that his tree is... Am I also convinced that the earth exists?
209. The existence of the earth is rather part of the whole picture which forms the starting-point of belief for me.
210. Does my telephone call to New York strengthen my conviction that the earth exists?
Much seems to be fixed, and it is removed from the traffic. It is also so to speak shunted onto an unused siding.
211. Now it gives our way of looking at things, and our researches, their form. Perhaps it was once disputed. But perhaps, for unthinkable ages, it has belonged to the scaffolding of our thoughts.
(Every human being has parents.)
[/quote]
The sceptic here takes the ideas of 'direct knowledge' and 'justification' for granted. You mention 'sense data.' That's a philosophical idea. Typically people just see the red mailbox. For the skeptic to worry about the gap between color reports and what color is really there is already to take some theory of perception for granted.
In general, the idea is that intelligible doubt (as opposed to nail-biting paralysis) has a specificity that points to a context of some taken-for-granted framework.
When an author uses a critical word that they know can be interpreted in more than one way, then, as a general principle, they should somehow make it clear to the reader in what sense they are using it - unless they are a poet.
Grayling points out the two types of scepticism: scepticism within the foundationalism of OC1 and scepticism within the relativism of OC2
Perfection is a requirement of logic, that is how logic works. Following the rules to the degree of perfection is necessary. If you propose a part of a logical system which does not follow the rules of that system, we must exclude it as not being part of the system. Otherwise logic loses its effectiveness because invalidities are acceptable.
Quoting j0e
I think reasonable people will see the need to have logic rule over any system of beliefs. If you are proposing that beliefs ought to be ruled by a system which is not a logical system, it is rather an imperfect system, then you rob yourself of the capacity to exclude doubt. The exclusion of doubt requires perfection in the logical system.
This is the point I made, which Banno scoffed at. Allowing that a system of beliefs may be imperfect means that the entire system needs to be subjected to doubt. This is proof that the idea of hinge propositions, which it is unreasonable to doubt, is fundamentally flawed.
If we make an analytical separation between the rules of the system (formal aspect), and the subject matter, and adhere to perfection in the rules, as the means to exclude doubt, then the subject matter, content becomes the source of mistake. Since the subject matter comes from outside the system and therefore has not been subjected to the rules of the system, doubting of the subject matter is a requirement, if certainty is the goal. The proposed hinge propositions are subject matter, content, and therefore need to be doubted, just like any other portion of the subject matter.
Wittgenstein misuses the word "form" here. Such ideas like "the existence of the earth" do not form starting points, nor do they give our way of looking at things, a form. Form is principles of formulae, definition, logical rules, etc.. The "existence of the earth" is not such a principle, because "existence" is a complicated and very much disputed concept. That the earth must in some way "exist" comes about as a conclusion, as a requirement when we seek to justify other beliefs. And the way that we seek to justify these beliefs shapes the concept of "existence". That's why "existence" is a disputed and unclear concept. The basic beliefs roll around in people's heads, and off their tongues and pens, for many years as a the subject matter of thinking, with an inherent rule or form (such a bud belongs to a specific type of tree for example), without asking to be justified by "the existence of the earth".
But when we seek to extend the rules, the formal structures, uniting them such that all of our beliefs must maintain coherency within a single system, each itself justified by others, then we approach the need to conclude "the existence of the earth". But this idea, "the existence of the earth", does not give our way of looking at things their form, it is a conclusion derived from our way of looking at things, deemed as necessary to give that way of looking at things a place within a larger unity. The larger unity is an attempt at completion, logical perfection within the distinct belief systems. So it is derived from the form of our way of looking at things, it does not give our way of looking at things its form.
Why not doubt then this need for subjecting the system to doubt?
I think you are taking 'system' too much in a technical sense, as if it were a mathematical proof with a broken link. Instead the system is a big, baggy monster of ways that people do things, things that people 'know,' without having to think about it. You claim that 'perfection is a requirement in logic.' Why is that true? Is that something that everybody just knows? Is that just part of what logic means?
Why must hinge propositions be doubted? To what extra-systematic authority do you appeal? This 'system' is not intended as some philosopher's pet system but as something like a shared system of meanings and taken-for-granted quasi-facts. I say 'quasi-facts' because worldviews change. 'Everybody knows' that the earth is a ball that goes around the sun (which is not to say that every single human agrees with this, hence the loose concept of the 'reasonable' or 'educated' person.) But in other times, everybody knew something different, incorrectly by our current standards.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
IMO, all concepts are more or less disputed and more or less unclear.
To my understanding, within a particular Wittgensteinian language game are beliefs, foundational beliefs and the logic that ties them together. Wittgensteinian foundational beliefs are now referred to as "hinge propositions".
When Wittgenstein writes in OC341 - "That is to say, the questions that we raise and our doubts depend on the fact that some propositions are exempt from doubt, are as it were like hinges on which those turn.", I read this as a performative statement about the nature of hinge propositions rather than an empirical discovery about the world. He is creating some propositions to be exempt from doubt, rather than in looking at the world he has discovered some propositions that are exempt from doubt.
That is, the hinge proposition "the earth existed before I was born" is not open to doubt, as it is part of the logical framework of the language game, and is a logical statement, whereas the proposition "the earth existed before I was born" is open to doubt, as it is a belief.
A hinge proposition is analytic, in the same sense as "all bachelors are unmarried" is analytic.
For Wittgenstein, a language game is internally logically coherent, and therefore is a foundationalist refutation to scepticism.
However, the problem remains that there can be any number of internally logically coherent language games, and the sceptic may rightly ask for justification why a particular language game corresponds to an external reality.
IE, "hinge propositions" are part of the logical form of the system and not part of the content.
Sure, why not? But be careful not to categorize this doubt as a form of certainty. To doubt is to be uncertain as to yes or no. So to doubt whether or not the system ought to be subjected to doubt, is not to be certain in one way or the other.
This is the problem with the way that many here categorize doubt, as a form of certainty. Doubt is what prevents one from proceeding in action, whereas certainty is what induces action. So the doubters of skepticism, and there are many here in the forum, represent skepticism and doubt as the act of subjecting a belief, or beliefs, to doubt, thereby making the category mistake of representing doubt as an act supported by some form of certainty, rather than an unwillingness to act, supported by uncertainty. This is to incorrectly represent doubt by failing to see it as categorically distinct from certainty, thereby presenting it as the polar opposite within the same category. In reality certainty inclines us to act, while doubt inclines us to be unwilling to act, and they coexist as categorically distinct rather than being the extremes of the same category, and cancelling each other out as hot and cold would.
Quoting j0e
But then it is incorrect to call this a "system", that's the whole point. If we move away from the "system" representation, to the "big, baggy monster of ways that people do things" representation, then the idea of hinge propositions makes no sense at all, because there is no system for them to be supporting. If there are systems, then the systems themselves must be coherent, so to doubt any aspect of the system implies a doubt of the entire system, including any supposed hinge propositions. Either way, the notion of hinge propositions which are beyond doubt is fundamentally incorrect. That's why Kuhnian paradigm shifts are a reality, the entire system along with its foundations must be dismissed.
Quoting j0e
A belief system must be coherent to fulfill the conditions of being a "system". This means that if one belief within the system is dubious, then the entire system is dubious due to all the beliefs being related through coherency. So it makes no sense to say that some beliefs within the system are dubious but the foundational ones, hinge propositions cannot be doubted. This is like taking a deductive argument, and saying that the logic is valid, the conclusion is dubious, but the premises are beyond doubt. If the logic is valid, we cannot doubt the conclusion without doubting the premises.
Quoting j0e
I'm not really arguing that hinge propositions ought to be doubted. I am arguing that the concept of hinge propositions which are beyond doubt is itself incoherent. So my point is not that hinge propositions ought to be doubted, but that there is no such thing as hinge propositions.
Quoting j0e
If you allow that worldviews change, then how can you subscribe to hinge propositions which are beyond doubt?
Quoting j0e
So I assume that you do not believe in hinge propositions either.
Quoting RussellA
Without any reference to "external reality" we can assume that one language game might have expressions, statements, or propositions which contradict those of another language game. Since this is the case, then we cannot say that the hinge propositions of any particular language game are beyond doubt. This is why it is unreasonable to designate beliefs which are seen as foundational to any particular language game as beyond doubt.
I agree - as Grayling wrote in section III "As OC stands, it stands defeated"
As I understand it, it is not that they cannot be doubted but rather that they are not doubted. They cannot both be doubted and serve as hinges. It is not as if they stand alone, as if one could be doubted and all else would remain the same. It is the case, however, that from time to time there is a major shift such as the Copernican revolution where some hinges are not only doubted, they are rejected as false. It was not simply a matter of accepting that the earth revolved around the sun instead of the sun revolving around the earth and our understanding of everything else remained the same.
As I see it, hinge propositions are inventions and therefore knowable without reference to the world. They are true by definition and therefore exempt from doubt.
Suppose language game A including the hinge proposition "the earth existed before I was born" was replaced at a later time by language game B including the hinge proposition ""the earth did not exist before I was born". As hinge propositions are true by definition, true without reference to the world and exempt from doubt, the previous hinge proposition "the earth existed before I was born" remains true.
Propositions are only contradictory with reference to the world, and as hinge propositions are true without reference to the world, hinge propositions cannot be contradictory
IE, even if language games change, the hinge propositions within them remain true in an analytic rather than synthetic sense and therefore cannot be rejected as false.
The truth of a hinge proposition derives from its status as foundational to the language game in which it is involved.
Hence, if one changes the language game, one may also change what counts as a hinge proposition.
The quintessential example, the Bishop remaining on it's own colour, is a case in point. We might change the rules of chess so that, say, a Bishop in a corner square is permitted to move to an adjacent square of the opposite colour.
The hinge proposition "the Bishop always remains on the same colour" would now be false.
SO when a language game changes, the truth of a hinge proposition may also change.
A common mistake that is made, I see it here frequently, is to assume that hinges are all of a kind.
Quoting RussellA
One can play a language-game that disregards what we know of the world, but it plays no part in the world in which we live, that is to say, the world in which it is false that the earth did not exist before you were born.
A hinge is not true by definition. By definition its truth is not called into question.
Wittgenstein noticed that some propositions must be exempt from doubt in order that the language game in which they are involved be played. So you are correct that he is not making a discovery about the world, but about how grammar functions. A hinge proposition is indubitable within a given language game.
But hinge propositions are not all analytic. indeed, any proposition might count as a hinge proposition given the appropriate language game. There is nothing particular to the internal grammar of hinge propositions, but rather it is their role in a language game that makes them hinge propositions.
Quoting RussellA
Yes! And being part of the logical form of the system (the language game) they are not subject to falsification by observation alone. This puts them in line with Kuhn's paradigms and Lakatos' research programs; Feyerabend was interestingly first planing to be a student of Wittgenstein, who's death led him to change supervisors to Popper. If he had been able to study under Wittgenstein we may have had a definitive answer to the question of the incommensurability of language games. That didn't happen, and so we are left with what I think is one of the key issues in this area of study.
Hinge propositions cannot be questioned within a language game - that's what they are. In order to doubt them we must change the way the game works - change the nature of the game itself. In my own view, Feyerabend describes in detail how the change takes place, in his most detailed account of how Galileo cheated in order to change the way folk looked at the world; he changes the rabbit to a duck. I read Feyerabend as showing that Galileo changed our picture of the world, and hence changed the language game in which we were involved.
But I would add to that Davidson's rejection of the incommensurability of language games. If language games were incommensurable, we would not be able to move form one to the other. But we do understand Aristotelian motion - the theory taken as granted before Galileo; and we understand Newtonian physics despite it having been replaced by relativistic physics.
Meta (in so far as he can be understood) apparently accepts a referential theory of meaning - the meaning of a word is the thing it names. After the Linguistic Turn, vey few philosophers would accept this. But that view has the result that Meta thinks a proposition can be compared to the world directly; that is, without considering how the proposition fits in to what we are doing with the words in which it occurs. So it is not the individual hinge proposition that can be doubted, but the entire game. Compare this to Quine's epistemology. So I think your critique of Meta hits the mark.
But I cannot agree that "OC stands defeated'; that would be a trivialisation of what is going in in what is, after all, an incomplete work, more a display of where Wittgenstein's later thought was heading than a set piece with definite conclusions that might be overthrown. Wittgenstein taught philosophers to look to use rather than meaning. Better to see OC as an admonition to look at how we assume certain things to be true by the way we use words.
Agreed; and to push this, I'll conjecture that any proposition might be taken as a hinge proposition in some language game. That is, given some proposition we could invent a game in which it is taken as granted.
How useful that game is, remains beside the point.
I think that this is correct. I would add that Wittgenstein was not interested in just any game that one might play with language, The language-games that interest him are tied to some activity beyond simply playing.
I think you are reading too much into 'system,' putting your own spin on it. To me it's not surprising that what 'everybody knows' turns out to be wrong sometimes. I also read Wittgenstein as an anti-foundationalist. There's know particular finite set of foundational beliefs, though we can plausibly imagine some beliefs as more central and weight-bearing than others.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
As I see it, no particular belief in this system is beyond doubt. But a doubt only has a specificity (as opposed to paralyzed madness ) through a place in this system. While I doubt that I have hands, I am not doubting that I understand what a hand is, etc.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
I don't subscribe to fixed (eternal) hinge propositions. No need for it in the fuzzy theory.
The real solution is to recognize that language is not a sort of game at all, nor is it analogous to game playing. When we see that "game" when applied to language is just a metaphor, and not a description, then we can grasp the fact that there is no such thing as language games, and we do not need to step outside the language to doubt its terms.
Quoting Banno
This is so far from what I've been expressing. Where did I say that a word refers to a thing? Just because I do not agree with you about the nature of meaning, doesn't mean that you can choose randomly, a theory of meaning which you do not agree with, and say that this is a theory I accept.
IMO, all concepts are more or less disputed and more or less unclear.
— j0e
So I assume that you do not believe in hinge propositions either.
--MU
A little more on this. I think the concept of 'hinge propositions' has a certain utility. As we use the sign 'hinge propositions,' its fuzzy public meaning will float and drift like a cloud. This semantic drift seems to be slow enough so that we can understand one another well enough to keep the conversation going. (Now we can say the same thing about 'semantic drift' and so on. We all depend on our ('blind') skill of navigating the rapids of language. )
Ten days ago it was more than just "verging on".
Quoting Banno
Why pretend that you can understand what I'm saying? Is this what your form of anti-skepticism gives you, confidence that you know what another is saying when what the other is saying is incomprehensible to you?
Quoting j0e
I think there is a problem with accepting a proposition or a premise on the basis of its utility, when it is known to be a falsity. This is what deception is made of, the utility of falsity.
Would you say that the word 'proposition' is being used in this thread the same way Witt used it?
I'm no physicist, but do you believe in quarks? If so, how exactly do they exist ? Talk about quarks has a place in the entire context of our civilization, and it's connected to how iphones are designed. In many cases I don't think metaphysical statements are clear enough so that they can be known to be a falsity. One might say that they are not even wrong, while yet being useful in some indirect way. I like this take on Wittgenstein.
[quote=Brandom]
[T]he most basic linguistic know–how is not mastery of proprieties of use that can be expressed once and for all in a fixed set of rules, but the capacity to stay afloat and find and make one’s way on the surface of the raging white–water river of discursive communal practice that we always find ourselves having been thrown into...
[/quote]
How does one get this 'raging white-water river' noticed by theoretical types who want a final method ? One philosophical fantasy as I see it is the invention of automated critical thinking. Someone one day will write that final book and get the method that lets us escape the noise of that raging white water....
This conclusion is clear evidence of how the metaphor of "language games" leads us astray if we take it seriously, as a literal description rather than a metaphor. The concept imposed as "language games" produces the need for hinge propositions as foundations for the games. But what is required from "hinge propositions" dictates that they are neither formalities (rules of a game) nor foundational content (subject matter). Upon analysis, the concept of "hinge propositions" turns out to be a logical impossibility, a fundamental incoherency produced from the assumption that "language games" provides a literal description, rather than a metaphor. In other words, Wittgenstein proposed language games as a metaphor, then took himself too seriously and had to look for hinge propositions as required to support the literal interpretation.
I posted this the other day.
From Stanford:
"The term ‘proposition’ has a broad use in contemporary philosophy. It is used to refer to some or all of the following: the primary bearers of truth-value, the objects of belief and other “propositional attitudes” (i.e., what is believed, doubted, etc.[1]), the referents of that-clauses, and the meanings of sentences.
One might wonder whether a single class of entities can play all these roles. If David Lewis (1986, p. 54) is right in saying that “the conception we associate with the word ‘proposition’ may be something of a jumble of conflicting desiderata,” then it will be impossible to capture our conception in a consistent definition.
The best way to proceed, when dealing with quasi-technical words like ‘proposition’, may be to stipulate a definition and proceed with caution, making sure not to close off any substantive issues by definitional fiat."https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/propositions/
It is not Moore's statements about his hand that function as a hinge. If Moore's propositions about his hands are hinges then what revolves around them? Most people do not know who Moore is. It makes little or no difference if he claimed to have hands. Not much hinges on the statements that any of us make about having hands.
It is the fact of our having hands around which things pivot. Our doing things with our hands, our holding tools and other things designed for hands. Even our statements about hands hinge on our having hands.
Right. So Witt wasn't talking about speech acts. He was talking about something in the range of things discussed in that SEP article.
I will sidestep the theory of speech acts and say that hinges are not limited to what we say.
From earlier posts:
Quoting Fooloso4
Quoting Fooloso4
:up:
Language game is a metaphor for having rules, and rules are needed in order to cope with the raging white-water confusion of the world. People literally need some kind of bedrock, some set of working assumptions, axioms, rules, hinge propositions, etc.
I believe that incommensurability is in large part a mereological problem of relationships
Wittgenstein wrote that as the meaning of a term or concept is highly contextualised, two different contexts - whether a theory or culture - can be incommensurable even though they present a loose similarity.
Person A observes the world and has a strong belief that there is a god. Having a strong belief they invent the hinge proposition "there is a god", which becomes part of their language game. Person B observes the same world, and has a strong belief that there is no god. Having a strong belief they invent the hinge proposition "there is no god", which becomes part of their language game.
Persons A and B in observing the same world may have observed the same objects, but for a finite number of objects there are almost an infinite number of relationships between them. This is the mereological fact that even for 4 objects there are 32 possible relationships. Person A's belief is founded on the objects they see and a particular set of relationships between those objects. Person B's belief is founded on the same objects but a different set of relationships between those objects, as it is statistically highly unlikely that the relationships Person A chooses will be the same relationships Person B chooses.
Once Persons A and B have invented their different personal hinge propositions, these hinge propositions become part of the logical form of their private language games.
Banno wrote - (hinge propositions) "And being part of the logical form of the system (the language game) they are not subject to falsification by observation alone". Therefore , even if Person A points out to Person B those particular relationships they have based their own beliefs on, as Person B's beliefs have become part of the logical form of their private language game, it is unlikely that Person B can be persuaded by observation alone.
IE, once a person's beliefs have become part of the logical structure of their language game,
they become highly immovable to persuasion by observation alone.
The problem, is that if "game", and "having rules" is just speaking metaphorically, then there is not any rules, literally speaking. That's just a metaphor. But if we ignore that this is just a metaphor, and we infer that language literally consists of rules, then we start looking for things like "hinge propositions", which is really an incoherent concept because language is not a game consisting of rules.
He isn't doing anyhropology here. He's taking aim at the Tracticus, right?
Yes, but I think he is also challenging traditional assumptions about man and reason.
Where?
Ok, I'll do some more reading.
Yes, there is always more reading to do.
In linguistics, syntax is the set of rules, principles, and processes that govern the structure of sentences (sentence structure) in a given language, usually including word order.
It looks as if I made an assumption that has turned out incorrect.
I took the passage from www.newworldencyclopedia.org: "Thus, Wittgenstein argued that the meaning of the term or concept is highly contextualized; two different contexts, be it a theory or a culture, can be incommensurable although they may present a loose similarity." New World Encyclopedia is an offshoot of Wikipedia for teachers and students.
The first statement
I think that the first part of what I wrote is correct: "Wittgenstein wrote that as the meaning of a term or concept is highly contextualised.............."
Context is defined as the circumstances that form the setting for an event, statement, or idea, and in terms of which it can be fully understood.
In para 21, Wittgenstein wrote "Imagine a language-game in which A asks and B reports the number of slabs or blocks in a pile, or the colours and shapes of the building-stones that are stacked in such-and-such a place.—Such a report might run: "Five slabs". Now what is the difference between the report or statement "Five slabs" and the order "Five slabs!"?—Well, it is the part which uttering these words plays in the language game. No doubt the tone of voice and the look with which they are uttered, and much else besides, will also be different. But we could also imagine the tone's being the same—for an order and a report can be spoken in a variety of tones of voice and with various expressions of face—the difference being only in the application."
In para 43, "For a large class of cases—though not for all—in which we employ the word "meaning" it can be defined thus: the meaning of a word is its use in the language."
IE, meaning is in use, and use is in a context.
The second statement
However - I am having difficulty justifying the word "incommensurable" within the quote.
The definition of incommensurable is - i) not able to be judged by the same standards - ii) having no common standard of measurement. For example, the beliefs of the atheist and the theist are incommensurable.
Starting with para 21, the term "five-slabs" could be being used either as a report or a statement.
Even if there are no clues in the speaker's tone of voice, the difference is only within the application. As in para 43: "the meaning of a word is its use in language". For example, if used on site, five-slabs would be a statement, whereas if used in the office it would be a report.
As regards the word incommensurability, this means that there are different standards for judging the meaning of five-slabs - one on site and one in the office. However, for Wittgenstein, there is only one standard for knowing the meaning of five-slabs, and therefore the word incommensurable is not appropriate. Perhaps a better word than "incommensurability" would have been "different".
Then how does Wittgenstein explain how one knows the correct meaning of five-slabs ?
In para 68 - "For how is the concept of a game bounded? What still counts as a
game and what no longer does? Can you give the boundary? No."
In para 138 - "But we understand the meaning of a word when we hear or say it; we grasp
it in a flash, and what we grasp in this way is surely something different from the 'use' which is extended in time!"
In para 220 - "Let the use of words teach you their meaning. (Similarly one can often say in mathematics: let the proof teach you what was being proved.)"
In para 692 - "But now the problem is: how are we to judge whether someone meant such-and-such?—The fact that he has, for example, mastered a particular technique in arithmetic and algebra, and that he taught someone"
On page 218 - he writes - "How do I find the 'right' word? How do I choose among words?........But I do not always have to make judgments, give explanations; often I might only say: "It simply isn't right yet". I am dissatisfied, I go on looking. At last a word comes: "That's it!"
Wittgenstein seems to be using the transcendental argument, in that we don't judge the meaning of a word, the use of the word teaches us the meaning. But this seems chicken and egg - in that how can I use a word if I don't know its meaning.
Conclusion
In summary, the term "incommensurabity" seems wrong, whereas "different" may have been better.
I don't deny that there are rules in language, that's what formal logic is all about. The thing is that it's not an essential aspect of language, because communication with langue existed before there was such rules, and rules emerged from language use. It's that backward order, that some sort of rules are foundational which leaves us looking for things like hinge propositions.
Quoting RussellA
See, this is that backward idea, that there is some sort of logical form at the foundation of language or knowledge. In reality language came into existence and evolved according to human necessity. To have a logical form and therefore rules, is one need which was developed, but it's not the most basic need driving the evolution of language. So looking for some sort of logical form, as hinge propositions, at the base is a misguided endeavour.
That's why it's much more commonplace, and philosophically acceptable, to ground meaning with intention, rather than some imaginary hinge propositions. But since one's words are not always true to one's intentions, there are no statements which are free from the doubt of skepticism.
If language games were real, then in a religious language game "God exists" would be a hinge proposition. But it's ridiculous to say that it's unreasonable to doubt this, either inside or outside the religious circle, because it's something held on faith. And it's very reasonable to doubt one's faith. The idea of hinge propositions as something foundational which we do not doubt, completely distracts us from the reality that faith is the foundation, and we ought to doubt it as much as possible. It is only by doubting our faith that it is reaffirmed and strengthened, or exposed as misplaced.
Your post gets to the core of my continuing problem with Wittgenstein's language game, illustrated by the fact that whilst we both understand the phrase "where?" and how it is used within its context, I understood the phrase as a statement, whereas I believe you understood the phrase as a question.
If the same phrase fulfils several language games, which language game should be used
Unfortunately, Wittgenstein argues that I should know even without clues external to the text, such as tone of voice or expression of face (para 21 of Philosophical Investigations)
It is not as if I can guess, as Wittgenstein makes clear that whilst a beginner may guess (para 156), or someone coming into a strange country (para 32), one cannot guess how a word functions, one has to look at its use and learn from that (para 340)
Wittgenstein discusses ambiguity of perception as regards the duck-rabbit (page 194). He writes that when shown a picture he reports his perception that he unambiguously sees a rabbit. Yet on another occasion he may well have unambiguously seen a duck. I cannot find in PI any mechanism whereby if the same perception can be explained by more than one language game, then which language game should be used.
I find Wittgenstein's transcendental argument unpersuasive, in that as the meaning of a word is its use in the language (para 43, para 220), in order to discover the meaning of a word I must first use it in language, but I cannot use it unless I know its meaning.
Wittgenstein also offers no explanation of the process whereby one finds the right word not by judgement but through inspiration: "At last a word comes: That's it!" (page 218)
IE, similar to Grayling's problem in Wittgenstein on Scepticism and Certainty, where the foundationalism of Wittgenstein's language game is undermined by the relativism between alternate language games.
That's a very odd way of reading §21. Indeed the point of §21 has usually been taken as the exact opposite: that the very same phrases have differing uses that can be recognised by context. He's simply pointing out that there is a difference between the force of the locution and the force of the illocution; that for example a question can be an assertion, as in a rhetorical question.
As Wittgensein's language game is a model for ordinary language rather than a literal reproduction of it, the term "hinge proposition" has a different meaning within the language game and ordinary language. Therefore, the term "hinge proposition" as used in the language game cannot be shown to be incorrect by reference to ordinary language.
I agree with what you say as regards rules and hinge propositions within ordinary language - but Wittgenstein's "language game" is a different thing altogether.
Wittgenstein's "language game"
Whereas Bertrand Russell dismissed ordinary language as being of little philosophical significance and too confused to be able to solve metaphysical and epistemological problems, Wittgenstein proposed that philosophy was in trouble because it tried to use words in too abstract a manner. IE, outside the common usage of ordinary language within a community of language users.
The truth or falsity of the whole and its parts
If I make the statement "the apple is on the table", and there isn't an apple on the table, then the statement is false. But because the whole statement is false, it does not follow that the individual parts of the statement are false. IE, because "the apple is on the table" is false it does not logically follow that "the apple" is false
If the statement "The sun is 150 million km distance from the earth and the sun revolves around the earth" does not correspond with the world, then the statement is false. However, even if the statement is false, it does not logically follow that the "hinge proposition" "the sun revolves around the earth" is false.
If a statement is false, such as "The sun is 150 million km distance from the earth and the sun revolves around the earth", it is the relationship between the parts of the statement that is false, not the individual parts.
Do relationships of parts ontologically exist in the world or the mind
Example one. When considering the duck-rabbit in Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigation page 194, even though each person is looking at the same picture, the same physical object in the picture, they may arrive at different interpretations. One person may unambiguously see a duck and another may unambiguously see a rabbit. They have perceived different relationships between the same parts.
Example two. Even when looking at four objects, there are 32 possible relationships between them.
Given a statement, the meaning of the whole is a function of how the parts are combined. The parts may be combined in different ways. This means that dependent on how the parts of a statement are combined, the meaning of the whole changes. This raises the question - do these possible combinations exist independent of the observer, or only in the mind of the observer. The Platonist would say that they exist as universals in a transcendent world of pure forms. The mereological nihilist would say that relations between part and whole don't exist in the world. The conceptualist would say that these relations only exist in the mind, either as mental representations or as abstract objects.
Do different language games originate in the world or in the mind
If the relationships between the parts exist independently of the observer, and the observer unambiguously sees a rabbit, then there are several possible language games, of which the observer is only aware of one. If the relationship between the parts only exist within the mind of the observer, and the observer unambiguously sees a duck, then there is only one possible language game.
The question as to whether language games exist in the world independently of the observer or only exist within the mind of the observer depends on whether relations between parts ontologically exist in the world or only in the mind of the observer.
Summary
IE, as the language game is only a model of ordinary language, and not a literal representation, the concept of a hinge proposition exempt from doubt remains of value in the insights it gives about ordinary language.
In order for a rule to be made explicit, it must first be. That is, they cannot be explicated unless there is something to be explicated. Hence, there are rules for language use.
The rules of language are not binding in the way the rules of physics are; they are normative.
The rules of language can be usefully broken, and this is itself worthy of discussion - see "A nice derangement of epitaphs"
There is more to the way words are connected than the logical operators. These do not for instance describe the difference between statements, questions and commands, let alone rhetorical questions, metaphors, and so on. Logic is insufficient to set out the rules of language.
We can more or less circumscribe certain activities in order to understand what is happening; that is, we can set out parts of our use of language without having to set out the whole. We can look at the sorts of utterances that might occur during some activity. Importantly, such activities do not consist only of language, but involve interaction with stuff in the world. Such examples of language use might be found by observation, or set up by fiat.
These examples allow us to look at and understand something about the rules that are being use.
Wittgenstein called such examples "language games" with an eye towards three aspects: They involve not just language, but interaction with the things around us; they involve behaviour that can be set out in terms of rules; they are related to each other in ways he spoke of as a family resemblance.
Hence to claim that language games are not real is to misunderstand what they are.
Are you distinguishing between ordinary language (whatever that means), and language games? How would you distinguish between ordinary language and non-ordinary? If all language is in some sense "ordinary", and language games are in some way different from this, then doesn't this just indicate what I said, that language games are not real?
Quoting RussellA
I don't see how you escape from the reality that all language is ordinary, to get yourself into this unreal type of language which you call a language game, and is supposed to be some sort of language that is not ordinary.
Quoting RussellA
I think this is an oversimplification, to say that falsity consists of a false relation between parts. How does correspondence fit into this?
Quoting RussellA
I don't see this as a matter of relationships between parts. I think of it as each person sees one thing, but they each see that one thing in a different way. Since they are each seeing one thing, and not composing something out of parts, there is no issue of seeing relationships between parts in a different way. If it is composed of parts, they might be seeing the exact same relationships, but seeing a different whole.
Quoting RussellA
It appears to me, like "language games" is a faulty analogy here, inapplicable. You do realize that a statement has an author, or do you not? So the relations between parts must exist independently of the observer, because they were put there by the author. Otherwise the observer could not read what was written by the author. Isn't the goal of the observer to determine what was intended by the author? Why would the observer look to possible language games, rather than seeking the intent of the author?
Quoting RussellA
Didn't you start off by making a separation between ordinary language and language games? So if hinge propositions are a part of language games, and language games are different from ordinary language, how can hinge propositions give valuable insight about ordinary language?
Quoting Banno
The problem with this perspective, is that as RussellA has pointed out above, meaning is attributed to the whole. And since this is the case, the meaning which any part has is somewhat dependent on the interpretation of the whole. So if we set out parts of our language use, as you describe, without setting out the whole, we will not get a true determination of meaning, just like we cannot get a true determination of the meaning of a word without considering the rest of the statement..
Quoting Banno
According to what I just said then, referring to distinct language games, as parts of language as a whole, cannot adequately provide us with the meaning in language. This becomes more evident when you consider what Wittgenstein says about family resemblances. The same word has different meanings which you might speak of as attributable to different language games. However, the different meanings, or supposedly different games, are actually similar, related as members of a family. So the supposed language games cannot be separated as distinct games, because they are all tied together as a family, and one doesn't ever really exist independently of the others.
This is why equivocation is extremely difficult to identify and even harder to avoid. Each word is associated with a whole group of different uses, and despite efforts to assign a very unique and particular meaning to a word for a specific purpose, the associated similar meanings cannot be exclude from the mind because all these associations occur in habitual ways. So we never isolate one so-called language game from another, and the meaning of the word remains a sort of vague conglomeration of multiple supposed games, until the word is finally assigned meaning according to the context of the particular whole, the statement in which it is actually being used.
That is why language games are not real. There is no such thing as an overall game which refers to all of language, and distinct language games cannot be isolated, therefore there is no place in reality for language games. It's just a faulty model.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
I am going out on a limb here, but hopefully sensibly reasoned.
I cannot know the meaning of a word through its use in language
Wittgenstein wrote in para 43 of Philosophical Investigations "the meaning of a word is in its use in language" and para 220 "Let the use of words teach you their meaning". If this were true, we would have known the meaning of the Ancient Egyptian in the Rosetta Stone by solely reading the text. It seems clear that we can understand a simple concrete word, such as "dog", by observation of the world, where we associate the observed picture of a dog with the public name "dog". It is also clear that it would be difficult to learn the meaning of a complex abstract word, such as Zeitgeist, through direct observation of pictures in the world.
IE, we can only learn the meaning of a new word as long as the words we use, needed in order to learn the new word, must sooner or later be simple concrete words whose meaning is clear to us by observation of pictures in the world.
Banno - we can set out parts of our use of language without having to set out the whole
As Wittgenstein wrote in para 21, language games is not just language - "Well, it is the part which uttering these words plays in the language game. No doubt the tone of voice and the look with which they are uttered, and much else besides, will also be different." There is a difference in meaning between a part of a proposition and a simple. For example, if I say "the sun is warm" in a particular tone of voice, then there are three simples - "the sun" + a particular tone of voice + "is warm".
IE, even the simple (a particular tone of voice) has no meaning unless it is related to another simples.
Banno - "beliefs range over propositions"
There is the whole and the parts, and in mereology the parts are "simples". Consider the statement "I believe that the sun is warm", where "the sun is warm" is a proposition. I cannot have a belief in a simple, such as "the sun". Only a combination of simples has meaning. I can only have belief in a combination of simples, such as "the sun is warm", where one simple has a relation with another simple. For example, pre-langauge, a sentient being when looking at a yellow circle in the sky, the circle, being a simple held no meaning. There was only meaning to the sentient being in the combination of simples, in the combination of the simples "circle" and "warmth". With-language, there is the additional meaning, in that the simples "circle" is combined with the linguistic simples, the word "sun".
IE, within a proposition there cannot be belief in a simple but in the set of simples within the proposition
It is true that simples can be split into further simples
As a simple, "the sun" has no meaning. But the sun can be split into the further simples - the star - around which - the earth - orbits. Each of these can be split into further simples, until, in my opinion, we arrive at Kant's a priori pure intuitions.
IE, it remains true that a "simple" has no meaning.
Banno - words are connected using more than logical operators
Pre-language, there is the relation between the simples circle and warmth, where the connection is not that of a logical operator but that of empirical observation. With-language, where the circle is named "the sun", the connection between the empirical observation of a circle and the word "the sun" is not that of a logical operator, but as the word is learnt in a social environment, is also that of empirical observation.
IE, words are connected by correspondence with empirical observations.
metaphysician - relations between parts must exist independently of the observer
If this as the case, then the relation between any two things in the world has an ontological existence. For example, this would mean that the relation between the pen in my pocket and the Eiffel tower has an ontological existence, meaning that they form a unique object, which could be called a "peffel". This would mean that in the world are an almost infinite number of objects in the world of which we are aware of only a minute proportion.
IE, it would also follow that in Wittgenstein's duck-rabbit picture, it is not that different observers have different interpretations, but that both the duck picture and rabbit picture actually exist in the world independent of the observer.
Summary
1) The meaning of a proposition such as "the sun is warm" is not in any of its simples - "the sun", "warm", but the combination of its simples.
2) These simples are themselves sets of other simples, in that the simple "sun" is the set of the simples "the star", "around which", "the earth" and "orbits".
3) Eventually we arrive at foundational simples, which I describe as Kant's a priori pure intuitions, such as time, space, causation, etc.
4) As Kant wrote in Critique of Pure Reason, A239: "We can only cognize objects that we can, in principle, intuit. Consequently, we can only cognize objects in space and time, appearances. We cannot cognize things in themselves".
5) IE, those things we observe in the world are only combinations of things for which we have prior knowledge.
6) IE, the meaning of a word is not in its use in language, but in that set of a priori pure intuitions from which it is composed.
This would only be the case if the word is being used to refer to a particular thing. We could see that "dog" was the name of that particular thing. But since 'dog" is used to refer to numerous things, as it indicates a species of animals, then we cannot understand the meaning of the word in this way.
Actually "dog" is a complex abstract word, because it is debatable whether wolfs and coyotes and other doglike creatures are varieties of dogs.
Quoting RussellA
I'm sorry RusselA, but I really cannot understand your description of wholes and parts, and your use of "simple". It is completely foreign to me and is not at all consistent with how I would normally use these words. You'd have to lay out a whole structure, and answer many questions from me, to make this at all intelligible to me.
For instance, I see no reason why a part is necessarily a simple, because even parts are composed of parts. So when you speak of the parts in meaning, like "sun", even this word, to be intelligible must be understood through composite parts of meaning. And since any aspect of meaning which appears to be a simple, really is not a simple, it really does not make sense to speak about meaning in these terms. I don't see what a "simple" could actually be. If to understand a simple requires understanding others, then how is it in anyway a simple? In conclusion, I don't know if you're trying to support the idea of "simples", or to dismiss it as inadequate.
Quoting RussellA
Yes, I believe that all things have an ontological status. That is what makes a thing a thing, and by the law of identity a thing has an identity proper to itself regardless of how we as human beings might attempt to identify it.
The issue of the relationship between two things is different though. This is because relationships are understood by us through abstract concepts, which are generalizations based in quantitative assessments, applicable in numerous different situations. If a relationship between two things could be understood in terms other than generalizations, such as mathematical quantities, and scientific laws, then there might be relations which are purely unique, and distinct, just like things are distinct and unique. But this is not how we understand relations, so relations, as we understand them, do not have the same ontological existence that things have.
What I think, is that things have ontological existence. But since the relations between things is perspective dependent (dependent on the frame of reference in relativity theory), what is referred to by "relation" does not have ontological existence. But we might assume that since things have ontological existence, there must be some sort of ontological relation between them, and this would be to an extent true, but the word "relation" is not adequate here because it implies that our human abstractions of relations which are extremely deficient, are what is ontological.
Quoting RussellA
Yes, I can see that. The ontological thing, which is the picture, could be said to be both a duck and a rabbit. By the law of identity, the true identity is within the thing itself, and is unrelated to what one might call it. As human beings we might say that there is both a duck there and a rabbit there, and there is a relation between these two. But any determination of such a relationship is somewhat arbitrary and simply dependent on one's perspective. The true identity is within the thing itself.
However, since the thing was created with intention, as one united whole, with a split personality, and this was the intent behind its creation, the issue is even more complex.
An neat summary. I'd recommend you keep reading about philosophy of language and especialy Wittgenstein, who's ideas you are beginning to understand.
It's worth noting that, despite not knowing the whole of language, folk do make use of it most effectively.
Also, that language is constructed from simples is the very notion perfected by Wittgesnten in the Tractatus, and rejected in the Investigations. It' called Logical Atomism. You might enjoy investigating it further.
As for Kant, there are those here who would defend him. I think philosophy, physics and psychology have made considerable progress since his time.
Cheers.
:up:
Whether Banno's statement is acceptable or not depends on one's ontology. If rules are imaginary things, and imaginary things do not exist, then it makes no sense to say that rules must exist before being made explicit. This is like saying that God must exist in order for us to talk about Him. And if rules are not imaginary things, then what existence do they have other than as written statements? In this case being explicit is the existence of the rule. I don't see any other options for how a rule might exist, other than within the imaginations of human beings, or in the words written in the physical medium. Neither one implies that a rule exists before being made explicit. Do you know of any ontology which would support Banno's claim? Platonism and natural laws perhaps?
The 'rules' are just structures in the way we talk. Before we develop a complex tradition of studying the ways we talk (like trying to clarify what 'truth' means) we have already been using words like 'truth' successfully enough in ordinary contexts. This is the post hoc.
You mention 'imaginary things' which takes for granted what might be called a vague ontology. You also use the word 'exist.' It's not as if these words have clear, uncontested referents. Nor does 'referent' have some clear, uncontested referent. We simply charge ahead, shooting our ambiguous mouths off, taking a certain intelligibility utterly for granted. We can focus a critical 'eye' on some words only by using other words uncritically. This is why it's a matter of making explicit what's mostly automatic and unnoticed (inexplicit).
On the normative aspect, I'd look at which side of the road people drive on in this or that nation. Which side is contingent, but it's an important norm. With language it's not just a matter of being inoffensive but of being understood at all. Green ideas sleep furiously.
As far as W's ontology goes, I'd say some kind of social ontology. Not Platonism and not anything that starts with a ghost in the machine (reification of 'I' usage.)
[quote=Blue Book thread]
To be a self, according to Hegel, involves self-consciousness. And this is not something that an individual can possess independently of others. Instead, self-consciousness depends on our having a sense of ourselves as individuals as distinct from others, which in turn depends on our interacting with other people (i.e., recognizing other people and being recognized by them)
...
Hegel’s universal spirit is sometimes used as an example of “ontological holism”—i.e., the claim that social entities are fundamental, independent, or autonomous entities, as opposed to being derived from individuals or non-social entities (Taylor 1975, Rosen 1984).
...
As an alternative to ‘compact’ or ‘agreement,’ the legal theorist Samuel Pufendorf, in De Officio Hominis et Civis of 1673, uses the term ‘convention’ as the basis for law and language. He argues that conventions do not need be explicitly formed or agreed to. Instead, we can have tacit conventions—i.e., conventions that we may not even be aware we have.
[/quote]
The details are endlessly debatable, but the gist is naked ('nothing is hidden'), if we are willing to let go of certain prejudices (misleading inherited metaphors for cognition.)
:up:
'A rectangular whittling silver lovely little French old knife' does sound weird. Interesting (but unsurprising?) that it's opinion(value) first.
Great example!
Great stuff. Well said.
Thank you.
Well, I really don't see how there could be such a thing as a normative rule which is not explicit. That seems to be a self-contradicting idea. It's easy for people like you and Luke to insist that there must be such things, but if you think about it, it really doesn't make any sense. How are you supposed to know what to do without being told what to do? If you simply observe others doing something, and decide to behave in a similar way because it appears to be advantageous, this ought not be described as a normative rule.
Take your example of driving on the right or left. Suppose no one tells you which side of the road to drive on. You observe, and decide that you'd better drive on a certain side of the road if you want to avoid a crash and stay alive. How is that a normative rule? You have simply chosen not to go against the flow, decided that it is in your best interest to do things in a way which is consistent with others. I would not call this a "normative rule", because I think what makes a rule a rule, is to be explicitly stated.
To me, it seems ridiculous to conclude that any time a group of things are behaving in a similar way they are following a normative rule. Unless the rule is explicitly stated and the agent reads and understands it, then there is insufficient evidence to say that consistent behaviour is proof of normative rules. Such a conclusion leads one to believe that molecules, atoms, and fundamental particles are following normative rules, and panpsychism in general. Denying this, as I do, allows us to see that consistency in behaviour which is common in inanimate particles, and also common in human beings, is not properly described as following a normative rule.
So I think it is fundamentally wrong to conclude that when people are acting in a way which is consistent with the way others act, that this is a matter of following a normative rule. That is an oversimplification which upon analysis turns out to be false, or else gives "normative rule" a very odd sense which is not at all conducive to good philosophical inquiry. So this idea is simply misleading. When you see a swarm of insects, or a flock of birds headed south, would you say that these creatures are following normative rules? Herd mentality ought not be described as following normative rules.
I'm confident that you mostly learned language just by hanging around. Pronouncing words correctly is not even explicitly taught.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
It's not a group of just any kind of things, but a group of human beings or (I just discovered, checking on a suspicion) some animals.
[quote=link]
Social norms, or mores, are the unwritten rules of behavior that are considered acceptable in a group or society. Norms function to provide order and predictability in society.
[/qoute]
https://examples.yourdictionary.com/social-norm-examples.html
[quote=link]
A paper in PNAS this week explored differences in social behavior between four different populations of chimpanzees, finding that the groups had very different norms when it came to hanging out together and grooming one another. They point out that this means studying one population of chimps might not always be enough for accurate claims about the species as a whole.
[/quote]
https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/11/chimps-have-different-cultural-norms-about-friendliness-too/
Even chimps seem to have varying local norms. Nice!
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
I don't think that works. When children misbehave they are corrected by parents and peers. We don't get a manual of everything to do or not do. Some things are made explicit, of course, but generally only when they need to be, when a child misbehaves or the situation is complex (websites tell US visitors to Sweden, for example, which differences to prepare for to avoid being rude.)
Moreover norms change. People see other people mocked or insulted for online speech (to name an example) and update their sense of what's acceptable. Such norms aren't exactly articulated. It requires skill to stay on the right side of the line. Comedians work right on the edge, and we love or hate them for it.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
It would (slightly) violate the norms of intelligibility to use 'norms' for fundamental particulars. A panpsychist might make a case, but that would be an attempt to get us to think in uncommon ways. Some attempts like that do succeed. I don't believe that rivers always had mouths.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
On the contrary, 'herd mentality' is a good phrase for the kind of linguistic norms I have in mind, if one ignores its connotation.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
The individual's decision is not the rule. I can decide to drive wearing a blindfold, but this violates the rule or norm that I drive carefully whether I like or recognize that norm or not. It's not up to the individual, excepting that individuals contribute in their small way to maintaining or shifting norms.
metaphysician - names
I agree. When we observe, for example, a post-box, we can know two different things at the same time. We know that we are observing a particular red (700nm), and we also know that we are observing an abstract "redness" (620nm to 750nm).
metaphysician - use of "simple"
I am trying to use the word "simple" as used in mereology, where a "simple" is any thing that has no proper parts.
metaphysician - all things have an ontological status - the true identity is within the thing itself - what is referred to by "relation" does not have an ontological existence
If in the world there is a thing that has an ontological status, then the whole thing has parts that are spatially separated.
If a thing such as a "table" can be composed of parts such as a flat top and legs, then a "peffel" can be composed of the parts my pen and the Eiffel Tower and a "pegal" can be composed of my pen and the galaxy Andromeda.
If "table" has an ontological existence in the world, then there is no logical reason why not also the "peffel" and "pegal".
However, there is no information within my pen that it is linked in some way with the Eiffel Tower. There is no information within the Eiffel Tower that it is linked to my pen. There is no information within the physical space between them that there is a pen at one end and an Eiffel Tower at the other.
As I am not aware of any mechanism in the world that links my pen to the Eiffel Tower, apart from an all-knowing god, my belief is that things such as "tables", "peffels" and "pegals" don't ontologically exist in the world, but only in the mind as concepts
IE , for these reasons, although I believe that in the world are atoms and physical space, my belief is that neither things such as "tables" nor "relations" have an ontological existence in the world outside my mind.
Right, that's my point. We learn how to talk simply by hanging around, not by learning rules.
Quoting j0e
Yes, when children misbehave the rule is made explicit. Prior to it being made explicit, the children do not know the rule, and cannot follow it, hence they are prone to what the adults call misbehaving.
Quoting j0e
But how would you differentiate between these two? People behave in ways similar to each other, without following explicit rules. Fundamental particles behave in ways similar to each other without following explicit rules. On what basis do you claim that the people are following normative rules, and the particles are not, when there is no physical evidence of any such rules in both cases, only common behaviour in both cases?
So I think it is you who is violating the norms of intelligibility, with your case of special pleading, to say that some things which behave in common ways are following normative rules, while other things are not, when there is no evidence of any such rules in both cases.
Quoting j0e
Yes, and this makes good evidence that these norms do not exist as any sort of rules
Quoting RussellA
This presents an ontological problem. If the thing is a whole, then it is fundamentally a unity. We use the concept of spatial separation to refer to a measurable distance between distinct unities, separate wholes. If we assume spatial separation within the supposed thing, then we deny the unity which is required to make it a thing, a whole.
So in reality, the opposite of what you say is what is true. If a thing has true ontological status, then it is impossible that the parts are spatially separated because this would deny the unity of the thing, making it just a group of things (its parts) instead.
This is the issue of divisibility. We say that a thing is divisible. But divisible means possible to be divided, it does not mean actually divided. If we actually divide the thing, to produce the required spatial separation between its parts, then the thing loses its ontological status as the thing it was, because it has been divided. So the relationship between parts and whole is actually very complex, because a thing cannot be at the same time, a whole, as the unity required to make it a thing, and also a group of parts, even though we commonly say that a thing is composed of parts. It's contradictory to give the thing existence as a whole, and the parts existence as individual things, at the same time.
Take the solar system for an example. Let's assume that it is a whole, a unity. The inclination is to say that each planet is a distinct part, with spatial separation. In reality though the planets are all within the electromagnetic and gravitational fields of the sun, and there is no real spatial separation between them, as the fields occupy the entire area. So representing each planet as a separate part with space between them, is not a true representation.
Quoting RussellA
Now you are talking about concepts here? I agree that they only exist in minds, and as such the type of existence they have is completely different from things. That's why I had a hard time understanding you when you were talking about wholes and parts, and simples, in the context of meaning. These ideas, wholes and parts are applied to the divisibility of things, but I do not see how a concept is divisible.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
'Rules' is just a metaphor to be interpreted in context. In general the 'rules' are not explicit.(We may agree more than you think.) I see meaning out there in the interactive hustle & bustle and not in here, directly present to an infinitely intimate mind-eye. It's patterns in our doings, including our mouth-doings. Patterns, rules, games. I say don't cut your fingers on the envelope.
That's a fun sentence.
How about soft, fuzzy truths that we're never done clarifying?
Let's say that you realize that a final, perfect system doesn't even make sense. Let's say that there's no particular finite set of utterances that can denote you truly, but you can only keep chopping at it from here or there with this or that hatchet. To me the profound in Witt is something like the profound in 'ordinary' life, which you feel/see or don't from moment to moment.
IMV, it's all oversimplification which is (partially) false, incomplete, and vague (just like this very statement.)
[quote=Eliot]
Well here again that dont apply
But I’ve gotta use words when I talk to you.
[/quote]
context
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Who told you that this is the only acceptable use of the word "rule"?
Yes that's what I've been trying to explain, "rules" is just a metaphor. That's exactly the point I'm making. So "language games" is just a metaphor as well. And it's only through looking at these metaphors as if they are literal descriptions, that we come to the conclusion of "hinge propositions". If we maintain that "rules" and "language games" are just metaphors, then we respect the fact that the similarity of the simile must break down at some point, and we see that there is no point to insisting on the incoherent notion of "hinge propositions". This idea is just produced by the belief that "rules" and "language games" provides a true description.
Quoting Luke
No one told me that there is only one way to use "rule", but that's the point,. There is no rule (used my way) for the use of "rule". And that's the fundamental nature of language, it does not consist of rules for usage. If you want to argue that there is a type of normative "rule" which does not explicitly state what we ought or ought not do, (and guides us through our interpretation and understanding of that rule), and that this type of "rule" which you propose, compels us to do what we ought to do, and not to do what we ought not do, through some hidden or secret method of application, you can go ahead and use "rule" in that way. It's a free world, and there are no rules (my use) as to how you ought to use that word. But there are "rules" (your way) as to how you ought to use that word. However, please do not conflate your idiosyncratic way of using "rule" with the philosophically respected way, or you'll be charged with equivocation. Equivocation renders logic invalid, and it is a stated rule. Rules are introduced into language for specific purposes, like logical proceedings. Notice the contradiction which arises between your way and my way, that's why logic requires a rule against equivocation.
What is the "philosophically respected way" of using the word "rule"? Is it that "there are no rules (my use) as to how you ought to use that word"?
I was attempting to put Wittgenstein in some context but I realize a lot of people find him profound and almost Zen. He is just too minimalist for me
Taking the (solar system) as a thing, do things have an ontological existence ? There are two parts to this question, Whether it has an ontological existence in the mind and whether it has an ontological existence in the world independent of any mind.
The "solar system" in the mind
I agree that in the mind, the "solar system" is a concept, and because a concept "then it is fundamentally a unity". I also agree with "but I do not see how a concept is divisible". I think of the concept "solar system" as a "simples", a whole that cannot be divided into parts, although can be linked with other concepts, such as eight - planets - moons - orbit - around - the sun.
The solar system in the world
However, if there was no mind to observe the world, would the solar system ontologically exist in the world ? As Berkeley wrote: "to be is to be perceived" and "The objects of sense exist only when they are perceived; the trees therefore are in the garden... no longer than while there is somebody by to perceive them." There is a basic conundrum in asking whether a solar system can exist independently of a mind when the concept "solar system" is dependent on the existence of the mind. The definition in the Cambridge Dictionary for "to exist" ends up being circular, but links to the following words - real - imagination - fact - proof - information - true. I continue with my pen and Eiffel Tower analogy that things don't ontologically exist in the world outside the mind because there is no information within any of the parts that links it to a whole.
The word "whole"
There is a world of matter, energy, space and time, in which there are parts and wholes. However, it is possible to refer to a whole as a set of parts without giving the word "whole" an ontological status. The status of the set is open to debate. On the one hand, Aristotle in Metaphysics wrote: “In the case of all things which have several parts and in which the totality is not, as it were, a mere heap, but the whole is something besides the parts, there is a cause; for even in bodies contact is the cause of unity in some cases, and in others viscosity or some other such quality. On the other hand, Eubulides used mathematical induction to show that a heap of sand cannot exist, in that i) A single grain of sand is not a heap. ii) If n grains do not make a heap, adding one grain doesn’t create a heap.
IE, the word "whole" does not of necessity have an ontological status.
Summary
IE, I agree that the "solar system" as a concept in the mind is a whole, a unity, and not divisible, but as regards the solar system in a world independent of any mind, the solar system is a whole (in the sense of a set or collection) that has parts that are spatially seperated.
I found him a bit dry at first, but then I started to get it and like it dry.
That seems to me to be exactly wrong.
Take a read of Wittgenstein and the Vienna Circle: Thought Style and Thought Collective. Just the abstract should give you an idea of why what you proposed is wrong.
A good question.
Meta is so off centre in his critique of Wittgenstein that it's hard to know where to begin. It is ironic, but he and Wittgenstein might agree that stated rules are not central to language - if that is what Meta is claiming. Wittgenstein's analysis of rules leads him to suppose that they are best understood not by stating them, but looking at what it involved in following or going against a rule. It's the use that counts - what you do with words.
The implications of this for hinge propositions are of the greatest interest. It's a mistake to think, as Grayling seems to, that hinge propositions are defined by their structure; they are defined by the role they play. Their value is in examining what it involved in following or going against a hinge proposition.
Or take a read of Of Simples and Samples
It doesn't seem clear what exactly Wittgenstein proposed and why the Philosophical Investigations were a reversal. Bertrand Russell said Wittgenstein first work was great but his second a giving up of true philosophy. As I already said, maybe Wittgenstein is not for me because I understand the words and syntax he uses but I don't get any ideas from it. Thanks for the clarification
Philosophy, at least in the faculties, is pretty much self-consciously just such a sophistic game, with the emphasis on funding and student numbers rendering it necessary to confuse undergraduates enough to keep them interested. Hence the very many threads hereabouts on identity, transhumanism, German idealism and so on, as those with a smattering of philosophical learning seek clarity.
Philosophy is like that damn chipped tooth that you can't help but explore with your tongue. Some folk do cryptic crosswords for much the same reason - they go with the toast and coffee.
I get where your coming from I guess, but if I say "everything in the universe has a cause" that is an intelligent assertion. I don't think the Prime Mover is an intelligent answer because " pure act " is a pretty ridiculous idea but I turn to German Idealism for a way to understand causality. You are saying it seems that causality is not a meaningful idea and I don't know how you reached that conclusion.
The law of identity stipulates that there are things independent of the mind, and these things have an identity proper to themselves. The true identity of the things might be completely different form how we conceptualize things. The thing itself is what Kant called noumenon. Of course, that there are independent things, and that they have an identity, are simply assumptions. And Berkeley makes very valid points, that we know things as forms, and a thing's identity is its form, therefore there is no need to assume the existence of matter at all. But when we deny the reality of matter then we need a mind to support the existence of the forms. So the recourse to Berkeley's arguments is to deny that there are any forms, things with identity, in the independent world, and assume that all is matter. Now we have your position, "that things don't ontologically exist in the world outside the mind". There is matter outside the mind, but no things.
Quoting RussellA
I agree, the question of existence of a "whole", as a form, or a thing with identity, is the issue here. We can assume that there are such things in the world, wholes which have an identity as a thing, but this is just an assumption which remains unproven. Furthermore, wholes are by their very nature organized structures, and it appears evident that only minds have the capacity to organize disorganized parts into a whole. So the question of a true whole, with organized parts, existing independently of all minds is very difficult.
Where you and I seem to disagree is on this issue of spatial separation in the independent world. I believe that if parts are united as a whole, there cannot be spatial separation between the parts. Space is what is external to a whole, and within the whole there cannot be "space" in the same sense of the word, because that is where the whole is. So whatever it is which unites the parts into a whole, it is existing in this area which is the internal of the whole, such that we cannot say that there is spatial separation between those parts.
Nuh.
The law of identity: A thing is the same as itself. What does this mean to you? Do you see any mention of a mind needing to apprehend that thing?
So let's keep it strict and clear. You said that "The law of identity stipulates that there are things independent of the mind..."
It doesn't.
To be sure, there are things independent of the mind; but the law of identity does not stipulate that there are.
OK, I'll recant, and say that the law of identity implies necessarily, that things are independent of the mind. So let me explain this, in a way which you might be able to understand.. In fact, I'll present it in two slightly different ways.
The law of identity stipulates that the identity of a thing is the thing itself. A thing is the same as itself. Since it does not say that a mind is necessary for a thing to be the thing that it is, yet it is necessary that a thing is the thing that it is, we can conclude that to be the thing that it is, does not require a mind. Simplified: "things are independent of the mind".
Another way to consider this is that identity in modern terms is sometimes said to be the relationship which a thing has with itself. It can be argued that it requires a mind to draw a relation between two distinct things. But the relationship between a thing and itself is not actually a relationship at all, the thing and itself are one and the same thing, and this is absolute, not relative. Hence, no mind is required for a thing to be the thing that it is, because being the thing that it is is not a relationship.
.
This is a principle which Aristotle made a great effort to explain, requiring many pages, even multiple books, in his "Metaphysics". It is the reason why most philosophers will argue that Aristotle was not idealist, even though he clearly placed form as prior to matter in his metaphysics. It is a principle which is mostly unlearnt in modern society, as not even philosophy graduates are required to understand Aristotelian metaphysics.
Meaning is based in intent, and the intent of that statement, "a thing is the same as itself", the law of identity, is to say that a thing does not require a mind to have an identity as a thing, i.e. to be the thing that it is. The intent of this statement is derived from the context, Aristotle's "Metaphysics", understanding of which is required to determine the meaning Due to the tendency of human beings to believe that identity is something we assign to things, the idea that a thing has an identity, and is therefore a thing, independent of us assigning an identity to it, is not easy to dispel.
Simply stating that things exist independently from the mind does not suffice to put down skepticism, as it 's just a bald assertion. So the law of identity is formulated from the necessity that a thing must be the thing that it is (it has an unique identity); and it cannot be other than it is or else it would be something else, two distinct things at the same time. If we accept this proposition, and it seems reasonable to me, then the thing's identity is within the thing itself, not the identity we assign to it, because assigned identity is not a necessary relation. Then the thing's existence as a thing is necessarily independent from the mind.
We are faced with the insolvable problem of how the mind can know things that exist independently of the existence of the mind.
Paraphrasing Kant as regards a priori pure intuitions, we can imagine the concept of empty space, but we cannot imagine the concept of there being no space.
As Kant wrote in Critique of Pure Reason, "Space and time are merely the forms of our sensible intuition of objects. They are not beings that exist independently of our intuition (things in themselves), nor are they properties of, nor relations among, such beings". (A26, A33)
It is not really insolvable, because we do this with logic. That is what logic does for us, it allows us to extend our knowledge beyond the limits of our immediate experience. The problem is that there are limits to what we can do with logic, and there are judgements as to validity and soundness which must be made. So, depending on how you define "knowledge", and the degree of infallibility which you require as the criteria for "knowledge", our knowledge of such things is limited.
Kant may have expressed it as his opinion that we cannot know things which exist independently of the mind, but Plato allowed that the mind has direct contact with independent Forms. With such direct contact we can understand independent Forms (things) through the use of logic, without relying on the medium of sense perception. Perhaps Kant would disqualify such fundamental ontological principles as not fulfilling the criteria of "knowledge", but Plato places this as the highest form of knowledge, just like Aristotle positions intuition as the highest form of knowledge.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Which is it, MU?
I acknowledge and respect that.
But...
It sounds profound to talk of the Law of Identity; we need to keep in mind that what we are talking about is just a=a.
Metaphysical statements cannot be derived from logic alone. So a=a can tell us nothing about what is in the mind and what isn't.
Your argument here:
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
...is unconvincing for this reason. As it stands it is impossible to confirm its validity, let alone that it is cogent. It mixes terms - mind, necessity, dependency - that need considerable work to be understood.
It is also clear that a=a is a relationship, contrary to what you claim; all you have done is stipulate that relationships are between different individuals. I might choose to stipulate otherwise. Indeed, we do so when we make use of statements such as 1+1=2.
Perhaps the reason Aristotelian logic and metaphysics is not required reading any more is that we have progressed beyond that.
Quoting Luke
Hence mind is mind-independent. Cute.
I don't get this - as with many arguments from Kant.
I have a clear idea of what dimensions are; and I understand what zero-dimensional space would be. like. Saying I can't imagine it - so what?
It's just that our understanding of space has moved on considerably since Kant. As with most things. I find it hard to understand folk's fascination with the fellow.
Both it is. What makes a rule a rule is to be explicitly stated (my opinion, notice "I think"). But there is no rule which states that "rule" must be used in this way.
Quoting Banno
No, I'm not talking about a=a. What I'm talking about is the law of identity, which states that a thing is the same as itself. Look it up if you don't already know it. If you represent the law of identity as "a=a", then we must respect the fact that you are using a=a to express "a thing is the same as itself.", that is the defined meaning of a=a.
Quoting Banno
I know that the validity of the law of identity cannot be proven, and that's irrelevant. You can accept it or not, but I think like any other fundamental proposition, it's best to understand it before rejecting it. And understanding it requires recognizing that a thing and its identity are one and the same. Therefore to be a thing is to have an identity, and to have an identity is to be thing. Clearly there is no stipulated dependence on a mind required for a thing to be a thing, and no reason to think that a mind is required, therefore a thing is mind independent.
Quoting Banno
This is equivocation on the meaning of "a=a", and so you've provided a fallacious argument. As indicated above "a=a" must represent "a thing is the same as itself" to represent the law of identity. And, being one and the same as, is not a relation. "Relation" indicates what one has to do with another, and that's something completely different from being the same thing.
Therefore, rules do not have to be explicitly stated.
That's right, you can use "rule" however you please.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
I wasn't questioning the validity of a=a; I was questioning the validity of your argument.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Yep. And this is where I walk away.
You can believe that or you can believe that a rule must be explicitly stated. You can't have both. So I trust you've given up on your opinion that rules must be explicitly stated.
I wonder why most people read instead of figuring these things out for themselves. I mean, I don't wonder, it's obvious why. I just wanted to make others aware that their minds are an excellent source material, too, should they choose to employ it for that purpose.
Yeah. I so totally agree. I may add that there are some extremely well-read minds around here, who hide behind jargon and throwing about big names but which minds nevertheless succeed to show very little original thought.
You, Banno, at least apply your knowledge appropriately. And my favourite contributor on these forums, Fooloso4, combines the two: a solid background knowledge and an ability to employ his or her agile mind to not only question and interpret the readings, but also to creatively build on its learned knowledge base.
Quoting Banno
“...We never can imagine or make a representation to ourselves of the non-existence of space, though we may easily enough think that no objects are found in it. It must, therefore, be considered as the condition of the possibility of phenomena, and by no means as a determination dependent on them, and is a representation a priori, which necessarily supplies the basis for external phenomena....” (A24/B39)
Why bring up dimensions or zero-dimensional space, when those are mere euphemisms for the terms given in the text? Do you see that thinking objects in space (from the text) does not give you a coordinate system, which makes dimensions (from your statement) irrelevant? And space is itself zero-dimensional anyway, so amending space with that qualifier adds nothing whatsoever to the significance of the term.
Do you see there’s no congruency between your “I understand what zero-dimensional space would be like”, and, “we may easily enough think that no objects are found in it”? You will say they amount to the same thing, they have the same truth-value or some such nonsense, because you’re submerged in language games, but I shall nonetheless point out you’ve treated space as the subject in your statement, but space is in the predicate of the statement you’ve claimed, for all intents and purposes, to not understand. But that just sets the ground. In effect, you’ve merely stated you understand what space would be like, which is altogether quite impossible, while I...and even yourself...can imagine holding our hands out with no object resting in their respective palms. I mean....what is space like, really? Compared to.....what?
Finally, that which you can’t imagine, re: Russell’s “concept of there being no space”, is not the same as what the text says can’t be imagined, re: “the representation to ourselves of the non-existence of space”. But, herein in your defense, because I acknowledge your tacit rejection of Kantian epistemology as being left behind by those finding precious little value in anything a few years older than themselves, I grant you won’t accept the theoretical subtleties which sustain the difference.
Oh. And your “so what?”? It is answered, if I may poach from the illustrious Paul Harvey.....in the rrEESSSTTT of the story!!
Cheers(?)
Wise move. Educate yourself on the law of identity, and prepare yourself with some principles before you attempt to argue that identity is a relation. I think such an argument only demonstrates a lack of understanding of the difference between what a relation is, and what an absolute is.
I will refer you back to Wittgenstein's "Philosophical Investigations", 253-256. If you understand these passages you will apprehend the need for an explicit criterion of identity. Without that law of identity we might use "same" in the ordinary, customary way, such as to say that this chair is the same as that chair, or even my sensation is the same as your sensation.
Quoting Luke
"Must" is normative here, it does not imply logical necessity, so your argument is not logical, it is fallacious by equivocation. And I believe that people are free to act contrary to the norms. So I see no problem with believing that you use "rule" differently from me, and also believing that a rule must be explicitly stated to qualify as being a "rule". You are doing what I think you ought not do, and this type of thing is a common occurrence. So I believe that you use "rule" in an incoherent way which renders logical procedure impossible. I believe that to proceed logically we need to distinguish between what is stated and what is not stated, and only what is stated qualifies as a rule.
But you believe that there could be premises (rules governing the use of a word) which are not stated, and this foils logical procedures by enabling equivocation. I've tried to persuade you to see things my way, so we could proceed together logically, but to no avail . Since I have no inclination to join you in your incoherency, and you appear to have no desire to proceed logically, discussing this issue is fruitless..
It is your belief or opinion that a rule must be explicitly stated. What's normative about that?
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
The problem is not with your belief that you and I use the word "rule" differently. The problem, as I have pointed out, is that you contradict yourself with your pair of beliefs that "you can use "rule" however you please", and that "you use "rule" in an incoherent way."
Either I can use "rule" however I please or I cannot. Which is it?
The obvious implication here is that if you want to use the word "rule" in a coherent way, then you cannot use the word "rule" however you please.
So it looks as though language is a game consisting of rules after all.
The strict definitions outlined in the dictionary are only guidelines to what is a more mechanical impulse.
The word 'and' is used in this way:
And - derivative. Is the mind code usage of the word 'and'.
Try another, 'if':
If - simulation. Is the mind code usage of the word 'if'.
Thus, truly they are not word games and we are not playing; if the dictionary has perplexed your view of language, try fixing that error so you can see how serious and permanent language is.
When I use the word 'and' or 'if', I do so in the manner of machine code; which isn't following phrasing norms as outlined by the dictionary, but sensible phrasing: and - do this - (this) if X occurs, ledge all sense data as English Language, if X does not occur, work on defining ledged data - until dictionary is complete. If random shutdown, do not reboot.
Quoting Banno
The impossibility of imagining something that cannot be imagined
Kant's proposal of a priori pure intuitions is at the core of my philosophical beliefs. Although Kant in Critique of Pure Reason only specifically mentioned space, time and objects, in my opinion, other concepts can be included a priori. For example, the colour red, a bitter taste, an acrid smell, a velvety touch and a grating noise.
A26, A33 - "Space and time are merely the forms of our sensible intuition of objects. They are not beings that exist independently of our intuition (things in themselves), nor are they properties of, nor relations among, such beings"
A239 - "We can only cognize objects that we can, in principle, intuit. Consequently, we can only cognize objects in space and time, appearances. We cannot cognize things in themselves".
IE, such a priori pure intuitions, concepts, explains to me how the mind relates to that which is outside the mind.
I can imagine zero dimension, but not no dimensions
I can imagine a cube of 1cm sides. I can imagine a cube of 1mm sides. I can imagine a cube having sides of zero dimension. But I can only imagine this cube of zero dimensions within my ordinary everyday space of tables, chairs, etc. For the mind to be able to imagine no space would be as if the mind could imagine not existing, as the concept of space is a fundamental building block from which the mind is constructed.
Colour as a tractable example
As regards colour, my position is that of eliminativist projectivist, where we project a colour, which is purely a mental phenomena, onto objects in our environment. A post-box isn't red, but emits light at a wavelength of 700nm which the mind interprets as the colour red. Stephen Palmer wrote in 1999 "colour is a psychological property of our visual experiences when we look at objects and lights, not a physical property of those objects and lights". In a similar fashion, the concept of space is a mental phenomena which the mind projects onto what it perceives as an outside world.
Galileo, for example, thought that physical science had shown that objects are not really coloured, but inside the mind.
For the mind to be able to imagine no space, would be as if a person born colour blind
could experience the colour red by being described it by others, even allowing for the possibility of an "inverted spectrum".
Kant postulated that the mind intuits sensory experience which it processes in the faculty of understanding in order to produce an ordered predictable world, Consequently, we must already have knowledge of what space and time are in order to recognize the intuition of time and space. Similarly, we must already have knowledge of the colour red in order to recognize the intuition of the colour red.
As with the question, do objects in the world have the property of colour that the mind perceives them to have or is the property only a mental phenomenon. Is what the mind perceives as "space" a property of what is external to the the mind or a property only of an internal mental phenomenon.
As in order to be conscious of the colour red we must have an a priori innate ability to
be conscious of the colour red, in order to be conscious of space and time we must have an a priori innate ability to be conscious of space and time.
Synergism of the brain with the world through evolution
The mind today, ie, the brain, is the product of 3.7 billion years of evolution within the world. The Synergism Hypothesis of 1983 addressed the evolution of cooperative phenomena in nature and increased complexity in living systems. I am not saying that space and time don't exist, but that the mind is not directly aware of space and time. What the mind perceives as space and time is a projection by the mind of innate concepts that have evolved over billions of years onto sense impressions it receives through sight, sound, etc. As the concepts of space and time are an innate part of the mind, it is beyond the ability of the mind to imagine their non-existence.
The mind is not separate to a priori pure intuitions, the mind "is" a priori pure intuitions
As the concept of space and time is an innate physical part of the structure of the brain, it would as impossible for the brain to imagine the non-existence of space and time as it would be for the brain to imagine the non-existence of pain when touching a hot stove.
As it would be impossible for the mind to think about what it would be like to not think, it would be impossible for the brain to contemplate the non-existence of space and time, as the concept of space and time is innate within the brain, and a part of the physical structure of the brain.
The brain is not separate to its innate a priori concepts - space, time,etc - rather, the brain "is" its innate a priori concepts, and therefore cannot contemplate the non-existence of something that makes up its very nature.
Pretty good synopsis, I must say. There are some fundamental contentions, but they don’t detract from the general picture, and certainly wouldn’t matter in the least, to someone rejecting the system itself.
Here's the quote:
Quoting RussellA
Prima facie, this is at odds with General Relativity. But that's not what is of import here...
Quoting Banno
But I'll read on...
Indeed.
What a shame.
...imagine...
It's unclear to me what imagination has to do with dimensions. The dimensionality of an object is, roughly, the number of coordinates needed to specify a point on the object.
One cannot imagine eleven-dimensional space, but one can do the maths.
The maths for zero-dimensional space is considerably simpler.
But then topology was developed after Kant, so we can't blame him for not being able to imagine it.
It's my opinion and belief. It's my opinion that if it hasn't been stated in some form it cannot be a rule, and I believe this. This "must" in your statement, "must be explicitly stated" is normative, because it's a standard of behaviour that I believe in. For example, suppose you think of something which you believe is a rule, but it has never been explicitly stated. Then I break this so-called "rule" and you accuse me of breaking the rule. I would argue that I didn't break any rule because what you thought was a rule was never stated and therefore it did not exist as a rule.
Quoting Luke
I don't see how this is contradictory. People use words in incoherent ways quite often. This is just a matter of describing reality. I believe the word "rule" ought to be used in a way which avoids contradiction, but I know, and respect the fact that freely choosing human beings such as yourself, can use words however you want. It's no different from saying that I believe people ought to act morally, but they freely choose to act in immoral ways. It's my opinion, and I firmly believe that one ought to do what is right (use "rule" in a logically rigorously defined way), yet I have respect for the reality that people are free to do what I believe is wrong. Furthermore, I might even do what I believe is wrong in some instances.
Quoting Luke
I've told you many times, you are free to use that word however you want. However, I will not necessarily agree with the way that you use it. There is no contradiction here. Until we have a rigorous definition (a rule dictating how we must use "rule"), I cannot accuse you of breaking any rules. I can however say that your use appears incoherent (inconsistent) to me. This was the case the last time we discussed this, I believe you were equivocal in your use.
Quoting Luke
What we want, and what we are actually free to do, are two distinct things. That's reality. And that I am free to do something which I do not want to do, does not amount to contradiction. Even when I end up doing something which I didn't want to to, this is generally a mistake, it is not a contradiction. But when I say I will not do something, yet I do it intentionally rather than by mistake, this is lying or hypocrisy.
Quoting RussellA
I don't understand any of this. How is it possible to imagine a zero dimension cube? Why is it impossible for the mind to imagine spacelessness, or non- spatial existence? If we imagine that the mind might have temporality only, and is prior to spatial existence, then spatial presence becomes unlimited. That is to say, if space is conceived of as coming into existence from no space, as time passes, and the mind itself is prior to spatial existence, then the mind is free to appear in many different spatial points at the same time. Isn't this how free willing locomotion works? The mind has freedom to determine spatial location.
There is no such "standard"; it is merely your own personal opinion. You don't set the standards or norms all on your own.
Otherwise, where can I find this standard of behaviour? Where is it written? By your own reckoning, a rule cannot exist unless it is explicitly stated, so where is it explicitly stated that a rule must be explicitly stated?
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
You cannot use that word however you want if you want to be coherent. Your argument is analogous to saying: I can move any chess piece to wherever I like on the board because it's physically possible, therefore chess has no rules. But you can't move the pieces just anywhere if you want to play the game, or if you want to make moves in the game that are permissible/coherent/understood. You seem to think you're making an interesting point about the freedom to make any moves whatsoever, but all we're really interested in are possible moves within the game. This is where the line is drawn between coherent and incoherent. But this line cannot be drawn by you alone. Who told you that?
Yep.
You ought to recognize, that in my context of usage, a "standard" is an example or model used for judgement, like a criterion. That any specific standard is the one which ought to be applied is a matter of judgement and therefore opinion. However, there may be a rule which states which standard or criterion is applicable in a specific type of situation. Such rules can greatly assist in one's application of standards. So standards are things which you hold on your own, as opinions, and they may or may not be consistent with the rules. But if I used an unacceptable word here, that's my mistake and I apologize if it was taken as an offence .
Quoting Luke
Since when is "standard" necessarily exchangeable with "rule"? The reason why a language has many different words is to provide us with the capacity to say many different things. If you make all the different words mean the same thing, how could you ever say anything meaningful? Obviously, judging by the context, I do not use "standard" to mean the same thing as "rule". That would mean I was intentionally contradicting myself. So your behaviour of exchanging "standard" for 'rule" so that you might ridicule me, is not only unsupported with any logic, but is downright mean.
Quoting Luke
You are just providing evidence here that the "game" analogy fails. Instead of looking at the reality of language use, and seeing that the "game" analogy is incapable of capturing all the aspects of language, you argue against the truth about language, by applying the game analogy. This is a very important point to understand about the use of things like analogies, similes, metaphors, hyperboles, parables, and allegories. These tools are only capable of bringing us a limited understanding, and if we adhere to every aspect of them, as if they are a literal description, they will surely mislead us, ending up with misunderstanding rather than understanding.
You could create an analogy that a computer is just like a car, they both are mass produced artificially, and have electronics. And anytime I tried to show you that there are no wheels on the computer, so the analogy fails at this point, you keep denying the reality of what I am showing to you, by referring to the analogy and insisting that there must be wheels on the computer, because it's just like a car.
So referring to the game analogy, intending to disprove the facts about language which I am showing you, when I am showing you this for the sake of demonstrating the failings of the analogy, really doesn't help your case.
Equivocation. These are different "standards" to those in the context of norms and normativity.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
How does the analogy fail? Moving pieces wherever you want, irrespective of the rules of the game, is not playing the game.
There was no equivocation. The first line in the Wikipedia entry on "Normative": "Normative generally means relating to an evaluative standard." Isn't that just what I said about how I used "standard"?
The problem which you seem to have, is accepting that there is a difference between a publicly stated "rule", and a principle which an individual applies in one's mind when making a decision or judgement. In order to have a proper understanding of language use, we need to maintain this distinction. The reality of this difference is what allows one to know the rule, yet act in a way which is inconsistent with the rule. When I explained this reality to you, you insisted that it's contradiction. But that's only because you do not heed the distinction, rather dissolving it and creating confused ambiguity.
Quoting Luke
Right, in playing a game we must adhere to the rules with all moves. But in language we see competing rules which makes such a thing impossible, so we ought to drop the analogy right there. Instead, a multitude of games is proposed. However, a closer look at language use would reveal that it is shaped not by rules, but by freely chosen activities of free willing beings. Hence, what is basic or fundamental to the form which language takes, is not a rule governed structure, but the very opposite of this, activities which are free from rules. Therefore, if we adhere to the game analogy when trying to describe, or represent language use, our models will be completely backward. The game analogy represents language use evolving from fundamental rules (hinge propositions or whatever), building more and more rules on top of foundational rules, instead of modeling the reality of language, as a fundamentally free and lawless activity, free from foundational rules, from which rule structured activities may emerge.
How we employ an analogy, as a tool, is that we apply it until the point where it fails. Its failure, and how it fails, tells us something new, which we didn't already know, about the thing that it is applied to. We take a well known thing, and compare it to a lesser known thing, something we are trying to understand. Of course the two things will not be exactly the same. So when we get to the point where the comparison fails, and it can be carried no further, we have exposed the aspects of the lesser known thing which we do not understand. Now we can proceed toward understanding these mysterious aspects. But at this point we can no longer apply the analogy, so we must apply other principles.
No, it isn’t important at all:
“...If we confine the application of the theory to the case where the gravitational fields can be regarded as being weak, and in which all masses move with respect to the co-ordinate system with velocities which are small compared with the velocity of light, we then obtain as a first approximation the Newtonian theory. Thus the latter theory is obtained here without any particular assumption, whereas Newton had to introduce the hypothesis that the force of attraction between mutually attracting material points is inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them. If we increase the accuracy of the calculation, deviations from the theory of Newton make their appearance, practically all of which must nevertheless escape the test of observation owing to their smallness...”
(Relativity: The Special and General Theory, Pt 2, Sec. 29, 1916)
Quoting Banno
Yeah, no biggie. Calling space a gravitational field is merely another language game, innit? Proving gravitational fields are warped by massive bodies doesn’t prove space is a property of objects, which is sufficient reason to permit Kant’s exposition of space as a pure intuition “...by which the experience of objects is possible....” to stand unmolested. That the coordinate system for the location of objects must be relative to something, and that something being called space, is not refuted or even impinged upon, by GR. Notice as well, if you will, Kant made time, itself a “pure a priori intuition”, just as necessary for the experience, therefore the relation, of objects, as did Einstein, albeit not necessarily Euclidean, with his “spacetime continuum” (ibid, Sec. 27)
Not denigrating progress in science, mind you, just defending its metaphysical origins.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Does language have no rules or does it have "competing rules"? What "competing rules" does language have?
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
How is this different to the game of chess? It is not as though people are forced to play chess against their will by the deterministic laws of nature, or that they are physically unable to make illegal moves. Chess is also "shaped...by freely chosen activities of free willing beings", yet it is still a game for all that, and has rules too.
As I believe in reductive physicalism, in that I believe that the mind and body are ontologically indiscernible, for me, the mind cannot be prior to spatial existence
I agree that there are two aspects to imagining either an eleven-dimensional space or there being no space, dependent on whether mathematics was a discovery or an invention. My belief is that mathematics was invented.
If mathematics was discovered, then points of "no dimension" exist in the world independent of the existence of any observer. I would then agree that in geometry, where the dimension of any space is defined as the minimum number of coordinates needed to specify any point, and a point has no dimensions, then I don't need to imagine what "no dimensions" means. I only need to understand how it is used, as Wittgenstein might have said.
If mathematics was invented, then a point of "no dimension" is a mental construct, and therefore mathematics cannot be used to determine existence independently of the existence of the mind.
It depends on whether one is in Plato's or Aristotle's camp.
Kant is so yawnsome.
But you invoked Kant: Quoting RussellA
...incidentally summoning @Mww.
Now these two views look incompatible to me. On the one hand we have the mathematics of dimensionality which can be used in physics to calculate observed phenomena with great accuracy. On the other we have space as a mere form of sensible intuition.
How can an intuition be calculably curved by a mass?
I suggest that Kant's incantations were interesting approximations that have since been surpassed.
While I have your attention, what do you make of the present discussion between @Luke and @Metaphysician Undercover? Luke is doing a fine job of pointing out the mess that Meta has made for himself. Meta is another who makes use of superseded notions, in his case a misunderstanding of Aristotelian logic.
Thanks Banno :up:
I have stated that language does not require rules, that they emerge as a feature of language. So there is obviously rules within language. The point being that there is language outside of rules. The differences in rules are varied. What is legal in some countries is illegal in others. Some philosophies promote violation of the law of excluded middle, some promote violation of the law of noncontradiction. Different languages have developed different grammatical structures.
Quoting Luke
Right, some never play chess, because they choose not to. But we really do not have such a choice in the case of language, due to the necessities of nature. Do you see how playing chess has an inverted relation to the forces of nature and free will, from that of languages usage? This is the difference between the two.
We freely choose whether or not we want to play chess, and if one decides to play, one must adhere to the rules when making moves. However, in the case of language usage, we are forced by necessity into using language, yet we are free to choose whatever moves we want. The relation between freedom and necessity is inverted between the two. In one case participation is freely chosen while the moves are determined by necessity, while in the other case participation is necessary while the moves are freely chosen.
Quoting RussellA
Well, I wouldn't agree with reductive physicalism, because I don't think it gives us an ontology which is capable of making the existence of abstractions, ideas, and conceptions, which are immaterial, intelligible. When we recognize these properties of the mind as immaterial, we apprehend them as having a non-spatial existence. We cannot measure them in any spatial way, such as size, shape, or any dimensional forms.
Yet these immaterial things do seem to have a temporality. This provides us with the premise to give mind, in its relation with time, priority to spatial presence. In Kant we see time as the internal intuition, and space as the external intuition. Strictly speaking, in terms of absolute, the external is not necessary, yet the internal is, or else there is nothing. (We cannot move to an external absolute because the mind cannot go, where by definition, there is no mind.) With the internal as the only acceptable absolute, spatial existence is not necessary, and follows only as contingent on material being.
If you cannot see how Luke's adherence to the game analogy has lead him into a dreadful misunderstanding of the nature of language, as outlined in my last post, then perhaps you'd like to address that issue, which is the inversion of the relation between freedom and necessity, that is evident in the comparison between chess and language.
Yes, and now we're going round in circles.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
These are not examples of rules of language use, which you appeared to be talking about in your previous post where you said "in language we see competing rules".
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
What necessity forces you to use language? People can choose not to use language as freely as they can choose not to play chess.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
I don't see how language is any different. What do you think is learned when one learns a language? Do you think it's just a matter of memorising all the different words without also learning how to use those words? How is learning how to use a word different from learning how to use a pawn?
Can you give us an example of language without grammar?
Take any avant-garde abstract poem. They are mostly a jumble of words.
There is no sense in them; but it uses components of the language. And in a way, the creator will or can insist that it has just as much meaning as an abstract painting has expression for the artist and the viewer; the picture is formless, yet conveys something; the abstract poem is grammarless, yet it expresses something for the listener/reader and writer/reader.
That's my best shot at an example of grammarless language.
Hmmmm. So now you are saying that those rules for language, the ones it doesn't have, also vary from one language to another.
You started by claiming that language had no rules, but when this was shown to be silly, you have slid to claiming they are an emergent feature.
I would say that both Luke and metaphysician agree that rules are necessary when using both language and games. Whereas metaphysician is pointing out one aspect that rules need to be invented, Luke is pointing out another aspect that, when invented, such rules need to be coherent.
But then again, paraphrasing the 20th C. English philosopher Barbossa, what one calls rules are more like guidelines.
The question is, if our knowledge of space is innate a priori pure intuition, how is it possible for us to alter our conception of the nature of space. For example, curved spacetime within General Relativity.
We can imagine different types of space, but we cannot imagine no space
For Kant, space and time are pure intuitions that we know prior to experience and we know to be true independent of experience. As the concept of space and time is innate within the brain, part of the physical structure of the brain, we can imagine different types of space and time - empty, curved, etc - but we cannot imagine there being no space or time.
The mind only perceives a fraction of what exists in the world
When we perceive the world, we perceive parts and the relationships between those parts.
For example, we only see some colours in the world, from 380nm to 700nm, not the ultraviolet that some birds see. Of the unlimited number of possible mereological relationships between the parts existent in the world, we are only aware of a few of them - a table top and its legs - a tree and its leaves - a roof and its walls. There are also many more mereologically possible relationships that we are not aware of - my pen and the Eiffel Tower - a tree and a fish - the horn of the narwhal and the body of a horse (aka a unicorn). As the mind perceives only a small proportion of the parts and relationships existing within the world, what the mind perceives as the world is a very limited and simplistic model that only scratches the surface of what in fact exists.
What the mind is able to perceive has been determined by evolution
In the 3.7 billion years of life on earth, complex life forms have evolved to have certain innate intuitions necessary for continued survival. It is not the case that we have certain intuitions and they happen to correspond with the world, rather, our intuitions were created by the world and therefore of necessity correspond with the world. Through the process of evolution the mind gradually models the world around it. If the model had not been correct, then the mind and body would not have survived. Therefore, the sensible intuitions innate within the mind have been created by the world in which the brain has survived.
Therefore, it is not that the mind has an intuition of space that may or may not correspond to the space that exists around it in the world, but that the intuitions of space within the mind of necessity correspond to the space that exists around it, as the mind's intuitions of space have evolved in synergy with the world.
Kant and evolution
It is true that Kant did not propose an evolutionary mechanism for a priori pure intuitions, but his principle of "synthetic a priori judgements" remains valid. Kant (1724 to 1804) was not able to benefit from Darwin's theory of evolution. Kant's approach was as set out in his Critique of the power of judgement 1790, primarily a teleological one, where some features of organism could be understood mechanistically, but some aspects had to be understood as purposive structures.
Equations model the world
For example, the equation of motion for a freely falling object - v = u +gt - was this equation discovered in the world or was the equation first invented and then discovered to correspond with phenomena in the world. When we observe the world, such as an object falling, we only observe intermittent events, ie, Hume's problem of induction, where we observe a series of conjoined events. However, our equations don't give an intermittent answer but a continuous one. Equations are therefore idealisations of something that can never be empirically known. Equations are predictions based on sensible intuitions. Kant in wrestling with Hume's problem of induction proposed that we don't learn the concept of causation, but that we are born with the innate concept of causation. Even though we only observe a series of intermittent events, we perceive them as a continuous sequence. Even though we have empirical sense impressions of discrete events, a light to the right, a shape to the left, we have the innate a priori concept of one space in which these observations take place
Summary
As mathematical equations in giving a continuous output are different in kind to empirical observations which by their nature must be intermittent, mathematical equations cannot have been discovered but are rather inventions of the mind. Our intuition of space and time is part of the structure of the brain, having evolved in synergy with the world over probably billions of years. Consequently, it would not be possible to imagine there not being space and time, although one can imagine different kinds of space and time, such as curved spacetime.
Again, you use the word "imagine"; I'm not at all sure what it is doing. I think I can "picture" zero dimensions - it's the point of origin of a cartesian coordinate system.
What we can do is calculate with N dimensions, including zero.
Quoting RussellA
Well, that's just not right, in the sense you set out. We don't only see some colours in the world, from 380nm to 700nm. We can see infrared, x-ray, microwaves - hell, gravity waves and individual electrons.
But moreover, as Wittgenstein pointed out, what cannot be part of our language games cannot be used as a part of our arguments. If there are Noumena about which we can say nothing, then by the very fact that they are ineffable, they cannot be a part of our ontology.
Quoting RussellA
...determined...
No, it hasn't, for the reasons given above. We've managed to see far more than what is available to our limited senses.
Quoting RussellA
But see Davidson, On the very idea of a conceptual scheme.
Quoting RussellA
It's a reasonably coherent picture, but it's misguided.
Good on ya!!!
You got awarded a “reasonably coherent”.
Quoting RussellA
The standard human representational cognitive system. Some can’t live with it, nobody can’t kill it. Best then, to understand it, ne c’est pas?
Yep. Hume and Locke used the same technique, right?
Hahaha. I assume that's meant as a joke. If not, I feel sorry for you. The need to get what I want, the mother of all necessities.
Quoting Fooloso4
This question is not relevant because "grammar" does not necessarily imply "rules", depending on how one defines the terms. So I have no desire to go around in the same circle which Luke leads me around, with you, except with the word "grammar" instead of "rule".
Quoting Banno
Obviously, I never said language does not have rules. Read if you're going to comment. I've argued that rules are not prerequisite for language, they emerge from language use.
Quoting Banno
Well I don't think so. I seem to remember joining into this thread talking about the rules in a system of beliefs, and the rules of logical systems. That's not exactly a claim that language has no rules. Nine days ago:
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
I think you haven't been paying attention. You've been making some exceedingly absurd statements about what you think I believe. Now, I've been arguing this point with Luke for a long time, on numerous threads, the relationship between rules and language. As far as I know I've maintained a very similar position, as has Luke. That's why we go around in circles, Luke refuses to adopt a position which would allow us to proceed toward a better understanding of language.
This thread is on Wittgenstein. It is clear that you have not read him carefully enough, or did not understand, or have forgotten what he says about rules and grammar, and logic. I know you were present a few years back for the discussion of PI, so I am not going to rehash it.
It may be though that you simply do not agree with him. But you cannot disagree with what you do not first understand. Nothing you have said leads me to believe you do understand.
Oh.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Hmmm. Excuse my error, then.
One might do well to keep in mind that Meta rejects the notion of instantaneous velocity. That's in the middle of a discussion about the Tractatus. Strange stuff.
OK, you are excused, but you really do need to pay more attention to subtle differences, something very important in philosophy. Notice the difference between saying "language is a game", and "language is something within which there are numerous games". In the first case we might consider a composite whole, united by one consistent set of rules. In the second, we have numerous distinct sets of rules without any identified source of unity, yet we assume a whole and call it by one name "language". In the latter case we must inquire further to identify the source of unity which enables us to apply one name, assuming one whole, because there is not one complete set of unifying rules to make one game.
This difference, as the difference between a system, and a multitude of systems, is what I spent much time attempting to explain, already in this thread. To which you replied "I do find you verging on the incomprehensible." So, in case you are interested, I'll provide you with a review. Please remember, and adhere to the fundamental idea that there is a difference between a system, and a multitude of distinct systems, and perhaps what I said will be more comprehensible to you.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Success at last. Time to celebrate and open a good bottle of McGuigan Shiraz.
It is interesting that we only observe in the world a set of intermittent particular events, yet are able to conceptualise in our minds something that has a continuous existence. What was discussed by Locke, Hume and Kant in the 17th and 18th C. is still being discussed today.
I have heard that he lives in mortal fear of spontaneous combustion.