Ordinary Language Philosophy - Now: More Examples! Better Explanations! Worse Misconceptions!
I am making the claim that Ordinary Language Philosophy is a philosophically-sound methodology that is relevant to revolutionizing modern analytical philosophy. ("OLP"--exemplified by Wittgenstein, Nietzsche , J.L. Austin, and Stanley Cavell)
To start, roughly, OLP is an analytic* philosophical method that investigates what Witt terms "our concepts"** (say, practices) by making claims about each concept's "criteria" (though not as a standard of justification) or "Grammar" Witt will call them, e.g., ordinary implications, consequences, ways of judging, what counts for identity, etc., which allow us to discuss more usefully and see deeper into philosophical issues, and learn about ourselves.
The method is to ask or imagine, as Austin says: what do we ordinarily imply ("mean") when we say…, e.g., “I know”, "I think", "I forget", "I apologize", which also involves fleshing out the context that would go along with that case***. As an example, when we ordinarily say an action was done accidently rather than mistakenly, we can imagine a case (a context): that “the gun went off in my hands and killed the donkey” (accidently), as opposed to: “I did want to kill the cow, but hit the donkey instead” (mistakenly) (Austin's example). The example allows us to see what is usually skipped over unexamined; to describe what “actions” are and how they work, e.g., that “intention” does not come up in every circumstances (when asked about a mistake) and how moral culpability works (Austin will talk of excuses—“The donkey just walked in the way!”).
These claims--about the usually unexamined "criteria" (say, workings) of our "concepts" (again, just a grouping term) seen by imagining examples of what we mean (imply, what follows) when we say, e.g., "I know"; these descriptions of the criteria of our concepts are provisional claims, yet made in the name of everyone, because they are for anyone to look and see for themselves. There is no further justification. OLP philosophers can then discuss insights from these claims about the issues of philosophy.
So we would come up with circumstances (the contexts) when we say, as an example (from Malcolm): "I know" and then see and describe what those instances imply about our various criteria for that concept. And that a concept can have multiple options ("senses" Witt says--ways the make sense) or ways in which the can be used in different contexts.
One sense of "I Know" is that I am certain: "I know when the sun will rise today"; the criteria for this might be that I can give evidence of that certainty, etc. This appears to be philosophy's one and only use and preoccupation. Second, we can say "I know New York", as in: I know my way around; I can show you; Third, I know (knew) that, as in to confirm or agree with what you said; and Fourth, I know, as in to sympathize with you. Cavell uses this last sense to shed light on our knowledge of another's pain--we don't "know it" in the first sense, we acknowledge it, recognize and accept the claim their expression of pain makes on me.
Leaving that brief explanation*** I’ll point out some misconceptions about OLP, used to dismiss its method/contribution. The usual dismissals are:
1. That OLP is easy to understand and not revolutionizing; that it is simply another argument of justification or solving skepticism not require re-evaluating an unseen picture created by traditional philosophy.
2. That it is an argument in ordinary language, or an argument for ordinary language."
3. That the Grammar or criteria of these concepts are what is consciously used to explain the concept to regular people, or that they are regularly used in deciding what to say under a concept.
4. That OLP is pitting people’s ordinary opinions and regular words against the arguments of philosophers (OLP is working within the tradition).
5 That "context" is just what is happening at the moment, and not what is important ( about that, about our history in this concept, etc.) to what can be implied from what is said.
6. That OLP is just “about language” and not the (ways of the) world, culture, politics, philosophy's issues.
7. That OLP is a theory of general "langauge use", meaning, rationality, etc. rather than a method for insight.
8. That what we mean when we say____, is not subject to evidence, rigour, rationality, clarity, including the larger picture.
9. That representationalism, positivism, metaphysics, etc. are "wrong" and OLP is "right" on the same terms, rather than showing us we were confused, blind to ourselves (the entire picture ignoring our real needs/desires);
10. OLP is didactically explaining to everyone how, say, an apology works, in order to get them to act a certain way.
11. That Grammar are rules to explain everything or ensure a particular usage, rather than suppositions to shed light on philosophical issues.
12. That OLP is making statements about how language works (true explanations), rather than claims of description to be seen by you, or better fleshed out, finding a more fitting context.
13. This is simply an empirical popularity contest of what most people say (or sociology).
14. That OLP is simply conservatively limiting what can be said philosophically.
15. That OLP is saying or showing that language is simple, or works simply, dismissing or not interested in, or applicable to, philosophy's honest concerns (skepticism, the problem of other, identity, etc.),
16. That OLP is dismissing philosophy (and skepticism) with “common sense”. This is exacerbated by some OLP philosophers (Moore, Kripke, etc.) making mistakes in saying that everyone knows the world (my hand) exists; or claiming that language is about social agreement, or rules, or “forms of life”; or saying philosophy is nonsense.
17. That Witt blames philosophy's problems on language, rather than on:
a). philosophy's desire/need for language to meet its standard;
b). the possibility in language to allow us to bewitch ourselves in that way, its ability to seem uprooted (isolated words) and so appearing to need the roots traditional philosophy searches for; and
c) ordinary criteria's inability to defend itself.
You may have noted the “necessity” that OLP claims, mentioned above, which is that, to be an accident (and not a mistake), certain things MUST be (are being claimed necessary to being) the case. One appears to be: a mistake requires an intended action, where an accident does not. This is part of the Grammar of these concepts: if you have no intention, you can not be making a mistake--showing that not every action is "intended", nor every movement an “action”. Traditionally, philosophy has removed the context around "intention" (as with “meaning” “reality”), which starts a slippery slope--ending in traditional philosophy's desire for a universal theory of meaning--which OLP is trying to come back from through many examples of the different ordinary workings and criteria of our concepts in a context.
OLP is making its claims for everyone, in a universal voice as Kant says about the Beautiful (see the post “Can Aesthetics be Objective” @Possibility). The voice is not dogmatic (though Nietzsche, Witt, and especially Austin are seen as so fervent that people take their claims of criteria as statements of fact), nor is the point to get these right, as “rules”, to explain how everything works. The claim (about what counts for something being said how) is to reflect on the philosophical issue (here, e.g., of action/intention).
So, if I speak for everyone, than everyone can weigh in on my claim to criteria/context, and the only truth it has is if you see it too; thus the need for it to be detailed, encompassing, distinguishing, etc.; It is thus important in OLP to see the other’s argument on their terms, draw out the context to clear up differences, and resolve issues of speaking past each other. It is more collaborative than argumentative because, if we can not agree on the criteria for concepts or the context which would show how those work, we are at a standstill—there is no force behind a claim to the ordinary. It is a description to be seen, not an argument for a theory; there is no other justification than the description (my claim) from the imagined case and context. Thus people aren't interested in it because it doesn’t appear to be playing fair, or it doesn't give them the type of answers they’d like. But I only want to point out that, instead of imposing frameworks of limitations, preconditions, expectations, etc., OLP takes philosophy more seriously by first looking at our concepts where they are (their human criteria, their ordinary workings), which gives us a wider view, a better grip, more to talk about, and some satisfaction and agreement rather than jaded isolation.
* Analytical philosophy topics/practitioners include: Plato; A.J. Ayer, Comte; Descartes, Hume; Kant; here I would add Hegel as an OLP philosopher because of his process and Socrates in asking questions of people who answer "from the street".
**When Witt says "concepts" he is not referring to the way philosophy talks about abstract ideas, or other mental objects that refer to a word or the world. It is a general term; just a way of grouping together our, say, practices: knowing, seeing, understanding, thinking, meaning, having an opinion, but also regular things like mistaking, sitting in a chair, seeing an aspect, raising your arm, remembering correctly, etc. As is "criteria" which is not a standard for justification as much as all the ways our concepts work and are identified, how we make judgments about them, the differences we make with them, etc. Other terms being "sense" (options for a concept not a word's "meaning") and "use" (which sense of the concept is used, not use as a ground for justification.)
*** Asking what we mean in an imagined context when we say "______" is opposed to starting with imposing grounds for justification of knowledge by a vision of what philosophy is which desires certainty, universality, predetermination, predictability, under the name of a picture of "rationality".
**** I have argued from OLP in my post about Wittgenstein’s lion quote (@Mmw), and in the posts about: objective aesthetics, freedom and duty, science straying into philosophy, what is “real”, only emotion mattering (@darthbarracuda), and “Not All Belief Can Be Put Into Statement Form” (@creative soul @Banno).
To start, roughly, OLP is an analytic* philosophical method that investigates what Witt terms "our concepts"** (say, practices) by making claims about each concept's "criteria" (though not as a standard of justification) or "Grammar" Witt will call them, e.g., ordinary implications, consequences, ways of judging, what counts for identity, etc., which allow us to discuss more usefully and see deeper into philosophical issues, and learn about ourselves.
The method is to ask or imagine, as Austin says: what do we ordinarily imply ("mean") when we say…, e.g., “I know”, "I think", "I forget", "I apologize", which also involves fleshing out the context that would go along with that case***. As an example, when we ordinarily say an action was done accidently rather than mistakenly, we can imagine a case (a context): that “the gun went off in my hands and killed the donkey” (accidently), as opposed to: “I did want to kill the cow, but hit the donkey instead” (mistakenly) (Austin's example). The example allows us to see what is usually skipped over unexamined; to describe what “actions” are and how they work, e.g., that “intention” does not come up in every circumstances (when asked about a mistake) and how moral culpability works (Austin will talk of excuses—“The donkey just walked in the way!”).
These claims--about the usually unexamined "criteria" (say, workings) of our "concepts" (again, just a grouping term) seen by imagining examples of what we mean (imply, what follows) when we say, e.g., "I know"; these descriptions of the criteria of our concepts are provisional claims, yet made in the name of everyone, because they are for anyone to look and see for themselves. There is no further justification. OLP philosophers can then discuss insights from these claims about the issues of philosophy.
So we would come up with circumstances (the contexts) when we say, as an example (from Malcolm): "I know" and then see and describe what those instances imply about our various criteria for that concept. And that a concept can have multiple options ("senses" Witt says--ways the make sense) or ways in which the can be used in different contexts.
One sense of "I Know" is that I am certain: "I know when the sun will rise today"; the criteria for this might be that I can give evidence of that certainty, etc. This appears to be philosophy's one and only use and preoccupation. Second, we can say "I know New York", as in: I know my way around; I can show you; Third, I know (knew) that, as in to confirm or agree with what you said; and Fourth, I know, as in to sympathize with you. Cavell uses this last sense to shed light on our knowledge of another's pain--we don't "know it" in the first sense, we acknowledge it, recognize and accept the claim their expression of pain makes on me.
Leaving that brief explanation*** I’ll point out some misconceptions about OLP, used to dismiss its method/contribution. The usual dismissals are:
1. That OLP is easy to understand and not revolutionizing; that it is simply another argument of justification or solving skepticism not require re-evaluating an unseen picture created by traditional philosophy.
2. That it is an argument in ordinary language, or an argument for ordinary language."
3. That the Grammar or criteria of these concepts are what is consciously used to explain the concept to regular people, or that they are regularly used in deciding what to say under a concept.
4. That OLP is pitting people’s ordinary opinions and regular words against the arguments of philosophers (OLP is working within the tradition).
5 That "context" is just what is happening at the moment, and not what is important ( about that, about our history in this concept, etc.) to what can be implied from what is said.
6. That OLP is just “about language” and not the (ways of the) world, culture, politics, philosophy's issues.
7. That OLP is a theory of general "langauge use", meaning, rationality, etc. rather than a method for insight.
8. That what we mean when we say____, is not subject to evidence, rigour, rationality, clarity, including the larger picture.
9. That representationalism, positivism, metaphysics, etc. are "wrong" and OLP is "right" on the same terms, rather than showing us we were confused, blind to ourselves (the entire picture ignoring our real needs/desires);
10. OLP is didactically explaining to everyone how, say, an apology works, in order to get them to act a certain way.
11. That Grammar are rules to explain everything or ensure a particular usage, rather than suppositions to shed light on philosophical issues.
12. That OLP is making statements about how language works (true explanations), rather than claims of description to be seen by you, or better fleshed out, finding a more fitting context.
13. This is simply an empirical popularity contest of what most people say (or sociology).
14. That OLP is simply conservatively limiting what can be said philosophically.
15. That OLP is saying or showing that language is simple, or works simply, dismissing or not interested in, or applicable to, philosophy's honest concerns (skepticism, the problem of other, identity, etc.),
16. That OLP is dismissing philosophy (and skepticism) with “common sense”. This is exacerbated by some OLP philosophers (Moore, Kripke, etc.) making mistakes in saying that everyone knows the world (my hand) exists; or claiming that language is about social agreement, or rules, or “forms of life”; or saying philosophy is nonsense.
17. That Witt blames philosophy's problems on language, rather than on:
a). philosophy's desire/need for language to meet its standard;
b). the possibility in language to allow us to bewitch ourselves in that way, its ability to seem uprooted (isolated words) and so appearing to need the roots traditional philosophy searches for; and
c) ordinary criteria's inability to defend itself.
You may have noted the “necessity” that OLP claims, mentioned above, which is that, to be an accident (and not a mistake), certain things MUST be (are being claimed necessary to being) the case. One appears to be: a mistake requires an intended action, where an accident does not. This is part of the Grammar of these concepts: if you have no intention, you can not be making a mistake--showing that not every action is "intended", nor every movement an “action”. Traditionally, philosophy has removed the context around "intention" (as with “meaning” “reality”), which starts a slippery slope--ending in traditional philosophy's desire for a universal theory of meaning--which OLP is trying to come back from through many examples of the different ordinary workings and criteria of our concepts in a context.
OLP is making its claims for everyone, in a universal voice as Kant says about the Beautiful (see the post “Can Aesthetics be Objective” @Possibility). The voice is not dogmatic (though Nietzsche, Witt, and especially Austin are seen as so fervent that people take their claims of criteria as statements of fact), nor is the point to get these right, as “rules”, to explain how everything works. The claim (about what counts for something being said how) is to reflect on the philosophical issue (here, e.g., of action/intention).
So, if I speak for everyone, than everyone can weigh in on my claim to criteria/context, and the only truth it has is if you see it too; thus the need for it to be detailed, encompassing, distinguishing, etc.; It is thus important in OLP to see the other’s argument on their terms, draw out the context to clear up differences, and resolve issues of speaking past each other. It is more collaborative than argumentative because, if we can not agree on the criteria for concepts or the context which would show how those work, we are at a standstill—there is no force behind a claim to the ordinary. It is a description to be seen, not an argument for a theory; there is no other justification than the description (my claim) from the imagined case and context. Thus people aren't interested in it because it doesn’t appear to be playing fair, or it doesn't give them the type of answers they’d like. But I only want to point out that, instead of imposing frameworks of limitations, preconditions, expectations, etc., OLP takes philosophy more seriously by first looking at our concepts where they are (their human criteria, their ordinary workings), which gives us a wider view, a better grip, more to talk about, and some satisfaction and agreement rather than jaded isolation.
* Analytical philosophy topics/practitioners include: Plato; A.J. Ayer, Comte; Descartes, Hume; Kant; here I would add Hegel as an OLP philosopher because of his process and Socrates in asking questions of people who answer "from the street".
**When Witt says "concepts" he is not referring to the way philosophy talks about abstract ideas, or other mental objects that refer to a word or the world. It is a general term; just a way of grouping together our, say, practices: knowing, seeing, understanding, thinking, meaning, having an opinion, but also regular things like mistaking, sitting in a chair, seeing an aspect, raising your arm, remembering correctly, etc. As is "criteria" which is not a standard for justification as much as all the ways our concepts work and are identified, how we make judgments about them, the differences we make with them, etc. Other terms being "sense" (options for a concept not a word's "meaning") and "use" (which sense of the concept is used, not use as a ground for justification.)
*** Asking what we mean in an imagined context when we say "______" is opposed to starting with imposing grounds for justification of knowledge by a vision of what philosophy is which desires certainty, universality, predetermination, predictability, under the name of a picture of "rationality".
**** I have argued from OLP in my post about Wittgenstein’s lion quote (@Mmw), and in the posts about: objective aesthetics, freedom and duty, science straying into philosophy, what is “real”, only emotion mattering (@darthbarracuda), and “Not All Belief Can Be Put Into Statement Form” (@creative soul @Banno).
Comments (513)
I would say that as one of the resident metaphysical idealists, the issue I have with the resident OLP advocates (you know who you are) are precisely that :
Quoting Antony Nickles
I had taken one of the starting-points for this approach to be Moore's 'Refutation of Idealism', and the subsequent tendency to reduce philosophy to what can always be rendered in crisp propositions. Granted, the verbosity and obscurity of Hegelianism certainly invited that criticism. But one consequence often seems to me to try and cast every idea in philosophy in terms of what can easily be spoken or written, leaving aside the larger issue that philosophy often has to plumb difficult questions about the limits of language or of reason and the nature of truth.
On the other hand, I very much appreciate the clarity around 'action' as distinct from 'intention', and perfectly accept that the elucidation of such distinctions is a really important part of philosophy.
Anyway, I'll leave it at that, but again, exemplary OP.
The only thing I would quibble with here is your characterization of Derrida as a relativist and/or a skeptic. He denied being associated with either of these( you may have meant only Deacartes as the skeptic).
Quoting Wayfarer
I suppose that's me. Although I don't think of myself in those terms. I'm an admirer of Moore, and rank Austin very highly in my estimation of philosophical worth. But I'm puzzled by your inclusion of the Great Moustache, since I find him relatively obscure.
The term was used in the main by its enemies, amongst whom we might count Popper, Russell, Ayer - those with a desire for more formal treatments of philosophy of language, who saw too much interest in the talk of the common man as somehow too trivial. The great virtue of resorting to ordinary language was in the relief it brought from the horrid abstraction of Hegel. The general theme was that ordinary language was both a blessing and a curse; on one side it brought clarity and perspective (Austin); on the other, many if not all philosophical problems derive from ordinary language's ambiguous structure (Wittgenstein).
I'm throwing these names around without implying their membership; much time could be wasted in deciding who was in and who was out.
Philosophical considerations commence with ordinary language, and if they are to be of much help, thats also ere they mist end. So whatever your philosophical inclination, you will eventually have to make a place of ordinary language.
Neat Austin references in the OP, bye the way - I wonder who saw them.
Quoting Joshs
Ah, the dangers of categorization (I suppose Hume is more of a skeptic). And my knowledge of Derrida is not even being able to get through his attempt to read Austin (in Signature Event Context); though I have read an account of it. My only grounds then for calling him relativistic/skeptical is his contrasting metaphysics with difference, as if we couldn't have a separate (ordinary) voice, but only a related one. As if we could tear down the old forms of philosophy, yet have the same satisfactions (maybe not seeing our part). Again, I don't say this out of an experience with reading Derrida so much as maybe holding a grudge from the effort of fending him off in literary theory class trying to hang on to structuralism (perhaps a more rigid equivalent of how Wittgenstein sees the ordinary criteria of our concepts). OLP has the sense of bringing the human voice back to philosophy without all the gymnastics, but I know Derrida is pretty spikey so I concede all ground.
Quoting Banno
Nietzsche brought a historical (in that sense, a contextual) view to morality. He was investigating the metaphysical version of morals (deontology) and finding the place for the human voice. His aphorisms are not statements of fact or opinion (where people run into trouble believing they understand him), but claims to, or examples of, the actual workings of our moral concepts, to reflect against the single "ought" of moralism. It's also funny that OLP provides relief from Hegel, as I count Hegel as important to its development. He, like Nietzsche, brought historicity and context to philosophy, in tearing apart manufactured dichotomies with a method of investigating our concepts. He of course had the answers all worked out ahead of time rather than only seeking clarity from the evidence, but you take the good with the bad with most philosophers.
I think it is critical though to say (via-a-vis Hegel) that it is not important for OLP to be written in simple ("ordinary") language without terms (Cavell is fill-in-the-blank cryptic, Nietzsche openly defies understanding, and Wittgenstein has so many special terms it's all anyone believes he meant--only Austin is readable, but few remember what the point was because he hardly ever says it).
I also should say this is hardcore analytical philosophy, not meant for "ordinary" readers (like continental philosophy can be). It is strictly written in contrast to, or at least with a good understanding of, traditional analytic philosophy. Not that studying philosophy can't be useful to anyone, but just that this isn't a dumbed-down version to be understood with a quick glance, nor does getting the point stand apart from seeing its relation to the tradition.
Quoting Banno
The first trip-up I think is skepticism's desire (for certainty)--the seeming gap between us and the world--then (yes) language gives us the sense of an intellectual lack, then we (philosophers) try to fix language by removing its context and stripping its ordinary criteria (replaced with certainty, universalism, etc), and then we have to put those back to see the mess we got into. Unfortunately this is a desire created by our human condition so it happens over and over (eternally recurring as it were).
Quoting Banno
Just to be clear, this isn't to say: "you must listen to what OLP says is ordinary usage!" Wittgenstein says "Look at the use!" to get people to see how ordinary use reflects on philosophical issues. Nor is it to say that traditional philosophical concerns are nonsense or not important or not valid (well, some).
Quoting Banno
No one. No one saw them.
Quoting Wayfarer
All of us at OLP deeply apologize for Moore's over-enthusiasm. Austin also did not take skepticism seriously enough, among other fallouts he just brushed over--"What's the point of all these examples again?"--though he is the best at stunning you with criterial distinctions: why do we ordinarily ask "how" you know something, but not usually "why" you know it?
Quoting Wayfarer
Again, as discussed above, easy is not the point. At times it will almost seems Austin or Wittgenstein are belaboring something instead of just telling us--this comes from OLP trying to get us to see the same thing from a different angle, the point being to reflect how you got to the old viewpoint in the first place (whew! Did I say not easy?) And OLP isn't avoiding the difficult questions, just trying to make it clearer what we are actually asking ourselves (and why).
And thank you for the encouragement. If you ever venture another try, may I suggest any of the essays by J.L. Austin, especially Sense and Sensibilia (along with reading Ayer's Truth, Language, and Logic), or any essay from Stanley Cavell's first set, Must We Mean What We Say (though maybe start with the one about later Wittgenstein).
I did an entire semester on that book, back in the day. It was a book I loved to hate, although I've gotten over that.
I'm a sixties type. We're after a cosmic philosophy, something to fill the 'God-shaped hole'. None of those mentioned will do that, but I'm starting to learn to appreciate them on their merits, now that the enthusiasm of adolesence has dissipated somewhat.
Collingwood says that "technical terms" are not fundamental within language because they require explanation, and:
The business of language is to express or explain; if language cannot explain itself, nothing else can explain it.
Habermas says that our communicative actions derive from a massively shared lifeworld (lebenswelt). This is a background set of assumptions so fundamental that they resist analysis. His observations on specialized languages are that the value of special theoretical domains can only be measured to the extent that they manage to re-integrate themselves into the universal community. Therefore, they must eventually find a way to communicate in everyday language. In fact, Habermas says that everyday language is the best meta-language. I'd agree.
Quoting Wayfarer
Well you'll be happy to read Sense and Sensibilia. Austin basically just punches him in the face repeatedly. Logical positivism and the principal that only emperically-verifiable statements have the value of truth bear the brunt of Austin's wrath and they serve as the Interloctor in the later Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations, so basically he is talking to himself--the earlier author of the Tractatus--who set up the path to positivism.
Quoting Pantagruel
One point of OLP is that we are able to individually examine our concepts because they each have their own ways of being meaningful, so that one over-arching theory need not explain meaning universally, such as a representational theory or a pragmatic explanation of how language is used.
I think it is important to point out again that OLP is not investigating norms, nor arguing for what is normal (language). The goal is not to re-integrate philosophical language (they are, as @Banno points out, the same words) so much as see it in relief to ordinary criteria and the context in which they work, to provide a larger picture and reflect the context and criteria philosophy has perhaps created or abandoned; not that normal language is better or necessary for communicating philosophy--it is the criteria which are ordinary, given voice in a context to differentiate them.
I must join Banno and express my surprise that you claim Frantic Freddie Nietzsche exemplifies OLP. I suppose that surprise may result from the fact I look on OLP and analytic and linguistic philosophy (largely) as being a kind of tonic, serving to restore rigor to philosophical thought by disposing of faux problems arising from misuse of language, and as Banno suggested in another thread an emetic, serving to purge philosophy of its extravagance. Nietzsche with his hyperbolic claims, often ending in exclamation points, mixed with rhetorical questions, and brimming with certainty, is more a philosophical rabble-rouser than physician.
Derrida wrote:
“ Austin was obliged to free the analysis of the performative from the authority of the truth value, from the true/false opposition, at least in its classical form, and to substitute for it at times the value of force, of difference of force (illocutionary or perlocutionary force). In this line of thought, which is nothing less than Nietzschean, this in particular strikes me as moving in the direction of Nietzsche himself, who often acknowledged a certain affinity for a vein of English thought.”
Limited, Inc.
I guess you could ask yourself, does ordinary mean typical? Or exemplary? Perhaps Nietzsche was not typical. Could he be exemplary?
Quoting Pantagruel
Trying to unpack this a little, OLP is not trying to solve (all) the "problems" philosophy has (skepticism, moral disagreement, etc.), but, yes, one point is to show the constructed criteria (striped of context). Philosophy is not, however, being "opposed" to "what words actually mean" (my emphasis)--this idea of "meaning" as an independent thing (that could be "actual") is even one target of OLP. As part of their Grammar concepts have multiple (public) senses in which they can be meant; imagining a context clarifies which sense is being used (which criteria come into play--or even how concepts are extended), but the idea is not that words used in ordinary circumstances have a meaning which is a solution for (or normalizes) philosophy.
In case you missed my response to Banno,
Derrida wrote:
“ Austin was obliged to free the analysis of the performative from the authority of the truth value, from the true/false opposition, at least in its classical form, and to substitute for it at times the value of force, of difference of force (illocutionary or perlocutionary force). In this line of thought, which is nothing less than Nietzschean, this in particular strikes me as moving in the direction of Nietzsche himself, who often acknowledged a certain affinity for a vein of English thought.”
Limited, Inc.
So does ordinary usage mean resolving more expansive universes of discourse down to less expansive, but therefore more universal, ones? Or can vocabulary be said to be of ordinary usage, even though it resides with a universe of discourse which, owing to its high degree of specificity, is itself not "ordinary"?
I re-read Signiature-Event-Context today, and my take on it is this. Derrida zeros in on the concept(s) of context, which is central to the argument of olp. He claims that Austin believes one can exhaustively determine a context of word uses such that no remainder is left over.
“Austin’s analyses at all times require a value of context, and even of a context exhaustively determined, in theory or teleologically; the long list of "infelicities" which in their variety may affect the performative event always comes back to an element in what Austin calls the total context.6 One of those essential elements-and not one among others-remains, classically , consciousness, the conscious presence of the intention of the speaking subject in the totality of his speech act. As a result, performative communication becomes once more the communication of an in meaning, even if that meaning has no referent in the form of a thing or of a prior or exterior state of things. The conscious presence of speakers or receivers participating in the accomplishment of a performative, their conscious and intentional presence in the totality of the operation, implies teleologically that no residue [reste] escapes the present totalization. No residue, either in the definition of the requisite conventions, or in the internal and linguistic context, or in the grammatical form, or in the semantic determination of the words employed; no irreducible polysemy, that is, no "dissemination" escaping the horizon of the unity of meaning. “
What does he mean by this? I can tell you that the treatment of context , not just by Austin but also Wittgenstein, leaves me with questions similar to Derrida’s. What is the minimal requirement for a context of use?At least two people, no? There is a speech act involving an utterance and a response. Is the the context a unity between these two aspects, between my intent and the other’s response, between what I send out and what comes back? Do these together constitute a single intent and single context? Or are there two contexts here, the context which forms the circumstances of my utterance , and the changed context which marks the other’s response, which can surprise my expectations?
I would say the that Derrida's odd insertion of a vague but suggestive concept of "force" or "the value of force" into the mix may in some manner invoke Nietzsche, but doesn't seem like something Austin would have contemplated.
“One of the greatest deceptions of language, according to Nietzsche, is the subject-predicate form of grammar. Because all sentences are divided into a subject and a predicate, we are led to believe that there are actors (subjects) and deed (predicates) and that the two can be separated. As a result, we come to think of killing as something distinct from a bird of prey, something that it does. Nietzsche points out that grammar would similarly suggest to us that flashing is something distinct from lightning, something that it does. And just as there is no lightning distinct from the flash, Nietzsche suggests that there is no bird of prey distinct from the killing.
This argument does not simply suggest that killing is in a bird of prey's "nature" and that "it wouldn't be a bird of prey if it didn't kill things." In Nietzschean metaphysics, there is no such thing as the bird of prey as common wisdom would understand it. Gilles Deleuze interprets Nietzsche as suggesting that nothing exists but forces. We might simplify Deleuze's analysis by suggesting that only verbs truly exist: nouns and subjects are just the conveniences of grammar. While we might talk about a bird of prey killing a lamb, really there is just one force acting upon another. Of course, using "force" as a noun is a mistake, as it simply substitutes one noun for another.”
Quoting Ciceronianus the White
Again, it's not that philosophy is "misusing" language, and OLP is arguing that it is using it correctly. The "rigor" of OLP is its attention to its examples and fleshing out of the context, but the point is not right/wrong but to shed light on what philosophy means by what it is saying, not in contrast to normal words, but in light of ordinary criteria (and their context)--not cure, but diagnose maybe. This is not to dispose of problems like skepticism, identity, justice, etc. but to expose what we actually (still) want from philosophy's questions. Sometimes finding the criteria for philosophical claims involves creating wildly fantastic scenarios; you want extravagance, you can't go further than Wittgenstein or Cavell, or Nietzsche. Austin, of course, is British, so he scaled it down a bit.
Quoting Ciceronianus the White
If you read Philosophical Investigations, it is full of open-ended questions, and confusing statements to make you turn upon yourself to verify. This is due to OLP's call to have you answer for yourself whether the criteria is described clearly, fully enough. Cavell is so aggravating in this regard it's almost as if I'm supposed to write the other half of the book (he means for us to follow our own voice, our further interest). Emerson appropriates analytical philosophy into other contexts, and is on his tiptoes encouraging us to find what (criteria) matters to us in the sea of unexamined, universalized (conformed) concepts.
And again, the claim of OLP is hyperbolic, it is voiced to include everyone (though impossible), as if to move past resorting only to the individual and approaching a sense of the universal without erasing the context of the particular--Nietzsche will appear righteous and unabashedly anarchistic; Austin, contemptuous or condescending; and Wittgenstein, enigmatic, curt, presumptuous (as I've said elsewhere, the lion quote is used as an uncontested fact). These OLP claims can be strident (See what I see!!) because there is a moral urgency to bringing the human "voice", in a sense, back to our criteria, rather than lost to the inhuman, sterile theories that attempt to leapfrog our responsibility to our words.
Grayling lists only Ryle, Austin and Strawson as Ordinary Language Philosophers. I'd add Moore, with a nod towards Wittgenstein. I would not include Kripke, nor Davidson.
Including Nietzsche renders the list too irregular - a list of one's favourites, not a list of philosophers with a common approach.
He doesn't fit. In a pink fit.
Nietzsche's style could certainly be characterized as more ordinary language than those philosophers for whom it is a methodology.....
The "role of force" the "value of force." I can't imagine any philosopher I think of as being a proponent of OLP saying such a thing. It's almost like citing to Will or elan vital (don't know how to do those accents). Ryle and Strawson for sure, and Moore I think.
Exactly my point. If you characterize something as "ordinary language" and then you modify that meaning to abandon one of its fundamental characteristics, then you turn "ordinary language" into exactly the kind of philosophical construct it criticizes.
Moore as progenitor, the source of the method.
I just read this last night. I would say taking Nietzsche as substituting truth for force (presumably, the will to power), is to miss his desire to insert the human (emphatically, which may be his downfall) back into the moral realm--in the history of, and after the limitations of, the moral; to give us that "power" (a place, as it were, "over"). @Ciceronianus the White
Also, my understanding is that Derrida misconstrues Austin's peripheral reference to "force" in one particular category (perlocutionary) to apply it as Austin's entire goal, and overlooks that Austin more generally is still claiming truth value (adequation to the world), but calls it "felicity" (aptness) to the criteria of a concept--if an apology is done correctly, it is not true, but felicitous (apt), rather than infelicitous (botched, I think is Austin's way of putting it once). This is not a "force" more than a rationality.
Quoting Pantagruel
Creating a context that shows us the ordinary criteria for a concept, not (regular, common) words
Quoting Pantagruel
We're not talking about ordinary "usage" (see above). We are not resolving, nor reducing--when we ask what we say when..., we are explicating and opening and expanding our ordinary criteria (though, yes, the claim is that these are universal, though not in there application to all contexts, but to every one of us).
The key characteristic of Austin's approach is the seeking of wisdom within our everyday language. The ethos is here:
One is to do philosophy by examining, in sometimes exquisite detail, what is going on in our everyday conversations.
Wittgenstein, in contrast, disdained how language misleads us into philosophical knots that are to be undone by careful and more formal analysis.
Yes, I think that comes up in this section. This is what Derrida was working up.
“Austin's procedure is rather remarkable and typical of that philosophical tradition with which he would like
to have so few ties. It consists in recognizing that the possibility of the negative (in this case, of infelicities) is in fact a structural possibility, that failure is an essential risk of the operations under consideration; then, in a move which is almost immediately simultaneous, in the name of a kind of ideal regulation, it excludes that risk as accidental, exterior, one which teaches us nothing about the linguistic phenomenon being considered. This is all the more curious-and, strictly speaking, untenable-in view of Austin's ironic denunciation of the "fetishized" opposition: valuelfact.
In addition to the questions posed by a notion as historically sedimented as "convention," it should be noted at this point:
1) that Austin, at this juncture, appears to consider solely the conventionality constituting the circumstance of the utterance [monce], its contextual surroundings, and not a certain conventionality intrinsic to what constitutes the speech act [locution] itself, all that might be summarized rapidly under the problematical rubric of "the arbitrary nature of the sign," which extends, aggravates, and radi
calizes the difficulty. "Ritual" is not a possible occurrence [eventualite], but rather, as iterability, a structural characteristic of every mark.
2) that the value of risk or exposure to infeliCity, even though, as Austin recognizes, it can affect a priori the totality of conventional acts, is not interrogated as
an essential predicate or as a law. Austin does not ponder the consequences issuing from the fact that a possibility-a possible risk-is always possible, and is in some sense a necessary possibility. Nor whether--once such a necessary possibility of infeliCity is recognized-infeliCity still constitutes an accident. What is a success when the possibility of infelicity continues to constitute its structure?”
So, making them less ordinary?
Well put. Felicity is the broader classification, truth is the characteristic of felicity that is found in statements.
I think of Austin's example of referring to a stick in water as looking "bent" or "crooked."Quoting Antony Nickles
You see, I don't think of those as rhetorical questions.
Quoting Antony Nickles
You mean it's exaggerated? Beyond reasonable? I think we're operating with different definitions. Also with "strident." I see nothing in OLP as being harsh, grating or unpleasantly forceful. The same with "extravagant." In what sense can OLP be described as lacking in restraint or absurd?
I think you may be taking a view of OLP that's too metaphorical.
Quoting Joshs
Again, Derrida is jumping to conclusions maybe for his own reasons (if context is closed than the only option is difference?). A context only needs to be fleshed out to clarify any distinctions which are necessary for you and I to have no more concerns. If a concept is used generally, than the need for criteria and any context are simple to resolve. To quote myself from Emotions Matter: "The sky is blue." "Do you mean: we should go surfing? It's not going to rain? or are you just remarking on the brilliant color?" All these concerns of course may not need a much larger, more-detailed drawing out of a context to resolve (either to the Other or myself), but the context is endless if the need for distinctions remain. Context is not a means of (all) communication, it is a means of investigating our criteria of our concepts. One question would be: what context gives us an idea of the criteria a philosopher is relying on when saying "Surely I must know what I feel!" (Witt)
Sounds like a recipe for mediocrity. I wonder how much of that ‘common stock of words’ would remain if we removed the contributions of writers in innumerable fields of culture who thought them up in their armchairs(Plato, Freud, Shakespeare,etc).
Quoting Banno
I concede, begrudgingly, just to stop talking about him (and let's not take up Socrates, etc. when we are still stuck on OLP being merely normal language use).
I will not budge, however, from the claim that Wittgenstein is fundamental to OLP.
Quoting Banno
Not sure "him" is, but I will just throw out that Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations is ultimately an examination of ethics through (the epistemology of) OLP. And that Kant's "categories" are comparable to Witt's Concepts, just that each has it's own category, possibilities, conditions, etc.
Including him would be anachronistic. Ordinary Language Philosophy was a reaction to the demise of the formal analysis of language found in the Early Wittgenstein, Russell, Frege, and so on, and took place in Oxford in the middle of last century.
Ordinary Language Philosophy is characterised by close analysis of key words in terms of their entomology and interrelationship. While Nietzsche may have done this occasionally, it was not central to his method.
Including Nietzsche detracts from the usefulness of the category, making it no more than a list of Antony's favourite philosophers.
(Posted before seeing Antony's reply above. Cheers.)
Do you want fame, or truth?
Quoting Banno
Cavell makes an argument that the "style" of the Investigations (confession, the Interlocutor, the obfuscation) is as much a part of the method. Not to drag Nietzsche into it, but I would argue that he too could not make his point (get you to see what he sees) without saying it in the way he does.
Quite a bit I would think, compared with those thought up in armchairs. Care to name some of the latter?
The simple fact is, though, that philosophers, and everyone else, makes use of the common stock of words all the time. Some err by construing and using them uncommonly, however.
So you use complex analysis to discover ordinary usage? Kind of like using a microscope to view an elephant?
Right, it is genuine. There must be both "poor" and "good" ordinary usages. You can't do such an analysis without some kind of normative dimension.
I am self-consciously setting out, in a too-brief and hence inadequate way, the relations between statements, belief, truth, and propositions. This approach is in opposition to the naive notion of 'defining one's terms'; see my thread on Definitions.
This approach derives from and uses the tools of ordinary language philosophy.
The business of language is to express or explain; if language cannot explain itself, nothing else can explain it.
You either use language in its most fundamentally expressive way, or you don't. OLP may be a good way of identifying what is not ordinary language, but the best way of discovering what is is through the use of...ordinary language. As I mentioned elsewhere, there is the typical, and there is the exemplary. And both are in a sense ordinary. But they are also different.
Quoting Banno
I put Austin in the analytic tradition squarely against positivism/representationalism--showing the variety of ways in which statements can have rational value without being true/false. If this is wisdom, it is not "everyday" wisdom.
Quoting Banno
Disdain is a strong word; I would say he unravels the picture which language allows, only to show the desire (for certainty, universality, etc.) which leads us to picture language that way (singularly). Now Witt takes skepticism (the cause of the desire) seriously, i.e., he does not try to 'solve" it, while Austin (and Moore) either skip over it as nonsense or insignificant.
That they have different conclusions, goals, whatever, does not make the method different. They are not creating theories, just showing us ourselves.
If you discover a writer whose worldview seems extraordinary to you , and who has not entered the public consciousness yet, your adoption of his terminology would put you in a small minority. But is his language ‘ordinary’? If he uses common terms but radically changers their sense , is it still
ordinary?
Quoting Pantagruel
No, just brought out into the open, applied to various contexts (even new ones). Witt talks about how you know how to walk, but it's hard to explain. Criteria are not something people ordinarily get into, or see--the unconscious framework of our concepts.
This is exactly what I am talking about.
While Austin looks to set out the relations between concepts already found in our everyday language, Wittgenstein looks to set out the deeper logic found when that same discourse goes astray. Compare and contrast the shopkeeper in the first few pages of PI with three ways of spilling ink. The common ground is the common language. The former brings out the artificial logic that had been assumed to be behind an everyday tsk, displaying it for us to reject. The later explicates distinctions already found in our common interactions.
These are not contrary methods, but complimentary. And certainly they are distinct.
Quoting Ciceronianus the White
What I meant to say I guess was questions not answered (directly--"Imagine..." "Why do we wish to say..."; and open-ended claims (to the Grammar of something), for us to consider (rather than the statements people take them as).
Quoting Ciceronianus the White
By "hyperbolic" I meant that it is claiming to speak for all of us, that it is submitting itself to acceptance (assent Kant says) for what it sees. If you don't see the moral urgency of Wittgenstein, or even Austin, I might try to look for some quotes, but I'm not sure it is important enough--perhaps you may see it now that you know to look for it? And "extravagant" was only meant to refer to the absurdity of the imaginary scenarios/contexts which they sometimes employ to flesh out what philosophy means in what it says (robots, Corsican brothers, etc.)--as if they needed to match philosophy's absurdities (appearances, impressions, etc.).
Quoting Pantagruel
Again, not about the "use" of language--especially whether it is used "well" or "poorly". The idea of "normative" is not the goal at all; OLP does not want to normalize language or what people are saying, or what problems philosophy should have. Now, this might be confusing because our criteria do have a sense of structure; or concepts a sense of exclusion/inclusion, and the idea of felicity does evoke the idea of the normative. But normative is a way of describing philosophy or language or rationality's constraint on our norms--but "we" do not have that power. To say the Grammar of an apology is normative for apologizing is not a function of the description of the criteria, it is the act (or failure) to apologize; i.e., there is no space for philosophy or language (ordinary or otherwise) to be "normative". Our concepts are our lives, which are our norms (among other criteria).
Quoting Banno
Yes, of course (poorly said). What I meant is that Moore ends up believing that he has solved skepticism, or shown it to be absurd, or incapable of being "thought" (my Moore is ancient). But only to contrast this with Wittgenstein and Cavell, who leave skepticism as an open threat, that there is a truth to it as Cavell says (our separateness, and responsibility for that). Austin will worry about identifying a Goldfinch, and show how it can be fake (thus what "real" is)--but he does not explicitly delve deeper into why we are tempted to worry whether the world is real, or whether you are (or I).
Quoting Banno
I'll grant you that they work in different ways, on different material, for different goals, but I would say Wittgenstein (pushing against metaphysics and positivism) does not have a dissimilar "method" to Austin (pushing against the descriptive fallacy)--drawing out the ordinary criteria and grammar of a concept to show their variety in the face of a monopolizing singular theory of meaning (they have that much in common; I would say that's enough). Yes, Witt does go farther, though I would say it is still a contrast of ordinary criteria against philosophical ones, only that he asks why we want to do that (get ourselves into that pickle/picture).
Of course maybe it is less important to argue about who is practicing OLP, than to agree that OLP is relevant (to modern philosophy) and a sound (rigorous) methodology, and how it works (and what it is not--which still seems to be an issue in many of these other threads).
Quoting Ciceronianus the White
As you know , like all languages, English is constantly evolving. One way to see this is by monitoring what new words make their way into dictionaries every year, which marks their entity into the realm of the ordinary, or at least conventional usage. You can google the list for this year.
How many of those words were ‘armchair’ words originally, used by a very small group of people for ‘uncommon’ purposes? Did they ‘ err’ by not using the common store?
Quoting Ciceronianus the White
Good lord, how does one convey an innovation in thought WITHOUT either using the common stock uncommonly or inventing neologisms?
Edit. Hence Nietzsche as an exemplary ordinary language philosopher. His tone is always highly critical or exhortative, like an animated and passionate conversation. It is rhetoric, powerful rhetoric. The longer he engages your mind, the more you are drawn into the consensus he creates.
Quoting Joshs
My understanding is that Derrida confuses Austin as excluding the frailty of our concepts, but Austin was only setting it aside in the essay Derrida read because he had written a whole other essay about "Excuses" (to show how some speech acts fail)--so infelicity is not exterior or accidental. The Austin/Derrida/Searle interplay seems to fly by each other. As discussed above, Austin's whole point is to show that there is no "intrinsic" "constitution" of (every) speech act. To desire this is to fall prey to the same generality which created metaphysics, but to take it in a different direction.
Also, to call our criteria of concepts "conventions" is to give the false impression that they are the outcome of our agreement or that we somehow control them; we are not discussing "conventional" (nor "ordinary") language, but the anti-thesis of metaphysical criteria for our concepts to shed light on philosophical issues.
Quoting Antony Nickles
Is a context a kind of frame within which events happen? Do things take place WITHIN a context? Do two people interact within a single context? Can i hold onto an intention over time within a single context?
I ask these questions because the way that I interpret Derrida, context is synonymous with text , and text is synonymous with differance, the mark, the gramme, etc.
I don’t think a single context is large enough to include two people for Derrida. His notion of interability determines a context as being only a single moment of time, and it is only a single moment as experienced from a single perspective , that of the one forming an intention.
The moment I intend an utterance is the context for me. The next moment I find myself meaning to say something other than what I meant to say in the previous moment. What i originally meant to say has subtly changed its sense The context has changed and with it the criterion of my intention. It will appear for all ‘intents and purposes’ that I hold onto the ‘same’ context from moment to moment, because the shift in sense is so imperceptible. But what of my relationship with my interlocutor? If there is no ‘same’ context from moment to moment in my intending to say, then certainly my own intending and my receiving of the other’s response to me cannot be part of the ‘same’ context. I don’t think a context is something that can be said to be shared between two people for Derrida.
“The sky is blue”. However I intend this phrase , I cannot say that the moment of my intending it is the same moment , and thus the identical context, as my awareness of the other’s response to it. Relative to this very narrow notion of context, Austin’ s notion appears to Derrida to totalize into a single frame what is in fact a whole series of transformations of contexts, between myself and myself, and between myself and another. A whole series of very subtle transformations of sense end up being ignored , and stuffed into a single criterion of sense, a single situation. This does not mean that there isn’t a similarity between my criteria of sense and another’s, only that they are not the identical criteria or the identical context.
For the purpose of determining pragmatic social criteria of meaning Derrida makes use of a notion of dynamical context which is not-self-identical but consists of chains of differential marks.
“...the value of truth (and all those values associated with it) is never contested or destroyed in my writings, but only reinscribed in more powerful, larger, more stratified contexts. And that within interpretive contexts (that is, within relations of force that are always differential-for example, socio-political-institutional-but even beyond these determinations) that are relatively stable, sometimes apparently almost unshakeable, it should be possible to invoke rules of competence, criteria of discussion and of consensus, good faith, lucidity, rigor, criticism, and pedagogy.”(Limited Inc)
“Iterability makes possible idealization-and thus, a certain identity in repetition that is independent of the multiplicity of factual events- while at the same time limiting the idealization it makes possible:broaching and breaching it at once...the possibility of its being repeated another time-breaches, divides, expropriates the "ideal" plenitude or self-presence of intention,...of all adequation between meaning and saying. Iterability alters...leaves us no room but to mean (to say) something that is (already, always, also) other than what we mean (to say) (Limited,Inc,p.61)... It is not necessary to imagine the death of the sender or of the receiver, to put the shopping list in one's pocket, or even to raise the pen above the paper in order to interrupt oneself for a moment. The break intervenes from the moment that there is a mark, at once. It is iterability itself, ..passing between the re- of the repeated and the re- of the repeating, traversing and transforming repetition(p.53).
Quoting Joshs
This is a lot, and, as Cavell says in the Abbrogation of Voice (the reading of Derrida reading Austin I mentioned), not much touches. I will only attempt to paraphrase his points. He says "context" does much more and "intention" does much less than Derrida wants. I also think the idea of time is getting in the way. As Witt's builders show: a lot of the context is already there ("written" Derrida might say)--our understanding of money, a transaction, private ownership, a question, on and on--for both of us to know, when I say to a grocer "Can I get that Apple?", that I want to buy it. The context also allows for concurrent misunderstanding (or inconclusive understanding), say, for the grocer to ask, "Just the one, or a pound?" Context can be shared, past and present (into the future), but we may find different parts significant (identity, capitalism) in running down any confusion.
Now how much of all the things that could be brought to bear, actually need to be, is determined by the possibilities in the concept and what questions if any remain. An "intention" can only be what it is in light of a concept, say an offense: "Did you intend to slight your mother-in-law by not serving her a drink? Or did you forget?" "I" have far less to do with this than Derrida, or positivism, would like. Intention is not the cause of action (or meaning); not every action is intended; nor does intention create or influence the context, nor affect the criteria of a concept (unless the concept allows for that). My "perspective" may only, if at all, come in (at the end, as it were) if there is a problem. Concepts already (before and outside of me) have significance, I only say them; and that "mark" doesn't secure or set the context (or the meaning). I give myself over to that expression (fate myself, Emerson says, to the concept). There are only certain ways to qualify it or excuse it--one of which might not be to say, "that's not what I intended!" (except as an expression of the desire to take back having said something). Derrida says I don't have to imagine my death to see the non-presence of context make my meaning already other then what I say (or intended), but I do not die. As Austin says, I am tethered to my words, which are my bond, to which I am shackled. Now I can understand Derrida politically wanting to get out from under the tyranny of our concepts, but he has sold out our responsibility to what we say in the process.
So I'm just, as always, not sure what to do with Derrida. The idea of a concept repeating through different contexts, or iterability, is in the same vain for me as a word tied to a meaning (stripped of any need for context), or a representation being true or false about the world (the bogeymen Austin takes on). I know they are meant to be different, but it's as if Derrida doesn't want his cake but still wants to eat it.
Quoting Banno
I'll let the idea drop that the conflict, between what we ordinarily mean by what we say and what we'd like to mean philosophically, has not been happening since Socrates started asking random people questions on the street, if you'll check out Must We Mean What We Say by Cavell (a student of Austin) some time, and consider OLP didn't die in '65 and that it's reach might stretch a little further (and leave off that it came out in '58--the guy just died!).
Quoting Joshs
I believe Austin's point is the richness of what we ordinarily mean by what we say is the distinctions between one concept and another that are imbedded in their criteria for OLP to find that reflect what is worthy about that concept for us--what is meaningful about it to us: why it matters to draw that distinction, what counts for inclusion, why we would assume a connection to something else or between us, etc.
The important part here is not that they are common (ordinary) words (@Pantagruel); the point of OLP is that words "embody" the unconscious, unexamined ordinary criteria (not made-up, or philosophically-important criteria)--all of the richness that is buried in them of all the different ways we live.
He wants us to imagine the subtlety in how our ways of living are distinguished (not separate from the words, as Witt says too), and now compare this to Descartes. The armchair is a dead giveaway, but also he imagines his way into massive skeptical doubt and will only be satisfied with a standard of criteria he set by/for himself right then--neither subtle, nor connected to, nor worth anything but satisfying his fear.
I wouldn't say Austin understands skepticism (or cares about it) as Wittgenstein does (or Cavell), but he does qualify our entire reliance on "our common stock of words" to "all ordinary and reasonably practical matters" and so leaves it open that we might run out of words (what then?), or have to think more subtley, or because they are not always "sound"--though maybe just not as a start before looking at the richness of our existing concepts.
If ordinary dialogue does not reflect ordinary content then I don't know what else would. This sounds like a discontinuity between means and ends.
Anyway, clearly this is a "special technical" usage which doesn't carry the force of meaning of "ordinary dialogue" as it really exists, so I'll leave it at that. Perhaps it should be called "Strawson's method" or "Wittgenstein's way" or the "epoche".
From his first book of essays (rather short):
Cavell on Witt's Phil. Inv.
On the categorical Must of concepts
Yeah, I got some enlightenment from that; just not enough to rearrange my metaphysical prejudices. This thread is interesting as well, but doesn’t really cover new ground, does it? Like....method?
Quoting Antony Nickles
And from this is raised the question...how can the hidden, unexamined, unconscious criteria be called ordinary? If some embodiment is unavailable for examination, how can it be said to be ordinary? And if ordinary just stands for “not made up”, how is that not self-contradictory, if words are exactly that....made up in order to properly represent the objects to which they are meant to relate?
I accept there is a certain unconscious part of the system from which words arise, but I reject the words themselves can arise from unconscious criteria, or that they necessarily embody such unconscious criteria. Case in point....phenomena have no names, but subsequently cognized objects derived from them, do.
Kant was well aware of this (hey, you mentioned him three times already, so......), thus ensuring his method allowed words to merely represent the concepts used by the understanding in its relation to objects of experience. As such, they do embody certain criteria, but such criteria is by no means hidden or unexamined, insofar as both concepts and the words which represent them in objective manifestation, arising from perceptions or from pure thought, are entirely present to conscious mental activity**. From here, it is nothing but the domain of general employment given by common experiences, which sustains the notion of “ordinary”, and somehow or another this became sufficient causality for language philosophers to simply assign a different connotation to “ordinary”, but with insufficient explanatory methodology for doing so.
So we arrive at: to whom is OLP actually directed, and why does to whomever it is directed, need it?
Here’s my version of OLP: I speak, you listen; you speak, I listen. If we communicate successfully, fine. If we don’t...start over. Wash, rinse, repeat. Don’t need any analytic philosophy for that.
**Not quite, but elaboration is beyond the scope, methinks. Not for you so much as the subject matter.
Quoting Antony Nickles
Of course , properly speaking , the context isnt anywhere, doesn’t exist, until it is experienced in the act of drawing from a background and in the same instant changing that background by using it in the now. But nowhere do we have evidence that the background that I draw from and the background that you draw from are the ‘same’ background. That is why Derrida talks of internally stratified contexts , social contexts that are ‘relatively stable’ rather than centered or unified as ‘shared’ from me to you. The ‘from me to you’ doesn’t share the context, it changes the context, but does so such that it can be seen ‘the same differently.’
There is no context that is shared. That is , there is no situation of communicating with another, such as what you and I are doing now , where you wouldn’t be in a better position to understand me by assuming that every word I use is not just the mark of a history of sedimented cultural contexts , but my own integral interpretation of that history of contexts as I interpreted them, just as you own contextual background is unique to your history.
That is to say, you should be looking to see how I mean every word that I use in relation to that larger personal system of understanding that is unique to me even as it bears a close enough relation to your own system that we are seemingly able to understand one another. But I don’t assume that we will understand one another beyond a certain secondary level of ‘sharing’. and I can even get a sense of where we will depart from each other in our interpretation of each other’s terms.
Now do we know how well we have understood one another ? The way I would put it to the test is by researching as much of your previous comments in this thread as possible, so as to construct an ongoing model of your synthesis of Wittgenstein, austin, Emerson and Cavell, and how it differs from other contributors to this forum who also enjoy those authors. I would then attempt to summarize my reading of your position back to you, and use your own assent or rejection as the validation of whether my efforts were successful. I consider my method as a kind of subsuming of your system as a variant of my own system. Not melding or sharing of the of the two, but a going back and forth between two contextual worlds of sense-making. I would be interpreting each of your words in the way that I hypothesize you mean them and contrast that with the way that I mean them, with no expectation that that gap can ever be narrowed by more than a small amount because of the stable self-consistency of each person’s evolving system of understanding.
You, for your part , may not even be assuming that there is such an integral superordinate background unique to me and producing a common resistance of my use words to ‘shared understanding with you. So your criteria for understanding might be much looser than mine, and also would probably not have as its goal an ability to anticipate my further behavior beyond what could be determined in terms of ‘shared’ contexts.
Quoting Antony Nickles
Never mind Derrida then. I want you to deal with my claim that you miss a vital amount of what goes on with people when you apply a glorified conditioning model, which is essentially what Austin’s approach is. For conditioning models, the ongoing personhood of the peso. is nothing but the constantly changing sequences of arbitrary impingements that shape their behavior.
Let me try and set the terms of this debate:
Austin’s belongs to a multi-varied movement in philosophy that wanted to move behind both idealism and empiricism. That movement includes Wittgenstein,
Nietzsche, Merleau-Ponty, Foucault, Deleuze, social constructivism , radical constructivism, hermeneutics, enactivism, etc.
A Rationalist apparatus in the head , and a representationalist language of inner correspondence with an outer, independently existing world , was abandoned in favor of social interaction as the set of meaning-making. The limitation of these approaches is that as they did away with ‘inner’ contents insulated
fro social context , they retained a reliance
on a substantial notion of content. Now instead of our rational internal templates dictating our meanings, our behavior is dictated by interpersonally formed contents. This was certainly an improvement, i. that it revealed the endless creativity in social structures and language , and also revealed a dynamically changing distributed order absent from rationalist and empiricist models.
But it didn’t go far enough to deconstruct the idea of content. Austin’s socially formed notion of concept begins too late, presumes too much. When you cite examples of the criteria for a concept to be felicitously used , your. examples of possible sense of a word are too over-determined. They treat ‘sense’ in a way that hides a whole universe of shading, variations and
textures within it that I suspect are invisible to you. And because they are invisible, Derrida’s use of intention is also invisible to you, leading you to profoundly misread him as having in mind a version of the old rationalism.
“The sky is blue.” take a shared’ sense of that phrase, such as ‘it’s not going to rain’, and then dig beneath that generic shared shell to reveal of senses of senses, different for every participant in that supposed same context of sense. For each participant, there is totality of relevance , as Heidegger puts it , that determines why they care enough in the first place to participate in the conversation, why rain is important to them in terms of their clothing or the fishing they hope to do or the fact that hey are less prepared for bad weather than their companion who they feel competitive with. All of these background concerns are an intrinsic part of the sense FOR THEM of that phrase.
“ The idea of a concept repeating through different contexts, or iterability, is in the same vain for me as a word tied to a meaning (stripped of any need for context), or a representation being true or false about the world.”
For Derrida the concept doesn’t repeat through different contexts. The first repetition of the concept destroys its meaning, just as change in context does for Austin’s notion of concept. The difference between derrida and Austin here is that time is context for Derrida. This follows upon Heidegger’s notion of temporality. Every new moment of time, every new ‘present’ is a new context, and destroys the old concept
and replaces it with the new. There is no onoing ‘perspective’ that survives this endless destruction and birth of concepts.
At this point you must be very confused. On the one hand, I’m presenting a view of contextual change that is so immediate, continual and thoroughgoing as to make it seem that the only kind of social world that could ensure from such flux would be without any stable order and without any room for shared conceptualization.
On the other, I have talked about systems of sense- making and stable superordinate worldview s, which I’m sure immediately raised red flags(aha, he’s invoking a pre-constituted rationalist inner system resistant
to contextual change!)
This paradoxical situation is difficult to explain in the language of the old way of thinking about such things as time and context. All I want to say at this point
is that to succeed at deconstructing Austin’s ‘concept’
is to replace content with process. Put differently , it takes away the arbitrary force and power invested in the notion of shared concept. A minimalist , intricate grounding of sense doesn’t have the substantiality of arbitrary force.
This minimalist notion of sense does not achieve its integrative continuity through any rationalist internal power. On the contrary, it simply lacks the formidability of value content implied by socially embedded and physically embodied sedimentation necessary to impose the arbitrariness of polarizing conditioning on the movement of experiential process.
Quoting Pantagruel
Well, clearly I suck at explaining things--to the examples!! (I forgot actually that's the whole gig.) So the "dialogue" we would have is coming up with (seeing and describing Wiit says), and agreeing on, circumstances (the contexts) when we say, as an example (from Malcolm): "I know" and what those instances imply about our various criteria for knowledge (what we ordinarily imply (mean) when we say, here: I know).
One option ("sense" Witt says) is that I am certain: "I know when the sun will rise today"; the criteria for this might be that I can give evidence of that certainty, etc. This appears to be philosophy's one and only use and preoccupation. Second, we can say "I know New York", as in: I know my way around; I can show you; Third, I know (knew) that, as in to confirm or agree with what you said; and Fourth, I know, as in to sympathize with you. Cavell uses this last sense to shed light on our knowledge of another's pain--we don't "know it" in the first sense, we acknowledge it, recognize and accept the claim their expression of pain makes on me.
Witt uses OLP to figure out the reason (spoiler: certainty in the face of skepticism) that metaphysics and positivism remove any context and replace our ordinary criteria. He does this by putting their claims/terms back into a context of when we say: "doubt" or "mean" or "mental picture". His other goal (and Austin's) is to show the variety of criteria for different concepts (the different ways concepts are meaningful, how differently they judge, what matters to us in their distinctions), and that each concept has their own ways they work (as opposed to word=world as Witt's nemesis, and that every statement is true/false for Austin).
So, to try this again, we are not using an ordinary dialogue or talking about ordinary (non-philosophical) content; that's fine it's just not analytical philosophy. We are examining what the ordinary criteria and context are when we say such-and-such philosophical claim. With "ordinary" maybe not as, conventional, so much as opposed to metaphysical abstract (absent) contexts and pre-determined criteria (the irony that Ordinary Language Philosophy has a weird version of ordinary is not lost on me--they didn't pick the name). Any "force of meaning" here is that if we can agree on the examples and the criteria, you might see what I see--see for yourself.
Quoting Mww
I hope the example above illustrates the criteria of different senses of a concept are not "hidden" nor "unavailable for examination". To examine them is exactly the point. Witt says something like: they are simply not usually examined--like, walking. And metaphysics makes up the criteria (for common words), though I would point out that the picture of meaning as: words represent objects (ideas, etc) is exactly the kind of thing that looking at examples (of representation) might help clarify why philosophers want to frame it this way (this is basically the main thrust of Witt's Philosophical Invetsigations). Maybe it helps to examine the disparities between your framing and Austin's above.
Quoting Mww
Edit: Witt gets into a lot of examples when the word and the world are not separate (see my mention of "accident" above)--say, that there is no space between my pain and its expression for knowledge. And "unconsious" is simply one way to put it. Another might be: most of the time we don't discuss criteria because they are wrapped up in everything we are already doing--we don't have to mean it, or intend it, or justify it, "think" about it, etc. The context is clear, the expression is uncontroversial--none of that comes up; though I could explain all that with the context: which sense based on what was pointed out, etc.--thus, the universality of the claim (you could make those claims, anyone could), and its powerlessness if I can't get you to see what I do.
Quoting Mww
This the philosopher's dream of power. As if they, or some rational process, created or perceives the (at its worst, singular) association of words with the world, and that they (and not "us") are privy to the whole landscape of our rationale so what they say actually matters (as judgment, etc.)--the difference may be clearer in that anyone can give examples of what we mean when we say "accident", but do we actually use the categorical imperative to decide what to do?
Quoting Mww
And this is exactly philosophy's dismissal of our ordinary criteria, as "common experience" (not phislosophy's special insight) and "general employment" (compared to philosophy's rarified uses). OLP does not claim a "causality" or a special place or "connotation" (though, yes, the method needs explaining, badly it appears). What it is trying to do is put the human, say, voice, back into the philosophical discussion by bringing up the contexts in which our concepts live.
Quoting Mww
OLP was (initially) directed at traditional analytical philosophy and the metaphysics, representationalism, positivism, and descriptive falacy, etc., of philosophical theories or statements that, among other things: communication/rationality works in one universal or specific way, or towards a particular standard, that it is dependent more on individuals, and that we have more control in how it works. It's necessity is to breath new life into a tradition which has removed us from its considerations. We fear skepticism and ambiguity, so we mechanize our world and language and relations. The place of philosophy is now bright and shiny and hollow and no one is allowed to live there.
Quoting Banno
Solid question. The one on Witt might allow you to see him in a larger context, and the other one I thought you might just enjoy as a good defense/example of OLP--I particuarly think the MUST of meaning something said is something Austin would enjoy. Also, as evidence that, with Cavell, Cora Diamond, others, OLP is still relevant and has more to say.
Quoting Joshs
"Properly" speaking....... Was I speaking... Improperly?
Quoting Joshs
This reminds me of Witt's (and Cavell's) examination of philosophy's obsession with knowing whether the pain I have is the same as yours. Unless there is a need to address a confusion, there is no need to talk of difference--what evidence would prove that? All OLP has is examples of "confusion" and what a "difference" is in "our" "background". Sometimes communication fails fundamentally--that's not a reason to restructure everything as if it always does or could whenever, unless maybe you have a reason to, say, attack logocentrism to allow for different voices--shift power to the individual.
Quoting Joshs
That sounds exhausting; most of the time we don't need to be that special, nor intentional (if at all), but, yes, some times it is appropriate to be deliberate (a speech), or to "speak your (individual) truth" as it were. Emerson will talk of aversion to conformity (as Thourea civilly disobeys), and of breathing life into words--making a specific distinction, or even pointing out something new, or taking a concept into a new or broader context. All of the discrete, specific examples of, say, excuses, are evidence of the expansive ways language falls apart, rights itself, expands, and is used by us in the ways it allows (or against them).
Quoting Joshs
You "meaning" every word is the same as you "intending" every action. Maybe the example about accidents helps. We are not that powerful--we don't set meaning, nor mitigate understanding; again, we abandon ourselves to our words.
There is no such thing as "ordinary language", it is an oxymoron, and that is what Wittgenstein demonstrated. The so-called "ordinary language philosophy" is a reaction to what Wittgenstein did.
"Ordinary" is a generalization, but what is implied by "ordinary language" is reference to the specific instances of use, occurring in unique and particular circumstances. So we have the self-contradicting concept, that the peculiar and unique instances of language usage, can be described or spoken of, under the generalization of "ordinary language".
The philosophical issue which arises is the need to distinguish between what a person appears to be saying, and what a person appears to be doing, in order to avoid deception. If we assume that a person is speaking any sort of "ordinary language", then we assume a fixed meaning to the terms, consistent with this generalization, validated by concepts, and the person is interpreted as speaking ordinary language accordingly. This allows that what the person is doing with the words, within the particularities of the unique circumstances, is actually somewhat different from what the words say, according to the assumed concepts of the "ordinary language". Therefore the person who interprets under the assumption of "ordinary language" is capable of being deceived, if the speaker is doing something different from what the assumed concepts say the speaker is doing. We can call this deception a form of hypocrisy, saying something (as interpreted through the assumed concepts of "ordinary language"), while the person is in the midst of doing something completely contrary to what is being said.
Wittgenstein was a master at this form of hypocrisy, actually taking it to a higher level, by attacking the foundations of it, with it, implying that what he was doing with the words is actually the same thing as what he was saying with the words, while actually demonstrating that he was saying something different with the words from what he was doing with the words. The result of course, is multiple levels of ambiguity, and an impossibility of agreement in interpretation.
Quoting Antony Nickles
I see you have an inkling of the issue right here, with the reference to hyperbole. All you need to do is carry this analysis one step further, and OLP is seen as oxymoronic rather than hyperbolic. Until you relinquish the idea that there is any such thing as what a person is saying with words (ordinary language), and replace that idea with the idea that there is only what the person is doing with words (as philosophy is an instance doing something with words), you will always leave yourself exposed to the possibility off deception. President Trump provides a very good example, 'I kept telling those people not to use violence in our fight to prevent the election from being stolen from us'.
Quoting Antony Nickles
The first thing you need to do is dispense with this idea that there is such a thing as "a concept". This notion, of what Banno would call mental furniture is what is misleading you. When you think that there is a concept, then you think that there is some sort of "ordinary language" which consists of a relationship between word and concept. If you rid yourself of this notion, you will see that each instance of language use is particular to the circumstances, and the assumption that there is "a concept" which poses as the medium between the words, and what the person is doing with the words, is really an unnecessary attitude which renders you vulnerable to deception.
I suppose, yeah. He does admit his intention to:
“....bequeath a legacy to posterity, in the shape of a system of metaphysics constructed in accordance with the Critique of Pure Reason, still the value of such a bequest is not to be depreciated....”
Still, I doubt if he sat around indulging in vainglorious rumination, “I’m gonna be remembered long after Baumgartner, Schelling, Mendelssohn, et al are merely faded wannabes”. Dunno....I wasn’t there.
Fine line between rampant ego and manifest genius.
—————
Quoting Antony Nickles
This implies a distinction between traditional analytic philosophy, and philosophical theories regarding metaphysics, representationalism, etc. Is that right? Is there a distinction? Or are you meaning to say, directed at analytic philosophy and those philosophical theories and statements contained in it?
Doesn't matter, really. All philosophy is human rational construction, therefore is itself confined to the species, it is dependent on individuals and they do have control in how it works. It’s a simple as, objects and ideas control my intelligence, the ends by which I philosophize, but I and only I control my intellect, the means by which my philosophy is developed.
————-
Quoting Antony Nickles
If OLP doesn’t have its own method sufficient to justify its tenets, hypotheses or claims, it is nothing but a compendium of illustrative examples and not a philosophy at all. Such method may explain how bringing up the contexts in which our concepts live, puts the human “voice” back into philosophical discussions. It might begin by showing how there can even be a philosophical discussion that doesn’t have a human “voice” participating in the discussion, and making the discussion possible in the first place. But, I suppose, as in “ordinary”, there might be a different......grammar.......for “discussion” in regards to OLP as opposed to conventional discourse.
Do I recall you positing that the ordinary in OLP doesn’t mean conventional use of words? Hopefully, because we both know concepts don’t “live” in the conventional sense.
—————-
Quoting Antony Nickles
I agree analytic philosophy tends to remove us....us being thinking subjects as such.....from its considerations. Still doesn’t tell me how OLP puts us back, which wouldn’t at the same time make it just another form of speculative or theoretical metaphysic, imitating the ones we already have.
Quoting Antony Nickles
How often in your life , say over the course of a
month, a week or even a day, do you feel feelings of guilt, anger, anxiety? These are the social affects that tell us of the myriad ways we misunderstand each other , talk past one another, fail to ‘ put ourselves in the other’s shoe’ I would say that , given how prevalent these forms of suffering are in our lives, and how often they can lead to cruelty and suffering, most of the time we are in desperate need of a way to understand each other better than we do. If what I described is exhausting , it is much less exhausting than settling for emotional pain. That is, if we are successful at it. And we don’t have a chance at succeeding if we miss a large chunk of what produces misunderstandings. and their associated feelings of guilt, hostility , stress.
Quoting Antony Nickles
We are even less powerful than Witt or Austin assume. That is to say, ‘we’ are even less powerful that the socially formed we that they talk about, which is still quite powerful in violent and arbitrary ways. We don’t abandon ourselves to our words, we abandon ourselves to temporality, to change in context, which is more fundamental than words seen as shared conventions.
Creative shifts in sense operate before, beneath , within and beyond shared conventions.
Derrida says all speech is writing in Derrida’s sense of writing as differance, so when I speak or write to myself, I am speaking to the other. This is the origin and only site of the social.
“When he writes himself to himself, he writes himself to the other who is infinitely far away and who is supposed to send his signature back to him. He has no relation to himself that is not forced to defer itself by passing through the other in the form, precisely, of the eternal return. I love what I am living and I desire what is coming. I recognize it gratefully and I desire it to return eternally. I desire whatever comes my way to come to me, and to come back to me eternally. When he writes himself to himself, he has no immediate presence of himself
to himself. There is the necessity of this detour through the other...”
“From this point of view, there is no difference, or no possible distinction if you will, between the letter I write to someone else and the letter I send to myself. The structure is the same.”
This would also apply to speaking to oneself and to another.
I should mention that , concerning concepts like ‘I’ , ipsiety, the subject, Being, the self, Derrida and Heidegger don’t begin from a notion of self as Anthropos, as a human being , or living thing, or empirical body.
For Derrida the mark, difference, the trace, writing can’t even be said to be a ‘who’ as opposed to a ‘what’.
Intention , meaning to say, Being, experiencing, is a bare temporal structure , the past which is changed by a presenting which comes from a future. This tri-partite structure is what a single moment ‘is’, and it is irreducible, and comes back to itself as utterly other than itself, as utterly new context.
If we cannot say that this temporality of intention is a human or living thing or any sort of ‘entity’ , then the notion of two ‘people’ and what takes place between them is already a secondary or derived modification of the primary sociality of the ‘self’ that continues to be what it is by being a new and other self every moment. The self ‘is’ this other to itself , what Heidegger calls the in-between.
Getting back to the arbitrary and violent power of the socially constructed ‘we’, tell me a little about what you and Austin think happens when you sit by yourself in your armchair for hours or days with no communicative contact with others, and you are thinking and writing nonstop. Let’s not worry yet about what ‘ thinking’ means here. How would you characterize this experience? What if I were to talk about what took place in the following way: you began your writing by moving from a foundation of sedimented social norms, conventions and practices that are embedded in the words that you think to yourself. By over time , you found yourself rethinking the conventional sense of those words and moving beyond the conventions. Your solitary thinking and writing brought you to a changed relationship to those conventions , and this is reflected in the odd new terms
that begin to crop up in your work.
When you re-engage with your intellectual
community after this period of solitary creativity, you find you understand them less well and they understand you less well. You may eventually need to move on from
that community and find or form a new one .
Tell me how you would translate what I just said in Austinian terms. Does your solitary creativity amount to no more than a reshuffling of socially formed concepts?
I prefer Eugene Gendlin’s explanation:
“After Wittgenstein philosophers have assumed that only language gives meaning to sensing the body “from inside.” The common experiencing we have all day is philosophically ignored because they think of it as merely internal and indeterminate, made interactional only by language. There is a big difference between my view and that of the current philosophers. They say that the body as sensed from inside is meaningful and interactional only through language (which includes concepts, culture, and history). If we find a bodily sense meaningful, they think this can only be what language and culture have trained into our bodies.”
If our interactions are attributed to ‘culture’, we may seem culturally programmed since we are born into a world of language, art, and human relationships. Culture may seem imposed on human bodies. But we can ask: How can a body have cultural patterns such as speech and art, and how can it act in situations? If we can explain this, we can explain how culture was generated and how it is now being regenerated further and further.
“We can speak freshly because our bodily situation is always different and much more intricate than the cultural generalities. A situation is a bodily happening, not just generalities. Language doesn't consist just of standard sayings. Language is part of the human body's implying of behavior possibilities. Our own situation always consists of more intricate implyings. Our situation implies much more than the cultural kinds. The usual view is mistaken, that the individual can do no more than choose among the cultural scenarios, or add mere nuances. The ‘nuances’ are not mere details. Since what is culturally appropriate has only a general meaning, it is the so-called ‘nuances’ that tell us what we really want to know. They indicate what the standard saying really means here, this time, from this person.
Speech coming directly from implicit understanding is trans-cultural. Every individual incorporates but far transcends culture, as becomes evident from direct reference. Thinking is both individual and social. The current theory of a one-way determination by society is too simple. The relation is much more complex. Individuals do require channels of information, public discourses, instruments and machines, economic support, and associations for action. The individual must also find ways to relate to the public attitudes so as to be neither captured nor isolated. In all these ways the individual is highly controlled. Nevertheless, individual thinking constantly exceeds society.”
1.That OLP's subject is only language, rather than us, the world, communication, culture, politics, philosophy's issues in general...
2. By ordinary, OLP is using regular words, for ordinary ideas, (or anyone's opinion) compared to philosophy's complex problems;
3. "Concept", "ordinary", "grammar", "criteria", "context, "use", etc., can be assumed (presumed) to be understood at first glance or in an ordinary way or as other philosophy might, instead of as specific terminology.
4. That a "concept" is similar to an "idea" or other mental metaphysical "object" that corresponds to words or the world, instead of a general category of words that have criteria imbedded in them for the way they are used: generalizing, knowing, seeing, understanding, meaning, intending, i.e., the words philosophy appropriates and stripes of their criteria to create a picture of one theory of language.
5. That OLP is saying or showing that language is simple, or works simply, dismissing or not interested in, or applicable to, philosophy's honest concerns (skepticism, the problem of other, identity, etc.),
6. That OLP is simply an empirical popularity contest of what most people say or that OLP is merely pointing out what makes people act in certain ways, or is conservatively limiting what can be said philosophically, or dismissing philosophy with “common sense”.
7. That Witt blames philosophy's problems on language, rather than on:
a) philosophy's desire/need for language to meet its standard;
b). the possibility in language to allow us to bewitch ourselves in that way, its ability to seem uprooted (isolated words) and so appearing to need roots; and
c) ordinary criteria's inability to defend itself.
8. That OLP has a theory of langauge, meaning, rationality etc., (and one overarching all) rather than being a method for insight (that the process is the "argument"), yet also a style and attitude, in that it is not telling us so much as asking us if we see too, requiring us to look differently (thus includes philosophers such as Socrates, Nietszche, Emerson, Thoreau, later Heidegger, and a new wave interested in OLP's involvement in and lessons from: literature, film, education, politics...
9. That representation, etc. is wrong (and OLP right, on the same terms), rather than us being confused, blind to ourselves (the entire picture ignoring our real needs/desires);
10. That OLP is making statements about how language works, rather than claims which only need to be fleshed out better, finding a context where the criteria might be something more apt, i.e., I have an equal right as the philosopher.
Languages evolve, certainly. New words derive their meaning in the same manner as old words did, thus becoming part of the "common stock" of words. Once they have done so, then ascribing to them a another meaning or significance can create problems.
For example, "website" is a relatively new word. Nobody contends that it really means "the location of a spider's web" though. If some philosopher began claiming that the mind is a website, however, then it may be that some proponent of OLP might suggest that philosopher is taking a word with a recognized meaning and running with it off to Never-Never Land.
I'd be interested in some examples of instances where an innovation in thought was communicated by using common stock words uncommonly. Note, though, that I don't think saying something is like something else is to use common stock words uncommonly.
Heidegger: Being, ‘is’, self, curiosity, idle talk, care, hearing, understanding , discourse, time, past, future.
Derrida: spacing , intention, writing , trace, mark, presence, expression, sign,
Husserl: ego, intention, empathy, sense, real, objective, nature, material, physical.
I could list many more philosophers. And it’s not just individual words whose sense is changed , it is also conventional grammatical structure.
They used all those words uncommonly? What did "writing" mean, and "hearing"? "Is" we know has more than one meaning, thanks to former President Clinton.
Having no idea what these philosophers achieved in uncommonly defining these words, or how they defined them, I'm afraid I can't comment on whether an innovation in thought resulted.
Here’s the first page of Heidegger’s magnum opus, Being and Time.
“”For manifestly you have long been aware of what
you mean when you use the expression 'being.' We,
however, who used to think we understood it, have now
become perplexed.”( Plato)
Do we in our time have an answer to the question of what we really mean by the word 'being'? Not at all. So it is fitting that we should raise anew the question
of the meaning of being. But are we nowadays even perplexed at our inability to understand the expression
'being'? Not at all. So first of all we must reawaken an
understanding for the meaning of this question. Our
aim in the following treatise is to work out the question
of the meaning of being and to do so concretely. Our
provisional aim is the interpretation of time as the pos
sible horizon for any understanding whatsoever of
being.”
Quoting Joshs
Quoting Ciceronianus the White
One "uncommon" use is when philosophy stripes concepts of the criteria that account for their ordinary uses (possible senses) and significance (why those senses matter to us)--"knowledge" 'appearance" "difference", intention" etc. And, yes, this "creates problems", like when "thought" is imagined to be an internal thing that, to be special, new, innovative, needs to be "outside" of the ordinary criteria of our concepts, that those must be circumvented.
But by investigating our ordinary criteria for each concept and how they allow for change is to see that it sometimes changes with our (cultural, practical) lives, but also to see that the ordinary criteria of senses of a concept can be extended into new contexts. With the example above, "thought" is externalized (see late Heidegger, What is Called Thinking?) not as limited to/by language, but that our desire for its "originality" and change is a possibility of (within) our concepts because of their criteria and the ordinary ways in which their "conformity" can be broken or pushed against or revitalized (in degenerate times). I guess this is to say I am, "my" "thought" is, not special, so much as, if I want what I say to be special, I am responsible to make that intelligible (which is a possibility of/from our ordinary criteria).
Another ‘uncommon’ use is to convince
onself that one is using ordinary language to talk about olp, only to find the readers are all over the place in interpreting the sense of those ‘ordinary’ words. Why do you think that is? Perhaps our ordinary criteria are themselves , from one to the next to the next person( and ‘within’ each person), already ‘outside’ the ordinary, so no circumvention is needed. Perhaps this is because there is no purely internal any more than there a a purely public.
Are you familiar with the work in the area of the problem of other minds, or the issue of empathy?
It’s become a burgeoning field of study and I think it is germane to the understanding of language, given that in order to communicate with others, we must first recognize them as like ourselves, as fellow language-using beings.
The three prime candidates for explaining empathy are theory theory, simulation theory and interaction theory. The first two pre-suppose an ‘inner’ mentation that actively infers the existence of others and attempt a to ‘mind read’. The interactioniat group rejects internal representations in favor of a primary intersubjectivity , which has much in common with Wittgenstein.
This growing group of writers make use of Husserl’s and Merleau-Monty’s analyses of empathy.
The other feature of intersubjectivity that is becoming widely accepted is that there is something it is like for me to experience a world( Nagel) They stipulate that all consciousness is self-consciousness ; there is a minimal pre-reflective self-awareness that accompanies al experiences. I’m wondering what you take is on this, since it speaks to the subjective side of language.
I suppose I should make it clear, if I haven't done so already, that I while there are aspects of OLP I think are admirable and useful, I think of it as therapeutic. It was largely the philosophy I was taught when I received formal instruction in philosophy--the philosophy of my joy and my youth, so to speak, as the God of Catholicism was the God of my joy and my youth (opening words of the Mass, sorry). Wittgenstein, Austin, Urmson, Strawson and such--that was what we read outside of courses on the history of philosophy. I was impressed by the way the method employed in that kind of philosophy dissolved the traditional "problems of philosophy" as did the pragmatism of John Dewey (or so I thought, and still think).
As a result, I suppose, the "question" of Being isn't one I've considered nor have I thought it worthwhile to do so. And I'm leery of what seems to be the tendency of many philosophers to come up with definitions of such grand concepts as "Being" and "Thought" as part of an effort to understand, finally, what they are, or what reality is, or what knowledge is, what "Good" is. I suspect that efforts to do so are tainted by what Dewey referred to as "the philosophical fallacy" which he summarized as being "lack of context."
So I acknowledge that such concepts have been the subjects of philosophy and that their use in philosophy is specialized. I also think that philosophers tend to redefine them or use them uncommonly in their efforts to understand them once and for all. So, for what it's worth, I acknowledge that in doing so--in philosophy--such concepts may be used uncommonly and and have uncommon meanings. I don't think those efforts are rewarding, however, and think that we're better served if "ordinary language" which is quite versatile is used in explanations and discussions, and ordinary events considered, even in philosophy. Words may invoke great insights, but I think that's the business of poets.
Whatever ‘Being’ means to you in a philosophical context, I’m betting that it has absolutely nothing to do with Heidegger’s project , but the only way you’ll find that is to get over your prejudice and read Heidegger. I felt exactly the same way as you when I was a grad
student in experimental psychology. I was
convinced the style of writing of contemporary continental philosophers was unnecessary and that more ‘empirical’ or ‘ ordinary’ language was more effective.
I now realize that the best of the continental philosophers use a language to express exactly what they mean to say, and what they are saying is vitally relevant and substantive. My initial difficulties in penetrating their language, i found out , had nothing to do with arbitrary word choices on their part and everything to do with the challenging content of their ideas.
The fact that Dewey used a more ‘ordinary’ vocabulary(did he really? You think his notion of pragmatic is the everyday notion, or a profound change in its sense?) didn’t seem to help him gain acceptance. He was ignored by mainstream psychology for 90 years. In some ways his vocabulary was less accessible or ‘ordinary’ than Heidegger’s.
Quoting Ciceronianus the White
Heidegger’s vocabulary isn’t extraordinary with respect to Wittgenstein or Dewey , it’s simply richer, and or uses more routes of access to it from more cultural modalities ( the theological, political, psychological, literary) than he so-called ordinary vocabularies of analytic philosophy. If you want to be understood deeply , you must draw from as rich and multi-varied a stir of cultural resources as possible.
As far as why you should read Heidegger, he is now being used more and more as an important source of ideas for a current generation of writers in enactive , embodied approaches to cognition. His work has been important i the understanding of the relationship between affect and cognition, in the interpretation of schizophrenic, depression, autism, ptsd and more.
Quoting Ciceronianus the White
Although a lot of traditional OLP takes it as solving skepticism (or other philosophical problems), I admire Stanley Cavell's reading of the nuance that Witt is using to point out (with "seeing aspects" and "following a series", etc.) that in reviving our ordinary criteria, we learn about ourselves and our philosophical concerns. So I believe it doesn't solve those issues, or unravel them (eternally), or cure us (forever), or make philosophy obsolete, as Rorty, Dewey, Austin, Hegel, etc. in some sense believe.
Quoting Joshs
My crap job of anticipating how philosphers would need to be warned about the misconceptions of OLP. That everyone looks for a weak point to characterize a claim so it may simply be dismissed with nothing learned.
I should have been clearer that OLP is not "using ordinary language". And, yes, it has terms: "concept", "sense", "grammar", "use", "family resemblances", "aspect", "attitude". OLP's work is not hypocrisy; all philosophy has terms. What Witt is using those terms for is explainable. It is a lot harder explaining how philosophy has used: know, intend, mean, see, appearance, etc.--as if every word were a term, with no context.
What OLP is doing is investigating the ordinary ways something like "intention" works (it's criteria) in different contexts. OLP investigates the ordinary criteria for concepts by looking at what is going on when we say "intend", what distinctions are made, what we care about with the concept, when it is not considered the concept, what counts in its judgments, etc.
Other "Concepts" would include: seeing, knowing, an accident, a game, calling, naming, essence, etc; maybe it's easiest to say a Concept is like a field of expression or action, only that it is not enough to say "these words" because these words blanket how things work in the world too. One of OLP's contentions is that words and the world are tied together--to investigate one is to learn about the other--though the skeptic is correct that that connection can be lost.
Quoting Joshs
Yes, started with, Descartes I wanna say. I think my post of my reading of Witt's lion quote is to show what he discovered about the problem of the other. I found that the best overview of the arguments is in Cavell's "Knowing and Acknowledging" and his finding that "I know he is in pain" is not intelligible as a claim to certainty, nor that I infer their pain, but it is in the context where the use of knowledge is that "I acknowledge" he is in pain (I accept its claim on me, rather than deny the Other--I believe this is in the sense of a moral claim, as in, above, though of course not necessarily apart from, empathy), and that this shows us a lot about our relationship to the Other (that we are separate but answerable to each other).
Quoting Joshs
Witt's claim is that there is a personal (separate person) and that language is public, but the relationship between the two is not theoretical and universal (singular), but that I attach myself to language (an "expression" Witt will say), and then I am responsible to that expression, the ways it is rational (along each concept's criteria); responsible to answer to you for clarification, justification, excusing it, drawing a line in defense of it, for having defied its rationality, etc.
Quoting Joshs
To say "experience" is to mean (this is the method of OLP)... "I had a great experience at Disneyland." One criteria would seem to be: for you/me to have an experience, we must be aware of it. But does this criteria say anything? It also appears we talk about experience related to one thing, rather than all things, because what context would there be to ask "How is your experience?" (a waiter perhaps) or "What are you experiencing? (a clinical psychologist during an experiment of weightlessness?). Also, can we ask about your--talk about my--experience of everything/anything? And here, try to provide a context where you can, and where you can not.
Just noticed this now. I'll bear that in mind and thanks for it.
Quoting Antony Nickles
I’m going to take that as a ‘no’. I sense a gap between the Wittgensteinian approach you are using and the fertile research currently taking place on self-consciousness and empathy. You’ll have to trust me when I say that scholars like Dan Zahavi and Shaun Gallagher have a thoroughgoing familiarity with Wittgenstein, and would claim to embrace his approach. I believe they would say there is more to say about the basis of intersubjectivty and its relation to subjectivity than what you are offering , but which not at all incompatible with Wittgenstein. My initial impression is that your approach doesn’t allow you to allow sufficiently for the role of subjectivity in intersubjective functions like language, that it runs the risk of idealizing discursive structures. It comes off as a radical social constructionism of the sort that Deleuze critiques as leaving out the ‘bio’ favor of the political.
It may be that if your interests gravitate toward political theory or literature , the approach you are using may be suffice for for those purposes. But I believe it is inadequate to address such phenomena as pacholfical pathologies and developmental aspects of empathy and langauge acquisition . As Zahavi notes:”Relevant test-cases would include thought-insertion and other self-disorders in schizophrenia, disturbed forms of self-understanding in autism and diminished self-experience in dementia and Alzheimer's disease.”
I should add that the authors and approaches I’m referring to now do not follow the more radical
line of reasoning of Heidegger or Derrida regarding temporality. They are fully in line with Merleau-Ponty when he says
“ In the experience of dialogue, there is constituted between the other person and myself a common ground; my thought and his are inter-woven into a single fabric, my words and those of my interlocutor are called forth by the state of the discussion, and they are inserted into a shared operation of which neither of us is the creator.”
Do me a favor and take a quick look at the following paper by Dan Zahavi, one of the leading phenomenological writers.
Here’s the abstract:
Is the self a social construct?
DAN ZAHAVI
University of Copenhagen, Denmark
Abstract: There is a long tradition in philosophy for claiming that selfhood is socially constructed and self-experience intersubjectively mediated. On many accounts, we consequently have to distinguish between being conscious or sentient and being a self. The requirements that must be met in order to qualify for the latter are higher. My aim in the following is to challenge this form of social constructivism by arguing that an account of self which disregards the fundamental
structures and features of our experiential life is a non-starter, and that a correct description and account of the experiential dimension must do justice to the first-person perspective and to the primitive form of self-referentiality, mineness or for-me-ness that it entails. I then consider and discuss various objections to this account, in particularly the view that an endorsement of such a minimal notion of self commits one to an outdated form of Cartesianism. In the final part of the paper, I argue that the self is so multifaceted a phenomenon that various complementary accounts must be integrated if we are to do justice to its complexity.
http://www2.psych.utoronto.ca/users/tafarodi/psy425/articles/Zahavi%20(2009).pdf
I’d also recommend this comparison of Ryle and Austin with phenomenology, penned by Shaun Gallagher
http://www.ummoss.org/gall17doublePhen.pdf
ABSTRACT – A discussion between phenomenologists and analytic philosophers of mind that took place in 1958 reveals some hidden connections between these two approaches to studying the mind. I argue that we can find two complementary phenomenological methods within this discussion – one that follows along the line of Husserl and Merleau-Ponty, the other that follows the kind of analysis of speech-acts, avowals and “unstudied speech,” proposed by Ryle and Austin.”
That is literally an example of doing Ordinary Language Philosophy . So let's look and see. The next step after this is that, because of the possibility of misunderstanding "we are in desperate need of a way to understand each other better than we do". Then the "in myriad ways" would be to say so much that we are "desperate" to lesson their number, or have understanding work in one way.
And you go on to list ways in which we misunderstand each other. But if we look at them as examples, we can perhaps see in them the ways in which we can avoid, and work out, misunderstandings. When we say: "Talk past one another." We imply that we are "talking at" but missed; wait, no, we were talking at something behind ("past") the other; or maybe it is just that I talk past you, that is to say: your cares, your interests, your curiosity, your terms--the things that I should be talking at, or to. So the evidence of our pain becomes examples of the ordinary ways in which we can make understanding work, or get back to work, or at least work better. (This is the same move Austin makes, backwards: understanding moral action by studying how excuses work. @Banno) Now you can work through the next example of what we say about misunderstanding for its criteria for understanding. One question might be: it does seem we have control over where we go, and it would be better to go to the Other (maybe rather than try to bring them to me) and go to their shoes, in which they travel the world--as if to see where they go, or perhaps how they go--what will get them to move, how to get them to go, their motivations.
Now their will be other ways conversation breaks down, and now it would seem to be helpful to examine each of those through what we say when we have a misunderstanding. And OLP would say: imagine examples of when we say something about misunderstanding, and we can investigate the context and criteria and learn what it says about understanding better. Instead, we take our "guilt, hostility, and stress" (our desperate skepticism) out on our ordinary criteria, and abandon them. The step is made because the ordinary ways are subject to failure, and we want something--"a way to understand each other better than we do". Not to make ourselves better, but to start the way langauge works over from scratch and build from the criteria we want. But then we understand everything in one way, built to address or solve all our misunderstandings, at once (dispell or solve our skepticism). And this instead of seeing and learning about the many ways we have come up with over the life of our trying to understand, through what we say when we talk of our misunderstandings (even in idioms).
Well, let's not judge others by their popularity, particularly in philosophy (or did you mean psychology?). There seems to be a resurgence in interest in Dewey, and not merely because Rorty thought he was an early postmodern thinker (mistakenly, I think). It appears that some now see him as anticipating continental philosophy and even Wittgenstein in many respects. Some have thought that Dewey's pragmatism bridges the gap between the continental and Anglo-American traditions. Some even have claimed that Dewey and Heidegger held similar views (there is a story, I don't know how accurate it is, that Dewey read something of Heidegger's and remarked that "Heidegger reads like a Swabian peasant trying to sound like me")
Dewey is hard to read, in fact, but not because of his choice of words. His style is simply too dense, and can be tedious.
I can't bring myself to read more Heidegger. It's true I think he was a loathsome man, and unlike others I find it hard to dissociate the man from his writings. I've been told before that if I knew what he meant by the words he used I'd understand him; regardless, I don't feel any need to break the "Heidegger Code." Perhaps some of the fault lies with translation. But I find even his clearer work, such as his essay on the question of technology, to be so infused with Romanticism as to be meritless. Oddly, he wrote very clearly when drafting the speeches he gave as Recktor at Freiburg, praising Hitler and providing philosophical support for Nazi ideology.
Quoting Antony Nickles
Your method reminds me of the social constructionist Ken Gergen.
For? Gergen, we only exist as the kind of ordinary, everyday persons we are, within certain, socially constructed, linguistically sustained "living traditions" - within which, what people seemingly talk 'about' (referentially) is in fact, constituted or constructed 'in' their responses to each other in the talk between them. In Gergen's version, such a tradition seemingly exists as "a repository of linguistic artifacts," sustained as such "in virtue of negotiated agreements widely shared within the culture".For him, these socially negotiated agreements influence, not only what we take our realities to be, but also the character of our subjectivities, our psychological make-up.
As Gergen sees it, instead of failures of understanding being crucial (and provoking adaptive reconstructions), "what we count as knowledge are temporary locations in dialogic space - samples of discourse that are accorded status as 'knowledgeable tellings on given occasions’.”
I think what this approach leaves out is the contribution of the subjective dimension, and for that reason it is being supplanted by approaches that integrate olp insights with embodied , enactive perspectives drawing from phenomenologists. A you know, Wittgenstein did not deny that there are such things as biological bodies , his concern was with how we ‘justify’ meaning claims that our empirical models generate.
So it seems to me you could take one of two tacks.
1) You could point to the continuing usefulness of our empirical descriptions of physical, biological and psychological phenomena, only reminding us of the problems that arise by treating these empirical models
and their associated concepts as if they existed outside of the discursive contexts that formed and constantly reform them.
In addition, you could recognize that Wittgenstein’s method of approach is not simply agnostic with respect to empirical science, that is , not just allows that empirical models in general are pragmatically, contextually useful, but that his approach to discourse has specific implications for ways of thinking about the biological and the psychological. A whole range of assumptions concerning the way we talk about concepts like the nature of biological evolution, the processes of affectivity, perception, cognition and language require rethinking after Wittgenstein. .
And this rethinking has taken place, providing alternatives to Cartesian representational models of emotion, perception, empathy, cognition and language. You will find Wittgensteinian and Austinian scholars who embrace these new approaches, including the autopoietic self-organizing systems work of Varela and Thompson, the embodied, embedded, enactive, affective perspectives of Gallagher, Fuchs, and Ratcliffe,
the hermeneutic constructivist ideas of Chiari, the phenomenological contributions of Zahavi.
The advances of these writers allow for an integration of the biological, the psychological and the discursively intersubjective. But they do this not only by re-situating , pragmatising and ‘contextualizing’ the treatment of these issues, but also by adapting Wittgenstein’s contribution such that it takes into account a certain asymmetry between the subjective and the objective poles of contextual sense-formation.In self-organizing systems terms, this is called structural
coupling, At the level of psychological phenomena, it lends to awareness its point of view, the ‘for-meness’ of experience.
The second approach you could take is to dissolve
these approaches within your discursive method, calling them all problematic as long as they refuse to relinquish the subjective in favor of a discursive idealization which denies a role to point of view.
For instance, Matthew Ratcliffe has been working on an approach to experiencing he calls ‘existential feeling.
Ratcliffe fleshed out his approach with elements drawn from the phenomenologies of Merleau-Ponty, Husserl and Heidegger:
“Both Husserl and Merleau-Ponty add that localized experiences of possibility presuppose a more-enveloping orientation, a sense of belonging to the world. When I see or think about something, when I am afraid of something, and when I am in a bad mood about a wider situation, I already find myself in the world, in a way than differs in kind from intentional experiences in one or another modality (e.g. imagining, perceiving, or remembering something). This ‘world' is presupposed by intentional states of whatever kind with whatever content. We can think of it in terms of a possibility space, a receptivity to types of possibility.”“Things are experienced as significant to us, as mattering to us, in various different ways, something that involves a sense of the possibilities they offer.” (Ratcliffe, 2020
In the following, Ratcliffe shows how communication is affected by subjective alterations in existential feeling.
“The themes of silence and the unsayable have been associated specifically with the testimonies of Holocaust survivors. In addressing the relevant literature, Martin Kusch (2017) introduces the term “linguistic despair” to capture the way in which language’s failure is taken to be unavoidable and insurmountable. The phenomenon he refers to is mentioned explicitly in several well-known autobiographical accounts. For instance, here is how Elie Wiesel (2006, viii-ix) describes the linguistic challenge that one faces:
Convinced that this period in history would be judged one day, I knew that I must bear witness. I also knew that, while I had many things to say, I did not have the words to say them. Painfully aware of my limitations, I watched helplessly as language became an obstacle. It became clear that it would be necessary to invent a new language. But how was one to rehabilitate and
transform words betrayed and perverted by the enemy? Hunger – thirst – fear – transport selection – fire – chimney: these words all have intrinsic meaning, but in those times, they
meant something else. (viii-ix)
Charlotte Delbo (1985 / 1990, p.3) describes the limitations of language in a complementary way, emphasizing a kind of ‘splitting’ that encompasses language, self, and reality. There is the consensus world that one now inhabits no and there is also the world of
the concentration camp.
2 As Wiesel points out, words such as ‘hunger’ and ‘chimney’ had quite different connotations in that world, in a place where all that one previously took for
granted and that one’s interpreters now take for granted was extinguished. To describe Context A to those residing in Context B, one relies upon words such as x, y, and z, which are familiar to interpreters situated in B. However, those words have importantly different
connotations in A, which are muffled by interpreting them against the backdrop of B. Hence, in order to describe something, one must use words that someone else understands, but that same understanding eclipses the phenomenon in question. As Kusch (2017, p.142) writes,
“the struggle for words is essentially the struggle to communicate the destruction of much of
what in ‘ordinary life’ we take for granted”. There is a loss of ordinarily implicit, pre- reflective certainties that the workings of language more usually presuppose.
If this is what the phenomenon consists in, then it is also something that can arise at the level of the individual, something that can happen to ‘me’ rather than ‘us’, where ‘us’ might be a family, a larger group, or even a whole culture. Of course, there remain important differences. Nevertheless, a particular person can similarly experience the destruction of a habitual world that others presuppose, such that words cannot be successfully exported from one context to the other. For example, Annie Rogers (2007, p.4) describes what she calls the “unsayable” in a way that seems to incorporate this (although it is not the explicit focus of her account): “It was there, as a sixteen-year-old girl, that I stopped speaking for five months, from October to February. I realized that whatever I might say could be misconstrued and used to create a version of ‘reality’ that would be unrecognizable, a kind of voice-over of my truths I could not bear.” Later on, she writes, “Here is the unsayable, where words are spoken, yet fall into disconnection with what they point toward” (p.88). It should be added that the distinction between group-level and individual-level trauma is by no means straightforward. That something happened to ‘us’ does not imply a sense of shared understanding among those who endured it. Where we are concerned with the phenomenology of trauma, what happened to ‘us’ may still be experienced principally as ‘mine’ rather than ‘ours’. For instance, Shay (1994, pp.205-6) reports that some Vietnam veterans did not feel solidarity with fellow traumatized soldiers but instead construed their
disclosures in terms of an adversarial “pissing contest”. The trauma is experienced as something that happened to ‘me’ - something to be endured alone, which is not to be understood by or shared with others.
We might distinguish two phenomena here: (a) a struggle to find the right words oneself; (b) a failure on the part of others to understand those words. One might have the experience of conveying something in an entirely adequate way, associated with the experience of others failing to comprehend one’s words due to their own contingent limitations. Conversely, one might feel that, although one’s words fall flat, certain empathic
individuals still manage to understand. However, (a) and (b) have a common origin and are, in practice, thoroughly entwined. One struggles to find words because something is lost when those words move between contexts, and others fail to understand because a familiar context eclipses an unfamiliar one. The communicative task of the trauma survivor is therefore doubly difficult: the profound gulf between what she endured (and perhaps continued to
endure) and what an interlocutor takes as given
impedes both linguistic expression and
linguistic comprehension. Importantly, the problem does not consist merely in recognizing that words fall short;
one also experiences those words as falling short. Even as they are uttered, there is a sense or feeling of their inadequacy. With this, there is also a more pervasive experience of lack or absence. Something that once seemed integral to the world, like bedrock, is experienced as missing, perhaps altogether lost. My task here is to clarify the relevant phenomenology. Two
broad types of scenario can be distinguished: (i) one shares context B with another person and seeks to relate context A to that person, while experiencing the gulf between where one once was (A) and where both parties are now (B); (ii) one inhabits A in an enduring way, thus experiencing a gulf between where one is now (A) and where the other person is now (B). I will focus principally on (ii), on those cases that involve an enduring experience of loss, in contrast to something that also seems alien to oneself much of the time. However, I also concede that the distinction between A- and B-type scenarios is not clear-cut.”
Quoting Joshs
So, we are going to ignore the entire history of the problem of other minds, and start fresh. To say, we do not need to account for the past in order to move forward. I'm sensing that here again we are underestimating the ability for concepts to have an openness and possibility to move into new contexts, etc. That the concepts are instead fixed, closed, an "idea" as if like an "object" to which a word points, like "tree". And even then, don't we have criteria for differentiating a tree from, say, a bush? and then we can address outliers: is a hibiscus that is pruned to have a trunk a "tree"? or a violet grafted to the top of an apple tree? If these things mattered, isn't it possible to discuss and resolve these "new contexts"? Are the criteria of concepts closed, or are people (closing them)?
Quoting Joshs
And this is the move to banish poetry from the republic. To cast out certain subjects (ethics, aesthetics, etc.) from "philosophy" as the Tractatus does, or positivism, or representationalism, etc. Austin will fume over they idea that everything that is not a true/false statement is either irrational or emotion, etc. And here we see one satisfaction of OLP: to bring back our whole world, rather than arbitrarily slicing it in two (as Kant had to).
Quoting Joshs
I'm getting the feeling here that we want to skip past (understanding) the method of OLP (the important bit), to get it to say a theory that we can then argue with/about (along philosophy's old methods). But we do not yet seem to understand or accept the method, which is, as it were: "the argument". There may be implications to OLP's observations, and even, after having looked at our concepts, (different) goals for philosophy's issues that Austin and Witt have (similarly though, getting philosophy to see that it is--and, with Witt, why it is--not seeing, accepting the variety of criteria and their validity in understanding philosophical issues. But this is not to say that there are not other areas where the method of OLP (investigating our criteria) is useful: science, film, literature, politics, etc.
And so I feel I am, reluctantly, having to recreate the entire Philosophical Investigations backwards, when the whole point is for you to see for yourself if the examples, of what we say when, lead you to the same understanding of the criteria for that concept. And, if not, what is wrong with the example, what is missing from the context, have we overlooked criteria, seen them too generally, etc.--to work out our disagreements along those lines, the conditions and possibilities of each, lets simply say, word.
That said, my guess is these guys [saying "there is more to say about the basis of intersubjectivty and its relation to subjectivity") are both ignoring Witt's constant examination of "subjectivity" (its picture) and his ability to otherwise account for it. Analyzing the picture of representationalism (of the "interior"), and seeing the ordinary ways the personal (the individual) matter and have effect, etc. The Grammar of "us" speaking--and our similarity to the Other (in our separateness)--for example, that an expression reveals who we are (our pain, our defiance, our cowardice). That what is at stake is our responsibility to our expressions as they reveal our character, our soul; that it is we who hide it, wish to remain unanswerable, or wish to be fully expressed, so we no longer have to have anything to do with our words. (Cavell)
Quoting Joshs
And why can't the "fabric" be our concepts and the lives they are sculpted with, which are there before us (not created by us) but which is adequate for our needs. Does it ensure understanding? No. Are their times when we do not share the same lives, that our language is dead to us, pushed outside its criteria? Yes. But we have ordinary ways to address those failings rather than create a theory which side-steps all the contexts in which misunderstanding comes up.
Quoting Joshs
- DAN ZAHAVI
Not having read this, I still imagine I will not be able to present anything in a way that will matter to you. Nevertheless, I would argue that the self is as multifaceted as all the ways we can express it in all the various contexts we come across. Most things we say will not express us of course--most of our life is conformity, quite desperation, Emerson and Thoreau will say--as if we do not exist, are not ourselves, until there are moments that define us--our character, over our intellect ("our thoughts")--contexts with criteria that may split us down the middle, require as to be answerable for ourself.
I am interested in the article on Austin and Ryle, as may @Banno, as I have studied both (though Ryle has issues, and Austin has limitations). Perhaps we can swap articles. Mine would be: Cavell on reading Wittgenstein but if you are feeling serious, the explanation/example of OLP in Cavell's finding of a MUST in concepts does a much better job than I have been able to.
Speaking of Austin and emotion , at the tail end of Ratcliffe’s paper on failures of language that I quoted
from, he incorporates Austin in his attempt to show how disruptions in situatedness in existential
feeling disconnects us from effective empathy and communication with others. Let me know if you find it problematic.
Here’s the full article :
https://www.academia.edu/39851117/Trauma_Language_and_Trust
Failures of Communication
Loss of trust adds to the experience of linguistic inadequacy in two ways. First of all, it contributes to an all-pervasive sense of impossibility and futility, of a future that no longer incorporates the potential for positive development. The world appears bereft of all those
possibilities associated with trusting relations with others, which include sustaining, repairing, and revising projects, and relating to people in ways that open up new possibilities.
With no prospect of such relations, the future lacks openness, spontaneity, the potential for meaningful and positive alternatives to one’s current predicament - for growth (Ratcliffe, Ruddell, and Smith, 2014). With this, the more specific potential of language is also
curtailed. It is not just that words currently fall short. Given that the future will not deviate in meaningful ways from the present, linguistic shortcomings are inescapable; there is no prospect of overcoming them or, more specifically, for relations with others that might open
up new communicative possibilities. Thus, in its most extreme form, loss of trust freeze- frames the linguistic predicament I have described. Words are not just hollow; they are irrevocably hollow.
However, even in less extreme cases, where some sense of an open, meaningful future remains, there is another way in which loss of trust contributes to an experience of linguistic failure: in addition, to exacerbating the experience of meaning-loss, it undermines the
conditions under which utterances are more usually made, registered, and recognized as successful. In How to do Things with Words, J. L. Austin (1962) addresses how utterances can ‘misfire’, fail to have their intended effects. The experience of meaning-loss already
described constitutes a sense of words somehow missing their targets, veering off course even
as they are uttered.
In its most extreme form, this ‘misfiring’ can amount to a seemingly inescapable form of silencing: you can say whatever you like, but you will still be unable to
say what you strive to say.1But also important for current purposes is Austin’s discussion of “illocutionary acts”, where we do something by saying something. Examples include the likes of announcing, pronouncing, questioning, answering, advising, suggesting, ordering,
promising, warning, and informing. Like all acts, these can be successfully or unsuccessfully performed: “unless a certain effect is achieved, the illocutionary act will not have been happily, successfully performed” (Austin, 1962, p.15). Various factors contribute to whether
or not an illocutionary act is successful, and it is not just a matter of what the speaker does.
Success also requires “uptake” on the part of others (Austin, 1962, p.116).11 We have already seen that, where words seek to convey one context but remain, for
the interpreter, anchored in another, there is lack of uptake. However, Austin’s discussion of illocutionary acts also points to a further impediment. The experience of one’s words being taken up by others depends not just on how one experiences one’s own speech, but also on
how one interprets their responses. Consider the effects of a pervasive loss of trust on whether or not one anticipates and experiences understanding on the part of others. Where there is distrust, one does not anticipate empathy, support, concern, or guidance but, rather,
the likes of threat, condemnation, misunderstanding, derision, and indifference. This has a pervasive impact on the experience of communication.
It is not uncommon for philosophers to assume that the practice of interpreting others depends principally on ascribing two classes of mental states to them, beliefs (which are informational) and desires (which are motivational).12 However, when interpreting the
behaviour and, more specifically the linguistic behaviour, of another person while interacting with her, Austin rightly observes that our utterances and hers do not take the form of bare statements of fact or expressions of desire. The task of understanding one another involves
recognizing a vast number of subtly different illocutionary acts, such as appealing, encouraging, dismissing, inquiring, or challenging. Austin (1962, Lecture XII) classifies them
into five broad types:
• verdictives: giving a verdict
• exercitives: exercising powers
• commissives: committing oneself to doing something
• behabitives: a more heterogeneous group that concern social behaviour (e.g.
congratulating, apologizing, cursing, expositings,specifying how utterances fit into arguments (e.g. I argue, I concede, I assume)
Once this complexity is acknowledged, it becomes apparent how loss of trust can impact on the sense of being understood, having one’s utterance taken up by another person, and equally upon the anticipation of being understood or misunderstood. To anticipate and
experience other people as taking up one’s utterances in certain ways requires trust. Where trust is absent, a respondent’s words and deeds will be taken to involve only certain kinds of illocutionary acts. The prospect of sincerely promising, encouraging, advising out of concern, or questioning out of well-meaning curiosity does not arise; the interpersonal world is bereft
of such possibilities. A sense of communicative failure or even futility may in turn be further exacerbated by an interlocutor’s genuine failure to recognize the person’s predicament, to recognize illocutionary acts such as pleading for understanding and respond accordingly. In
general terms, the feeling of being understood will be lacking and gestures that might otherwise be taken to signal understanding and concern will be experienced as indicating otherwise. As Shay (1994, p.181) remarks in his discussion of traumatized Vietnam veterans:
Democratic process entails debate, persuasion, and compromise. These all presuppose the
trustworthiness of words. The moral dimension of severe trauma, the betrayal of ‘what’s right’, obliterates the capacity for trust. The customary meanings of words are exchanged for new ones; fair offers from opponents are scrutinized for traps; every smile conceals a dagger. (Shay, 1994, p.181)
One thus inhabits a damaged world, which, in the absence of trust, no longer incorporates the
prospect of rebuilding. And integral to this is a way of anticipating and experiencing other people that renders many kinds of illocutionary acts seemingly futile, destined from the outset to fail.
An understanding of fist-person linguistic experience in trauma and emotional upheaval (where the latter is taken to be necessary but not sufficient for the former) therefore
has the potential to inform clinical empathy, where ‘empathy’ is construed in a permissive
way as understanding experiences had by a particular individual. In seeking to comprehend the relevant aspect of experience, we come to see that the first step in an empathic process will not be that of developing a positive understanding of what someone else experiences but, rather, recognizing the nature and extent of the potential gulf between one’s own world and (Ratcliffe, 2015; 2018). What is disrupted is something ordinarily taken for granted as shared by interpreter and interpreted, in the guise of a world that ‘we’ inhabit, in the context of which we have our differing experiences and thoughts. Hence, appreciating the phenomenology of language in trauma requires acknowledging how someone might be uprooted from a world that is more usually presupposed as ‘ours’. Failures of empathy will
occur when one interprets the other person’s experiences against the backdrop of this world, when the relevant experiences are actually symptomatic of its disturbance.
Finding the ability to articulate what has happened and to feel understood can be an important step in the process of recovery, one that may require the assistance of others (e.g. Herman, 1992/1997). A greater understanding of ways in which language may be experienced as inadequate to the reality of trauma therefore has potential therapeutic significance.”
Infused with Romanticism? How so? BTW, I think that essay would be almost impossible to understand without first having read Being and Time.
Three of the most prominent philosophers of our time were great admirers of Heidegger’s work and found it indispensable ,all were Jews, and all suffered personally as a result of the Nazis. Hannah Arendt , his lover of many years , was also Jewish. I think she was pretty cool, and she didn’t seem to find him loathsome.
I’m also Jewish, and lost relatives to the camps. And I find Being and Time one of the most remarkable works of philosophy I have ever read. Good thing Dewey wasn’t a Nazi, eh? If it ever comes out that he supported Hitler perhaps you may need to undergo hypnosis to expunge your knowledge of his work.
Well, it's been quite some time since I read it, and I'd rather not read it again, but if you're really curious about what I thought of it you might check this:
https://theblogofciceronianus.blogspot.com/2010/06/on-romanticism-and-technology.html
Quoting Joshs
No doubt, but there's no need to address the psychology and consequences of love affairs between young students and their middle-aged professors.
I speak only for myself, really, and the fact that there are or were Jews who admire Heidegger isn't relevant to my feelings about him. It wouldn't matter to me if he is considered a hero by all good men and women. I understand many think him a great philosopher. I don't, though.
Do you often make ethical judgments about people based on ‘feeling’ and a profound lack of knowledge of their work? You may be less immune to the sort of errors Heidegger made than you think.
Sigh. Very well. Nazi, schmazi let's say. No harm done. Vale.
Quoting Joshs
I'm not sure I appreciate words being put in my mouth (and my options prescribed to me) when I have already spoken, as if they are not taken seriously, or that they are easily understood, or we can skip over questions and clarifications to characterizations, and on your terms (not as a call to a different vantage point entirely). I think it is clear that you want to come to a theory to hang on to something internal--"I think what this approach leaves out is the contribution of the subjective dimension"--and that you see me denying that; which I would call, the possibility of the individual. If that is the case, you have an argument with Wittgenstein's observations, not with OLP's methods, and I would re-read (read?) Philosophical Investigations, perhaps putting yourself in the place of the interlocutor. There are a lot of people that "use" what they believe Wittgenstein is saying, theoretically--"But they do this by adapting Wittgenstein’s contribution..."--but that book is a process (they are not statements, but claims for you to see for yourself our ordinary criteria compared to our philosophical desire).
Quoting Joshs
I deny (Witt denies) the picture (entirely) of the subjective (the "picturing" of it, its being turned into a theory) without denying everything it does for us except the philosophical need for it (in the picture/theory); thus, I don't "favor" another placeholder in the picture, nor are we "denied" a point of view. However, if you think "having" a view (saying it? getting it accepted?) is not hard, subject to suppression, mischaracterization as an easier generality, flat out denied, without power, etc., then perhaps examining the things we say might in these cases reassure you that our criteria are broader and more subtle and open, perhaps enough to give up retreating to grasping onto something within us**.
Quoting Joshs
It is this sense of belonging that OLP is trying to restore in each case. “Things are experienced as significant to us, as mattering to us, in various different ways, something that involves a sense of the possibilities they offer.” (as you quote Ratcliffe) And this is an exact description of our concepts; the criteria being the "things": what matters, is significant, important, their possibilities, etc., for us in our lives.
Skepticism is created by this lose of our sense of the world, it being dead to us, unreachable, unresponsive to us; the Other being unknowable--us losing sight of what matters, is significant, important, the hope of the world's possibilities. This loss of the world is not just a philosophical feeling: "Even as [words] are uttered, there is a sense or feeling of their inadequacy." (One way to look at this is our lose of control, and our vulnerability, once we express something; that our words are out there, for us to be read by, held to.) However, the next sentence (as you quote) shows the radical, world-entire, world-ending doubt where philosophy takes it to: "With this, there is also a more pervasive experience of lack or absence. Something that once seemed integral to the world, like bedrock, is experienced as missing, perhaps altogether [enduringly] lost." This ends our trust in our ordinary criteria of our concepts, and philosophy's recourse is to have its own criteria and standards, and take away the context of criteria.
I would say here that we can not cement us and the world together forever, or, as it were, to solve skepticism--to never loose faith again--but OLP shows us the ways of our world, making it again seem possible to operate with that threat, let's say, in the face of the possibility of the world's (or our) loss of interest in us, of the chance of our loss of our ability to participate.
Quoting Joshs
Here is the decisive step to avoid the ordinary criteria of language--language's impossibility to ever reach the world (or our experience)--right next to the call OLP is making: to look for the ways how one can rehabilitate and transform our words having been betrayed and perverted.
Quoting Joshs
So this "struggle for words" is a moment--not, importantly, systemic, an ever-present "gulf". This struggle may be a political moment, a moral moment, an existential moment. Cavell will say it is (also) a philosophical moment. Witt will talk of taking down the house of cards that is representationalism, and sorting amongst the rumble for the ordinary concepts to build again. We do most times take concepts and actions and expressions as if they are granted to us without our responsibility to them, as if the life they embody is a given, and we are not necessary (answerable) to sometimes make them intelligible in new contexts, or re-intelligble in a destroyed, perverted time. As you say, to make sure words do not fall "flat" or "short"--that see that we make them fall.
**One way we work to voice the personal is through psychology: "The trauma is experienced as something that happened to ‘me’ - something to be endured alone, which is not to be understood by or shared with others." Therapy "finds" the words to express this pain; as if they are there but we have a desire to suppress them, not be expressed by them--enough to be adversarial to others, as if when we say "our" pain that somehow takes it away from being "mine" (other than the fact of it being in my body, not yours), but isn't this also part of therapy? to see, as a comfort, that they are not alone, the only one to have felt this pain.
I was just telling @Athena about Heidegger's view of technology the other day. Although that is not the topic under discussion here.
You continue in your relentless efforts to misrepresent philosophy, in an attempt to validate your claim that there could be such a thing as OLP.
First, I think you need to distinguish between the intention involved with describing what philosophers are doing, and the intention involved with doing philosophy. If you do not allow for this distinction, then "doing philosophy" is an act of describing what philosophers are doing, which is describing what other philosophers are doing, onward ad infinitum, without ever taking into account what a true philosopher is actually doing.
So let's start with the assumption that a philosopher is seeking to understand, attempting to dispel misunderstanding. Misunderstanding, in general, can be characterized as a failure of communication. When there is a failure of communication, what we do is question the speaker, request a clarification on particular matters which are unclear. This is why philosophy is often described as an inquiry, it is an act of questioning. So here we have the foundation for a fundamental distinction between describing philosophy, and doing philosophy. When we describe, we assume to know what is going on, as a fundamental attitude of certainty, allowing one to put words toward making a description. When we do philosophy, we assume not to know, we are seeking knowledge, therefore we request, or ask for descriptions from those who appear more certain, we inquire, in order to dispel one's own misunderstanding.
On that premise, the philosopher does not proceed with any "criteria". Criteria are principles, or rules, for the application of words in description. The philosopher is proceeding from the premise of misunderstanding, to inquire, request a clarification, in order to bring oneself out of misunderstanding into understanding. Therefore no criteria is assumed. The premise is that criteria has failed, the description given, which may or may not have been based in criteria, is insufficient for understanding, so the philosopher is seeking a better description. Criteria is not the answer, to misunderstanding, familiarity is the answer.
At this point, you ought to see how you are making a clean break from Wittgensteinian principles, by seeking criteria for concepts, rather than seeking family resemblances. True understanding is not produced from criteria and concepts, it is produced from the use of words which have a familiarity. So-called "ordinary language' is not based in criteria and concepts. The use of criteria to create concepts, which Wittgenstein called boundaries, is carried out for a particular purpose. That purpose is not the goal of understanding, as I explained above, the goal of understanding involves questioning to develop familiarity. At the base of understanding, in so-called "ordinary language use" is familiarity, not criteria.
Quoting Antony Nickles
Quoting Antony Nickles
Quoting Antony Nickles
Quoting Antony Nickles
In all these quotes, you are speaking of "ordinary criteria". There is no such thing. Criteria only exists in specialized language, logical languages, which are designed for specific purposes. Criteria is designed for a specific purpose, therefore it is not part of "ordinary language". Criteria is not a part of what we call "ordinary". In "ordinary language", understanding occurs through familiarity with the words, not through criteria or concepts.
The reason why OLP becomes self-contradictory, or hypocritical, is that the activity of philosophy, as a quest to dispel misunderstanding in favour of understanding, is itself a specialized activity with a particular goal. Therefore criteria and concepts will of necessity be employed toward that end, and the OL part (relying solely on familiarity) is necessarily rejected as supporting misunderstanding, and not conducive to understanding. If you remove the specific goal (understanding) from philosophy, then it becomes consistent with OL, but that's not philosophy. So OLP is oxymoronic.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
So this was also fundamentally my position. As soon as you descend (ascend?) to meta-analysis you are no longer doing anything that deserves to be characterized as "Ordinary Language." Ordinary language philosophy is more naturally "self-exemplifiying." Viz my earlier comments:
The business of language is to express or explain; if language cannot explain itself, nothing else can explain it. (R.G. Collingwood)
You either use language in its most fundamentally expressive way, or you don't. OLP may be a good way of identifying what is not ordinary language, but the best way of discovering what is is through the use of...ordinary language. As I mentioned elsewhere, there is the typical, and there is the exemplary. And both are in a sense ordinary. But they are also different.
It only makes sense that an inquiry into the nature of ordinary language usage should be an application of the principles of ordinary language. In any dialogue, there is always a "meaning differential" whose resolution is "conversational." The inquiry into meaning is conducted casually and the ongoing conversation is itself the mutual consensus as to ordinary usage.
Yes, but Sacred Cows are allowed to wander where they will.
Point well taken. What I am explaining is a way of doing philosophy in order to understand our world, ourselves, and philosophy's issues. Philosophy is, however, often about revolutionizing, or re-envisioning, philosophy itself. Where do we get Nietszche from if not in response to Kant? and Kant from Hume, etc. And so OLP must first clear up the grounds. So when I say "philosophy" does this or that, I am referring to a specific "type of philosophy".
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
And I am trying to get at this moment with @Joshs, but this is where two paths are taken. Some philosophers are seeking a better description, but in looking for "better", they get trapped into only accepting a particular answer, say, which will solve the failure of language, words, criteria. Some refuse to acknowledge any statement that could not be answered as true or false. Kant had his own standards for morality and rationality. Plato ended Socrates' questioning by setting a bar for what would meet the forms on knowledge. The refusal, the standard, the bar, are what I mean by criteria set by these philosophers (certainty, universality, pre-determined, infallible, or only fallible in predictable ways, etc.). Now OLP, instead of setting those standards (for the description of our "concepts"--knowledge, intention, ad infinitum), looks for the standards (criteria) to judge what it is to be those concepts and what is important to us about them, by investigating when we say those things, "When we say...", i.e, When I say "I know you are in pain" one example is that I acknowledge, accept that you are in pain. That claim that pain (the person who it is in) is something that is accepted, or denied, is a standard or measure of our description of pain (the "concept" of pain). Acceptance or denial is one way it works, a criteria for that type of working, what is important to us about it--as truth and falsity is one way to measure (one criteria of) what a statement is.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
OLP is both claiming to know, and not to know. The first premise is that we do not normally see the criteria for our concepts. Second is that no one knows any better than anyone else (Emerson calls this Genius) about the type of claims OLP is making (about the criteria of what we mean when we say something). But also, that the OLP philosopher is making a claim for everyone, that is its claim to a type of knowledge/understanding, but that claim is able to be clarified or changed based on developing better or more representative samples or contexts. It starts from simply seeing and describing.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Family resemblances are part of a picture in contrast to the picture of representationalism. I do not understand how this is either/or with Witt's discussion of criteria?
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
I will grant you that "criteria" for Witt is a term, not all the applications are used--I would say (his term) Grammar is interchangeable--and I admit I have not done a good-enough job differentiating it from all the other senses of "criteria" (I will edit this in at the bottom when I can). But criteria do not "create" (from the PI): having a toothache, sitting in a chair, playing a game of chess, following a rule, believing, seeing, thinking, hoping, etc., but the idea of them as boundaries is well taken, because criteria tell us what type of thing those are. PI # 373. We are investigating what we say when about a concept in order to understand what counts as an instance of it, how it works, what matters to us about it, how we judge under it, etc., which gives us a way of understanding them, ourselves, and philosophy's issues.
Quoting Pantagruel
OLP is literally letting language--what we say--explain itself. Taking the typical as exemplary; looking at what we typically mean with what we say as exemplary of the structure of our concepts. I do not agree that OLP does not have the same goals as philosophy in general, but, yes, I am asking that you rethink the "specialized activity with a particular goal" that is the method of a tradition of some analytic philosophy.
Quoting Ciceronianus the White
Touche'. Fresh meat?
Your analysis of Ratcliffe’s treatment of some heady psychological topics ( ptsd, severe depression) implies an alternative ‘psychotherapy’. I wonder if you are aware
of any writers who have elaborated such a Wittgensteinian alternative to psychoanalytic, cognitive and other approaches. I mentioned Ken Gergen but you seemed a bit hostile toward him.
I read the l article from 1969 you linked to , and re-read PI.
Here are my notes:
There are certain fundamental, irreducible concepts that are implied in all experiences of sense for Witt, Austin,Cavell:
me and other,interaction , better and worse, (felicitous and infelicitous, failure and success, which implies the binary hedonic of affect) , sense, criterion,context, convention, behavior, circumstance, familiar-unfamiliar(another affective
term) , pre-suppose, background-history memory past, present, use, language, game.
Let’s start with me and other. Before being able to say anything else about what ‘me’ or ‘other’ means in any specific context of use, this binary is pre-supposed. As Witt says, a word ‘looks at me’, so there is something that does the looking and something being looked at, even if the specific sense or content of that something is always instantiated in a different game.
There would be no me and no other apart from this relation.
Also irreducible are context, circumstance, game, language, criterion. these point to the two poles of the relation. On the one hand there is the background, the past , the history that alway comes into play to form a context. That is why a context is familiar to me , has a normative dimension. But this past, this history of mine, is not invoked as memory or recollection as if it were being retrieved from storage. My history , my past , works freshly as past as part of the new context of use. In this sense my past is always in front of me. The other pole is that aspect of the context that provides the new criterion, and assures that my context never repeats itself, never repeats the sense of a word. Context is novel and familiar (background history ) at the same time.
The other irreducible feature of a language game is affect. Word contexts can be more or less familiar, more or less felicitous , more or less successfully understood. This is the ethical dimension of language. As you put it “Quoting Antony Nickles
So what does this tell us about scientific approaches that are currently in use? It tells us that any approach that talks in terms of objects in a box ( let’s say that box is a universe, consciousness, mind or body ) is problematic. And it tell us that any treatment of a history as an already composed progression ( cosmological, biological, child developmental, cultural) is problematic.
Now, most of our sciences do think in terms of pictures. And yet they are undeniably useful to us. our planes stay up in the air, etc. Would they be even more useful to us , or useful in a richer way , if they understood
what Witt was getting at? Could there be such a thing as a post-Wittgensteinian physics or politics or psychology( I think there must be)!and what would that look like? As I’ve mentioned , there are today forms of political and psychological thinking, even biological, that claim to have assimilated Witt’s lessons. And there are the approaches to history that consider it not as an accomplished fact but as genealogy
(Nietzsche, Foucault, Lyotard).
(Here’s a feminist political theorist who integrates Austin,Cavell and Witt in her argument. )
https://web.law.columbia.edu/sites/default/files/microsites/academic-fellows/images/zerilli_nlh_published.pdf
You find Ratcliffe’s account problematic. You seem to find problematic accounts of resistance to communicative understanding due to personally sedimented histories.
But Witt seems to acknowledge the role of background in causing difficulties in understanding.
Witt says “ There are, for example, styles of painting which do not convey anything to me in this immediate way, but do to other people. I think custom and upbringing have a hand in this.”
Custom and upbringing are not objects in a box, we only know them in contexts of use. Nevertheless , there are consonances an dissonances, more and less felicitous relationalities, that can be spoken of usefully as ongoing patterns rather than as simply this momentary difficulty.
What would words like custom and upbringing do for Wittt if we needn’t say more than ‘this moment is this context of use, and now this new moment is a fresh context of use’?
Would this not prevent us from talking about different normative communities and flatten everything down to an utterly undifferentiated sense of contextual change?
Of course, it would also prevent us from talking about problematic uses of language since all contextual uses would simply be equally different.
So if the central ethical question concerns how to achieve optimal communication to avoid suffering, that implies another question: how effective and how intimate can communication be?
Does it indeed depend on two or more persons? Can I have a context of language use with my dog? If so, can I have one with my cat when we play with a string and he anticipates my movements , and I reciprocally anticipate his? Is that a language game? If so, what about my interaction with my gerbil? In other words, if I can be involved in language games with non-human mammals, where do we draw the line between an animal that I can have a language game with and one I can’t’? What would it even mean to draw a line like that? On the basis of what criteria? If you restrict language games to humans, what about pre-verbal infants? We now know that very young infants recognize our facial expressions.
If word use is a mater of a word looking at me, that is, confronting me with an outside that lets me know there is no inside to ‘me’ , why does this outside , this criterion of contextual sense , not extend to rocks and colors and all kinds of sensings that , like a person’s words and gestures, come at me, interrogate me , create new criteria? If con-text is with-person, why is not a non-person also a con-text?
Is there no language game, no felicity or non-felicity , in the changing pragmatic contexts of driving a car, walking to the store? Witt says no, because only in saying is there a context of sense. But then intimacy, felicity, understanding and happiness are at mercy of what happens when I talk with others, and can have no life outside of that talking. It wouldn’t make sense to suggest an understanding that was not a talking, an experiencing of joy that was not a talking
Thank you for taking the time to read the Cavell (on Wittgenstein). I have read the article on Austin, Ryle, etc. and I do have some thoughts I will share later. I do wonder what you thought of the sense Cavell brings to Witt. I can't shake the impression that you looked through the essay to find justification (shared words) for your own theories, rather than addressing the main contentions (which is what we all do ultimately in beginning a reading). I can at this point, thus only address where you seem to go off track.
Quoting Joshs
Words do not have contexts, expressions do (actions do). I'm not sure you have OLP's sense that context is not a fixed or not-fixed thing; maybe it helps to think of it as the (undetermined) realm in which misunderstanding gets worked out. What needs to be brought in about the context (of its limitless possibilities) is based on what needs to be straightened out: in which sense of a concept (of "I know") something is said: which circumstances are we in that it does what, compared to what was happening when it was expressed, to the context of our expectations, whether certain consequences should flow, i.e., understanding along what other criteria for how that concept works. Also, felicitous (apt/not apt) is the truth value of an action or expression to its criteria (was the apology done correctly, aptly), not a judgment of context. However, in working out if something was apt it may be necessary to say that in the context of what was happening, it was not apt to apologize (based on the criteria that, say, timing is part of a correct apology).
Quoting Joshs
Well if you mean philosophy of science, Thomas Kuhn was, I believe, trying t change the same picture with his discussion of paradigms (not my forte). But I am with Ryle and Witt that philosophy's concerns are not about facts (not that they fly in the face of them)--philosophy does not look to facts. I also believe that positivism's mistakes have led to a sense that science can address the concerns of philosophy (though it has reduced the purview of philosophy over time to such things as morality, meaning, aesthetics, what is the best way to live, etc.
Quoting Joshs
I do not object to the fact of this, only to the implication of it; where the skeptic is compelled to go with it. Yes, people have different customs and upbringing, but we have ordinary ways by which these differences are addressed. That is to say, the fact of misunderstanding is not cause for throwing out our regular criteria and trying to find some other lesson in it: a need for certainty, a desire to make each individual the holder of all the keys to meaning what they say and whether it is understood; that there is no context, or shared history, or to each his own.
Quoting Joshs
Our customs are literally the criteria we see when we look at the use of what we say when (in whatever context to draw out the criteria). They are not in a box (though they may be unexamined), and we do not "only know them" in looking at their use in context, that is exactly what OLP is doing.
Quoting Joshs
Yes! Other than changing "relationalities" to "acts or expressions" (concepts), and not "rather than" but, say, "in order to" work out "this momentary difficult in understanding". Say "there are... more and less felicitous actions and expressions that can be spoken of usefully as ongoing patterns to resolve this momentary difficulty of understanding [say, philosophy being stuck when talking about an issue]."
Now, in regular life, we may not discuss a concept's criteria (the "ongoing patterns"), which is where philosophy comes in, but, nevertheless, a conversation may come to that: "You call that an apology! You don't even think you did anything wrong!" (Claiming that, when we say "I apologize", one criteria is that it be a recognition of a wrong done to you.)
Quoting Joshs
I did not mean to imply that. I think I was merely saying that the fact of psychotherapy is the possibility of actually getting at what we might (want to) think of as unspeakable, beyond words, and to passingly show some reasons why we might want to be unknowable (trauma, repression, the consolation of pity).
I don't see this at all. If Nietzsche's philosophy comes from Kant, and Kant's comes from Hume, then there is a continuum here, not a revolutionizing or re-envisioning, despite the fact that each philosopher claims one's own philosophy to be unique.
Quoting Antony Nickles
The problem though, is that as Wittgenstein pointed out, in what you're calling ordinary language, there is no such standards or criteria. There need be no boundaries for me to understand what "game" means. So meaning in its fundamental state (that of ordinary language) exists through the understanding of family resemblances, not through understanding standards and criteria. Therefore if concepts exist through standards and criteria, ordinary language does not rely on concepts. If you want to investigate the standards (criteria) involved when we say "..." in ordinary language, you are imposing a philosophical perspective somewhere where it does not belong. In other words you proceed from a false premise, that there are criteria and standards invlolved when someone says "..." in ordinary language.
Now, philosophy, by its very nature of what it is, as the description of what philosophers do, is to impose such standards and criteria, as philosophy relies on concepts. It is a specific type of activity with a specific goal, so standards and criteria are imposed toward that goal. Therefore there is a fundamental difference, an incompatibility between what philosophers do with language, and what ordinary people do with language, in the ordinary sense. You might insist that there is a "type of philosophy" which proceeds in this way, the way of ordinary language, but all that you would be doing with such an insistence would be practising the other type of philosophy (what I'd call ordinary philosophy), by insisting on such a standard or criteria. That's why it becomes hypocritical. By insisting that there is a special type of philosophy, distinguishable from other types of philosophy, as OLP, you are just practising ordinary philosophy, because every philosopher asserts that theirs is a special philosophy.
Quoting Antony Nickles
The point is, that we do not judge the meaning of a word, in ordinary language use, through reference to criteria, or whether the thing referred to counts as an instance of some concept. Either we understand what the person is saying, or we misunderstand. If you are investigating to understand what counts as an instance of a particular concept, then you are doing philosophy, and this is not what we do in ordinary language use. You cannot make the two compatible, they are two completely different ways of using language. Ordinary language use has the goal of efficiently getting one through the current situation, philosophy has the goal of a higher understanding.
Quoting Antony Nickles
What you don't seem to grasp, is that ordinary language usage is not exemplary of the structure of our concepts. In ordinary language use, we learn how language is used from observation and practise. This does not involve any standards or criteria. And, if we seek the source of meaning in this way of using words, we are led into the maze of family resemblances, not standards or criteria. However, there is a special type of language use, philosophy, which employs standards and criteria. This is exemplary of the structure of our concepts. So, just like mathematics is a special way of using language, which works with concepts, so is philosophy a special way of using language to work with concepts. But we cannot say this about ordinary language, because it doesn't necessarily use concepts.
Now, the challenge might be to use only ordinary language in an attempt to describe what mathematicians and philosophers are doing with language, so that we might readily understand what mathematics and philosophy are. But this would not actually be a case of doing philosophy. It would be a case of describing what philosophy is.
Quoting Antony Nickles
If you change the goal, then you do not have the same activity. Therefore you ought not call that activity by the same name. And, since you are suggesting a move from a more specific goal to a more general goal, we cannot call the more general a type of the more specific. You are moving in the wrong direction. We might be able to say that philosophy, as a "specialized activity with a particular goal", is a type of ordinary language use, but we cannot turn this around to make ordinary language a type of philosophy.
I think family resemblances are more about a contrast to essentialism rather than representationalism.
Having said that, I am enjoying the ambitious discussion and the links to articles you have been providing. :up:
Quoting Luke
Well that is good to point out. Witt does say Essence is expressed by grammar, which is to say, what you want from the idea of an “essence” of a thing, you get from examining the ordinary criteria for it.
And by representationalism I thought was the thing Witt first addressed, which is the belief that all language operates like a word corresponds to an object. In any event, consider that essentialism, representationalism, mental processes, metaphysics, positivism, are all different reactions to the same fear; different attempts to do the same thing; all erasing our ordinary criteria in place of a picture made to fit manufactured standards.
What fear is that?
Quoting Luke
Well Cavell tags it to scepticism, or the tipping point where all the failures of communication and moral confusion lead to the fear that we are never able to tell or say or judge and so we abandon our ordinary ways of understanding about telling, saying or judging and create one picture for all action and speech based on certainty, universality, prediction, etc. Along with the fear of never being heard, Cavell diagnoses that we remove our criteria in order to remove us (our fallibility) from the equation, our responsibility to what we say and our answerability to the Other.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Well I guess I haven't done a good enough job with the examples I've tried to give above (re knowledge, apologies). I know that forms of life and family resemblances hold a big place in the investigations, and what I am saying does not detract or take the place of his point in bringing those up. But if you check the index there is 3/4 of a column of references to criteria of how to tell one thing from another or how a thing works: for raising your arm #625; learning a shape p. 158; of meaning #190, #692; of a mistake #51, etc. There is also the central role of the term Grammar for the concept of how and what ordinary criteria tell us about our concepts.
None of these examples is an instance of "ordinary language". Each involves a case of judgement as to whether or not one has correctly understood, and is therefore a specialized epistemological use of language. Criteria for judgement as to whether or not one is correct, knows such and such, or understands such and such, is epistemology, and therefore specialized language, not examples of "ordinary language". So the examples really do not justify your claim of "ordinary criteria".
Do you see the difference I am pointing to? In ordinary language use we communicate with each other and carry on with our activities respectfully, without hesitation, questioning, or otherwise doubting what the other has said. Understanding is assumed, taken for granted, and we carry on without issue. However, if misunderstanding occurs, it creates a problem, and the problem might be greatly magnified because understanding was assumed, and the person carried on under the assumption of having understood, and therefore proceed into doing the wrong thing which might constitute a significant difference.
If we want to prevent such mistaken activity, which could have very serious consequences in some circumstances, we look for a way to ensure that the person understands. Now, "criteria" comes into play, as providing the means for making a judgement as to whether or not a person adequately understands. However, we are now into a specialized, philosophized, language game, better known as epistemology, we are no longer in the realm of ordinary language. We impose criteria to escape the pitfalls of ordinary language.
The point is to emphasize the two distinct attitudes which underlie these two distinct types of language game. The person engaged in the "ordinary" language game proceeds in activities with a certitude, assuming to have understood what others have said, and that the others understand what oneself has said. There is no doubt here. In the epistemological language game, doubt is a fundamental feature because a higher level of certainty is requested. Therefore we need to produce criteria to ensure that we understand each other.
If we had to employ such criteria in ordinary language, it would become extremely inefficient. We'd be doubting everything each other said, using this type of criteria to confirm that we understood each other, all the time, and this would greatly restrict our activities. So, there is a break, a gap, between ordinary language use, which proceeds with an attitude of certainty, and philosophical language use which proceeds with an attitude of skepticism. If you think that there is such a thing as OLP, then you need to demonstrate how this gap might be closed, to demonstrate consistency between the confidence displayed in the ordinary language game, and the lack of confidence displayed in philosophical language game.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
One, I think we got off on the wrong foot; I tried to make clear above that OLP does not mean "ordinary" as in everyday language, or just language generally, or that people actually discuss these criteria (though they may have to) in making judgements, though OLP is drawing out the ways in which we are making judgements about our concepts such as "whether or not one has correctly understood." I can only say, quickly, that it is better understood as opposed to metaphysical criteria, certainty, universality, predetermined, etc. And, second, yes, this is epistemology. It is a method to discover the unexamined ways in which our concepts work, their grammar. (And also an ethics of epistemology, a comment that the way in which we seek knowledge, and the type of knowledge we seek (the criteria for it), reflects on us.)
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
And I agree we are "ordinarily" (in one of its regular senses) assuming and taking for granted our understanding, and in a misunderstanding we do not usually examine or discuss our criteria (we unconcsiously share the concerns and judgments and distinctions embodied in them (that is to say, we also share our lives, our senses of humor, our expectations, etc, all our forms of life, and desires and distinctions of those are in the criteria of our concepts)--though all of this can break down, they do in traceable ways.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Now this is where I am trying to point out the philosophy that differs from OLP. Instead of "imposing" criteria to "escape" the pitfalls, OLP is trying to show all the ways we have to carry on in the face of these pitfalls, and that we can not escape and shouldn't impose, but look and work within (or extending beyond). There is no philosophical solution for this failure (nor the implied radical skepticism)--it is our human condition. I tried to work through this with @Joshs above in relation to when words fail us.
Again, this is not philosophy using or justifying "ordinary" language or our games, in the sense of regular, unquestioned, etc., but to say that these games (Witt uses concepts to generalize here) have criteria for how they work, their grammar; these are our ordinary criteria for these concepts. Looking at our ordinary criteria gives us an idea of why philosophers react to solve "the gap" that skepticism takes as absolute and world-ending, by imposing particular (universal) criteria to ensure understanding. But OLP also sees that we are separate and that we do sometimes fail, but that who we are is responsible for our expressions and for our answerability to the Other, our misunderstandings along the regular ways we already have.
So yes, there is a difference between regular unexamined discussion (and the regular ways we repair those) and when philosophy steps in (when the "gap" appears to "open", Cavell says when we are at a loss of what to do). OLP looks at our ordinary criteria to see what they lend to the discussion of philosophical issues; to say, for example, that a question of intention only comes up when something unexpected happens (as I discuss above).
I hope this helps differentiate the sense of ordinary communcation and ordinary (unquestioned) language, from the philosophy that OLP is doing (just don't think about it being called "Ordinary Language" Philosophy) in the tradition of analytic epistemology but with a different version of criteria and different senses of knowledge. and its implications (which I address in my post on Witt's lion quote).
There are two ways that you’re going to perceive me as going off track. The first is the result of the fact that I have read only a little of Austin and Cavell( although I am making up for that now. I have read Wittgenstein closely in the past but it has been quite a number of years since I looked at his work).
So there will be misunderstandings on my part concerning how their terms are to be treated.
The other way you’re going to misunderstand me is the result of the fact that my interests lie in the areas I mentioned to you ( deconstruction, Heidegger, hermeneutics, constructivism, social
constructionism, phenomenology , autopoietic self-organizing systems theory, Rorty and pragmatism, enactive embodied cognition, Deleuziain bio-politics) and so my use of terms is influenced by that eclectic background rather than Cavell, Austin and Witt.
You don’t yet have any way of knowing this , but I may very well already be understanding the most important features of your reading of Witt, C and A, but am conveying my understanding using a vocabulary that I sense is unfamiliar to you. Would I be correct in assuming you have read little of Husserl, Scheler, Henry, Jonas, Merleau-Ponty, Zahavi, Gallagher , Ratcliffe, Varela, Fuchs, Gergen, Shotter or Gadamer?This may put you at a disadvantage both in conveying the ideas you want to
present and , more importantly , recognizing when other authors, using other vocabularies, are being ‘problematic’, or ‘skeptical’.
As you know it has been at least 70 years since Austin and Witt introduced their work, and in that time, a healthy, vibrant and complex scholarly dialogue has been unfolding in a diverse variety of disciplines , embracing and utilizing Austin, Witt and C , expanding their thinking in many directions.
But when I attempt to introduce this scholarship
to you, I sense that , in contrast with most of the generous and open-mindednacademic engagements between your preferred authors and other strains of philosophy that I see in the literature , you are inclined to wall off Witt, C and A from what you might be almost reflexively inclined to interpret as ‘problematic’.
That means that I may be better off abandoning my attempts to widen the discussion to include
other disciplines , and try instead to fine-tune my use of terms so that they are recognizable to you , as you train me in how you understand them.
Now let me ask about your comment that words do not have contexts, expressions and acts do. If we change any word in an expression , doesn’t it change the
sense of the expression? Is there such a thing as two identical expressions with non-identical
words composing them? What is an act and what exactly is the difference between an act and a word?
Quoting Antony Nickles
My point was that 1) no clear distinction can be made between what philosophy supposedly does and what science does
2) All empirical treatments of ‘facts’ are embedded within and are oriented by an overarching philosophical worldview , whether the researches in that field are aware is it or not, and normally they are not. (Descartes and Newton, Darwin and Hegel, Einstein and Kant, Freud and Nietzsche ). The philosophers of science make explicit thee philosophical underpinnings, but they are what drive and give meaning to any empirical field.
The social sciences are moving. more and more in the direction of abandoning the very notion of account-independent facts.
Quoting Antony Nickles
That was a typo on my part. I meant that custom and upbringing are NOT objects in a box. BTW, why do we not only know them in looking at their use in context? Are
you saying that we know them outside of local, contingent contexts, that they transcend contexts? No, you’re not saying that , are you? Are you trying to say that shared custom, upbringing , background assure that when move over from context to context a thread of normative continuity allows us to a avoid ‘starting from scratch’ with every new context?
I’ll close this with this from Brandom:
I’m guessing you disagree with it.
Rorty sees the distinction between public and private discourse as a special case of the distinction between thought and talk that takes place within a stable,
shared vocabulary, on the one hand, and thought and talk that transcends such a vocabulary by creating a new, individualized, idiosyncratic vocabulary, on the
other. Community-constitutive acts of forming ‘we’ intentions, and the giving and asking for reasons that such acts are embedded in, are made possible by the shared norms and commitments implicit in our use of a public vocabulary.
Poets and revolutionary scientists break out of their inherited vocabularies to create new ones, as yet undreamed of by their fellows. The creation of novel
vocabularies is an activity we can all partake in to one degree or another, but we should recognize the incommensurability of the vocabulary in which we
publicly enact our concern for the development of the ‘we’ and that in which we privately enact our concern for the ‘I’.
Rorty says:
There is no way to bring self-creation together with justice at the level of theory. The vocabulary of self-creation is necessarily private, unshared, unsuited to argument. The vocabulary of justice is necessarily public and shared, a medium for argumentative exchange.
Quoting Joshs
I studied Husserl and Gadamer, as well as by Paul Ricoeur, in studying literary theory along with philosophy. I liked the idea of the "event" that Ricoeur discusses, as it brings notice to historicity, which Nietzsche/Hegel wanted to give to morals, and the understanding that an expression is a person saying something at a moment in the face of exigency and context, claiming (at times) their existence, even their non-conformity--but with a future of consequences, responsibility, answerability.
Quoting Joshs
Well, Cavell just died, but I find that most people are embracing what they see as OLP's (Witt's and Austin's) "theories" or "explanations" and "utilizing" those for their own projects, i.e., not seeing it as a method, but a solution, say, that Witt's "forms of life" suffice for the certainty that philosophy craves. I would say the OLP tradition is carried on, or critiqued constructively, more with Cora Diamond, Steven Mulhall, Crary, Strong, Hammer, Goodman, though my experience with all of those is limited.
Quoting Joshs
Maybe, it is case by case for OLP (we are not looking for a general theory). First, I believe you are using "sense" here as in "meaning", as if they were attached to the expression. Witt is trying to show that words (concepts more specifically) do not have an associated "meaning", in the sense of thought: then meaning: then word, or word-object/meaning. Words (concepts) are meaningful to us, which is reflected in their ordinary criteria, as Austin says above (quoted by @Banno): they have been sculpted over our entire existence along the lines of our cares, differences, etc.
Quoting Joshs
So, in light of the above, let's just say: if we change any word in an expression, does it not change a concept from one to another of its senses? (see the various "senses" of knowledge above). Well there are many ways to word a threat (as an example of a concept), and those may or may not affect the various criteria which would change what sense of a threat this is (empty, backed by authority or violence, for compliance to do something, or not to do something, etc.). In addition, what parts of the context come into play for the sense of threat too, say, given to a child, inappropriately to a superior, when the person has no means to comply, etc. All of these examples and ordinary criteria help us to understand that "an expression" has a lot of moving parts in each case, one of which also is one of the most important parts of seeing something said as "an expression" is that it is an event, as I discussed above, and that it is I who is expressing it (I have to defend it, be judged by its being made, follow through with it, etc.)
So, whether we can word two identical expressions with different words may be less of a matter than: it is possible (particularly with a less controversial concept) that the sense of the concept could be "identical" (a particular type of threat) if nothing matters about the context to differentiate the expressions from each other, other than we are still left with the fact that my expression is mine and your expression is yours; that is only to say, if I need to be, I am the one responsible for it, answerable for it--which is no small thing but which nevertheless may not come up. Even with all that, we may be able to say there can be, for all intents and purposes, the "same expression", even in the sense that it might not matter that I said it--but this seems to take all the gas out of it. Sometimes none of this matters, sometimes it does.
Quoting Joshs
Well I meant actions and expressions. But an expression is an "act" (or maybe only sometimes--sometimes we just pop off; it begs the interesting distinction though between an action and a movement--perhaps whether it is in or outside a concept), and sometimes expressions are "actions"; they "do" something--Austin will have a lot to say on this. The best intro to Austin would be to read A.J. Ayer and then read Austin's Sense and Sensibilia (though @Banno may have a better idea).
Quoting Joshs
To say someone "knows" how to use English (its concepts) is to say their judgments, cares, distinctions, (criteria) coincide with each other (though in that is the possibility of much variety, and dissension). This is no small thing, but it is also not the big thing (some idea of "normativity") which philosophy would like it to be--there is no assurance. Now the lack of assurance is one reason philosophy would throw it all out and start entirely from scratch. As well, OLP accounts for the extension of concepts into different contexts than the regular ones which uncontroversially allow it to work along the lines it usually does, however, this extension is a function of, within, the concept itself, and more specifically, the life of our criteria.
I'm not sure why I am reticent to allow it to go unmentioned that maybe we would say expression to expression rather than "context to context"; maybe it is a point you'd like to hold on to, but I would only say, the possibilities lie in the concept and its expression, and the context is brought up (or not) to clarify (afterwards) or in deliberation (ahead of time), not that the concept is changed by the context--we could have the same sense of a concept expressed (same type of threat) and the contexts would only need to align in the ways necessary to allow for the criteria to work as they do in the same way--so that "every context" is different is not as meaningful as: they have differences, but they may or may not matter: to the expression (you deciding to say it, say, at an inappropriate time), or may only matter in the aftermath of you saying something we have to make sense of, or which changes the consequences of the expression (what happens after a threat to your brother may be different than after a threat in an alleyway).
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
One thing I realized I need to clear up. The term "language-game" is to say the games we play with a "concept"--what criteria/grammar describe.
One place I imagine you referring to is #68. He is discussing rigid limits and rules
(original italics in underline)
Now it is not the point here, but he is not saying that the concept of "game" has no ordinary criteria. One is that it is, as he says, "not closed by a frontier" (he later says it is the kind of concept that has blurred edges (#71)--that is another one of the ways it works, its grammar). He directly says, "And this is how we use the word 'game'." Another criteria, or grammar, for games is that its boundaries and rules are drawn--not set ahead of time. Another is that "What still counts as a game and what no longer does?" is answered by us (that is part of the way the concept of a "game" works). "That's not a game! You're just playing with a tennis racket!" but then I could counter that we are balancing it (a skill) and seeing how long we can (a measure of winning)--are these not some of the criteria of (set for) a game? and do they not allow for a discussion of what counts (criteria) and what matters? Witt is calling out the fear that if rules and boundaries can sometimes be drawn by us, we can't count on anything,which leads to the fixation to have rules take our place.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Again, we can remove "in ordinary language" because we are not opposing that to any other language. I would point out again, also, that "there are criteria and standards involved when someone says '...' " implies that everyday people think about or discuss the criteria for what we say when. Which is not usually the case; though they might. The premise with OLP is that we regularly do not know what the criteria for a concept are (they work behind the scenes as it were), but regular people can come up with them (imagine Socrates questioning the regular people he comes across to provide criteria of the Good). Someone also might discuss them, as I have mentioned above about accusing someone of a half-hearted apology. However, this is a philosophical perspective--to reflect on what we mean (thus on our selves) seems pretty standard philosophical fair. Maybe it helps to say that OLP simply claims that no one necessarily has a better vantage point on our criteria--I can speak for everyone. To say it is "imposed" is perhaps to say we don't need it, language works fine. Which is true, until it is not, which is where traditional philosophy goes off the cliff anyway.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
And OLP is trying to revolutionize the method of philosophy. It is not abandoning philosophy's concerns and issues, if this is what you mean by "goal". But Witt shows that the real desire (what I poorly worded as its "goal") of traditional philosophy (the kind he is pushing against) is to solve the problem of skepticism (close the gap it sees between us and the world and the Other) by imposing its own criteria and standards.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Right, not investigating "what we do in ordinary language use", but "investigating to understand what counts as an instance of a particular concept", which is to say, as you do, OLP is doing philosophy. Its method is to investigate an instance (example) of a concept by looking at: when we say "I know___" to understand what counts, what matters, where the distinctions are made, etc., i.e., the criteria for the concept.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
I think I've got another misconception. It is not that what we say is an example of the structure of our concepts. We take an example of what we say when to investigate the structure of our concepts--the criteria hidden in what we say when. And, it is exactly philosophy's "standards" for [the explanation of] criteria (universality, certainty, predetermined, "normative") which causes the loss of our ordinary criteria and any use of their context.
I really don't know what you mean by "ordinary" then. It seems like your attempts to define "ordinary" "ordinarily", and in your usage I see nothing to indicate anything other than everyday language. I'm hoping you will enlighten me concerning this other type of "ordinary language" which you are concerned with.
So if I understand correctly, you are saying that there is a way to make judgements as to whether or not our concepts are misunderstandings without referencing metaphysical principles.
Quoting Antony Nickles
As far as I understand, epistemology is grounded in metaphysics, so if you can demonstrate an epistemology which is not, yet is well grounded anyway, I'm ready to consider it.
Quoting Antony Nickles
I view philosophy as an effort toward a higher understanding. If you are trying to tell me, to just forget about it, a higher understanding is impossible, I simply will not listen to you, and continue to do philosophy in disregard of what you say. If you're saying that a higher understanding is possible within the existing conceptual structure, I will argue that as contradictory. To proceed toward a higher understanding requires amendments to the existing understanding, therefore we need to impose changes. So which do you think it is? Is philosophy an effort toward higher understanding, in which case we need to impose standards, or is a higher understanding impossible, and philosophers should do something else?
Quoting Antony Nickles
Now you've completely lost me. You've already stated that you don't mean "ordinary" in the sense of everyday, so how are you using it here? What do you mean by "ordinary criteria". If ordinary criteria is not criteria imposed by some philosophical principles, and it is not everyday criteria (which I've argued is incoherent), what do you mean by this?
Quoting Antony Nickles
Again, I don't see what you're trying to say here. You've converted a singular, "language game", to a plural, "games we play", in your description. What Wittgenstein showed was that the same word has different meaning in different contexts, hence it is employed in different language games. Since the same word has different meaning in different language games, then if we are going to say that the word refers to a concept, we need to say that it is a different concept in each different language game. Since a concept would consist of rules or boundaries (criteria), and the rules would be different for different games, then we cannot say that it is the same concept. So these are not games we play with "a concept", they are games we play with a word. In other words, word games.
Quoting Antony Nickles
What Witt explicitly says in that section, is that there is no boundaries for the supposed concept of "game", but this does not prevent him from understanding what is meant by the word when it is used. Further one can draw boundaries for a particular purpose, if a person wants to. So he is saying that criteria (being boundaries) are not necessary, but can be imposed for particular purposes.
Quoting Antony Nickles
OK, so why not just leave out the word "ordinary" altogether, if it serves no purpose. You've already said that it doesn't indicate everyday, and now it doesn't seem to qualify "language" in any way, so let's just drop it, and we'll start talking about language philosophy, or philosophy of language. But we have a problem, and this is that you seem to want to derive a foundation for epistemology from a philosophy of language.
Quoting Antony Nickles
Oh come on, this is nonsense. You are saying that people apply criteria without knowing that they apply criteria. But if this were the case, then we could not call this applying criteria, because applying criteria is to make a conscious judgement in relation to the criteria. Let's look at the reality of the situation. People act out of habit when they talk. And acting out of habit is not applying criteria. So let's just forget this unrealistic notion that people are applying criteria for the concepts involved with each of the words when they are talking. That doesn't make any sense at all.
Quoting Antony Nickles
If you are distinguishing between "it rained this morning", and "I know it rained this morning", saying that the latter must be justified by conceptual criteria, then how are you going to justify standards for what "rain" means, or what "morning" means without ontology?
Quoting Antony Nickles
The problem is, that there is no such criteria "hidden in what we say". It's very obvious, we speak out of habit, use words which are familiar to us, without applying criteria. That's what Wittgenstein was showing in that passage. There are no boundaries to the use of the word "game", yet we understand each other when we use it. "Can I give the boundary? No. You can draw one; for none has so far been drawn." Then he further explains, that when we do draw a boundary, it is for a particular purpose. This is when we apply criteria, it is for a particular purpose, like doing philosophy.
So when philosophers, scientists, mathematicians, or whoever, apply criteria, this does not cause the "loss of our ordinary criteria". There never was any ordinary criteria, just habitual, yet inherently free, usage of words. It is a misrepresentation to say that there is criteria being applied when we commonly speak .
Let me paraphrase where I think we're at. You are claiming that there is a type of epistemology which is grounded in some type of criteria other than metaphysical criteria. You call this "ordinary criteria"? This is not criteria in the sense of some philosophical principles, but in the sense of some grammar. Can you demonstrate to me, how we might ground epistemology in grammar? For instance, if a proposition was composed according to proper grammatical form, would it be necessarily true?
Ah, but there are general pre-suppositions informing the carrying though of the ‘case by case’ even if not explicitly articulated as such.
Quoting Antony Nickles
I am using sense in a Heideggerian or Derridean way.
For both of them words do not refer to
or represent meanings. A sense of a word is not an aspect of a concept that already exists, as in a variation on a theme. A sense is a variation, but it is a variation of a variation. There are only senses, with no originating ground. So really we can’t speak of a sense of a word, but word as only sense. You will not find me or Heidegger or Derrida advocating any notion of ‘associated meaning’.
Quoting Antony Nickles
I think it is safe to say that the collection of terms that are interlinked as part of Austin’s approach to doing things with words points to many moving parts. I consider this a particular kind of structuralism. There are of course many different sorts of structuralisms in philosophy. What they have in common is that they make use of a notion of an ensemble of parts unified by a central sense. We can also call this a gestalt. It is this unity in difference that drives the ordinariness of language for olp writers. One could say that the terms of ordinariness are whatever allows for an alignment of moving parts that creates agreement, shared practice , normativiity. You can qualify this unifying feature any way you like, provide cautions, limitations, reminders of all the different ways and circumstances in which it can be said to work or not work or maybe work, and what it means to work or not work or maybe work.
My point is that olp’s kind of structuralism ( and there are of course differences from Cavell to Austin to Witt to Ryle), like all structuralisms, is built on events that are invisible to it. How do I mean this? The picture view that Witt problematizes hides all differences from context to context in what it believes to be the same meaning, the same standard or origin that supposedly exists apart from
those changing contexts. The rabbit is there to be seen because it supposedly pre-exists my seeing it ‘as’ a rabbit. But it is not as if the person who relies on this picture view is not seeing what they believe is the ‘same’ meaning ( or just a different aspect of the ‘same’ meaning) via an endless series of language games. They just don’t notice this transformational process. It is invisible to them at an explicit level
even though they rely on it implicitly.
In a similar way, I see the particular discursive -based structuralism of olp as relying on a kind of box. Not a box in Witt’s sense of the beetle box. That is, not a box that supposedly remains what it is outside of contextual change, but a box that remains what it is only locally, contingently. So what makes it a box?
Quoting Antony Nickles
For olp change and stability are functions of different kinds of relations between participants in language.
That means a relation between bodies is an irreducible structural condition for any notion of stability or change , accord or misunderstanding, usefulness or failure to work. By bodies I don’t mean bodies defined as humans or biological or any other substantive way other than as discursive participants.
What does this irreducibility structural condition hides?It hides its dependence on a more orginary relation, that between the self and itself.
Could there possibly be any way of thinking about a concept like a self’s relation to a self that does t depend on some form of cartesianism?
When would one use a word like self except in order to contrast it with a person who is not myself? What other use is there? I can have a use of ‘I’ and ‘self’ which only considers ipsiety as background to a figure that appears before ‘me’ . The ‘me’ is nothing but whatever this background part of the current context is. What occurs into the ‘me’ .’ I see, I do, I feel’ :these terms just are talking about how the background is changed. There is no ‘I’ without the background but there is also never an ‘I’ without what appears to it, changes it , interrogates it, expresses it. The ‘I’’s ‘ ‘voluntary’ actions also interrogate it, so that the ‘I’ finds itself deciding or acting. It doesn’t decide to decide or decide to desire. The matter confronting it interrogates it , decides for it.
A world of other persons appear to an’I’ , and their effect on the ‘I’ contributes to its sedimented background, but all other phenomena of sense also appear to and interrogate the ‘I’. That is , all events of perception speak to the ‘I’ in all forms and varieties of consonance and dissonance. The ‘I’ may recognize a phenomenon as familiar, disturbing , useful, illusory, promising , vague. But even the strangest and most alien phenomenon that speaks to the ‘I’ is still in some fashion recognized as akin to something previously experienced , so in the most general sense is normative. But every moment of experience of being spoken to , the ‘I’ is in some subtle but comprehensive way never the same ‘I’ as it was, it is an other. Is this a private or inner process? But what would that mean ? Private with respect to what ? It is a background continually changed by being continually exposed and interrogated by an outside. Is it inner because it is not a sharing with an other? But sharing is itself a being interrogated. The other, whether it is a voice or another sort of phenomenon , shares with the ‘I’ by changing the ‘I’.
If there is no ‘public’ , is there no ordinary? Yes, the ordinary is the various ways the background can be transformed such that it appears to itself as the same differently, as familiar to itself in various ways in an ongoing manner in various circumstances.
This being spoken to is language , although it may or may not involve words. The ‘I’ will have experiences not only of being interrogated by language from other persons , but is interrogated by language from the ‘I’. There is no definite distinction between my talking to myself and my talking to another person. Both experiences are forms
of talking to another who interrogates the ‘I’.
When the ‘I’ is with other persons and it is talking and listening, it is changing itself in myriad ways , as all phenomena that appear to it talk to it and change it. The process of the ‘I’’s being changed is so immediate and continual that it can make no sense to point to verbal language as in any way a difference in kind with respect to the always already ongoing contextual shifts in conceptualization that characterize the ‘I’’s comportment.
Olp’s ordinariness hides a richer, more immediate and more mobile ordinariness of the ‘I’s discourse with its world before , within and beyond verbal interchange.
This is exactly why (expressed in a different way than I), Antony's proposal of "ordinary criteria" is unacceptable. If we take a step beyond Descartes, for whom the 'I' finds itself being, to see the 'I' finding itself deciding, acting, and therefore changing, we cannot assign to this deciding, or acting, a method of applying criteria. You say, the matter confronting the 'I' decides for it, making the 'I' a part of the background, in a determinist way. I would give the 'I' some degree of autonomy, free will, to decide for itself. In each case though, the decision is not criterion based. Antony is proceeding with a faulty assumption.
Furthermore, we ought to be able to see, from this difference of opinion, which we all have concerning this matter, that we cannot produce a sound epistemology which is not based in solid metaphysical principles. If we cannot agree on the principles which drive a decision or judgement, and justification is based in agreement, then we have no means for justification.
Quoting Joshs
I disagree with you on this matter as well. There is a difference between talking to myself and taking to another, and this difference is based in the fundamental assumption, of a continuity of 'self', what we call identity. Whether the assumption is true or not, is irrelevant, because just in being there, it provides substance to the difference in attitude between talking to myself and talking to another, making each distinguishable from the other, as a distinct type of language act. So despite the ever changing difference of 'I', which you aptly describe, there is an underlying attitude of sameness, identity, within the 'I' which gives the 'I' of yesterday a special relationship with the 'I' of today, in comparison with the relationship between the 'I' of today, and any other person. This attitude, which is grounded in the difference between the temporal separation between the 'I' and itself, and the spatial separation between the 'I' and others, substantiates the difference between talking to oneself and talking to another.
Quoting Joshs
This issue may be associated with the question of the temporal continuity of the 'I', identity. If we assume the existence of a standard, or as Antony would say, a criterion, which remains the same, maintains its identity, regardless of the context of particular circumstances, then we need to support the existence of such a standard, with some sort of ontology, if we want others to agree. We cannot simply assume independent Platonic Forms, as the substance for such an assumption.
The attempt to describe spatial continuity of such a standard, different people in different places holding the exact same standard, fails, due to the observed deficiencies in language. And if we turn to temporal continuity, to see if the same person holds the same standard throughout an extended period of time, we'll find that this fails as well, due to the changing activity of the 'I' which you describe, as well as the significant differences between contextual circumstances, which would render "the same" standard as ineffectual. This is why we cannot describe this capacity which human beings have, to understand that incessant procession of differences, changes, through the intuition of an ideal sameness, as a matter of referring to the same standards.
Just a quick butt-insky here, if you don’t mind. I think it is the case that the average person doesn’t know how it is he knows things. Regularly, a guy accepts his knowledge as being merely given from personal experience or instruction by rote. If this be granted, it follows that not only does the average joe not know what a concept per se is, he also won’t have any idea what it means for a concept to have its criteria. To him, a dog is just some particular thing; the ways and means between the thing and knowing it as a particular thing are (regularly) undisclosed to him. It is only when he wants to know its kind, its degree of danger, etc., must he then determine supplemental conceptions to add to the conception of dog in general, such
From here, it is easier to see that there are only two criterion for any conception....the principle of identity for those conceptions relating to conceptions in general, and the principle of non-contradiction for those conceptions supplementing given general conceptions.....both principles operating entirely behind the scenes.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Or, it is applying criteria behind the scenes, without ever being conscious of it. Makes sense actually; regularly-learned folk don’t need to consciously examine the validity of a thing’s verbal description when the habitually communicated description has always sufficed. Nevertheless, theoretically-learned folk will maintain that the cognitive system as a whole must still be in play, otherwise, we are presented with the necessity for waking it up when needed, and then the determination of method for waking, and then the necessity of determination of need, ad infinitum......and nothing rationally conditioned is ever successesfully accomplished.
So....my thinking is that OLP as I understand it, is at least superfluous and at most utter nonsense, but that the criteria for our conceptions, operating “behind the scenes”, and therefore not “regularly” known as belonging to our knowledge structure, is not.
I don't see how the principle of identity is called for here. If a person sees a dog, and calls it a dog, then sees a different dog, and calls it a dog, then clearly the person is not applying the principle of identity, because they are seen as different things, not the same. The person would only be using the principle of identity if the two different dogs were seen as the same dog.
And since the person knows that the two different thing which are called by the name "dog" are not the same thing, the principle of non-contradiction is not even relevant. The two different dogs might have contradicting properties.
Quoting Mww
The point was that "applying criteria" is a conscious act. If the subconscious, or unconscious, is doing something which might be in some way similar to "applying criteria", then we ought to acknowledge the difference, rather than asserting that the unconscious is applying criteria. Until we have a complete description of what the unconscious is doing, which at first glance, appears to be similar to "applying criteria", we ought not simply assume that it is applying criteria. This way of thinking leads to panpsychism, and ideas such as the notion that quantum particles are deciding what to do.
Quoting Mww
The reality of the situation, is that the cognitive system is engaged in many more things than simply applying criteria. So there is no need to assume that if it were active doing something other than applying criteria, it would need to be awoken from an inactive state in order to start applying criteria. What would be required would simply be a coming to one's attention of a need to apply criteria, then the cognitive system would engage itself in applying criteria.
Quoting Mww
My position is that there is no reason to assume that what is going on behind the scenes is a matter of applying criteria. That is just an assumption which OLP supporters like Antony might make in an attempt to facilitate a misguided epistemology. It's a matter of 'we don't know what goes on behind the scenes, so let's just assume some type of applying criteria goes on, because this is convenient for a simplified epistemology. However, the evidence brought forward, especially by Wittgenstein, through the notions of family resemblance, and a fundamental lack of boundaries to word usage, indicates that what is "operating behind the scenes" is not even similar to "applying criteria". In fact, as I described earlier in the thread, I believe that what is happening behind the scenes is completely incompatible with "applying criteria". And so the conscious human being must suppress the natural inclination, which is other than applying criteria, with will power, in order to actually apply criteria.
There has to be more to perceived self-relationality of the’I’ than just temporal and spatial continuity. For instance, schizophrenics may experience thought insertion, the sense that another person’s voice is speaking to one inside one’s head. The schizophrenic knows the voice is coming from their own head, and yet they don’t recognize it as their ‘I’. So in this case absolute temporal and spatial
proximity is not enough to have a sense being one’s own ‘I’.
True enough, if we were concerned with the notion of identity given by Parmenides, which has to do with one thing in relation to itself. We are, on the other hand, only concerned with the conceptual notion of identity, which has to do with the synthesis of a plurality of phenomena under a general rule.
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Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
First... he knows they are not the same thing while knowing they are different instances of the same kind of thing; he knows all this because the synthesis of contradictory predicates is held in abeyance. Or, the principle of non-contradiction inheres in the cognition.
Second..... two different dogs can have different properties, but those properties cannot contradict the general conception under which they are all subsumed. One dog can have four legs another have only three without being thought as different concepts.
Third....two different dogs cannot have contradicting properties and still both be conceived as dogs. One dog having four legs and the other dog having wings is an irrational cognition translated from general conceptions that contradict themselves. A dog with wings is not a dog and a bird with four legs is not a bird.
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Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
No one should fault you for that. So what....there isn’t any behind the scenes going on, or there is but it doesn’t manifest in applying criteria? There must be a behind the scenes or the notion of being conscious is meaningless. So it reduces to.....what is going on behind the scenes if not the application of criteria?
OK, but the synthesis of a plurality of phenomena under a general rule is called inductive reasoning, it's not identity.
Quoting Mww
What is at issue is how does he know that they are the same kind of thing. When he is speaking, he calls them each a dog, but does he even recognize that "dog" is a type? He might not even know what it means to be a type. So when he is speaking, why would we assume that he applies some criteria to determine that the thing is a type of animal called a dog, and therefore call it that?
I don't see how the principle of non-contradiction is relevant, because he can see that the two things, have contradictory properties (different colour, or different size, for example), yet he still calls them by the same name, "dog". In this action, is he designating them as both the same type, or has he just developed some habit whereby he calls these similar animals by that same name? We are interested in why the person calls both of the two animals "dog", or two different buildings houses, or two things cars, etc. If we ask the person why, the person might rationalize, and give some reasons as "criteria", but the question is whether the person applies criteria when speaking, in referring to the thing as a car, or a house, or a dog.
Quoting Mww
All this indicates is that when the criteria for the concept of "dog" is stipulated, the inductive reasoning is carried out to the point of ensuring that there will not be a dog which contradicts the concept. Of course we have some failures in our capacities in this respect, and that's evident in cross breeds and the in between links in evolution. As per your example, if "four legs" is a stated criteria in the concept, then the dog which has three legs will demonstrate a fault in that concept.
Quoting Mww
Yes they can have contradicting properties as in my examples above, different colour, different size, etc.. In Aristotelian logic these are accidental properties. With the so-called essential properties the thing must have that property. But what we find is that there is even exceptions to the essential properties, or questions as to whether such and such properties are essential or not, such as the three legged dog. This is more evidence that the basis for natural conceptualization is not criteria. When we look to pure reason, like mathematics, we might find that criteria is the basis. But then we are faced with the question of whether mathematical principles are supernatural, or artificial, and we still do not have the basis for natural conceptualization, if there is such a thing. That's the further issue, maybe the idea of "natural conceptualization", or "ordinary conceptualization", however you want to call it, is misguided in the first place..
Quoting Mww
What is going on behind the scenes remains as unknown, and that's why we have so much difficulty agreeing on metaphysical principles. So if someone proposes that what's going on behind the scenes is a matter of applying criteria, and requests that we agree on this so that we might use this proposition as starting point or a premise for an epistemology, we ought to reject it as unsound. We need an epistemology which starts with the assumption that what's going on behind the scenes is unknown, and this acknowledges the need for metaphysics.
Inductive, yes, henceforth from the establishment of the rule. The rule is the identity, the reasoning is either deductive in the establishment of the rule by which a thing becomes known, or inductively, by which subsequent perceptions are identified as possessing sufficient correspondence to the original.
My “synthesis of the plurality of phenomena” indicates the establishment of the rule, phenomena herein, not the number of objects perceived, but rather, the variety of properties the matter of some particular object exhibits, and the synthesis being the reduction from all possible properties held in intuition, against only those exhibited by the object, which is deductive and leads to the rule from which the representation follows as its conception, in turn represented by its name. The rule thus established by which all following instances of sufficient similarity are identified, those all represented as schema of the original conception. Family, genus, species, member. Simple as that.
Your principle of induction arises when members meeting the criteria of the particular conception, are thought in general a priori, or perceived as a group empirically, re: a kennel or off-leash park. This way, reason doesn’t waste itself with unnecessary effort, instead only noticing possible breaks in a pattern. The proverbial.....seen one dog, seen ‘em all kinda thing.
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Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Easy. When sufficient properties exhibited by the subsequent perception correspond to the properties of the original. Neuroscience posits feedback loops called memory, speculative epistemology posits the faculty of intuition, in which are held conceptions given from extant cognitions.
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Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
My Mustang is gold in color, m’lady’s car is some oddball green, or some damn thing....I really don’t know what to call it. Is either vehicle less a car because they’re different colors? Differing manifestations of the same general property do not rise to the level of contradiction. A guy calls the black dog “George”, but calls the white dog “Mutt”. No contradictions in evidence.
We also have a truck. There is some property of a truck sufficient to contradict calling it a car. The insurance company does indeed charge different rates for the car as opposed to the truck, but the distinctions must be sufficient, and color is not one of them.
Cars and trucks are both motorized vehicles. Motorized vehicle with a trunk is called a car, vehicle with a bed is called a truck. Calling a vehicle with a bed a car is a contradiction. (Hybrids superfluous to the argument). Guy with two dogs calls them both dogs because there is no sufficient proprietary contradiction.
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Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Be that as it may, we are.....I am.....concerned here with the categorical syllogism method of Aristotelian logic. The classes of ideas or notions and their relation to each other. The major given in the yet undetermined observables (perception, the possibility of conceptual criteria), the minor given in the intuition derivable from the synthesis of the observables (phenomenon, the conceptual criteria), and the conclusion given in a determined correspondence (understanding, the conception itself).
The premises are behind the scenes, the conclusion is present to conscious thought.
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Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Oh absolutely. It’s all speculative theory, and could be all catastrophically wrongheaded. But as in all theory, all it has to do is be internally consistent and not in conflict with observation. In which case, one theory is no better or worse than any other; none of them being susceptible to empirical proofs, even if they stand as logically coherent.
And the game continues.......
Quoting Joshs
Not sure they are interlinked (but he does categorize them by more general criteria); the concepts he is talking about are a multitude of examples to show we may have different criteria for each concept, instead of just statements about the world that are either true or false. I might call it formalism but they are not necessarily rules, or closed, etc.
Quoting Joshs
Well we do not agree on these type of criteria (they are unexamined, thus the need for philosophy), and it is not the critria of, say, apologizing, that are normative for our practice of apologizing, it is actual apologizng, whetther or not you do it correctly (whether you learn your lesson when you do it wrong). Our lives are aligned, "shared" sounds too much like we share one exact same thing or that the "sharing" was not everywhere surrounded by the criteria for a concept and what it is to change our lives.
Quoting Joshs
The picture duck-rabbit is to show we don't have an "inner picture" as a perspective in us that changes. As he says, "seeing as... Is not part of perception." P. 168. It is complicated but part of this kind of seeing involves seeing "aspects" based on our (pre-existing) familiarity (of rabbits--like being able to recognize a human face in something else). An example is when Witt says "My attitude towards him is an attitude towards a soul." P. 152 I see that aspect of him, I see him as a human, rather than, say, as a means of production. Witt says this takes "imagination". Id.
Quoting Joshs
I think it would be more apt to focus "change and stability" in our world and our concepts; people usually come into it afterwards to figure out a mess.
Quoting Joshs
Well the idea is to ask yourself when you say "self" what are you implying. Witt says one use would be "I myself", PI #413 as if to say I did it by myself or as if to emphasize that I am the body owning, or disowning, an expression (if necessary)--standing behind it, judged as lacking for having said it. In any event, this would be process of analysis in OLP, showing, looking at our ourselves by looking at our expressions, without "introspection" which Witt says is "the state of a philosopher's attention when he says the word "self" to himself and tries to analyze its meaning (and a good deal could be leaned from this). Id.
What do you mean by world? Can world have any useful
meaning outside of how the word is used by people relating via language?
Also, I had mentioned the following to Metaphysician Undercover :
“schizophrenics may experience thought insertion, the sense that another person’s voice is speaking to one inside one’s head. The schizophrenic knows the voice is coming from their own head, and yet they don’t recognize it as their ‘I’.” In the West , this voice is typically belligerent, accusatory, judgmental, whereas in other cultures it can be positive and supportive.
I was wondering if you think the kinds of conversations that that place with this sort of ‘other’ voice in one’s head
are amenable to an Austinian analysis. By that measure, what of the voices of characters a novelist creates? Often, writers say that the characters they create come to life and tell them what they want to do. They converse with the author.
Again, it is not ordinary language. It is our ordinary ways of telling an accident from a mistake--the criteria of their identity and employment (grammar), and all I can say at this point is it is a term to hold a space opposite of how philosophy sets up the traditional criteria (certainty, universality, etc.) it wants for the concepts of meaning, knowledge, understanding, etc. Frankly, the term doesn't matter much compared to the method and the examples.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Yes, but you're probably not going to be happy about it because it takes the concepts that philosophy wrings its hands over and reveals their mystery and seeming power as driven by our disappointment with misunderstandings and our desire to take ourselves out of the solution. OLP is investigating our concepts to show that desire in our philosophy by showing that our concepts have ordinary (various, individual) ways in which they work and ways in which they fail, and, at some point, they involve our involvement, accepting, denying, asking, walking away, etc. and in ways that reflect on us, or require us to change ourselves, our world, or extend these concepts into new contexts, a new culture, perhaps to make a word include a change in our lives, perhaps to re-awaken it to old contexts.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
I was speaking of epistemology as the investigation of knowledge. OLP gives us a knowledge of our concepts that we did not have, of their ordinary criteria. Now justification is a trickier subject as we can say our criteria align with the ways in which our lives are, but that is not to say our forms of life are the bedrock of our criteria or that we "agree" on our criteria. And also not to say that radical skepticism is the outcome either. The truth of skepticism is that knowledge only takes us so far and then we are left with ourselves, you and me to work out the failings and clarifications that our criteria/lives lack the necessity, conclusiveness, completeness, etc. to ensure. Our concepts are breakable, indefensible but also open-ended (justice) and extendable into new contexts (freedom of speech).
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
And is it not a higher understanding to realize that knowledge also involves acknowledgement? What we are responsible for and our relationship to others (even in creating a picture of knowledge of the other that skips past them). Perhaps we are looking for a specific version of "higher", even before we start our investigation to look at the use of our concepts.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
And here it is the PICTURE of "word" and "reference": word--refers to--concept, that gets in the way. We (me) express a concept in a context (of time, place, language game, criteria). Nevertheless, I would say that the different "context" of a different language game, may or may not require "different" criteria (for the same concept). "I know the sun will rise tomorrow" is a sense of certainty (that concept), but not a factual one (knowledge connected to certainty, without doubt). It may be a sense of faith (certainty) in hope. Now this "different language game" is part of the possibility of this expression, but it simply falls on another concept (certainty) rather than reflecting on knowledge (other than to say knowledge is not always connected to certainty, or that, without the possibility of doubt, we are talking about a different "sense" of knowledge).
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Maybe it is better to say concepts have different criteria for the different ways (and different contexts in which) they are used (the sense in which they are used). So they have more possibilities than under the fixed standards (one picture) that philosophy wants. So in a sense they ARE different "games we play" with a concept, but a concept is not just about "words" or even expressions, because concepts are not "conceptual" or "ideas" as opposed to the world as philosophy's picture of certainty creates.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
He is making a point about the roles of rules and boundaries in a concept. This is an example of when they are not necessary; this does not mean that criteria do not exist, just that in this instance we can impose them. What seems like a categorical statement about criteria is not, it is a statement about games. Criteria of the concept of "a game" are that there are no rules or boundaries, and that one can draw those for a purpose (as one can elsewhere with other concepts--even as to their criteria). That those are part of the grammar of how a game works. Criteria are not like rules, they are not always fixed, or unbreachable, or determinative.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
I wouldn't say that people apply criteria (I would have to think why we feel the need to say this), or that they always do--as I've said, everyone can reflect on our criteria, and some moments call for it, as it were philosophical moments, moments of reflection on who we are and how we do things, and that is to say everyone can be said to sometimes "do philosophy", a politician writing a speech about freedom, a new freedom, getting back to our old sense of freedom, what freedom means in our new America. But I agree that most of the time we speak and act out of "habit"; Emerson will cll it conformity (to which we must at times be averse). One thought on application is that, even unconsiously, we know the criteria of an action to ask "You know you smirked when you apologized." not because we explicitly are thinking of the criteria, but that we were raised in a world with others, and pain, and a need for forgiveness, etc. The explicit "criteria" are drawn out in a philosophical moment when we are at a loss as to how to respond, our criteria fail us in a way we do not know how to be responsible for, etc.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
These two statements don't bring into question what rain or morning are, but knowledge. When I say "It rained this morning" I am reporting a fact (that I know), but I could be saying it really rained hard, or that it rained this morning so I don't think it will (or do think it will) rain this afternoon, etc. When I say "I know it rained this morning" I could be acknowledging what you told me, as in "yeah, I agree with you Bob, it rained", perhaps to confirm the claim Bob has made (on authority or proof) that it rained "I read it in the paper", "I saw it" "The grass is wet" "My mom told me" (some of these are more credible than others, but nevertheless under that criteria for that sense of knowledge). Now to see that, it some cases, I don't have a way to do other than accept/confirm it, is to see the power ("normativiy") of that sense of knowledge and its criteria, and that philosophy tunnels in on that as the standard for everything. These are two senses (of the concept) of knowledge we are investigating in what we say when we say these expressions.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Well two small tweaks. I take epistemology not as the search for grounds for knowledge, but as the search for knowledge, and that looking at what we say to see our criteria, as in to make them explicit--known from the unknown--is a way of knowing ourselves since our lives (what is important to us, what should count as a thing, judging, making distinctions) are our criteria. And that sometimes, we are responsible for our claims to aversion, to our extension of a concept asserting a new context, (politically, culturally) creating a new context.
Now a proposition can be true, or false. I would say that it does have to be grammatically proper to categorically be this kind of proposition, one that is either true or false (There are other types of proposition Austin shows). But this is merely a threshold; it does not "ground" it's truth or falsity; and it has criteria, it's grounds, but it is not a quality of the criteria (of their formation or their internal logic), it is meeting them. A scientific fact is "necessary" based on the method of good science, its reproducibility, its universal application, etc.--but also refutable through its method, or the denial "of science".
I know that Cavell uses this sort of explanation to account for the problematic features of philosophy before Wittgenstein. It makes it sound as though desire is at the heart of the split between olp and approaches antagonistic to it. Wittgenstein’s work is important, as important and innovative , and challenging , as any of the great philosophers in history. You had mentioned Kuhn in a previous post. Does Wittgenstein’s work not represent a paradigm shift? Would you say that a shift from Newtonian to Einsteinian physics , or from Lamarckism to Darwinian biology, or from Descartes to Hegel was a matter of shift of desire, or a gestalt shift requiring turning the world on its head ?
Is it possible to understand what you mean by ‘ taking ourselves out of the solution’ without already having undergone the paradigm shift necessary to relate to Wittgenstein’s world?
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
This is perhaps to say, without this picture of the "I" there is no deciding or acting along the ways in which we decide and act. And I understand that this puts into question "applying criteria", but the picture forces itself onto what it means to "apply criteria". But we have not asked ourselves what we mean when we talk about deciding and acting, and investigate if their criteria require this picture.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
I'll just say up front that it is a misconception that our criteria are based on "agreement," that is to say, we do "agree" on criteria (here, but there are times) but in forms of life Witt calls it (though not as grounds--for, say, certainty--and not the same way), but that the routes of our lives align--in judging, identifying, expecting, exluding, etc.--for each concept. (In many layers: Cavell will say even our sense of humor; Witt will add even in our being human). That is, again, not to say forms of life JUSTIFY our criteria; we have a concept of justification, and this has many different senses in many different contexts. Though our lives and concepts and expressions do split sometimes, say in a moral moment, (another opening for skepticism), but in ordinary ways, in specific instances (even in the investigation of criteria). That said, I think I need to review how Wittgenstein's "criteria" are not singular and separate from our ordinary use of criteria (set standards, rules, etc.).
Quoting Mww
And what we are looking for in OLP is knowledge of the ways we judge (what criteria we use to) what makes a thing important to us, what counts in its identity, its place in our world, etc. ("Grammar tells what kind of object anything is.") #373 (my emphasis). And the average person (I assume here not the "philosopher") can reflect and give examples of what counts as criteria for concepts (understood as Witt uses that term), including objects, though the need for such is rare.
Quoting Mww
The example of corresponding a word to an object can appear philosophy simple (just factual) or complicated (skeptical problems unthought by the average person); but OLP is using examples of: when do we say it is no longer a wolf, but a dog? (When it is tame?) Isn't a dog in a sense always also (historically) a wolf? Are these criteria "undisclosed"? or merely just don't have to be brought up all the time?
I think it may help to say that Witt's "criteria", as "grammar", is a special term @Metaphysician Undercover. Some points may be: there are regular criteria (we decide on), this is not that; it is not to start with an object (a dog) and then pick criteria (like how to judge a dog at a dog show); start with "knowledge" and then pick the criteria for it, certainty. OLP is to first investigate criteria to learn about a thing (intention)--to know what a thing is in the end.
Quoting Mww
Yes, but to point out that here we are simply going from what the object is generally to particularly, not understanding all the ways (other than as an "idea" of a dog--universal? true?) we use the concept "dog"--say, even metaphorically to malign your character.
Quoting Mww
And here is where the traditional philosopher has wiped away our ordinary criteria for a concept (and here I don't mean philosophical "conceptualization"), and replaced it with their own principles (like conceptualization, integrity, particular in relation to general, etc.), of which of course the average man has no idea. But, as an example, the concept of "identity" has its own criteria (Austin will talk a lot of identifying a Goldfinch), and anyone can reflect on "I have identified that bird as a Goldfinch" and make a claim about what criteria the speaker might be using, and learn more about the type of criteria we use for identification; only some do this better (and are more interested) than others--and those are philosophers.
Quoting Mww
Again, it is as if everyone is sleep-walking here except the philosopher, who understands the "cognitive system as a whole" which is always "in play". Except we all have drank the "lethe" as Emerson says, that we may "tell no tales" (not explicate our criteria) until we "shake off our lethargy". Experience, p.1. So there is no "cognitive system" happening all the time, which just needs to be systematized. We don't reflect, until we do; until, as you say, there is a necessity to, say, distinguish between an accident and a mistake, or a thought and an intention, or a fetus and a life.
Quoting Mww
This isn't (maybe just) thinking, it's a (also a) judgement (categorically--identified by the criteria of what a judgement is). I stand ready to help in understanding if that is of any interest.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
I'll leave"applying criteria" alone for now (still not sure what to do with it), only to say that criteria could be described as "unexamined" (not unconscious exactly) which means we are maybe missing the fact that criteria are just all the ordinary ways we might judge someone as doing or saying this well, how we show in this case how it matters to us, what counts as an instance of it, etc. These things are not mental constructs, or created standards (though there are those too), these are our lives of doing these things like apologizing, thinking, knowing, threatening, identifying a dog, etc.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
I'm not sure the point of this, but I would agree. I might say, "what is going on behind the scenes" is our lives.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
And I would agree with this as well. Only one small step in between: to become "conscious" for OLP is to become aware of our ordinary criteria, so they may be applied intentionally, aversely, controversially, etc. Maybe that, in being unaware, we can not "apply" anything(?). In any event, to become aware of (in this sense, know) our ordinary criteria is the only epistemology OLP has, and it does that by... blah, blah, no one cares.
I don't see how a rule is an identity. It might be a principle that a person would use in an effort to identify something, but that does not make the rule itself an identity.
Quoting Mww
Do you really believe that when a child is learning to call a dog a dog, it goes through a synthesis/reduction process of possible properties, as you describe? I think that's far fetched.
Quoting Mww
Let's suppose "sufficient properties" is the case. You neglected the influence of social relevance. So if a judgement of "sufficient properties" is what is the case, then what is "sufficient" must be determined by social interaction. But this is not what we observe in practise. The child is not taught which properties are sufficient to distinguish an animal as a dog rather than a cat, the child is told that's not a dog, it's a cat, when it is wrong. The issue of which properties are sufficient is not demonstrated in such ostensive learning. In fact, I don't think i could even name which properties are sufficient to distinguish a dog from a cat, if I tried. So I think you're barking up the wrong tree.
Quoting Mww
That can't be right though. Deductive logic is formal logic which follows a very strict method. It's impossible that there can be unstated premises, or else the logic would not be valid. One cannot make a valid deductive argument which relies on premises which are not stated, or "behind the scenes". If this were the case, that the premises were somewhere outside the conscious mind, we'd be out of the realm of logic, and we might just say that the person dreamed up the conclusion from nothing. How does it make sense to you, to talk about a form of conscious logic which uses premises which are unknown to the conscious mind performing the logic? How could the conscious mind be using these premises if it has no knowledge of them?
Quoting Mww
I think the part about sufficient properties clearly conflicts with observation. And the part about premises behind the scenes is inconsistent with how we normally understand "logic", therefore it conflicts with observation as well, the observed nature of logic.
I'm not so sure that schizophrenia can be characterized in this way. The issue I see would be whether or not the person knows the voice to be coming from one's own head. The voice might be within one's own head, but one's own head is not necessarily the source of the voice. It might be the case that the voice is coming from God or some other source like that. So it wouldn't be correct to say that the person knows the voice to be "coming from their own head", if in fact they believe that the voice has a different source.
Quoting Joshs
Nothing metaphysical or factual; just world in the sense of our lives in the world, how we live, which we learn about (the grammar of) through our investigation of our criteria of what counts for us, what matters, etc.
Quoting Joshs
This is actually right up Cavell's alley. I mean Wittgenstein was dealing with Logical Behavioralism and Verificationalism along with Positivism, so he was dealing with the psychologism of philosophy, but his main goal was just to get people out of their (everyone's) head. But Cavell has wild examples and loves to draw outside the lines into literary forms etc. Cavell talks about Thoreau's use of "ecstasy" (In the Sense of Walden) as the sense of being beside yourself at the same time as a way of talking about Emerson's closing and moving to a larger circle (of your always-partial self). Austin might just say pphhfftt.
How do you know "what they mean to say" if there is no context in common?
My only bugbear is that it is called OLP at all. The name is misleading and invites hostility. It's just good philosophy.
Types have identities, just as tokens do. So the type
I don’t, any more that I would know what Einstein meant to say without a context in common. Context in common means I have already found myself thinking in terms that are close enough to that of the writer that I can relate to what they have to offer.
Sometimes they believe the voice is being broadcast by a radio signal, or that some audio speaker has been implanted in their brain, These are just some of the many different ways voice hearers attempt to explain a phenomenon that is fundamentally puzzling to them, the hearing of a voice that they don’t recognize as their own, not just in its acoustic features, but in its personality, coming from inside their head in the same way that they hear their own thinking.
Shaun Gallagher has done some interesting work in tthis area.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/283415573_Gallagher_S_2000_Self-reference_and_schizophrenia
I'll repeat then, what I've said from the beginning, there is no such thing as the ordinary way of distinguishing an accident from a mistake. Each particular incident, in each set of circumstances, must be judged according to the available evidence, and there is no such thing as the "ordinary criteria", to be applied in a particular situation. That's why a judge in a court of law has a difficult task. And one only gets to the point of being a judge through an extended period of experience. The experience does not teach the judge the criteria, it gives the judge many examples to compare with. These are known as precedents. We say that the judge upholds the law, in many unique circumstances, but this is not really done through reference to criteria, it's done through the experience of many precedents.
Quoting Antony Nickles
If this notion of "ordinary criteria" is your proposed solution, then it's quite clear to me that you do not have a solution at all. And if philosophy appears to be trying to take itself out of "the solution", you might take this as a hint, that the supposed solution is not acceptable to philosophers.
Quoting Antony Nickles
So it appears to me, like OLP is a lot of idle talk with no justification for what is said. See, you are claiming that OLP give us knowledge of our concepts, which we didn't have, through reference to their "ordinary criteria". But you cannot even justify this assumption that there is such a thing as ordinary criteria. If you cannot even point to any instances of ordinary criteria, how are we ever going to get a better understanding of our concepts through examining their ordinary criteria?
Quoting Antony Nickles
All you are doing here is attempting to validate equivocation. If you allow that the same concept has different criteria according to different contexts, you are saying that the word refers to the same concept despite having a different meaning. Using the word with different meanings, and insisting that the different meanings constitute the same concept is equivocation.
Quoting Antony Nickles
A criterion is a principle or standard used for judgement. There is no ambiguity there. Either a person is following the criteria or not. It makes no sense to say that the person is at the same time adhering to the standard, yet also not adhering to the standard. The thing which you don't seem to be acknowledging is that in the vast majority of "ordinary" situations, the circumstances are unique and peculiar, such that a judgement cannot be made on the basis of criteria. There might be some criteria which would serve as some sort of guideline, but the real judgement is made by some process other than referencing the criteria.
Take the judge in the court of law, in my example above. Let's say that the law is the principle or standard which the judge uses, so the written law is the criterion in this example. There must be a judgement as to whether or not the person is within, or outside the criteria (law). The work of the judge is interpretation, interpret the person's actions, and interpret the law. Interpretation cannot done solely through reference to criteria, because the criteria itself has to be interpreted. So we find the true nature of judgement in interpretation, not in criteria, and interpretation cannot be dependent on criteria.
Quoting Antony Nickles
Reflect on this action, your example here: "You know you smirked when you apologized." I think you'll agree with me that what is referred to is a matter of interpretation. What is at issue though, is what does interpretation consist of? If it is a matter of "we were raised in a world with others, and pain, and a need for forgiveness, etc.", then it is a matter of an emotional reaction rather than a matter of criteria. So this is why I am arguing that we must make sure that we get our principles straight here. "Criteria" implies that we are employing principles of reason, but if these basic kernels of meaning are really emotional reactions, then the use of "criteria" is really misleading to us.
Quoting Antony Nickles
I'm sure that wherever we have criteria, they are important to us, that would be the reason for having them. But if we assume that there is criteria where there is none, then if something goes wrong, don't we confuse an accident with a mistake? We'd accuse a person of not adhering to the principle, not correctly following the criteria, when the person was not even following any criteria in the first place.
Quoting Antony Nickles
Do you see how it may be the case that "criteria" is not the right word here? But if we go to replace it, then what would we replace it with? We are entering into the realm where words will most often fail us. But this does not mean that we ought to use words like "criteria" which might give the wrong impression. Nor do I think it means that we ought not try to describe what we find here. It just means that we must choose our words very carefully. And I think, this is why it often appears like philosophers do not use ordinary language, it's because they choose their words carefully.
Quoting Janus
You may say that a type has an identity, but a rule is not a type, even if it defines a type.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
I agree that a rule is not a type, not even the type it might provide the criteria for. On the other hand a particular rule does have an identity as that particular rule.
Ah yes, I did say that. I didn’t mean to imply that there is no referential consistency from moment to moment. I was trying to convey Derrida’s argument that each moment what I experience , and what I am, is in some subtle but thoroughgoing way completely other than the previous.
The result of this is that from moment to moment I continue to be the same differently. So at a glance I continue to appear to myself as self-identical, even though this is only made possible by an underlying process of continual transformation.
This continuity through change means that the world around me that I relate to can , in various circumstances, be more or less comprehensible, more or less stable and normative. When I am involved with events that appear to me as familiar, recognizable, comfortably interpretable in a. ongoing way , that is what is usually referred to as a single stable context. But really it is what Derrida calls a stratified context, the appearance of a unitary context that is in fact the product of a continuously self-transforming series of ‘micro-contexts’.
OK, that I can certainly agree with.
'preciate that. Worst name ever. Austin's is not much better. I don't have the patience to give better examples and come up with more text. And I didn't realize the terminology was so technical (concept, criteria, ordinary, even context!, although Cavell warns of this with Witt). And it's really hard to get people to see that it's not a different view within the same picture; that it's turned on itself, first looking at what we say to find our what matters to us, and then figure out why we ignore what we find to skip over ourselves and create a picture to ensure certainty; is it reassuring? Who is it convincing?
In terms of OLP, this would be the alignment of the criteria of our concepts (our forms of life), their terms of judgment, what counts and how, what matters in making what distinctions, etc. Their history and possibilities. Our lives have agreed in all the little ways (all the pieces are in place Wii says) that allow for us to recognize the terms of a misunderstanding, the concept of miscommunication. If this is a context (setup?) we don't have to share it (exactly?) except only in that we agree in those paths of judgment Witt says. This is not the "context" that OLP points to, which is whatever is needed to clarify what sense of concept we are using and the criteria that we need to clear anything up, etc.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Well I think you are still stuck on something about these words; maybe thinking there is "no such thing as the ordinary way", as if the ordinary way were opposed to the philosophical way (which can make those distinctions). I can't sort it though. Let's just ask: can we distinguish between (the concept of) a mistake and an accident? Sure. Maybe we could ask what we say when: I shot the donkey accidentally and I shot the donkey by mistake. And here we can imagine the accident is something that I didn't intend to do, and the mistake was in hitting the donkey, though I was going to (intended to) shoot something else. So one distinguishing thing is that mistakes require an intention and accidents do not. Now let's see how traditional philosophy attempts to make a distinction:
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
"Each"? "Particular"? "Must be judged"? And here we are imagining that each case is the worst case (skepticism without a net). Do we "apply" the criteria? Well, we didn't know them before and now we do, but do we always need them? Imagine that there is all this life we have that makes it so we don't usually need them ("Don't make a mistake!" "Don't worry; it's only an accident."); does this help dispell the sense of doom with every "circumstance"?
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
I think here it is important again to say that Witt is focusing on a special idea of criteria, as I mentioned to @Mww above. One difference is it is not the kind of criteria that we set, say, for identification of a show dog, or when someone has broken the law. Those criteria are in the wide open; one, standards of a perfect specimen; the other, the law. And yes, the law Is not a science and takes judgment to clearly align the facts of this case with the law, or, when necessary, rest on a precedent circumscribing a tricky set of facts or the interpretation of the law in a new context, but, even here, not every case is distinct in the eyes of the law either.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
And I believe I came to this same spot with @Mww above. OLP does not have a solution (to skepticism). Ordinary criteria are not acceptable for certainty, universality, predetermination, etc. I can perhaps some time in the future (or in my other posts) show its usefulness in morality, aesthetics, politics, etc. where traditional philosophy has failed to satisfy. Or I stand ready to try again to show /explain and hope to do better.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
The standard for OLP of a claim to our ordinary criteria is if you see it and agree; if you see what I see--that you can show yourself. If you can not, perhaps I have not done a good enough job with my example, or in filling out the imagined context, but we do have the grounds there for an intelligible discussion, which is the "rough ground" which Witt is trying to get philosophy back to.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Well, let's pull out "refer" just in case anyone gets confused that this is word=idea. For example, intending is a concept; to say it is (only) a word is to make it seem isolated, connected only to a "meaning', which is a picture Witt is trying to unravel. Meaning being more like, say, what is meaningful to us about a concept, along the ordinary criteria for it. And let's put it that: we are seeing how a concept is used. Witt says "sense" for the fact that a concept (knowing) can be used in various ways; here, again, I know as: I can give you evidence; I know as: I can show you how; I know as: I acknowledge you, your claim. He is imploring us to Look at the Use! (#340) to see that our concepts are various and meaningful in different ways.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
And this is on me; I did not realize that Wittgenstein is limiting himself to a particular type of criteria, not the overt, set, delineated, followed criteria as we are most familiar with, say, ironically, that are the most ordinary. Sorry for the confusion.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Well, I would say the vast majority of situations are mundane and uneventful and non-specific, such that our criteria (of this type) never really come up (Thoreau says we lead quiet lives of desperation). However, yes, there are problems and circumstances and issues (even philosophical ones) that do come up, exactly because we are at a point where we do not know what to do, we can not or do not want to use criteria as our base (excuse, justification, cover). As you say, "the real judgment is made by some other process". Now Wittgenstein talks about coming to an end, and about being "inclined" to draw a line, or convinced and shutting our eyes, but the other option he offers is to go on from our criteria into their open-endedness, their ability to point into new contexts, and act or speak so as to define ourselves beyond (further than) our criteria, to the other without certainty, and thus be intelligible and answerable for that extension or deviation, etc. as if there was a limit to knowledge (Cavell will refer to this as the truth of skepticism).
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
I'm not sure this was a great example (surprise). But you could say that identifying the smirk was an interpretation (of their facial movement), but what I was trying to point out is that everyone could agree that to correctly apologize, you can not scoff at the whole procedure--that it is not open to interpretation, that it is a categorical necessity.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Absolutely. I am sorry I ever brought it up. I don't know if it helps to fall back on "Grammar" but maybe the absolute made-up-ness of it solves the confusion, though I doubt it. The whole first chapter of Cavell's The Claim of Reason is about working out Witt's sense of "criteria" though I can't force myself through it because Cavell rarely makes anything easier to explain to anyone else.
I thank you for your patience and persistence.
The desire is Cavell explicating what Witt saw that representationalism really wants. Seeing the representation of an object with a word (or any other similar picture) as the only picture out there of how meaning works, Witt turned to look at all the variety of ways different things are meaningful to us. So why this other picture? And his interlocutor keeps going on about having to know, and about rules, etc. So the idea is that the fear of doubt and the black hole of skepticism/relativism cause the philosopher to skip over our regular criteria to fix meaning and word together, to have certain knowledge, normative rules, universal criteria, predetermined, etc.
Quoting Joshs
There are no new facts and everything is left as it is. So not so much a little shift or extension or new picture as...
Quoting Joshs
Yes, Emerson or Cavell say, turned on the point of our real need. As if our real needs and desires are in our ordinary criteria which we need only reflect on (turn to), rather than the need driven by our fear of uncertainty and irrationality, etc.
Quoting Joshs
In reacting to skepticism, philosophy sees the problem as the human, its fallibility, its inconsistency, its emotion, its partiality, its diversity, and decides that none of that is going to give us the certainty and universality and rationality that we want to solve skepticism, so we take philosophy out of any context and fashion it to meet the standards that will solve it. But this doesn't see that not only are ordinary criteria more adequate, but they also see that we still have a place in their application or their extension, or going past them, or against them.
Yeah.....and there is no fire alarm system until the horn sounds?
Quoting Antony Nickles
Sorta asked for help, or at least showed interest, by inquiring as to method. You’ve been adamant in maintaining OLP is best understood by its examples, which suggests there isn’t a method, per se, or OLP isn’t really a philosophy, per se. But it could be just me, in as much as I am not familiar with any philosophy not grounded by its own conditionals, by which something is explained.
And I’ve already admitted to those damnable cognitive prejudices, so...there is that. In addition, my personal philosophical domain is far anterior to language anyway, so a claimed philosophy with language in its name, isn’t going to tell me what I wish to know.
I'm naturally persistent, so there's no need to thank me for that. However, it is you who is being patient, to put up with my persistence. Patience is a virtue.
[quote="Antony Nickles;492182"W]ell I think you are still stuck on something about these words; maybe thinking there is "no such thing as the ordinary way", as if the ordinary way were opposed to the philosophical way (which can make those distinctions). I can't sort it though.[/quote]
"Ordinary" in this instance implies normal, does it not? As if there is a customary, familiar, or habitual, normal, or "ordinary" way of making this decision as to whether it was an accident or a mistake..
Quoting Antony Nickles
I can't grasp what you're saying here. I don't see where the reference to "worst case" comes from, or "sense of doom with every 'circumstance'". We are talking about judging an action which has already occurred, as to whether it was an accident or mistake. The action has already occurred so there is no sense of impending doom if the wrong decision is made.
What I said, is that in each particular instance of such an action occurring, if such a decision is to be made, the action must be judged in a way which is specific to that particular instance. That is because each particular instance is unique, and there is a very fine line of difference between the two possible judgements. There is no customary, familiar, or habitual way of deciding this, therefore no "ordinary way" of making such a judgement.
My point was, that if there was an ordinary way, the person would not have to appeal to any criteria in making that decision. There would be a customary, familiar, habitual way of saying that the action was accidental or that it was a mistake, the person would say that, and therefore no criteria involved in deciding which word to use. However, since there is not a customary, familiar, habitual, or ordinary way of deciding which of these two words to use, one would have to appeal to criteria to make that decision. The point being that the two, "ordinary way", and "using criteria" are incompatible with each other. This makes "ordinary criteria" an oxymoron.
Quoting Antony Nickles
"Criteria" is a very straight forward, unambiguous word, with a very direct meaning, a standard or principle for judgement. It makes no sense to say that Witt is not using "criteria" in the ordinary way, but in a special, private way. This is why we need to be aware of Wittgenstein's masterful hypocrisy. It's as if there's a soothing, calming voice, repeating over and over again, 'Deception is impossible, I am not deceiving you because deception is impossible...'. What is that person doing with that voice other than deceiving you? This is why there is a very clear need to distinguish, in principle, between what a person is saying, and what a person is doing with the words. If I judge what a person is 'saying' to me, according to my customary, familiar, habitual, ordinary way, but the person is actually 'doing' something different from what appears through my ordinary interpretation, then I will be deceived. Therefore, I need to apply criteria in my interpretation, to go beyond the ordinary interpretation which the deceiver intends for me to use to support the deception, in my effort to determine what the person is really doing with the words.
Quoting Antony Nickles
But you said this: "Yes, but you're probably not going to be happy about it because it takes the concepts that philosophy wrings its hands over and reveals their mystery and seeming power as driven by our disappointment with misunderstandings and our desire to take ourselves out of the solution." If you can judge that philosophers are acting on a desire to take themselves out of the solution, then you must have some criteria by which you can say that what they are observed as trying to take themselves out of, is the solution. If you allow that OLP cannot dispel skepticism concerning "the solution", then you have no principle whereby you can argue that OLP is better than any other philosophy, so it's revealed for what it really is, and that is just another form of poorly supported metaphysical speculation.
Quoting Antony Nickles
But this has no logical rigour. Agreement does not require criteria. You propose something to me, I can agree or disagree, but neither requires criteria. So if I agree with you, this does not justify your claim to "ordinary criteria". The problem being, as I described above, that we only apply criteria in cases which go outside the ordinary, customary, familiar, or habitual. So as long as your proposal appears to me to be ordinary, I will agree without question, or applying any sort of criteria. And your claim that "ordinary criteria" is justified by me agreeing, is unsupported.
Quoting Antony Nickles
Here you go, with the hypocrisy. You say let's get rid of the notion "word=idea", it's a faulty "picture". Then you say "let's put it that: we are seeing how a concept is used." But what we are seeing is words being used. We cannot proceed to "seeing how a concept is used" without that faulty picture, 'word=concept'. And when you allow for this separation between word and concept, and see that people are doing things with words, and that meaning is a feature of what the person is doing with the words, not a property of the words themselves, you'll understand that using the same word in different contexts gives it a different meaning. So if your desire is to associate "a concept" with the word, you must allow that it is a different concept in each different context, according to the difference in meaning, otherwise you are susceptible to deception by equivocation.
Quoting Antony Nickles
This is the problem. If, in the vast majority of situations criteria never come up, why assume that criteria are employed in those cases. "Criterion" is very specifically a principle or standard which is followed. This means that it is something present to the conscious mind, as a principle for logical reasoning. This is the same issue I had with Mww who proposed logic proceeding from premises which are not present to the conscious mind. How can logic proceed in that way? Clearly it's not logic, if it employs unstated premises. Likewise, the person cannot be said to be employing criteria when proceeding without any criteria present to that person.
If we move to say, this is "criteria" in another sense of the word, then we need to define that sense, otherwise people will just think, as I did, that it's "criteria" in the ordinary sense. What I've been arguing, is that these customary, familiar, habitual, or ordinary acts are not even remotely similar to acts which employ criteria. In fact, they are more like polar opposites. The customary, habitual, familiar, ordinary acts proceed from an attitude of certainty, while we only apply criteria when we are uncertain. So if we wish to obtain a true understanding of these types of acts, we need to maintain that separation between acts carried out with an attitude of certainty, and acts carried out with uncertainty, we ought not use "criteria" when referring to the motivating factor in customary, habitual, familiar, ordinary acts, which are carried out with an attitude of certainty. We only apply criteria when we are uncertain.
Quoting Antony Nickles
This opens another can of worms. What constitutes certainty?. We say "everyone could agree that...". And this means that everyone would interpret the situation in the same way. This would constitute a customary, habitual, familiar, or ordinary way of interpretation. We can see that "certainty" is tied together with the ordinary way. Which causes the other is not evident, but they are reciprocating and mutually supportive. The problem though, is that the term "everyone" is extremely inclusive, in an absolute sense, therefore too inclusive. All it takes, is one person who is abnormal, and doesn't share that ordinary way, to be skeptical, uncertain. This person might start applying criteria, and develop the belief that the judgement which everyone else is certain of, as they proceed in the ordinary way, with certainty and without criteria, is actually wrong. The criteria might even show very clearly that the abnormal person is correct, and everyone else proceeding in the ordinary way, with certainty, but without criteria, are incorrect. This is why we cannot ever exclude skepticism.
Quoting Antony Nickles
Let's consider this statement. When we "fix meaning and word together" we are inclined to assume "a concept" which the word signifies. This is because we want the word to represent something directly, just like when a proper noun represents an object directly, or even when we use a noun to refer to a particular object directly. This facilitates our capacity to talk about meaning, when there are things, concepts which we can talk about. Now we have these objects of meaning (Platonic Forms perhaps), concepts, which we can talk about, just like we can talk about physical objects. It's a matter of what's customary, familiar, and habitual in our ordinary use of language. We ordinarily use language to talk about the physical world, objects and such, so language is designed and evolved to work in that way. So when we go to talk about meaning, we are inclined to use language in the customary way, thus we invent this notion of "concepts" and that facilitates the discussion of meaning. because natural language is purposed to talk about things not meaning.
But what Wittgenstein demonstrated is that this is really a mistaken way to proceed in talking about meaning. It actually encourages skepticism, because we talk about objects of meaning, "concepts", which just are not there. So now we need to reassess this desire to talk about meaning. Either we must just accept as a fact that language was not designed to talk about meaning, and we simply cannot go there with language, it is a realm of what cannot be spoken about, or, we need to redesign language such that it can be used to properly speak about meaning. I think that the latter is the appropriate way forward, and the way which philosopher generally proceed, giving the impression that philosophy uses language in an abnormal way. Well yes, but that's because we cannot do philosophy using language in the ordinary way, because ordinary language was not purposed for doing philosophy. OLP ought to simply acknowledge this difference.
I think that's largely right.
One thing I'd emphasize is how one of the quintessential moves of OLP works: if X were true then it would make sense to say Y. This is a particular way of showing how no concept stands alone, and thus cannot be analyzed on its own, but is always part of a constellation. That constellation consists not just of other concepts, but of what we say, what we do, what we think, and what we feel. You can see this sort of thing clearly in Strawson's "Freedom and Resentment" -- we talk about an action having been done freely or not in particular ways, and we have particular emotional responses that are intimately related to that somewhat abstract characterization, the "moral sentiments". "Did she do that of her own free will?" is a concrete question, addressed by ordinary people everyday with considerable subtlety, and with real stakes.
It is very nearly philosophy as, at least in large part, a sort of anthropology. (Austin dreamed of having teams of researchers doing field-work.)
But what of the normative claims of philosophy -- that this is the right way to think, not that, or that this is the right way to act, or organize a society, or evaluate a work of art? LW famously claimed that philosophy leaves everything as it is, that it has nothing special to contribute. By and large, I think that stands as a reasonable rebuke to the absurd hubris of philosophers, as if no one knew anything until they finally came along to tell everyone what they really think, as opposed to what they think they think, and what they should think. Never listen to anyone who wants to tell you about your metaphysical presuppositions.
But I think we can say this much: philosophy doesn't come along to add a normative dimension to our lives -- it's already there, and available for philosophy to participate in just as people do ordinarily. Philosophy doesn't stand outside or above life in judgment, but by the same token philosophy can make just the same sort of normative claims as non-philosophers do everyday.
Quoting Joshs
I think that's close -- but I'd resist seeing this as some sort of frozen structure. Normativity is not a feature that emerges from the existence of a complete and closed system describable in terms of rules and criteria and so on. Normativity is in play. People act and judge each other's actions, react to them emotionally, dispute not only whether an action was just but what justice is. Examining and modifying the rules as you go is part of the game, so philosophy cannot be in the business of figuring out what The Rules are. If structuralism has pretensions to explain people's behavior by reference to some fixed "underlying" system (economic, cultural, psychological, what have you), that's obviously not what you'll get from any of these folks.
Point. Worded backwards: identity is the rule, or, as you say, a standing principle by which the determination of the correspondence of properties to an object, or the correspondence of objects to each other, is possible.
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Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
I don’t care. From a metaphysical point of view, that is, as opposed to mere anthropology or rational psychology, reason is presupposed as developed sufficiently to be the ground of learning, which has more to do with some arbitrarily sufficient measure of extant experience. In other words, in the philosophical examination of how knowledge is acquired, something must already known.
Besides, given that a young dog is the same kind of thing as an old dog, it is logically consistent that a young brain is the same kind of thing as an old brain. No matter how an old brain learns or knows things, it must be the case the young brain learns or knows things in the same way, or, at least can learn or know. Otherwise, it becomes possible, e.g., that a child is taught of a thing, yet learns of some other thing, which can never explain how that other thing came to be. Rather, it is always the case that a child simply does or does not learn the one thing, rather than learns some other thing instead, and it is here that, by whatever means any human learns anything, the explanation is given, because the knowledge system is common to all humans.
And the quantity of brain, said to condition the quality of it......the bigger the brain is the finer the knowable is....is irrelevant, insofar as the question concerns the how of its operation, and not the extent of its content.
So....do I think? If the child is thinking on his own accord, yes. If he is being instructed, no. Remember learning your letters? Tracing the little dotted resemblances of the shape representing them? Tell me you were mentally actively thinking....cognizing by means of concepts..... and not merely motivating your hand to follow the dots. And afterwards, henceforth forever, was it the hand motion you remember for the letter you want to write, or the rule that the shape identifies the name of the letter you want to write?
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Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
HA!!!! I offer Col. Jessup: “YOU DAMN RIGHT I DID!!!!”
‘Nuff said.
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Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
(Sigh) Illustrative purposes. The path is enough, but you still gotta move your own feet.
Except that it seems to me in the case of Einstein’s
theory, or better yet, Wittgenstein’s writings, our lives will have had to agree in more than just the little ways in order for our criteria to align closely enough to attain agreement on the content of the ideas. It seems to me that body of work on the order of a Kant or Descartes represents a comprehensive form of life.
I've given examples of its method, of looking at examples. With knowledge, an apology, intention (accident/mistake), etc throughout this thread.
After I wrote this post , I read Rorty’s critique of Cavell and realized that he was making a similar argument to mine.
https://www.pdcnet.org/revmetaph/content/revmetaph_1981_0034_0004_0759_0774
Rorty:“ My complaint about Cavell's treatment of skepticism may be summed up by saying that his book never makes this possibility clear for someone for whom it is not yet an actuality. It is fairly easy to connect (b) with (c): the realization that the world is available to us only under a description hooks up with the realization that it exists without a self-description, that it has no language of its own which we might one day learn. Its existence "makes no sense" because sense is relative to descriptions and existence is not. But, just as I do not know how to hook up (a) with (b), I do not know how to hook (a) up with (c) either. Thus (c) seems to me not to serve as a useful link between (a) and (b).”
Rortyand I are both claiming that Cavell is assuming a logical connection between such situations as believing in the picture theory of meaning and Wittgenstein’s corrective of that thinking. Instead, we argue that moving from a belief in the picture theory to language games amounts to a change of subject. I suppose Lyotard might refer to this incommensurability as a differend.
For most of the history of the West , in the sciences, philosophy, literature and the arts something like a picture theory dominated ( there are many kinds of picture theories ). That shouldn’t be surprising. We see the same phenomenon in child development. Merleau-Pony pointed out that young children do not recognize that others have their own perspective and point of view , that what is a fact for me is the same fact for everyone. So there is a developmental process in child
development and also in philosophical history of decentering of perspective.
Quoting Antony Nickles
Skepticism belongs to the type of thinking that is incommensurable with Wittgenstein. In order for a skeptic to “take meaning out of any context” they would fist have to understand ‘context’ and ‘ meaning’ in the way that Witt means it , and that is precisely what they cannot do.
This is like accusing the young child who only recognizes their own perspective(because the very notion of perspective doesn’t exist for them yet ) of taking meaning out of any context , because of the fear of doubt. What those of us who come after Witt should say about the young child or the Cartesian skeptic is that while they IMPLICTLY understand the world via language games , at an EXPLICIT level they only recognize an undifferentiated terrain.
Sorry Mww, but I disagree with all of this, at a most fundamental level. First, we cannot philosophically examine the acquisition of knowledge with the presupposition that something must already be known, for the acquisition of knowledge, because this is contrary to the observed evidence of empirical science. What the evidence indicates is that knowledge is the type of thing which came into existence when there was no knowledge prior to its existence, just like there was no human beings prior to there being humans, and no life prior to there being life. So knowledge seems to be a type of thing which comes into existence from a state of no knowledge. And, we ought not accept the premise that knowledge must come from prior knowledge, or else we get drawn into the problems Plato faced with the theory of recollection, and eternal Forms.
Since we cannot characterize knowledge as relying on something already known, we cannot characterize it as the type of thing which continually builds upon an existing foundation. Furthermore, we cannot make generalizations like you do, that all learning is done in the same way, because there may be many different ways that knowledge comes into existence as evidenced by the many different forms of life. And this is very evident from the aptitude tests given to high school students. Some people are good at some things, and not so good at others, while other people are the opposite. So a child learning how to talk follows a completely different process from one learning arithmetic, which is different from learning deductive logic, etc.. And, there are many things which people come up with, which cannot be explained as to how they came up with them. Therefore a significant number of people stray off the beaten path of the straight and narrow, and learn some other things instead.
Quoting Mww
Are you kidding? I don't think I learned to think in concepts until advanced math in high school, and I had great difficulty, I did not catch on quickly, and I dropped out of math, so to this very day I might still not cognize by means of concepts very well, if at all. I take "cognizing by means of concepts" to mean when the symbols being used are meant to represent a particular unchanging idea. So even in basic arithmetic I thought that "7" represented a group of seven things, and I learned adding, subtraction, multiplication, etc. thinking this way.
So when I learned to write letters, it was very clearly particular hand motions which I learned. The teacher performed these on the blackboard and made us copy. And I learned to memorize the alphabet along with the way that each letter looked, so that on the command of a spoken letter, I could recall the look of it, and perform the hand motion required to draw it. Then I'd look at the letter I'd drawn, and compare with the teacher's to see how good I was getting at it, and what aspects needed more practice. After many repetitions it became habit. If I wanted a C I'd imagine it's looks briefly, do the required motion, and check to make sure it looked right. The only rules I remember concerned the size and positioning of the letters on the page and perhaps the positioning of my hand on the paper. There were no conceptual rules.
Arithmetic brought on many more rules, but again they were procedural rules, not conceptual rules. And the role of memory was increased such that there were little rules or tricks of association used to facilitate memorizing times tables etc.. I can't say that I think any of this involved cognizing by means of concepts. That perhaps comes about from reading. In reading I learned to imagine fictitious scenarios. This cultivates the notion that words represent something which you can create in your mind, something imaginary. I think that this is fundamental to cognizing by means of concepts, the idea that a word signifies something imaginary. That there may be very specific rules for how those imaginary things must be created (in mathematics for example) was not received well by me because I didn't have an aptitude for interpreting those rules. I learned very basic geometry, but that's about as far as I got in cognizing through the means of concepts. Things were too abstract, so I could not imagine very well what I was supposed to be doing.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Let's just use the term grammar for what OLP is doing and criteria for what traditional philosophy uses, as that is along the lines of a set standard to apply or judge by (the most familiar use of criteria and the one I think you are focusing on). Now let's just clear up that the grammar of a mistake would not be used in making a decision as in beforehand (in most cases--except a deliberate appeal to them, like in a speech), but, as I believe you are saying, in a decision as to what happened, though usually indirectly. For example, "Did your finger slip? (Was it an accident?); or, "Why did you shoot the cow?" (Was this a mistake?)
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
I was overreacting here I think to the supposition I saw that every instance calls for the need to be "judged" ("must" be justified), which I took as tied to the assumption that everything is intended or decided, or needs to be, or even can be, judged (Witt here talks of the grammar of knowledge: that there can be none without the possibility of doubt). And especially, that, if we were to (could) always judge, it would be based on one picture of how we judge.
And I think we also need to clear up that "criteria" (grammar) is not being investigated to (necessarily) figure out how we judge, as that implies justifying the action; as if every act needs justification (or is judged the same way); i.e., that philosophy is only (primarily) about grounded action or speech. What OLP is doing is looking at Grammar to: 1) show that philosophy's preoccupation with a picture where there is one explanation (for speech, say) is confused by our desire for certainty; and 2) to learn something about, e.g., intention by looking at the grammar of actions which delineate them from each other (here, see Austin, ad infinitum) @Banno. Here, above, we learned that part of the grammar of an accident does not allow it to be considered beforehand (again, revealing something about intention), but that a mistake's grammar allows for mitigation, say, by concentration "Don't make a mistake".
With OLP we are not "judging" (or justifying) the action, we are making a claim to our observation of the grammar (my claim, your concession to it), and the evidence is the example of what we say when we talk of accidents, or mistakes. So we are not doing the judging; people just make mistakes and accidents happen, and these are part of our lives, as is the deciding between them--which is what OLP looks at.
So, I think we are onto something to say OLP is not in the business of justification--we would be seeing what counts (what matters to us)--the grammar--to show us about intention, evidence, judging, decisions, etc., starting with the basic goal of OLP initially, which was to say judging and evidence--justification--works in different ways depending on the concept and even the context; that not everything is about certainty, universality, etc., but we can still have rationality and logic and truth value in other ways, and in cases philosophy thought we could not, e.g., what it is to judge and what counts as evidence, in: the problem of the other, aesthetics, moral moments, types of knowledge, and other philosophical concerns.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Now we can see that we are saying each "instance" is "unique" (and here is where @Joshs is, I believe, hanging onto "context" as unique/different) instead of saying there is a "particular" grammar for each "action" (concept). One implication when we say this may be that, if the "circumstances" are (context is) different each time, then the way of judging (justifying?) is the same---say by the one acting, or the one judging, or both in some way in each unique circumstance. This is only to say, look and see!: what are we hinging on the fact that every event is its own. I offer the grammar that, in any expression/act, what is "particular" about the context usually only comes up in light of the "grammar' of how we judge that thing (e.g., its felicity, or identity). In other words, if every circumstance was "unique", we would not have our lives aligned in the ways they are. Different parts of the context will come up with different questions about the act, endlessly, but rationally.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Well, there are ordinary means we use to judge deception, but there is always its possibility (the fear of the other mind). And Austin does show that some expressions "do" things--like, I promise, is: to promise. (He also shows that intention=meaning is the opening for deception). But not everything we say "does" something. Maybe we could say, there is what a person says, and then the possibility this is a different concept based on the anticipated grammar and the context, so that there is what is actually "done" with the words in terms of the aptness of the expression and the anticipated implications, and the consequences which should follow. That is to say, if you say: that, here you MUST (grammatically) be, e.g, making a threat, when the words you used took the form of an overture. The difference between these two is a major philosophical issue; Austin touches on it, Cavell is obsessed by it.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Here I didn't mean to say that OLP was solving skepticism, just in a different way. The reintroduction of ordinary grammar is to show the many ways we have for rationally handling situations where doubt creates skepticism for the philosopher. Now that is not to say these "solve" skepticism as they come to an end somewhere, but they are ours and we are responsible for them, in our lives, in a way traditional philosophy would like to ignore in just setting its own standards (Cavell will say Witt sees the truth of skepticism)--knowledge has a limit; we are separate but answerable to each other, and the possibility for continued intelligibility exists.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
It is supported by the evidence of my examples and their detail and "perspicuity" (Witt calls it); the distinctions I describe between grammar; the description being thorough (rigorous; not lazy, haphazard, sloppy). I don't think you can read Austin and not call that "rigour". Now maybe you mean logical certainty; rigour as in: held to a certain standard for justification or something.
This does reveal OLP's inability to force itself on us, or necessarily require your agreement if you agree on premises, etc. It is based on you seeing for yourself what I am claiming (about the grammar of a thing). In Wittgenstein there are a lot of places left with questions, for us to answer for ourselves; or (oblique) statements which only point at a conclusion we have to draw, He, and Nietzsche, will make a grammatical claim, and everyone assumes it is a statement justified to be true; that they both are taken to have theories about philosophical issues when they are (mostly) describing what they see, for you to try to see as well. (You can read Cavell and feel like he only told you half the story, and Austin is so obtuse that people only take him to be making the case for different types of acts, with no point to it at all.)
"You say let's get rid of the notion "word=idea", it's a faulty "picture". Then you say "let's put it that: we are seeing how a concept is used." But what we are seeing is words being used.[/quote]
This could have been worded better. I did not mean to say "Words/concepts are used (by people)". Just that OLP is looking at the uses (as in "senses") of a concept, describing the grammar of that use (as a concept may have different uses/senses--see "I know" above). Not that I control the meaning (how it is "used") of the expression, but only that expressions (concepts) have different ways in which they work (uses/senses)--a concept will have different grammar for each use, but we don't "use" that grammar, manipulate, control, intend, etc., or "use" a concept.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
This is well taken. Part of what OLP is saying is that all acts are subject to uncertainty (though I'm not sure we carry out our acts with "certainty" so much as confidence). But by uncertainty I mean, every act is subject to failure. Now if something "fishy" (Austin will say), happens, the Other will be uncertain in a sense, yes. However, what OLP makes clear is that this is not the open hole that leads to the type of skepticism where we abstract from any context and install "certainty" in some other way. This would be to overlook or wipe out the grammar of the act, which includes the way it might fail, and how we rectify that, with qualifications, excuses, detail, etc. "Was that a threat...?" "No, I was trying to make an overture, and left off what I intended next." Now the Other is reassured, but are they now "certain"?
Now if we are qualifying acts as "customary, habitual, familiar, ordinary", then we are assuming a sense of "certainty" in those types of acts, where with "other" acts we need certainty, in the sense of justification perhaps. Now we may just be thinking of aesthetics, morality, politics, etc., where some might say there are no justifications, or none that satisfy reason, or logic, or certainty. And even here, OLP will point to the grammar of the concepts in these areas as a sense of rationale, intelligibility, if not certainty, nor agreement. But there may be times when, even given the existence of our grammar, we are at a loss as to how to proceed. And then perhaps reflection on our grammar (philosophy) might help, or at least allow us to see the ground we are on in this case (the rationality of our options), so that we may go beyond our grammar, or against it, or extend it into a new world.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
And I agree, skepticism shows that the ability of knowledge to take our place has a limit. After that, we are responsible for the decision that our ("shared") judgments are wrong (that it is "I" that must go beyond our morality Nietzsche will say). There are ways to address this: education, political action, we ourselves stand for the new judgment by our example, etc.
But the universality I was referring to, as it were, was between philosophers, those investigating the grammar of our concepts. Here, if you disagree, you are obligated to make yourself intelligible, with counterexamples, further, more-detailed contexts, etc.; though philosophy breaks down too.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
In the paragraph before this, you do an excellent job of describing the picture of meaning which Witt is trying to reveal we (philosophy) had been struggling under (and still does in some circles). And your first option here is the direction Witt went with the Tractatus. But then you say '"or, we need to redesign language such that it can be used to properly speak about meaning." And here is where we are caught by the same net. I admit (@Banno) that our language is the rope, as it were, but OLP's idea is not to "redesign language", use it in an "abnormal" way (I would say this is, backwards, putting certainty first and the words second), yet neither, as I have been saying, use it in a contrasting "normal" way, within the net as it were. OLP is turning and looking at what we imply when we say "I mean" in order to see the grammar of meaning--I would say, that our grammar allows for expressions to be meaningful (not justified) because grammar tracks what is meaningful in our lives.
:100:
Quoting Antony Nickles
Quoting Antony Nickles
I question whether it is necessarily a fear (e.g. of doubt) that motivates all skepticism or all philosophy. I think the philosopher's desire for an undefined "higher" form of knowledge may also be a contributing factor. I find it difficult to explicate what "higher" means in this regard, except for all the factors that you mention: more universal/objective, more certain, more logical/rational.
I hadn't previously considered what you appear to be presenting here and for which OLP claims to provide a resolution: that at least some traditional philosophical problems are a direct result of this "higher" striving, especially with its byproduct removal of humanity from the picture. This would mean that philosophers end up in some (context-less) problems of their own making.
As Witt says, "back to the rough ground!"
Just look up dictionary definitions of the two words and see if there is any consistent conceptual difference.
This is a good point (and I'm glad someone out there is taking up the banner). I have been focusing so much on just getting over some kind of threshold misunderstanding we are having that I have not provided any of the other (negative) ways OLP works. Witt does this a lot, as I mentioned parenthetically above, when he says (grammatically, of knowledge) that we can not speak (categorically) of knowledge, when there is no possibility of doubt. They will also take a statement of traditional philosophy and ask: in what context would this be said? "I only see the appearance of a Goldifinch."
Thank you for the contribution.
But we are not talking about "attaining" "agreement" on "ideas" or "meanings". Our lives align (in apologizing) in ways (what is apt or not, how excused, or fixed...) that we can see in looking at saying: I apologize. The alignment is, as Austin said, over thousands of years in myriad ways. And Witt will add from top to bottom, big and small: that we are human, that we act in uncertainty, that things go wrong, that there is pain, that there are remedies, etc. All these things need to be in place beforehand. We do not agree what an apology is, we agree in judgements, Witt will say. #242
Well I read the Rorty, and I don't agree that we do not have to go through the history of analytical philosophy to get to a point where we feel the need (desire) for radical skepticism. I'm not sure if he just hasn't read enough Cavell (maybe the early stuff), but Cavell does account for the connection (I wouldn't call it logical more then inevitable, or sliding down a slippery slope) between the desire for certainty and removing the human. Rorty even refers to the discussion Cavell has that our relation to the world is not one of knowing, as we understand it (perhaps most directly evidenced in Knowing and Acknowledging).
And there is the "picture theory of meaning" but Witt separately refers to a picture (like a framework) but it is not one people "believe" in. It is forced on them by their desire for certainty. To say Witt is corrective is not to say he is convincing people to "now believe" in language games. He is doing more than changing the subject; he is hoping you see what you desired of the picture, and then to turn around and see a better way (method) to see our actual desires.
Quoting Joshs
What I mean by "taking away any context" is an implication of what they do; or, in this case, the abstraction of meaning to have an explaination for all communication, or to require that morality be determined before an event (or deontologically--without us). Not everything is done with my intention or reasons--the effect of what I say is not causally related; I may choose my words, but then they are in the world, subject to the criteria or our concepts, even though I remain answerable for them. (@Metaphysician Undercover)
Thank you, I understand your being wary of talking about something "higher". A reticence that I have is that philosophy does want something higher, a more complete understanding, to better ourselves, to rise above what can be lazy, nasty, partisan, ineffective, unintelligible, etc. I think OLP provides the possibiity of that in taking us from: grasping for a goal of certainty to have it slip away, to waiting to see the grammar that provide the humble dirt from which to begin that work.
I agree. I was probably insufficiently clear that I had traditional (pre-OLP) philosophy in mind in reference to this desire for something "higher"; that is, something more objective, certain, rational, etc.
There is an age-old argument that each rational being has his own philosophy, that by which his intelligence, inclinations and personality in general becomes susceptible to their respective manifestations. So saying, it follows that each rational being, upon being linguistically engaged, is, in effect, philosophizing in accordance with it, objectively.
Ordinary language can be taken as the content of any linguistic engagement, thus OLP can then be taken as each rational being’s internal ground for his philosophizing by means of that content, and such philosophizing suffices as that by which such internal ground is represented. From here, it makes sense that he intends differing meanings for articles of his linguistic engagement depending on the differing contexts of its expression, all in accordance with an overarching personal philosophy with respect to all of them. As such, each engagement is itself a measure, or an example, of a philosophy.
How’m I doing? Close? Ballpark?
Except you aren’t at the fundamental level, obviously, because my assertion presupposes knowledge already acquired.
Your rejoinder is even more absurd empirically, considering the reality that, e.g., heliocentrism could never have come to be known, if the standing knowledge represented by geocentrism wasn’t being first examined by Aristarchus. Just because Ptolemy turned out to be wrong doesn’t take away from his knowledge.
Works in reverse just as well: how could knowledge acquisition ever be examined, if there was never anything known?
Empirical knowledge isn’t destroyed, it’s replaced. A priori knowledge, if one grants the validity of it, is neither destroyed nor replaced. Even if not accepted as a general knowledge condition due to the impossibility of its empirical proof, it can still be granted logical necessity.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Yet, that is exactly how science is done, and science is both the means and the ends of human empirical knowledge, so.....the asymptotic relation is glaringly obvious.
Nevertheless, it’s irrelevant, because that’s not what I’m doing. I’m not characterizing knowledge, but theorizing on its acquisition, which presupposes its character is already determined, as it must have been, in order to grant it is something possible to acquire by the means supposed for it. The state of knowledge builds on its existential antecedents, yes, but that doesn't in the least give any indication of what knowledge is. It might just be that knowledge doesn’t even have a character, but it is a characterization of something else. Knowledge may be characterized as merely the condition of the intellect. But that still doesn’t indicate what knowledge is, but only what it does.
Metaphysical reductionism....don’t hate it because it’s beautiful.
Can you clear this up for me then? What is meant by "the grammar of a mistake"? If "grammar" concerns rules of correct usage, and a "mistake" is to do something incorrectly, then how could a mistake have grammar? Doesn't "grammar of a mistake" seem oxymoronic to you?
quote="Antony Nickles;492631"]Here, above, we learned that part of the grammar of an accident does not allow it to be considered beforehand (again, revealing something about intention), but that a mistake's grammar allows for mitigation, say, by concentration "Don't make a mistake".[/quote]
See, replacing "criteria" with "grammar" does not resolve the issue. If it was a "mistake", then the grammar was not adhered to, and you cannot talk about "a mistake's grammar". If grammar was adhered to, you cannot call it a mistake. What is a mistake then, an act without grammar? But is an act without grammar necessarily a mistake. Wasn't there a time prior to grammar? Were these actions which brought grammar into existence mistaken actions?
Quoting Antony Nickles
Can't you see though, that this is a judgement in itself? To say that something is a "mistake", or it is an "accident", implies that you have made that judgement. It's hypocritical to say to a person, "I'm not judging you", but then proceed to talk about what the person has done as a :"mistake". So in reality, you really are judging, by referring to things as mistakes or accidents.
But that's just the nature of language use. Choice of words implies judgement, and that's why we can categorize language use as an action. And we assume that this activity is carried out through some form of intention, like other human acts. The difficult aspect about language use is that it is activity which is often carried on rapidly, in an habitual way, therefore with very little thought. So we're faced with the question of how does intention play a role in an activity carried out with very little thought, and no immediate indications of intention even being present.
Quoting Antony Nickles
So the point here, is that every instance of saying something, as an instance of performing an action, implies that judgement has been made prior to the act, and it was an intentional act. And, we really know very little about how intention plays a role in this activity of saying things, because much of it is done in an habitual way which displays little if any of the features of intention. However, we relate to what has been said through "meaning" implying what was meant, or intended. Therefore there is a serious gap here, a hole in our knowledge. We assume to know what was meant or intended, by an act in which intention is barely evident. So we turn to something completely other than the speaker's intention to justify our interpretations.
The hole, or gap is only closed by skepticism. Skepticism is to recognize that there is the possibility that I misunderstand what was meant due to a deficient method of interpretation. You say for instance, "grammar of a mistake", I recognize that I might very easily misunderstand what you mean by this, so I question you in a skeptical way. Now, we'll see what comes out of this, but the way I see it, is that very often on this forum, people cannot explain what they mean when questioned about a phrase they have used. This fact provides another piece of evidence. Not only do people appear to be talking away habitually, without thought or intention entering into what they are saying, but even when questioned about what they mean by what they have said, sometimes they cannot even determine what they themselves intended. The evidence therefore, is that there are speech acts with very little if any intention, thus very little meaning, yet they appear to be correct grammatically.
Quoting Antony Nickles
This I believe is a misrepresentation of philosophy. It is not preoccupied by this 'one picture', or 'one explanation'. Take Plato's dialectical method for example. Each dialogue takes a term, like love, courage, friendship, knowledge, or just, and investigates the various different ways that the word is used. The implication is, that if there was an ideal, the ideal would validate the correct definition, therefore correct use of the term. It is only in the more logical based fields, mathematics and science for example, which assumes a definition as a starting point, assuming an ideal as a premise, that the 'one explanation' scenario is paramount. A philosopher might appear preoccupied in skepticism, with the question of what validates that particular explanation (definition), the one employed by the mathematician as the ideal.
Quoting Antony Nickles
Clearly this is folly, to claim that we can have "rationality and logic and truth value" without justification. You know, a person could go on and on, saying all sorts of things in all sorts of ways, without even knowing what oneself is saying, spouting off all sorts of inconsistencies and contradictions, but how is the meaning of what that person is saying going to be revealed without justification? Without justification how can anyone judge whether what the person is saying is rational, logical, or true? We could consider justification to be a type of explanation, or interpretation..
This is why there is a very real difference between saying something and interpreting (explaining) what has been said. Philosophy seeks the interpretation, the explanation. Now, there is a very real problem in affirming that interpretation is carried out according to criteria, or grammar. This is because grammar and criteria consists of principles, rules, and these things themselves need to be interpreted. This is what Wittgenstein demonstrated very early in the PI, as a fundamental principle. We cannot assume an infinite regress of rules required for the interpretation of rules. Therefore we ought to conclude that interpretation, and explanation, the aspects of language use which philosophers are interested in, cannot be deferred to grammar or criteria.
Quoting Antony Nickles
But this doesn't make sense to say that there is a particular grammar for each unique action. If we separate a descriptive grammar from a prescriptive grammar, we can see that the prescriptive grammar consists of general rules for application, so we can rule out the prescriptive grammar as insufficient for a particular grammar. And if we say that each particular action has a description unique to it, how could we call unique, distinct, and different incidents, as following "a grammar"?
Quoting Antony Nickles
But every circumstance is unique, time and space are that way, despite what you say about the way that we align our lives. Have you ever been in two circumstances exactly the same? Even deja vu is regarded as inconclusive.
Quoting Antony Nickles
Why do you feel the urge to think that there is always 'concepts' involved when people are speaking? Why not just start with the evidence, and basic facts, that people are doing something with words? If, when we proceed to analyze what they are doing with words, the need to assume concepts comes up, then we can deal with that. But until that point I see this assumption of "concepts" as misleading.
I see your assumption of "concepts" as directly opposed to what you say that OLP is telling you: " What OLP is doing is looking at Grammar to: 1) show that philosophy's preoccupation with a picture where there is one explanation (for speech, say) is confused by our desire for certainty;". You have just replaced the 'picture which can give certainty' with 'concept'.
Quoting Antony Nickles
This is what I'll ask of you, as a proposition, to enable our capacity to proceed in a manner of discussion which is acceptable to both of us. Can we start simply with the idea that in language and communication people are 'doing something with words'. We cannot assume "concepts", nor can we assume "grammar", or "criteria", or any such type of principles or rules as prerequisite for 'doing something with words'.
We can start by inquiring as to what it is that people are doing with words, and perhaps make a few divisions as to the different types of things which people do with words, like Plato suggested in his analysis of "rhetoric". If the need comes up to consider concepts, or grammar, then we will consider the roles of these things as the need arises. But until then, I think that any preconception concerning the roles of these things is a hinderance to good philosophy.
Quoting Antony Nickles
This is what I request, that we "wipe out the grammar of the act". That there is necessarily a grammar to an act is what I dispute as an unjustified, unnecessary, doubtful, and actually a very fishy claim in itself. It's fishy because it is unwarranted and therefore must conceal a hidden motivation, and this makes me uncertain about your intention. So let's start with the assumption that a human being is free to act as one pleases, and if the need to assume some sort of grammar appears to arise, we can discuss that need.
Quoting Antony Nickles
So, I further propose that this type of action, customary, habitual, familiar, and ordinary acts, are carried out with little, if any, reference to grammar in the performing of those acts. These acts are carried out with minimal thought, and the thought which is used is used to determine an efficacious method, for the particular circumstances (context). Therefore the thought is not directed toward, or by, grammar, it is directed by the intent to bring about the desired consequences in the particular context or circumstances. Grammar is not a principal feature of this type of act. If you disagree, then you could explain why, or how you disagree.
Quoting Antony Nickles
Here is the problem with this perspective, and it's a very simple and straight forward issue. Knowledge is a type of becoming. It is the type of thing which comes into being, progresses, and evolves. Knowledge advances. Language is the same type of thing as it is closely related to knowledge as a facilitator of knowledge. Because of this progression of knowledge, this philosophical need for evolution or advancement of knowledge, there is a need for a progression and evolution of language as required to capacitate the evolution of knowledge. Therefore there is a need for philosophy to "redesign language", and use language in a way initially perceived as "abnormal", or else we could not venture into the unknown with the intent to make it known.
Quoting Janus
I have. We can say that an accident in some cases is the result of a mistake, the consequences of. But a mistake might also be the consequences of another mistake, or some other unforeseen thing, making the mistake itself an accident. So in many instances the same thing could be correctly called an accident or a mistake.
It's a funny thing that LW's other really salient metaphor for what he's up to is seeking a "bird's eye view" -- that puts you not only not on the rough ground but not on the ground at all! Perhaps this is his "stereoscopic vision", I don't know. It's odd though.
A couple months ago I had an exchange with @Andrew M in which I made a somewhat fanciful use of the rough ground vs. ice thing, suggesting that one way of doing philosophy is to make glass-soled boots that will glide all the way across a frozen pond with one push. Of course you can't actually use them for anything, but you can pretend you've demonstrated the perfect boot.
I have felt very strongly the pull of formal systems (as LW did), of logic and game theory and the rest. I have admired the perfection of many a glass-soled boot. But I have come to suspect that the desire to formalize philosophy is a desire not to think, but instead to build a machine that simply spits out the answers.
LW, like Derrida, offers a sort of internal critique of the project: Derrida repeatedly shows that every self-described "complete" system has swept something under the rug, something it needs to work but pretends isn't there; Wittgenstein talks about things like "following a rule", which you can't formalize in rules on pain of regress, and then he asks how it is possible that we clearly can follow a rule or fail to despite the lack of definitive criteria. To answer that question, you need the bird's eye view, but therein lies temptation: it is from such heights that we perceive structure, human civilization laid out before us like a circuit board in all its logical perfection, the territory reduced to a map.
But a map is also a tool. There are good maps and bad, useful and misleading, and how you use the map, how you modify it, update it and improve it -- none of that is on the map. A map is such an extraordinary thing! It would be a mistake to regret their invention. But it would also be a mistake to think that exploration is not required for making good maps, or to think that having drawn the map you've actually been everywhere you want to go.
OK, sorry I misunderstood. But now that I think I understand, I don't see the relevance of what you said. Of course we cannot examine the coming into being of knowledge without knowledge having already come into being, but how is that point relevant to anything?
Quoting Mww
You have no logical association here. Let's say that geocentricism was examined and demonstrated as incorrect. Then heliocentrism took its place. Heliocentrism is not based in geocentricism, nor does it require geocentricism to precede it. Heliocentrism is completely distinct, and not dependent on geocentricism at all, so it may have come into existence without geocentricism preceding it. Just because it didn't and the one does follow the other in time, does not prove a causal connection, so we cannot logically say that the existence of heliocentrism is dependent on the prior existence of geocentricism.
Quoting Mww
I agree very much, that some knowledge depends on other knowledge, and that in many cases principles are built on existing principles. The problem is that characterizing knowledge in this way denies one the capacity for a complete understanding of knowledge. This is because the most fundamental principles are also a part of knowledge, and we cannot characterize them in this way, as built on other principles. If we characterize knowledge in this way, then all knowledge will be based on other knowledge, and therefore all knowledge will require some fundamental principles not derived this way, at its base, to support it. Since we cannot account for those fundamental principles, then all of our knowledge of knowledge is fundamentally flawed.
You can try to avoid this problem by positing a priori principles as the foundation, but I see this proposal as unacceptable. This is because the reality of a priori principles cannot be demonstrated, so they appear to me to be simply an assumption of convenience. If we cannot account for the fundamental principles, that's no problem, we just posit a priori principles and there you have it, problem solved.
Quoting Mww
Let me see if I can understand what you are saying here then. You are assuming that there is something called "knowledge" and since there is such a thing its character is already determined. Now you are theorizing as to how knowledge might have been acquired.
Quoting Mww
But now you are rejecting that assumption, saying that there might not even be such a thing as knowledge. I don't think you can have it both ways. That would just lead to ambiguous meaninglessness. If your premise is "there is knowledge", so you proceed to inquire into the acquisition of knowledge, and the conclusions you come to, make you realize that the original premise "there is knowledge" is unsound, then shouldn't you reject that premise altogether, and start from something completely different?
This is what I think is fundamental to knowledge. We start with premises which prove very useful, and since they are so useful they seem solid to support structures of knowledge. So we build huge structures on these fundamentals, which appear to be unshakably sound due to their usefulness, until we get really high, and far out on the branches, where the conclusion start to appear a little absurd. Why are the conclusions absurd? Well it's not evident, and we can reexamine the logical process over and over again without finding the fault. Then we must face the only remaining possible solution, the fundamental premises, the premises which we take for granted, as absolutely unshakable, which support the entire structure, are not sound, and therefore the entire structure must come done and be rebuild all over again from bottom up.
So I think that your example of heliocentrism and geocentricism is very relevant and can tell us a lot about this reality. Thousands of years ago, that the sun moves across the sky, was a fundamental, unshakable premise, very useful for making clocks, calendars, and all sorts of representations. Back then, no one would even think of anything other wise. So huge structures of knowledge and predictions were built on this fundamental premise. However, it turned out that certain predictions weren't coming out quite right, there were some anomalies. When this happens, we can proceed by piling more and more principles onto the structure, to deal with the anomalies, but this just makes the entire structure more and more unstable. Eventually, the whole structure had to come down, to start over again from scratch, to address the unsound premises, which had at one time seemed so obviously true.
An important thing to remember here, is that the principles at the base of the structure have been around for the longest. Although they are the ones taken for granted as the most obvious, and basic, they are actually the weakest ones, having been put into use the longest time ago when the state of knowledge was most primitive.
I have been going back and forth with @Metaphysician Undercover about the role "concept" plays in the Philosophicl Investigations because it is not a concept as in "idea". He uses it as a technical term, only to say as his own way of categorizing the type of expressions and actions for which we don't set the standards and thus need to investigate their criteria (grammar), another specific term, before we know what they actually are (meaning, intending, thinking--though also to show everyday concepts like sitting in a chair, or a game, or apologies, are subject to the same investigation/mystery--we don't usually think about).
All this to say, with these two words, we are not going to find our answers in a dictionary. I will also throw out there that a definition is one type of description of, say, intention, but the idea that we understand every word independently is one way we get into problems with the picture of how language works.
Quoting Mww
I hate to say it, because I appreciate the effort, but this is, metaphorically, not even playing baseball in terms of describing OLP.
OLP is not a theory nor the "content of linguistic engagement"; it is a philosophical method, to learn about our lives. The process was first used by Witt and Austin to show a picture--as it turns out, exactly the one you are trying to understand it within. Now, the Grammar of a "concept"--Witt's term, not, like, an "idea", rather, e.g., apologizing, walking, knowing, sitting in a chair)--is a description (the Grammar is) of what is meaningful about these "concepts"--what counts for it being that (or not), what matters in its judgments, the distinctions that are made, the interests involved, etc. As Austin is quoted above as saying, all the things embedded from living our lives for thousands of years.
Grammar is not discussed (usually), so much as lived (we know, apologize, etc.). Though we reflect (doing philosophy) on them through examining what we say, e.g., "I didn't intend to shoot the cow" (It was a mistake, I meant to shoot the donkey).
And Grammar does not serve as "grounds", as in justification or to ensure meaning ("forms of life" or agreement). As an example, "intention" (above) is found not always to be present, and thus not casual for "meaning", which is also seen as not in any form an object. Try to imagine why and when we would say: "What did you mean when you... ?" and then look for the grammar of it--say, for one, something has to be wrong in order to ask what you mean (that is a categorical necessity), or, we don't always ask, and then, we don't always "mean" something, or maybe something particular, or what you might misunderstand the meaning of.
The grammar is public; that is it is "external" and shared--in the way our lives are shared (not that people explicitly know it, or use it to argue--some things we just do or say without "knowing" the grammar, though we can make/judge a claim about it. Think of Socrates asking about the Good, Justice, and getting answers/judgements from strangers). It is "claimed" to be universal by the philosopher, subject to your seeing it as well, showing it to yourself. Also, Witt and Austin are fighting the picture of an idea being "represented", along with a word "having" a meaning, something internal corresponding with anything else.
OLP makes a claim to those ways and means and identity (a concept's Grammar) in order to learn about our philosophical questions--first, to show that there are as many ways of rationality and justification, etc. as there are concepts (though of course things overlap); and second, about the problems we have of other minds, skepticism, morality, reason, etc.
It is not that each occurrence is an example; we are describing examples of what is said about the concept in order to investigate the Grammar--more public and general than looking at each occurrence and our opinion or "personal philosophy" with respect to "all of them" (articles?).
So be it. To strike out is to show one should stick to his own game.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Quick searches produced these from Merriam Webster:
[i]MISTAKE noun
Definition of mistake
1 : a wrong judgment : misunderstanding
2 : a wrong action or statement proceeding from faulty judgment, inadequate knowledge, or inattention[/i]
[i]ACCIDENT noun
Save Word
Definition of accident
1a : an unforeseen and unplanned event or circumstance Their meeting was an accident.
b : lack of intention or necessity : chance They met by accident rather than by design.
2a : an unfortunate event resulting especially from carelessness or ignorance was involved in a traffic accident
b medical : an unexpected and medically important bodily event especially when injurious a cerebrovascular accident
c law : an unexpected happening causing loss or injury which is not due to any fault or misconduct on the part of the person injured but for which legal relief may be sought
d US, informal —used euphemistically to refer to an uncontrolled or involuntary act or instance of urination or defecation (as by a baby or a pet)The puppy had an accident on the rug.
3 : a nonessential property or quality of an entity or circumstance the accident of nationality[/i]
Apart from the fact that 'mistake' is also a verb which 'accident' is not, it is easy to see that there are a significantly different constellation of associated ideas in each case. There is also some overlap to be sure. The two terms are far from being synonymous.
Dictionaries are based on ordinary, everyday usage and are constantly being revised, so why should they not be fair guides to the meanings of terms? All the more so the more different dictionaries you consult as an adjunct to your own experience and memory of different usages?
Also dictionary definitions are not examples of understanding words "independently" whatever that could even mean. There are not precise meanings of any words but we arrive at an understanding of their meanings by acquaintance with Thesaurus-like constellations of associated words (ideas), which we get from everyday experience, but our own experience can also be further augmented by consulting dictionaries, where others have already done the work for us, and broadened the overview of experienced usage by their own experience and research..
I think it might help to see examples of Wittgenstein showing how we see Grammar and what it consists of. I have underlined and put in bold some phrases [and added some comments] that might allow you to see the method of OLP (that what we say reveals something):
#56 "But what if no such sample is part of the language, and we bear in mind the colour (for instance) that a word stands for?——"And if we bear it in mind then it comes before our mind's eye when we utter the word. So, if it is always supposed to be possible for us to remember it, it must be in itself indestructible."——But what do we regard as the criterion for remembering it right?—When we work with a sample instead of our memory there are circumstances in which we say that the sample has changed colour and we judge of this by memory. But can we not sometimes speak of a darkening (for example) of our memory-image? Aren't we as much at the mercy of memory as of a sample? (For someone might feel like saying: "If we had no memory we should be at the mercy of a sample".)—Or perhaps of some chemical reaction. Imagine that you were supposed to paint a particular colour "C", which was the colour that appeared when the chemical substances X and Y combined.—Suppose that the colour struck you as brighter on one day than on another; would you not sometimes say: "I must be wrong, the colour is certainly the same as yesterday"? This shews that we do not always resort to what memory tells us as the verdict of the highest court of appeal." [ A Grammatical claim ]
#90 "We feel as if we had to penetrate phenomena: our investigation, however, is directed not towards phenomena, but, as one might say, towards the 'possibilities' of phenomena [ the concept of phenomena ]. We remind ourselves, that is to say, of the kind of statement that we make about phenomena. * * Our investigation is therefore a grammatical one.""
P. 59 or 90 "(a) "Understanding a word": a state. But a mental state?—Depression, excitement, pain, are called mental states. Carry out a grammatical investigation as follows: we say
"He was depressed the whole day".
"He was in great excitement the whole day".
"He has been in continuous pain since yesterday".—
We also say "Since yesterday I have understood this word". "Continuously", though?—To be sure, one can speak of an interruption of understanding. But in what cases? Compare: "When did your pains get less?" and "When did you stop understanding that word?""
#199 "Is what we call "obeying a rule" something that it would be possible for only one man to do, and to do only once in his life?— This is of course a note on the grammar of the expression "to obey a rule"." [ The [u]concept of obeying a rule[/u] ]
#353 "Asking whether and how a proposition can be verified is only a particular way of asking "How d'you mean?" The answer is a contribution to the grammar of the proposition."
#572 "Expectation is, grammatically, a state; like: being of an opinion, hoping for something, knowing something, being able to do something. But in order to understand the grammar of these states it is necessary to ask: "What counts as a criterion for anyone's being in such a state?" (States of hardness, of weight, of fitting.)"
#573 "To have an opinion is a state.—A state of what? Of the soul? Of the mind? Well, of what object does one say that it has an opinion? Of Mr. N.N. for example. And that is the correct answer.
One should not expect to be enlightened by the answer to that question. Others go deeper: What, in particular cases, do we regard as criteria for someone's being of such-and-such an opinion? When do we say: he reached this opinion at that time? When: he has altered his opinion? And so on. The picture which the answers to these questions give us shews what gets treated grammatically as a state here."
#574 "A proposition, and hence in another sense a thought, can be the 'expression' of belief, hope, expectation, etc. But believing is not thinking. (A grammatical remark.)"
#692 "Is it correct for someone to say: "When I gave you this rule, I meant you to ..... in this case"? Even if he did not think of this case at all as he gave the rule? Of course it is correct. For "to mean it" did not mean: to think of it. 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 else the expansion of a series in the usual way, is such a criterion. [ Part of the Grammar of meaning, criteria of judging ]
Quoting Antony Nickles
What does it mean to see a better way? If you’ve read Kuhn, you know that embracing a ‘better’ scientific theory always implies a change of subject.
A new theory can’t be understood as better within the terms of the prior theory because it has no existence within the terms of the prior theory and this includes its methods, its assumptions , its criteria of validity, etc.
What would it mean to do ‘more’ than change the subject? Changing the subject, that is, qualitatively , ‘ revilutionarily’ transforming the terms of a science , is the most profound way of achieving a better scientific theory.
I think you, Austin and Cavell are holding onto a version of realism along with Putnam, who has nothing but praise for Cavell, and this puts you at odds with Rorty and a thoroughgoing postmodernism.
“While Rorty claims that his view is "almost, but not quite, the same as....Putnam's] "internalist conception of philosophy" (1984b, p. T), Putnam is uncomfortable with this association. Putnam claims to be preserving the realist spirit but he takes Rorty to be "rejecting the in- tuitions that underlie every kind of realism (and not just metaphysical realism)" (1988a, p. 16). Putnam views Rorty's pragmatism as a self-refuting relativism driven by a deep irrationalism that casts doubt on the very possi- bility of thought.”(Paul Forster)
Quoting Janus
Don't worry about the points. The reason I picked them is it shows the method of OLP - it looks at what we imply, etc. when we say___. And I was trying to give a flavor of what "Grammar" is for Witt.
What we learned about (the Grammar of) Memory in #56 is: we do not always resort to what memory tells us as the verdict of the highest court of appeal. (That it is certain and a perfect copy). This is (grammatically) a constraint on this concept.
In #90 the statements we say about concepts show us their possibilities; these possibilities are part of its Grammar--this concept can do that and this, but if it tries to do this other, than it is no longer that concept. When does a game just become play? The concept of knowledge has different possibilities (senses, options) and each is distinguished by its Grammar.
In #572 "Expectation is a state" is a claim to its Grammar--to be expecting is to be in a state; that's how expecting works. And we see this when we say: "What counts as a criterion for expecting [being in that state]?" And criteria here being special as well, tied to "what counts as".
#573 has a lot of: when do we say, what do we regard, etc. And the "answers to these questions" shows us what it is that gets treated as a state, grammatically--which is to say, what (criteria) forms its category, what differentiates it from feelings, its relation to time, etc.
In #574 to call the statement "believing is not thinking" a grammatical remark is to say that it is not a statement that Witt is claiming is true (relying on some logic or justification). It is an OLP claim that structurally, categorically, the process and identity of believing is not the same as that of thinking. I have discussed above how an accident is grammatically different than a mistake--not to claim that they are different, but how.
Quoting Mww
I appreciate the attempt.
Quoting Antony Nickles
Are there other ways that frameworks get forced on people? If there is a desire for certainty, is this universal , or it it possible some people don’t have this desire for certainty? And if such people exist , and have existed in the past, is it possible that such persons scattered about history have not been forced into the framework Witt is referring to? In other words, due to their imperviousness to the drive for certainty, is it possible such persons in previous eras of history , say during Descartes era, were not motivated to think outside of language games?
“Not everything is done with my intention or reasons--the effect of what I say is not causally related; I may choose my words, but then they are in the world, subject to the criteria or our concepts, even though I remain answerable for them. “
That’s right, not everything is done with my intentions. Take perception for instance. I can choose to look at an object with the expectation of seeing a particular pattern, but what I end up seeing will be a function both of what answers to my expectations in the world, by validating or surprising them , and the background of my expectations. This background constrains what counts as validating or surprising, and even determines what appears at all.
The background that accompanies my perceptions places limits on what I can see and how I can see it., apart from my desires ( for certainty or anything else) In a similar way , my background of pre-conceptions places limits on what I can understand as scientifically or morally true and how I can understand it. What Witt calls a picture ( framework) is forced on me the way that the pattern I recognize in a perceptual image is forced on me. If I do not know Chinese and have never seen a Chinese character, nothing in the changes in clarity or focus of a Chinese visual character presented to me will be recognized by me as an item of language rather than a pattern of squiggly lines. Similarly , if I am a Cartesian philosopher, I can be immersed in intense conversation with a community of Wittgensteinians and still not recognize ‘language game’ or ‘picture theory ‘ any differently than Mmw and metaphysical undercover do after many exchanges with you. That is, such notions will be forced into what my Cartesian pre-conceptions impose on them.
“Witt is doing more than changing the subject; he is hoping you see what you desired of the picture, and then to turn around and see a better way.”
What you desired of the picture was comparable to what you desired of the Chinese character and what you desired of the scientific worldview. In all cases, the desire was as much determined by the pre-conditions for the seeing of the picture, character and worldview as it was determining of them. The desire was as much product as cause. One could say that the genesis of the picture framework gives birth to a particular notion of certainty that then becomes desired. Likewise , Your desire for speaking within language games has its genesis in your absorption of Witt’s idea of the language game. It gave rise to your particular understanding of desire and of your formulation of ‘desire for certainty’.
But what is also implied in the notion of desire that you are using is the tacit assumption of a meta-context(what Putnam would call realism with a human face) that you think will allow the possibility in certain circumstances of a common criterion to be applied to desire as it is experienced by a Cartesian and as Witt experiences it. But they belong to different worlds.
Of course they're not synonymous, I don't think anyone suggested that. The issue was how to distinguish a mistake from an accident in order to ensure that the correct word is used to describe the situation.. And, as I demonstrated, sometimes a mistake is also an accident, and in those instances the accident would also be a mistake. What makes one of those a better choice of words in these instances?
Quoting Janus
Wittgenstein's use of "grammar", I find is very elusive. I think he wants the word to do what it cannot possibly do, and that of course is a problem.
Quoting Antony Nickles
Wittgenstein, taking hypocrisy to a whole new level, trying to make the word "grammar", which he says refers to the limitations of what a word can do, do what it cannot possibly do.
So here's the dilemma for you Antony. Can the word "grammar" be successfully used in the way that Wittgenstein demonstrates, which is to go outside of the concept's grammar? If so, then it's not true that a concept's grammar is what determines its possibilities.
Wittgenstein's metaphorical contrast of "rough ground" with "slippery ice" are both found on the ground (obviously).
Wittgenstein advocates a return to the rough ground of actual everyday language use and a departure from the preconceived/misconceived role of the philosopher as being (e.g.) to create an idealised "slippery ice" formal system using the "crystalline purity of logic" in order to make discoveries of things hidden beneath the surface of language.
The "surveyable overview" Wittgenstein speaks of relates to grammar (in W's wider use of the term), and so to the rough ground of actual everyday language.
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
The overview, or bird's eye view, that Wittgenstein might wish for is of the rough ground of actual everyday language use. Whether Wittgenstein was, in fact, seeking such a "surveyable overview" of our grammar is questionable. I read him as indicating instead that a "surveyable overview" of all grammar is difficult, if not practically impossible, since our grammar is "deficient in surveyability":
He goes on to imply that it is, however, possible to get a "surveyable overview" of the small region of our language/grammar which is problematic for us in a particular case (which he calls in the above quote a "surveyable representation"). See §123-127, particularly §125.
Not your fault, for....
Quoting Joshs
.....it is just like that.
How could there be grammar which is not surveyable? The rules of grammar must be observable if they are to be followed. It makes no sense to say that someone is obeying grammatical rules which they have not found, located, or identified. This is the same problem I brought to Antony's attention concerning his use of "criteria". Antony seemed to claim that we use "ordinary criteria", but we don't know what that criteria is. How does that make any sense, to say that we are using some sort of grammar, criteria, or rules, in our proceeding, but these rules or principles being applied are not present to the conscious mind which is proceeding with those actions? Mww suggested a similar thing, that we could proceed in logic with unconscious premises. How does that qualify as logic, to proceed with unstated premises? And how does this qualify as "grammar", if there are rules of grammar which we are supposed to be obeying, but we cannot even observe them?
It is the entire raison d’etre of speculative epistemological theory, that which satisfies the standard human interest for justifying the condition of his certainty.
————-
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Not sure what logical association is needed here, insofar as I qualified my assertion with “the reality that....”, which is an ontological condition.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Oh, that logical association. Two things: the commonality of their respective objects, and the historical record. The first needs no exposition, the second defines the condition. The logical possibility that heliocentrism could have come to be without the antecedent geocentrism is irrelevant in the face of fact that the record shows Copernicus developed the former because he knew something about the later, sufficient to justify changing it. I grant you would have been correct iff Copernicus had absolutely no experience whatsoever with Ptolemy, but the record immediately falsifies that condition.
So we can logically say the existence of one is entirely dependent on the other, given the historical facts. Just as the reality of quantum physics was dependent on the existence of the so-called ultraviolet catastrophe. Can’t use logic to change history.
—————
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Minor point, but no: laws are built on principles, rules are built on laws, suppositions are built on rules, but principles are not built on each other. If they were, each principle would be contingent, hence any law built on a contingent principle, is not properly a law.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Agreed, almost. We can account for principles simply from the thought of them, but they are not thereby empirically proven. It follows that our empirical knowledge, when based on them, is not so much flawed, as always uncertain. And it really doesn’t change or help anything, to call uncertainty a flaw, even if in the strictest possible technical sense, it is.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Facetiousness accepted, because in fact a priori principles do not solve the problem (of the uncertainty of empirical knowledge when based on principles). Nonetheless, the intent of assigning the nomenclature “a priori” is to indicate the impossibility of denying the inception. It must be absolutely true a priori principles are real, because we cannot deny having thought them, and given the human proclivity in seeking the unconditioned, that which is thought is as close to perfect undeniability as we can get, and anything perfectly undeniable is also just as perfectly unconditioned.
What a priori principles do solve, is the fundamental starting point for whatever follows from them. It is the termination of cognitive infinite regress, and serves no other purpose. Metaphysical reductionism writ large.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Careful now. I didn’t say knowledge wasn’t a thing, but only that it may not have a character, as you implied with “we cannot characterize it as the type of thing which continually builds upon an existing foundation“. I meant by it to indicate knowledge isn’t the thing that builds, but is instead the thing that is built, such that that characterization is false.
The argument sustaining the assertion knowledge may not even be a thing, on the other hand, derives from the concession that even though no epistemological theory is provable, calling knowledge anything at all is still solely dependent on the theory used to explain it. However and always, if the theory is wrong, and the theory describes knowledge as a certain kind of thing having a certain character, than knowledge is not that kind of thing and doesn’t have that character.
So in effect, you are correct, in that we cannot have it both ways, if we expect to gain any profit from our knowledge theories. We do so expect, hence we do so grant the conclusions of our respective favorite theories, and run with them.
————-
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Ok, premises support the structure, principles base the structure. Premises currently useful can certainly supervene on the formerly useful, yes. It could, however, also be said the principles at the base of the structure, being around the longest, are the most powerful, because they have been used to evolve knowledge from the primitive. Cause/effect come to mind, along with the Three Laws, on which nothing has yet supervened. So it is actually the premises that are the weakest because they can be supervened.
If I were to analyze the idea to a finer point, I might say premises support what knowledge is about, while principles base the structure of knowledge itself. In this way, it is explained why some fundamental principles have lasted so long and some supporting premises fall by the epistemological wayside.
Good talk. Socrates would have to give us the Athenian equivalent of a gold star, methinks.
It would help if you could give an example of a mistake which also is, as opposed to merely is causing, an accident.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
I have long thought Wittgenstein thinks of grammar as being equivalent to one sense of logic. So, the grammatical structure of statements reflects the logical structure of perception. Also, the logical structure of conception reflects the logical structure of perception. But that is probably more Tractatus than Investigations. I have tried to read PI but have never found it illuminating enough to sustain much interest in it.
I don't understand this; as i see it we have nothing but memory to rely upon. Granted it is not always accurate, but that just means we and our knowledge and understanding can never be perfect.
Quoting Antony Nickles
This seems trivially true to me; perhaps there is some subtlety in this I'm not seeing.
Quoting Antony Nickles
Would saying that expectation is a process rather than a state help? Dynamic, not static? I have always thought 'criteria' determine what "counts as", so I don't see this as a new thought.
Quoting Antony Nickles
If the process and identity of believing is not, structurally and categorically, the same as that of thinking, is not that just to say that they are logically different, which would necessarily also be to say that it is true that they are different? I can think something without believing it, surely?
Thanks for your efforts Antony, but I'm still not seeing anything much in this.
Quoting Mww
I think it's relevant, because you need to show a causal relationship to support your claim. Your claim was that new knowledge builds on the old knowledge, so we need a causal relationship of how the old knowledge lead to the new, not just circumstantial evidence. That Copernicus knew the geocentric system, is clearly not the cause of him developing the heliocentric system, because millions of people already knew it as well.
But clearly the old conceptual structure was rejected, lock stock and barrel, and replaced by the new. It wasn't a case of "changing" geocentricism, as you seem to imply, it was a case of rejecting and replacing it. If knowledge truly advanced simply by building on older knowledge, the geocentric system would not have ever come about, because this description doesn't allow for dismissing old knowledge as wrong. This is a problem epistemologists have, how can knowledge be wrong. If it's wrong, it can't be knowledge. But if we do not know it's wrong, we'll call it knowledge. So what is 'real' knowledge, the stuff we call knowledge, which might be wrong, or the stuff that we want knowledge to be, which can't be wrong?
Quoting Mww
No we cannot make that conclusion. I think you are confusing "sufficient" with "necessary", and you haven't even demonstrated geocentricism to be sufficient. For one to be "dependent on" the other, means that the other is necessary. In this case, you have merely asserted that geocentricism is sufficient, but you haven't shown it to be necessary. So even though the one is prior to the other, in time, you haven't shown the posterior to be dependent on the prior.
Here's an example to consider. Someone tells me my hair is too long. The next day I get a hair cut. You might argue that the person telling me my hair is too long is sufficient to cause me to get my hair cut, so in this historical context it is the cause. But that would be faulty logic, because a multitude of other things might be the real reason, I might have already been planning the haircut. So you cannot conclude "one is entirely dependent on the other, given the historical facts" because we never know all the historical facts. History is open to interpretation.
Quoting Mww
I can't follow your use of terms, but I will ask at the end of this post for an explanation of "principle".
Quoting Mww
When we're talking about knowledge, clearly uncertainty is a flaw.
Quoting Mww
If we thought up the so-called a priori principles, and we are sentient beings, then how could these principles be free from the influence of sense experience, to be truly a priori?
Quoting Mww
Yes, definitely the principles at the base are the most powerful, being the most useful. The problem being that useful does not equate with true. We can see that with the geocentric system. The principles they used were powerful and useful (Thales apparently predicted a solar eclipse), but they were not true. We have a trend in modern science, which is disturbing to me, and that is the trend to replace the search for truth, for the search of useful principles. So scientists focus on their capacity for making predictions rather than trying to find the true nature of things.
Quoting Mww
Can you explain to me, how you would differentiate between a principle and a premise.
Quoting Janus
So if I'm walking for example, and there's an object in my path which I step on. My stepping on it is an accident, as the unforeseen, unintentional event. Stepping on the object is also my mistake (wrong action).
Quoting Janus
The "logical structure of perception" is what I am arguing against. I think it's nonsense to say that perception uses logic. There is a logical structure to conception, because conception is done through the application of logic. But there are many notions, ideas, and beliefs which do not have a logical structure, some are even illogical, and therefore cannot be said to be conceptual. The structure of these ideas and beliefs are closer to the structure of perception than to conception, and cannot be said to be logical.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
With a lot of this I feel like a few things are happening (which happen between people a lot):
1) you insist on your terms and your framework (and your criteria for judging what I say) instead of working to see my terms and how what I am saying requires you to see everything in a new way (walking in my shoes is exactly the method of OLP--trying to see what I see).
2) we are getting side-tracked on every little statement I make if it doesn't fit what you believe even if it isn't part of my trying to explain a different method of philosophy, instead of having to justify every little thing.
3) OLP is not taken seriously enough; by which I mean it is entirely outside the normal framework of traditional analytic philosophy, and thus requirements seeing it differently.
4) the points I have made above or to other participants are getting forgotten or lost and so I am having to repeat myself.
Of course, this is just how philosophy goes sometimes.
I do think you may be taking "grammar" too literally (as regularly defined), but I'm not sure this is all wrong. (Though Witt does differentiate Grammar from "rules" in many different ways (we don't "follow" Grammar), but that is a rabbit hole.) Grammar does show the boundaries of what would be considered a "correct" or apt apology (but this type of criteria does not work for, say, intending--though we may find the Grammar of what is or is not part of intending). And there can be different "uses" (senses) of a concept (like: I know, above), and Grammar does differentiate between these. But the phrase "rules of correct usage" makes it seem like we are looking for something to ensure "usage"; maybe, of meaning, or communication, etc. that would be "correct" as in justified or certain.
In any event, moving on, the focus is the "concept" of a mistake--we could call it the "practice" of a mistake (though that has confusing implications). And looking at what we imply when we say "I made a mistake" is to find differences that make it distinct (in our lives) from, say, an accident (this differentiation is "part of the Grammer" as Witt says). If I can say "what did you intend to do there?" we learn that part of the Grammar of intention is that it is not always present--you do not intend anything when you have an accident, or (usually) if you do something in the ordinary course. These are, in a sense, categorical claims, procedural claims, claims of distinctions, etc. So it is a different level of investigation than just how language is justified--these aren't rules about language or communication, they are what matters and counts in our lives--we are simply turning to look at them.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Yes, this got all twisted up. OLP is not "saying" something is a "mistake". It is making a claim to the conditions of/for a mistake--you can call that "judging" the example, but the point is to see the grammatical claim. Now, yes, another philosopher might hear the grammatical claim and say, "no, you haven't got that right." At which point they might say "The context would be different", or "the implication does not have that force." (This happens between Cavell and Ryle). But the point is you have the means and grist with which to have a discussion. I was trying to say this is not the normal conversation that people would have to figure out if it was a mistake or an accident--people in a sense "assume" (though this is misleading) the things that philosophers would call Grammar because mistakes are part of our lives. We are not trying to justify whether it was one or the other, we are discerning what makes it so by investigating what we mean (imply) when we talk about it.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Well I don't want to get side-tracked here--Austin has a whole essay about "intention" and Cavell's essay "Must We Mean What We Say" (a link is above to Banno). First, not every motion is an action (even, "try really hard to move your finger"--is there a point to calling this an "action"?), and this is not to say all actions are intended. As I discussed above, we find that something has to be wrong or off about something for someone to ask "Did you intend to do that [shoot the cow]?" So choice of words "may" be important ("Choose your words carefully, she's grieving"), though most of the time we do not "choose" our words, nor say them with "intention" (nor "meaning"). Witt will even say there is no space between our expression and our pain.
#244 "So you are saying that the word 'pain' really means crying?"— On the contrary: the verbal expression of pain replaces crying and does not describe it.
#245. For how can I go so far as to try to use language to get between pain and its expression?"
And these statements are claims to the Grammar of intention and expression.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
"Meaning" can be the same thing as "intending", as: "Did you mean to offend them? or did you not know their history when you made that joke?" But we also want to clarify "Did you mean to tell me to fold the dough, or kneed it?" or definitional "What does anthropomorphic mean?" These are all different senses of when we say "I mean" or you ask "Did you mean?" Each will have its own grammar. We do not get someone's meaning by, as Witt will say, "guessing thoughts". And you speak of a "gap" in our "knowledge". And this is a picture caused by (Cavell will say) the fact of our being separate turned into an intellectual lack (problem). We do have things we say in situations, so we do not always (have to) "interpret" what another say. To say that there is a "gap" for Witt is the fact we can be opaque to one another, and so to fill that gap is to ask about meaning (or, yes, assume, and see where that gets you). It is "we" that are responsible to each other for meaning--after (usually), not before; though we can imagine a case in which you can be irresponsible (lazy) in what you say. This is also to bring up the fact discussed before that our expressions and our lives are out there, public, so when we say something, even though we don't (necessarily) "choose" it, we are bound to it, fated to its implications and the consequences of having said it--this is the realm of meaning: what is meaningful to us, what counts for something, what differences have been made, etc.--all the things Grammar uncovers of what matters in our lives.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Witt would say that the fear of radical skepticism creates a certain picture of the "gap" (and thus the way that it must be bridged (with knowledge, certainty, justification, etc.).
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Just two things: calling a speech act grammatically correct (not of course correct in regular grammar) does nothing to ensure understanding. Second, one might choose their words very carefully (as is necessary in philosophy as opposed to regular life), and it might be the other is not doing their part in understanding, but rather just insisting on justification or explanation on their terms.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
As I tried to explain above, instead of dragging it out, when I say "philosophy" I mean analytical philosophy like metaphysics, positivism (the Vienna Circle), representationalism, Descartes, Kant (partly), early Witt, A.J. Ayer, etc. And, yes, it is the "preoccupation in skepticism" that is the slippery slope to wanting the ideal (or approximating it), and ignoring the rest.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
I would offer that Socrates method is analogous to OLP's. The only issue is that (and I think this is the way Plato pictures it) he doesn't stop at the end of each discussion and see that we have learned something of the way justice works when we look at the implications of saying "justice is nothing else than the interest of the stronger." (The guy's not "wrong".) Now I would say it is the fixation on the standard that will satisfy us which creates the necessity of the Forms (and the loss of the rest of the discussion).
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
And this is Austin's point in Sense and Sensibilia. That picturing language as just being statements that are either true or false (because they are justified), is to ignore all the different ways which language has (the value of) truth, rationality, and logic (these of course being different than you'd like I imagine). The one example I have given is felicity (aptness). To pull off an apology aptly is to do it correctly--the right way. And the grammar of a concept just is what counts as rationale and what fits. To say you MUST do an apology a certain way, is not to claim authority to ensure norms--you can do whatever you like. But if you don't do certain things, it's not really an apology is it? This is the categorical nature of concepts (sort of like Kant's except every word in a sense).
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
OLP's tools are imagining examples of what we say and describing what we see. Thus its powerlessness to ensure your interest.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
I would put it that there is Grammar for each "class" or "type" of action (I'm not sure I would say "unique" because they overlap, etc. (as if family resemblances); and one might get the idea we are talking about each individual act.) So each concept, e.g., --"meaning", "knowing", "understanding"--all have associated "grammar" (multiple, and extendable, as much as our lives). Now we are tripping up on "incident" again as well--some incidents are not (grammatically) distinct from each other; we will only come up against grammar when necessary, and, even then, the discussion may not be "about" grammar (just along its lines as it were). Maybe it helps to point out that we are not "following" grammar, that we are just meaning, knowing, understanding, having accidents, making mistakes.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
This is true, but only meaningful to the extent it is necessary; say, to flesh out the context to clear up something or frame what we were referring to, etc.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Well a lot of expressions involve multiple concepts (asking while being threatening), but can we imagine an expression where none was involved? Maybe, but what would that sound like? And that's not to say all or any of the concepts that could be pointed out need to be, or can be easily (passive-aggression). But I would think that "doing something with words" comes close to the idea of concepts, but are we "always" doing something? or, more importantly, are we always doing one thing--e.g., what I mean, what you understand, or something theory/explanation about how all that (all) happens.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
OLP is not looking for certainty, nor is it a theory; it's a method, it's a description.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
The prerequisite for all of it is our shared lives (not agreed; nor as a fallback for justification); our attunements, the way we judge, feel pain, spot folly, apologize, intend... We are looking (at what we say when) not explaining.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Again, not assuming, looking. And, yes, you can act however you'd like, but, in doing so, you're not going to be apologizing, or threatening, etc.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Yes people do not usually "refer" to grammar (not sure what this would sound like), this is why philosophy needs to turn and look at examples of: what is said when, in order to see it.
And your mention of "thought" appears to be in the sense of: consideration, or deliberation, or strategizing, etc. but even with all that I would agree that people do not "refer" to grammar, but they might consider the implications, possible misunderstandings, etc. before they speak, and these would be part of the grammar of a concept. They might not consider the way we "mean" what we say (the concept of meaning); or contemplate the criteria for an apology before apologizing; but maybe they would consider our history of determining what is just before they discuss justice. All that is to say some concepts are more transparent than others.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
I'll grant you that philosophy does create a lot of "terms" (even Wittgenstein). It is the entire framework that is re-designed in this traditional form of philosophy; a (unbeknownst) manufactured picture. The story you are telling is what: knowledge as fact? knowledge as a better theory (of, say, meaning)? I'm not saying language does not progress or evolve; our concepts have the ability to stretch into new contexts as our lives do, as poetry does; but traditional philosophy cleared all our ordinary criteria out of the way to make its own space, where it floats and never touches anything.
It might be better to say that grammar is not easily surveyable, as in, not able to be taken in at a glance. Wittgenstein doesn't say much about it, but I can think of a few reasons why. For example:
Are you consciously aware of the grammatical rules as you speak or write every sentence? Could you name the grammatical rules for all uses of a given word (without looking it up, of course)? Are you aware of the grammatical rules and meanings/uses of all words in every English-speaking location?
If you are actually interested in Wittgenstein's notion of grammar, I recommend reading this article.
Quoting Joshs
Well Cavell would say the human condition is universal (to humans), in the sense that we are separate bodies. I am responsible for what I say, and answerable for that to you (and, as the other), to make myself intelligible. But nothing is more human than to want to escape being seen by what I say, to want our words to work perfectly without us, yet not have meaning unless I give it. The human desire not to be human. In philosophers it is the desire for certainty (or the seeming acceptance of skepticism while trying to escape/work around it as well), to close the gap, in a way, with the mind. Descartes, Plato, Kant, early Wittgenstein... And I wouldn't put this as a framework or aspect to be seen or not, but some people don't care about these things of course, even some philosophers.
Witt talks a lot about how language forces a picture on us. One point is the idea that if: the word "tree"=tree than all of language works that way. And if each word has a "meaning" we can look at a group of words, each one independently, without any overall concept in a context, and talk ourselves into a picture that makes them understandable. "I only see the appearance of a chair." and... well, that's the only example I have on the tip of my tongue, but the Interlocutor in the PI says a lot of things that seem to be understoodable; and Witt and Austin just started asking: but when would we say this?
I wonder what Witt's image of bumping into things to find our way adds to this. I'll have find that.
I'm not going to say it's a terrible place to start but it is only one way, and which gives the impression the word carries its meanings around as a definition. Understanding words "independently" as I said would be independent of how and when they are expressed (in what contexts, to whom, what counts as a reason, a misuse, how are those corrected...). You say we don't have "precise" meanings, but what if "meaning" wasn't just in a web of "associated ideas" but a whole life. Cavell has us imagine looking up a word that turns out to be an Eskimo kayak, and he asks did the dictionary bring us the world, or did we bring the whole world to the dictionary?--we already knew what a boat was, an Eskimo, vehicles of travel, etc. to learn the "meaning" of the word.
Quoting Joshs
I guess in this analogy I would not say a different subject (nor a different theory either), but a better method, as in different than the scientific one.
Quoting Joshs
I don't know what "realism" is but I've always been wary of labels. I find there is always something worth learning even if not everything is agreeable or correct. And I don't know Rorty at all, but from what I've been told, the idea of "postmodern" is something like we are past the traditional concerns of analytical philosophy. So Plato created the Forms, Descartes ended up in outer space, Marx thought humans were good under it all--you're not going to learn something in reading them? Like theory is more important then "the dark path" as Hegel put it?
Then you may want to ask yourself how it came to be, that it was only one of the millions, that changed the science for the millions.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Actually, it wasn’t. I anticipated the objection, by stating “commonality of objects”. The general conceptual structure stayed the same; the arrangement of the structure changed, or the orientation of it, if you’d rather. And seeing as how the physical arrangement cannot be changed.....what arrangement is left that can, and still conform to observation of the physical arrangement?
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Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Easy: it isn’t knowledge that’s wrong, it is the incompleteness of the conditions for it, or misunderstanding of the complete conditions, that are wrong. As I said before, knowledge is at the end of the chain, so it is theoretically inconsistent to claim an end is a fault in itself. Think about it: how is it that you and I know everything there is to know about shoes, but you know your shoe size and I do not. Can you claim, without being irrational about it, that my knowledge of shoes is wrong because I don’t know about two of them?
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Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Yeah, well....the flawless is the perfect, and metaphysics only permits perfection as an ideal, which would make unflawed knowledge a metaphysical ideal. Experience of metaphysical ideals is impossible for humans, so we grant the flaw in knowledge given from experience in order to abstract it from the metaphysical, and call it uncertainty. There is even a principle by that very name.
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Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
How can it be, that there are no 2’s in Nature unless we put them there? Because of an active domain specific, if not exclusive, to human sentience over and above their domain of mere reactive experience.
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Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
The true nature of things has been theorized as out of our reach, since 1781. Your statement merely confirms the theory has yet to be falsified.
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Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
At bottom, a premise is usually a subject/copula/predicate proposition. A principle is a synthesis of conceptions into a necessary truth. From that, a premise can be the propositional form of a principle, but a principle does not have a propositional form. Furthermore, the employment of a principle is in the logical ground of a law, but the employment a premise is only in the ground of a logical argument and never the ground of a law. Building on all that, depending on the construction of the proposition, a premise may be contingent, whereas a principle cannot be.
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Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Perception does not have a logical structure and perception does not use logic; it is a passive receptive faculty only, that which makes physical sensation possible. Reason, on the other hand, is the necessary systemic logical function used by humans, by means of which passive perceptions are structured into known objects. You know.....theoretically.
Actually I've been working very hard to demonstrate to you that I do not understand what you are saying, because your use of words is not what I am accustomed to, or familiar with. I am asking you to explain, or define some terms which in your usage have created obstacles, roadblocks to my understanding. The reason for defining words and insisting on criteria, is, as I've said, to ensure an adequate understanding. "Walking in my shoes" is exactly the type of thing which requires criteria, rules and definitions. Agreeing with each other does not require criteria, rules, etc.. However, if words are used in strange or ambiguous ways, we might agree with each other, then proceed on our respective ways, assuming to have understood each other, when we really misunderstand, and that would be a mistake.
So I requested, that you define "ordinary criteria", in a way which I could understand, and you couldn't, or didn't. Instead of defining it, or explaining what you could possibly mean by it, you eventually suggested exchanging it with "grammar". Now I have the same problem with your use of "grammar". I can't make sense of what you are trying to say with it. If you want me to "walk in your shoes", you need to provide me with what is necessary to understand your point of view. Clearly I do not have the same background as you, so you cannot simply use words in ways which are foreign to me, and expect that this will allow me into your perspective.
At this point I would say that we do not have a clear understanding between us, as to what "grammar" refers to. I will adhere to a familiar understanding, that grammar refers to some sort of rules which we follow, and I will attempt to demonstrate how it makes sense to interpret "grammar" in this way. If you can show me another way to interpret "grammar" which makes sense to you, then I will attempt to follow you.
Quoting Antony Nickles
If you want to show me a method of philosophy, then show me a method of philosophy, but to use words in ways which are illogical, hypocritical, and even contradictory, from my philosophical perspective, does not appear as a method of philosophy, it's a method of sophistry, better known as deception.
Quoting Antony Nickles
If I tell you that I don't understand how you could possibly be using "ordinary criteria", and request that you could use different words to explain or describe to me, what it is that you are referring to with these words, then repeating yourself is not the answer.
Now, I think we've made some very real progress with your switch from "ordinary criteria" to "grammar", but I still don't see the thing which you are referring to with this word.
This is the problem I am having. Your words are referring to some type of thing or things which you assume exists somewhere, "ordinary criteria", "grammar of a mistake", But you are not describing this thing or things, and when you point toward where the thing ought to be I do not see it, nor do I see any logical possibility that the thing referred to through my normal, familiar, use of those words, could even be there. Therefore you need to provide me with a better description of what you are referring to, so that I might understand your use of those words.
Quoting Antony Nickles
The reason why I was looking at grammar as "rules of correct usage" is that you replaced "criteria" with "grammar". And criteria is very explicitly principles for judgement. In language use we have two very distinct types of judgement, choosing one's words, and interpreting the words of others. So if grammar shows some boundaries as to what is correct in language use, and it doesn't refer to rules of correct usage, then can I conclude that it refers to rules of correct interpretation?
But how could these two sets of rules be fundamentally different? If the boundaries for choosing words were different from the boundaries for interpreting words, wouldn't this lead to misunderstanding? Where else could you possibly be pointing with "grammar", and "criteria", other than to rules of usage? I just don't see it. That's how the words are normally used, now you want to say that you are pointing to something different than this, but what could that different thing possibly be?
Quoting Antony Nickles
Sorry to have to inform you of this Antony, but this does nothing for me. It appears as so confused and full of mistakes.
First, as you say to 'practice a mistake' has very confusing implications. No one practices a mistake. Couldn't you have found a better way to say what you wanted here? I assume you are asking 'what does it mean to make a mistake?'.
But why do we have to distinguish "mistake" from "accident" to do this? Why must we "find differences" And if a mistake is a type of accident, then "accident" will be a descriptive term used, like "animal" is a descriptive term used for describing "human being". In describing a thing we do not assume to have to distinguish that thing from other things, we do the exact opposite, compare it to others, looking for similarities, to establish its type. The differences are what is obvious to us, we don't have to find them, as they normally jump out at us, to describe the thing we look for points of similarity, and make comparisons.
But you really lose me with "Grammar of intention". What is the point of "Grammar" here? It appears to serve no purpose but to distract, as if you are talking about Grammar when you are really talking about intention. Clearly you are talking about intention rather than grammar, as you proceed with "you do not intend anything when you have an accident". However, this statement is itself mistaken. "Doing something" always involves intention, so even when there's a mistake or an accident there is still something intended. So a mistake, or an accident, is an unintended feature of an intentional act. Therefore the fact that there was an accident is insufficient for the claim that intention was not present.
We might however, use this fact, the occurrence of a mistake, as evidence that Grammar wasn't present. Let's do that instead shall we? Now we have evidence of intention without grammar. And we appear to have no principle whereby grammar could be brought into intention. So "the Grammar of intention" is a misnomer, a mistaken use of words which we need to reject. As you ought to be able to see, grammar is not inherent to intention, but extrinsic to it.
Quoting Antony Nickles
Do you see the point I am making? Grammar is not any part of a mistake. Grammar is brought into existence intentionally, to serve a purpose, and that purpose is to avoid mistakes, to exclude the possibility of mistakes. The "conditions of/for a mistake" are the absence of appropriate grammar. If the appropriate grammar was there, there would not have been a mistake. So we can see that since "mistakes are part of our lives", so is the absence of grammar.
Therefore, we can proceed toward an examination of our actions, and determine which intentional actions are lacking in grammar, therefore prone to mistake. As I proposed earlier, these are the customary, familiar, habitual actions. It is when we proceed in the customary, habitual ways, without adequately accessing the risks of the particular circumstances, and applying the appropriate rules (grammar in this case), that mistake is most probable.
Quoting Antony Nickles
I think you are misusing "grammar" here, or at least using it in a way which doesn't make any sense to me. It is not the phrase itself which has a grammar, it is the people using the phrase which have grammar. It really doesn't make any sense to say that there is grammar within the spoken words. How would we locate this grammar in our attempts to interpret the words? As I explained above, we apply grammar. When the person speaking is applying a different grammar from the person interpreting, then we have here another type of mistake, again due to an inadequacy of grammar. But in this case there is an inconsistency in grammar, and this will lead to misunderstanding, which is also a type of mistake due to an absence, an absence of consistency..
Quoting Antony Nickles
Right, calling a speech act "grammatically correct" is done from the point of view of a particular grammar. If, my grammar is different from your grammar, then I will still misunderstand you despite your assertion of grammatically correct. This is why we need the second condition, in order to avoid mistake, the first being grammar, the second being consistency in the grammar.
If you follow me so far, I can tell you about a third condition, and this one is the most difficult to understand. The third condition is the willingness to follow, or adhere to the grammar. as we are free willing beings, their is some tendency for us to drift off into some sort of random actions, or trial and error situations. Here again we would have no grammar in our intentions.
Quoting Antony Nickles
I'm almost happy with this use of "grammar", except that I will insist that grammar must be something that we are following, like instructions, rules. It makes no sense to say that the grammar is within the words, "meaning", "knowing", "understanding". Where could it possibly be hiding? Instead, we follow a grammar when using the words (speaking), and interpreting the words. Otherwise we have no way to understand the nature of misunderstanding. If the grammar was in the spoken words, then either we'd perceive it (and understand), or not. To allow for the possibility of misunderstand, we allow that the words are apprehended, but improperly interpreted. Then what does "improperly interpreted" mean other than not applying the correct grammar? So we must allow that "grammar" is the rules we follow in choosing words and interpreting words.
Quoting Luke
I have been insistent with Antony, that we must allow for the reality that much speaking is done without grammatical rules. The reason for this insistence is to be able to account for the reality of mistaken understanding, misunderstanding. If we say that misunderstanding consists of instances when the speaker is following a different grammar from the interpreter, then we have to account for the possibility of this difference. This would mean that a person's grammar is developed individually from another person's, through one's social interactions for example. But this implies that a person goes into the social interactions, in the original condition (as a child), without grammar. And, the person must still be capable of communicating, in that original condition, in order to learn the grammar, without having any grammar. Therefore grammar is not a fundamental aspect of communication.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
The fact that we can switch one synonymous word for another shows that our words don't hold the meaning so much as the context/our lives in a way allow for it, and shows the fact that the difference between mistakenly and accidentally does not matter in that instance, nothing hinges on it then. But just because in most circumstances you can be sloppy with language does not make that demonstrable of anything.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Well, speaking of sloppy language, I'm gonna have to get both my foot and some crow out of my mouth @Janus. I just realized I (inadvertently? unintentionally?) lost track over the posts that the point of Austin's examples was to understand intention so they were examples of excuses for action (Austin has a whole essay). So I have meant to be strictly describing the grammar of how an action can be done accidentally or mistakenly (not all senses of mistake and accident). Ugh; "I'll not trust his word after!"
But if you aren't ready to kill me yet, this is a good exercise.
Now we can say "I accidentally went through the intersection." and here we can imagine my foot slipped off the brake (which I did not intend). And "I mistakenly went through the intersection." (is a crappy examples again). Here I could say "I intended to go into the turn lane", or "I only meant to creep up to the edge of the intersection." And thus part of OLP is imagining cases (contexts) to fill out what we say in order to see what it means for the grammar of the two concepts and what they show about intention.
Again sorry for the confusion. Saying things over and over tend to take the punch out of em.
A concept's grammar" does not "determine" anything. Its possibilities are a part of our lives and the way language can move into new contexts or our lives change or the possibility of justice is lost or dies to degenerate times, but we can find it by turning to look and bring it back to life in our expression.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
"Walking in my shoes" as an idiom here would mean trying understand me on my terms rather than subject my terms to your standards of judgment. Try to understand that it is a method not a theory; I have repeatedly given examples and samples of Witt's text. And the point here is that agreeing is: agreeing on the description of the grammar of a concept. Agree that to do something mistakenly requires intention, or provide an example of what we say with a context to show there is another point which makes "mistakenly" what it is.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
I'm not sure this is always possible, and in this case I'm guessing not. To understand "ordinary criteria" requires you to let go of a standard of judgment or justification that I take you to consider essential, which I would consider a choice. Again, I tried to show how it was different than what you are familiar with and with what you appear to want. I think you would have to not focus on your understanding of those words (grammar) and look at the examples and the method by which they are reached--a definition (or explaination) is not always sufficient for understanding.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
I have said that grammar are not rules in the exact sense that we do not "follow" them. Also, we agree to rules, or set them, and we have authority over them, etc. None of these things are true for grammar. Of course you can interpret the word "grammar" as you are familiar with, but how does that help us? I have also tried to say that grammar is just a description of the ways in which our lives have come together to create these distinctions and terms of judgment and identity and possibility for each concept. If we assume we do not already have an understanding of meaning, we learn about it by examining what we mean when we say "I meant..."
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Is it fair to say that none of the examples I have given, nor the quotes from Witt, have been sufficient to show this method? Have we tried it? Or to counter the implications of what we say when?
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
We are not using a picture of language that has "words" "referring" to "things" which you assume "exist" "somewhere". Nevertheless, I have repeatedly tried to explain how grammar is just a description of the ways our lives have embodied the things that grammar sees. @Banno brought in a quote from Austin. I tried to show @Janus how a definition is contingent on a world of concepts.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Skipping over that this is a particular picture of choosing and interpreting words, and a particular idea of "correctness", which I have addressed previously, why can't we describe the possible, categorical ways a concept (not just individual words) can be meant? and what is possible (open) to question (in different contexts)? As I paraphrased Witt earlier, it is not part of the grammar of knowledge to speak of it when there is no possibility of doubt, such as "I'm in pain" compared to "I know I'm in pain".
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
The whole point of Witt's PI in describing our shared grammar is to show that words don't always "point" to a "thing". With that in mind, our grammar describe the ways we live our lives. As I have said again and again, this is not about language "usage" as in conscious reasons we say one thing or another. We don't decide how to apologize, we apologize. There are criteria (measures) of the boundaries for this, practices, conditions, ways to judge, etc.--these are just our lives.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
What I meant was that a concept is like a practice in the sense of a way of doing something.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Obviously we can compare a concept's grammar to others--grammar is like context in that what we focus on is dictated by what we would like/need to investigate it for. So it is helpful to categorize groups of concepts together, as Austin does. But he also gets into the differences in types of excuses in order to show the ways our actions are considered moral or can be qualified to avoid our responsibility.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
I don't think describing the ways in which intention works--its conditions, its place, when it comes up, how it is possible to discuss, how we question it--are the same as "talking" about "intention". These are not justified "true" statements explaining intention, it is a claim about what is implied in examining and describing what we say when we talk about intending.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Must We Mean What We Say is to a essay by Cavell that does a great job of explaining Austin''s claim from the description of the examples he gives of what we say which show that intention, as I have said above a few times, (usually) only comes up when something about an act is "fishy" he says. ("Did you intend to...?") The traditional picture is that every act or expression is "intended", as the same picture that every expression is "meant". Of course "doing something" (which is unclear), which I take as consciously deciding to act, can be done deliberately, after consideration, in the hope of a certain outcome, etc. And we can ask, what was your intention?, and I can answer along these lines. But most times, actions are not intended, and one part of the grammar of doing something accidentally is that we are not culpable because we did not intend for it to happen--"I" do not come into it, so I can not intend to "do something" accidentally (though I might intentionally make it look like I did it accidentally, or intentionally say it was done accidentally--more of the grammar of accidentally).
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
I think this might be an assumption of some causality or necessity. I thought I have made clear that Grammar may not be present (conscious), but what it describes is inherent in the concept (the life in it). It is not just made up rules or some theory about words; it is a description of ways in which intention works, what matters to us, what counts for it, the reasoning it has, and the ways it falls apart. This is not an explaination nor a justification nor the reasons we use nor the ways we discuss it. Intention is part of the world, which is inherent in it. Grammar is merely the explication by description of these ways of the world that make up, are embodied in, as Austin says above, intention.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
I would not say Grammar is "part" of a concept. It isn't part of its makeup--it describes what counts for a concept (among of things). Looking at the grammar of a concept has different reasons, and it might be said that someone might reflect on it in order not to run afoul, or, as discussed, someone might look at what makes an expression what it is (literary/art criticism (see my discussion in the Aesthetics as Objective post), political speech, come to mind), but OLP is also using the investigation of grammar to shed light on our traditional philosophical issues. The point is not to "avoid mistakes" or "exclude their possibility". I would say that is the desire of the philosophy OLP is trying to revolutionize. Studying grammar shows us the way mistakes work--how they are identified, how corrected, the responsibility I have to what I say.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Now here we are way off into a picture of communication that Witt spends half of PI trying to unravel. Yes, grammar is public. It is both within the expression and in our lives because those are woven together. We do not "have" or control grammar or meaning (use it any way we like) anymore than we "have" or control the ways we share our lives. An apology is an apology despite what you want it to be. A concept has different senses (options, possibilities) in which it can be used, but "sense" is not some quality an expression has which is applied by intention or "meaning" (or "thought"). We do not "apply" grammar. Our expressions use concepts which are embed in the shared lives we already have.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Grammar is forgotten (not hiding, or "in" an expression, readily viewable) because we just handle things in our lives--thus philosophy's images of turning (in caves), and reflecting, and looking back, remembering, etc. Thus we have to see it indirectly in the kinds of things we say when we talk of a concept. Again, we do not use grammar (directly) to clear up misunderstandings ("interpret words" plays into the picture I describe above). "Misunderstanding" has grammar as well, and so ordinary ways in which it is handled. Concepts have different senses so which one is being used might need to be cleared up ("improperly interpreted?"); also, you may break the concept expected in a particular context, but that can be fixed in ways everyone understands (drawing out the context, making excuses); etc. Our lives have much more depth than we give it credit for. To have one theory of how language works is a picture that, for example, we always "choose" words and that words always need to be "interpreted": e.g., I mean something (applying my rules and "my context") and then you interpret that (with your rules and from "your context"), or some such explanation.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Well, again, the picture of "intention" (as casually or ever-present) is getting in the way, as well as the idea that grammar is somehow a justification, reason, or conscious necessity. That being said, this is a good thing to bring up. We do not "have" to follow the ways our lives come together. We can act randomly, or even act rationally (or emotionally) but revolutionarily (against our concepts or taking them into new contexts). We can act flippantly, playfully, experimentally, etc. All of those things are specifically possible because of the grammar for each concept being specific to it and flexible in those ways (even those concepts).
I will just point out, as I did above with @Joshs, that Witt and Austin and Cavell (and Emerson) see our relationship with our expressions as giving ourselves over to them, choosing (if that is the case) to express, and then that expression speaks for us, but also reveals us (in its having been expressed). We say it, then we are responsible for it (which we can shirk), so answerable to the other to make it intelligible, even why it was meaningful to say it, here, now; describe, in what matters for this concept, what matters to me, to make clear to you.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
We learn how to communicate in learning our concepts which is to say what matters about our lives, the distinctions we need to make, the way an apology works, etc. Witt has many instances of a student or child and how we take them through something (like training) and see if they can follow on or continue a series, etc. Learning our lives and learning our concepts happens at the same time. That is not to say we are not sometimes without words, but as I discussed that above with Joshs, this is not to say we don't have the means of expression, even without words (is violence a concept?), but that we are nonetheless responsible to make ourselves intelligible.
What's the logic of "Pass me the salt"? Do requests or commands even have truth values? Me passing you the salt when you say that doesn't follow logically, but it does follow grammatically, ceteris paribus.
((Sorry if I'm repeating you @Antony Nickles -- there's no percentage in reading MU, so I tend to skip over point-by-point responses to him too.))
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
Yes, for one thing, it appears to be a request. I would say that it is a claim upon me that is open to refusal, despite anything said in support (even pretty, pretty please)--and maybe there is something specific about the type of support here? But the fact of the unqualified denial of a request differentiates it from a demand, which appears to be based on leverage, consequences ("If you don't ___, then I will ____."; or a command, which would be contingent on authority ("Pass me the salt!" (said to a waiter--however rudely). The other thing about a request seems to be that it can be made of a stranger, or a friend--but it is perhaps a kind of claim not just for help, an expression of need, but a claim to a community possibly? And then what could we imagine we would say to elicit the criteria for the kind of support offered to create community?
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
Well I use them interchangeably with my 9-yr-old but not my wife, if that helps. That is to say, there are criteria which differentiate one from the other. That they have a categorical identity is also tied to doing them correctly, aptly--not boffing it and inadvertently commanding your wife instead of requesting something of her (this is the value of being apt, or felicitous as Austin says).
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
A concept has possibilities, as life does. These are described by grammar--the difference options ("senses" as Witt says), but, also, some concepts provide for where they are fluid, how they can be stretched, extended into new contexts, etc.(as much as some will not be defied without being deemed incorrect). Grammar is not everywhere prescribed by rules, not is our lives, and OLP is enforcing statements explaining Grammar, it is making open claims, refutable by anyone.
And I hate to say it, but "Grammar", "Sense", "Criteria", are all technical terms here. As I said, it is philosophy--but in traditional philosophy it is as if every word were a term.
It's a stubborn bunch. I will say, the understanding of of OLP came over me all at once in a way. I don't believe I have the ability to present a description that interests people enough and allows for seeing the breadth of the change requested. I would suggest this Essay by Cavell, which is in response to someone so addresses the sticky points of seeing things a different way. Stick to your guns.
Right, that's the sort of thing we want to do. Point being, whatever analysis we find convincing, it's just not the same thing as logical analysis, and not just because we're interested in aspects of speech beyond truth-value, but because the analysis will include objects and actions, because circumstances will matter not just for disambiguating our words but for the choices available to us and the stakes.
Etc , etc. There's still structure to be found, and words and their meanings are still central, but there's more in play than semantics. Hence my reference to early research in robotics, for instance: how do you get a robot to figure out what steps it should take to accomplish a task? That's the domain of grammar rather than logic.
Right, a dictionary is merely an adjunct, in case we are not familiar with a word. We can usually glean the meaning of unfamiliar words using that resource though.
Of course I agree that we need a sufficient background knowledge of the world also, as the definitions of words are given in words in dictionaries and without adequate background familiarity with the things of the world and their names and terms of description we would be lost.
Which means we rely upon our webs of associations, which are indeed a function of our whole lives up to any time.
It's not so black-and-white. You have to allow for learning and intermediate stages of development and capability. Children can learn the rules of grammar just as they can learn the rules of a game. It takes practice.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Well... that might be to jump a few steps. If I were going to tell a story, it would start that we learned language and our human lives together. At some point we started asking questions, like what is it to be a better person. But we wished for knowledge to provide the answer for us, but found it lacked the ability to fix the space opening between our world and our interest in it. And so we built a new language for knowledge, one that would be certain and cover all occurances no matter the situation. And it was so wide and comprehensive that it bridged the gap but it was as if we sacrificed the world to save our connection to it because we were never allowed to touch the world again. But then we realized that, when we had learned our language and our lives together, the things we said had a memory of the things we did. We didn't need to fix our langauge nor have knowledge secure the world, because in finding that memory we found the world again.
We can think about something without believing it. So, they are different. However, the process of believing is fundamentally the same as thinking. Both consist entirely of meaningful correlations drawn between different things. It is only when one becomes aware of their own fallibility that the two are no longer the same. It is only when we begin to consider whether or not some thought or belief are true, that there can be a difference between thought and belief(that we can think of something without believing it). Generally that is some proposition or another or perhaps carefully contemplating some foreign linguistic framework/conceptual scheme.
I'm not even sure how many different acceptable uses/senses/meanings are attributed to the words "ordinary language philosophy". Thinking about which popular philosopher is and which popular philosopher is not rightfully called some name or another presupposes a criteria or standard for what counts as such. The same problematic scenario underlies many philosophical discussions, and the following questions ought be asked with regard to so many of our own conceptions, notions, ideas, thoughts, and/or beliefs about the world and/or ourselves.
Does the name in question pick out that which existed in it's entirety prior to our picking it out of this world to the exclusion of all else? Are we the final arbiter; do we have the final say, regarding what counts as an "insert name here"?
It's worth mention that the ground of a "no true scotsman" is a refusal to accept that other people use the same name to pick out very different things(what counts as, or the set of characteristics that one must have in order to be rightfully called "a scotsman" - or - the referent of "scotsman", in this case).
However...
It quite simply does not follow from the fact that there is more than one use for the same term that all uses have equal footing, are equally justified, are equally warranted, have equal explanatory power, do the same thing, afford us the same capabilities, etc.
So...
What is the benefit of our taking such a careful account of, and/or placing such high regard upon ordinary language use?
Well...
Our account of everyday ordinary language use must meet certain standards in order for it to be true. Those standards are nothing less than the way that different people across the globe use the same terms.
What's philosophically interesting to me is that we begin to use language as a means to communicate our thoughts, beliefs, needs, wants, desires, expectations, etc. long before we begin taking account of our already having done so; long before we begin talking about doing so; long before we begin to consider our own thought and belief as a subject matter in and of itself. So, in this way, ordinary common use has primacy in that our account of that use can be quite wrong.
Has the conventional academic use "belief" become something quite different than the ordinary everyday use(s) of those same marks? Does academic convention pick out the same things as everyday ordinary people? If academia has altered the use of ordinary terms, and the different senses of the term are incompatible with one another, if the one negates the other, then which sense warrants our assent?
By what measure do we then further discriminate between the two incommensurate notions/ideas?
How are we to possibly determine which of two equally coherent uses of "belief" is better? Coherency is the result of consistent terminological use. If all use of "thought" were different to all use of "belief", then it would not ever be the case that either "thought" or "belief" could be used without meaningful loss. Much more often than not, they can.
Thinking that a mouse ran behind a tree is belief about the location of the mouse. Believing that a mouse ran behind a tree is thinking about the location of the mouse.
Stubborn bunch, aye. They’ve done the heavy lifting, so perhaps have earned the right.
I’m familiar with the essay. What I found quite telling about it, is located in fn2, wherein it is admitted that the explication of the stated purpose of the essay, follows conditions “as I understand them to be”. The implications of that admission are staggering from the point of view of my particular armchair, antique, frayed and butt-crushed as it may be, insofar as “understanding” is precisely the quanta of the heavy lifting to which the especially post-Renaissance continentals directed themselves, and the anti-metatheoretical analyticals have back-burnered.
Question: are images part and parcel of human mentality?
Thanks Luke.
Quoting Luke
Learning is a social interaction, That's the point, a child needs to be able to communicate in order to be able to learn. That's what Witt pointed out at the beginning of PI, it's as if a child needs to already know a language in order to learn a language. That's why we cannot characterize language as consisting of rules because then we'd have an infinite regress of rules required to learn rules, and rules required to learn those rules etc..
Quoting Mww
Well, since a structure is an arrangement of parts, I really don't see how the arrangement of a structure can change, while the structure stays the same. To say that the arrangement changed is to say that the structure changed. If the objects stayed the same, that does not mean the structure stayed the same, unless the structure is the object, but the structure is what changed.
Quoting Mww
But to say that the sun goes around the earth every day, is simply wrong. It's not a matter of incompleteness, it' s a matter of making a faulty representation, a faulty model. It's a falsity. And unless your representation of knowledge can account for this wrongness, falsity, within what is known as knowledge, your representation of knowledge is wrong. Saying that all faulty knowledge is a matter of incompleteness is simply wrong because faulty knowledge is sometimes a false representation.
Quoting Mww
A 2 is a symbol, they are put here by human beings. What a 2 represents in a particular instances of use is the symbol's meaning in that instance.
Quoting Mww
This I don't understand at all. What form does a principle have if not a propositional form? How would I differentiate between a principle and a proposition if I was presented with a bunch of each? And, what makes a principle necessarily true? A proposition for example is judged as true or false, and that judgement might be wrong. What excludes "the principle" from such a judgement, making it necessarily true. When I see a principle in a propositional form, beside a proposition, how would i know which one is necessarily true?
Quoting Antony Nickles
Don't you see, what I've been saying, that this is what "understanding" is, to subject another's terms to one's own standards? That's what I've been trying to tell you, a number of times now. To simply accept, and agree to another's terms, is not to understand the other person. That's why we are taught in school to put things in our own words, and not to plagiarize. If one does not establish a consistency between what the other person has said, and one's own standards of judgement for interpretation, then that person cannot claim to have understood what the other said. Interpretation is an act of subjecting your terms to my standards of judgement. If I have not interpreted what you have said, simply read the words and agreed to them, it is impossible that I have understood what you have said.
Quoting Antony Nickles
But I don't see that you are showing me a method. You are saying things, talking about concepts, criteria, and grammar, without showing me the things you are describing. Is that your method, to make assertions about things which are hidden from me, because you are not showing them to me, and asking me to accept these assertions as true, carte blanche, because you are withholding from me the means for me to confirm the truth are falsity of them, by hiding the things you are talking about from me?
Here's what I can say about your method, from what you've provided for me. You claim to have a philosophical method which is unique from others, because it uses description rather than theory. However, I am skeptical, because I see all description as theory laden. So I see your claim of description rather than theory as just an attempt to avert the need for justification. You might say it's a description rather than a theory, therefore there is no need for justification, but I would say that I want the criteria (definitions) which justify your use of words in your description. Do you see what I mean? 'A cup is on the table' (a description) require criteria for the use of the words to be understood, judged, or agreed to..
The next thing I see about your method is that you claim to be able to say something about intention through the description of our shared lives. And you seem to believe that since it is descriptive, it is not speculative like other metaphysics. However, this is where I find a vicious circle which can only be escaped through speculation. You claim that we can conclude something about intention through describing what we mean by words like "mistake" and "accident", and describing the differences between what is meant by them. But I think we need to know the intention to know what was meant. So we have the vicious circle whereby we cannot say what was meant by the word without knowing the intention, but we are wanting to say something about the intention by knowing what was meant. So we are actually completely excluded from describing intention, and all we can do is speculate.
Quoting Antony Nickles
So here is your definition of "grammar". But if I replace "grammar" in your usage, with this definition, it often makes little or no sense. Look, here's an example: "The whole point of Witt's PI in describing our shared grammar is to show that words don't always 'point' to a 'thing'."
So you are talking about a "shared grammar" here. And "grammar" means a description of how our lives have come together. But my description is completely different from yours. That's the issue we're having in this thread. We come together from different backgrounds, we have experienced different things, therefore we necessarily have different descriptions. If "grammar" is a description of the ways we have come together, as you have defined it, then it makes no sense to speak of a "shared grammar" because we've each come from different directions with different descriptions, therefore different grammars.
Quoting Antony Nickles
Now your use of grammar here makes even less sense. Grammar is a description. Yet grammar sees things? A description is of things, and it may be of things which are seen. Through my familiar interpretation of "grammar", I want to say that a person sees things and describes them through the use of grammar. You want me to interpret grammar as the description itself. So why do you say "grammar sees things", as if the person is seeing and describing through the interpretive tool of grammar?
Quoting Antony Nickles
Under your definition of "grammar", I don't see how a concept could have a grammar. Grammar is a description of the possibility for a concept. How do we make the jump from describing the possibility for a concept (grammar), to the the claim that an actual concept has a grammar? Or, are all concepts just "possible concepts", because that is how they are described by "grammar", such that a "concept's grammar" implies the possibility for a concept?
Quoting Antony Nickles
This use of "Grammar" makes no sense to me. How is the thing described inherent in the concept? Don't you recognize a separation between the thing described, and the description?
Quoting Antony Nickles
This is very clearly incorrect. It is a theory about the way intention works, it is not a description of the way that intention works. Actions, which are what is described, as " the ways in which our lives have come together to create these distinctions and terms of judgment and identity and possibility for each concept", are the results of intention, the effects. When you proceed to speculate about the cause of those actions, intention, it is theorizing.
Furthermore, you have not closed the gap between the possibility for concepts, and the actual existence of concepts. This is another indication that you have a speculative theory rather than a description. Grammar only goes as far as describing the possibility for concepts, and anything you might say about the actual existence of concepts is theoretical and speculative.
Quoting Antony Nickles
This is incorrect as well. Studying grammar is to study a description. This can show the effects of a mistake, but it cannot show the way that mistakes work. Nor can it show how a mistake might be averted or corrected. Principles other than descriptive must be applied for that, theoretical principles. To show the way a mistake works is to show the cause of a mistake. That is what I described in my last post, "the way mistakes work". But your study of grammar has no approach to this, because you have no way to apprehend the actual conception, which is where the mistake inheres. You only describe the possibility of conception.
Quoting Antony Nickles
This use of "grammar" is completely inconsistent with your definition. Grammar is a description. It makes no sense to say that we have no control over a description. A description is either your description, mine, or someone else's, and we are completely free to choose our words as we see fit. A description only becomes public if we understand, and agree on it, and this requires interpretation, explanation, justification, etc.. At each step we have control.
When you say "Our expressions use concepts which are embed in the shared lives we already have", I think you forget that the "shared lives we already have" is not grammar. Grammar is a description of this shared life. We may not have control over the sharing of our lives, which we've already had, but we do have control over our descriptions of it, and consequently we get some control over the way we share our lives in the future.
Quoting Antony Nickles
None of this makes any sense to me if I adhere to your definition of grammar.
Quoting Antony Nickles
If grammar is just a description, then it is not "the ways our lives come together" but a description of that. We need not follow any such description, we might even reject a description on a judgement of inaccurate after reference to criteria. A description is really nothing more than a theory about the thing being described.
Furthermore, if you ascribe to human beings the capacity to act freely, randomly etc., in a way which does not follow the description (grammar), then you are actually admitting that the description has inaccuracies. If philosophy is an activity which seeks truth and understanding, and this means that we are seeking the highest standards of knowledge possible, then why would we settle on a method which admittedly accepts inaccuracies? I can see that for practical purposes we accept lower standards, as Aristotle describes in his Nichomachean Ethics, but here we are looking at the theory which will give us understanding of intention. Is this the basis of your distinguishing OLP from other philosophies? Is it not seeking a method toward truth and understanding (as other philosophies are), but rather a practical method for activities in the world. If this is the case, then how does describing language activity, and things like what we mean by the use of particular words, provide a better starting point, as an approach to intention, than moral philosophy does? What I see is a vicious circle which locks us out from any true understanding of intention, while moral philosophy seeks to understand intention directly.
Quoting Antony Nickles
This is a fine example of speculation. But you present such speculations as descriptions, in an attempt to separate your philosophical method from others, as if it is somehow superior because you assume justification is not required for descriptions.
Quoting Antony Nickles
This is a false starting point, a false premise, a faulty description. The fact is that human beings are spread out in space, all over the earth, and in time, through thousands of years. When we learn language we learn it from a very few people whom we are close to, we are "together" only with that tiny group of people. The degree to which "our human lives are together" is extremely minimal.
Therefore, there is a fundamental separation between people which makes it impossible to speak about "the Grammar of language" in general, or, "the language-game" in general. There are distinct grammars and distinct language-games, and the assumption that you can aggregate them in composition to make one artificial Grammar, or language game, is a false assumption, the fundamental differences are too diverse. This practice of aggregation is just a misguided attempt to facilitate your theory.
This false description gives you a very skewed perspective. Instead of recognizing the individual differences between the individual perspectives of individual people, differences which need to be worked out through establishing consistency in interpretative, explanatory, and justificatory practices, through the application of rules and criteria, you simply take all this for granted, as a starting point. However, this need for establishing consistency is ever present, and on-going, as is the separation between individuals ever present and on-going. Therefore we cannot take it for granted that this consistency has been already established, some time in the ancient past, and that some sort of togetherness maintains this consistency. That togetherness is a false premise, easily disproven by an accurate description.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
I’m going to see if I can contribute anything helpful to this discussion. It seems to me that your understanding of understanding is compatible with first generation. cognitive psychology. The mind is
modeled on a computer. It inputs data from a world , and interprets that data according to internal
representations. OLP is not compatible with this model. It requires a shift to a way of thinking more consonant with newer approaches in cognitive science that replace internal representations with a system of interactions. Think of it this way: In Piaget’s model the cognitive system assimilates meanings from the world into itself. But at the same time the system as a whole accomodates itself to the novelty of what it assimilated. What is key to understanding g this approach is that the system is an integrated network , and the accommodation . changes the network’s structure as whole. Learning something news isnt simply a matter of synthesizing and combining the new event with one’s
extant cognitive system, but of altering the meaning of that system as a whole while assimilating the new item. This means when you subject someone’s
terms to your standards of judgement , those standards must at the same time accommodate and alter themselves in order to assimilate the other’s terms.
Piaget called this reciprocity of assimilation and accommodation the logic of action. It can also be seen as a grammar or action.
This newer approach is also being applied to the theories of empathy, that is , to the ways that we are able to recognize others as being enough like ourselves that we can communicate with them.
The three main contenders are theory theory, simulation theory and interaction theory.
Theory theory seems to be be similar to your thinking. It posits that we understand and relate to others
by consulting our own internal templates or representations. That is , we create a theory of how they are thinking and apply it to them. Simulation theory says that we imitate the other and learn to understand them that way. Against both of these representationalist approaches , interaction theory claims that we do not consult an internal set of representations or
rules in order to relate to the other , but perceive their intent directly in their expressions. Interaction theory
rejects representationalist because it never makes contact with another. Instead it just regurgitates the contents of its own cognitive system, which is not true interaction. The system must be affected and changed as a whole in response to communication with others. You can see the resonances here with Witt. Contexts of interaction create meanings, rather than just acting as excuses for a cognitive system to recycle it’s own inner contents.
The crucial shift in thinking here is away from knowledge as mirroring the world and toward knowing as interacting with a world. See Alva Noe’s important work on visual perception for a better sense of the distinction.
Quoting creativesoul
Well the full quote is: #574 "A proposition, and hence in another sense a thought, can be the 'expression' of belief, hope, expectation, etc. But believing is not thinking. (A grammatical remark.) The concepts of believing, expecting, hoping are less distantly related to one another than they are to the concept of thinking."
So I might have been a little hasty, but what you've said sounds like the grammar of thought is that every thought is either "believed" (not justified) or known (backed by something that ensures it as such).
A proposition as an expression of hoping "I have a great feeling about our project," or of expecting "I'm gonna kill it once I get that new technology," or of believing, "He looked into gene therapy as it might be a cure" (Witt calls this believing, like a hypothesis--see below). (I'm not sure in what sense of a proposition it is a thought, but here maybe just not the outward expression--my guess is he is saying this because the topic above it is thought compared to "belief".)
Quoting creativesoul
Witt's claim is that believing is expressed in a proposition (which here he is saying can be thought (as it were, to yourself as well as externally). This is differentiated from picturing "belief" u]as[/u] a proposition, setting it up to be judged as a proposition (compared critically to true/false knowledge)--Witt's claim is that believing is a hypothesis (see the example above). See PI p. 162. "So it looks as if the assertion "I believe" were not the assertion of what is supposed in the hypothesis "I believe"! (emphasis in the original)
That's not to say "thought" doesn't come into it, just not in the way you may picture it. This is the next paragraph:
"575. When I sat down on this chair, of course I believed [had the hyposthesis] it would bear me. I had no thought of its possibly collapsing. But: 'In spite of everything that he did, I held fast to the belief. . . .' Here there is thought, and perhaps a constant struggle to renew an attitude."
Quoting creativesoul
And this is the skeptical fear which creates the desire for a standard of certainty for justified knowledge (as opposed to something deemed lesser) which is then used as the only standard instead of the ordinary criteria (Grammar) which varies with each concept as much as our interest in our lives--as Austin and Witt are in the business of showing.
Quoting creativesoul
As I explained above, the claim is to the Grammar implied in what we say when. It is an observation. It is made in Kant's "Universal Voice" (see my contribution to the Aesthetics as Objective post), which is to say for everyone to see for themselves--subject to if there is a more detailed example with a more appropriate context, etc., i.e., a closer description--but thus it is a rational discussion without statements relying on theories of justification (simply true/false, etc.).
Quoting creativesoul
This idea that what we need is "equal footing" or "have equal explanatory power" would be the exact issue being addressed: of wanting the same standard of knowledge applied to every concept (and every use of that)--when all this may be as varied as the Grammar of each and our lives are. Also, the claims are not explanations, but observations, descriptions.
Quoting creativesoul
As I've tried to explain elsewhere, we are not talking about "ordinary language use". It is the ordinary criteria (grammar) of language (for all our varied concepts)--this is seen indirectly through what we imply, etc. when we say "I believe ____".
Quoting creativesoul
The Grammar of each concept are not "certain standards" (as in all the same), and "true" (or false) is not the only criteria that has the value of truth (distinct, rational, rigorous, re identity, etc.). And OLP limits its claims to all English speakers as the Grammar/language is contingent on our the way we live (which is not to say this is a ground). That is not to say there are not ways to bring our lives/Grammar in line with, say, the "strangers" Witt discusses (on the page with the lion quote--as I discuss in another post), in as much as we can align our judgments, interests, what counts for what, and all the other ways we live (to have similar Grammar and thus a similar concept---hoping, misunderstanding, learning, etc.)
Quoting creativesoul
Overlooking the idea of "ordinary language use", yes, the ordinary Grammar of belief was wiped clean (as well as any context) by the kind of philosophy OLP is defining itself against for it to make a picture of philosophy created by its desire to rise above all the things that are uncertain to have a certain, universal, pre-determined criteria for knowledge. That is not to say that OLP philosophers are not rigorous, accountable, etc. or that in saying each person has a right to this type of claim, that this is just anyone's opinion (again, as gone over in the OP and other times above).
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Yours doesn't consider the implications in mine.
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Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Big deal. That does absolutely nothing to explain the reality that geocentrism was the standard cosmology model of its day.
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Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Some are relational (Kant, ‘ought implies can”, 1785; “principle of evidence, Hume, 1748; “Sufficient Reason”, Liebnitz, 1714; varieties of Ockham’s Razor), some categorical (Principle of cause and effect, Principle of non-contradiction, ...).
Propositions reduce to principles, principles determine propositions.
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Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
I know about the what; I’m talking about the how (did a 2 get into Nature seeing as how it isn’t there naturally). You’re talking about what it’s there for, to relate a use to a meaning. I wish to know how the representation occurs such that it can be used.
Hint: meaning is not contained in the how, the how has no need of meaning.
Common affliction these days; neglecting the chronology relating thought and expression.
Yes.
Nice overview.
I want to say that there will be points where the science diverges from common sense, as it will, but also points where the science will be closer to what ordinary reflective people think than all that early modern philosophy whose terms we're still stuck with.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Uhhhh... this is the opposite of understanding. You are never going to get Hegel unless you find a way to meet him on his ground through his terms as he uses them. I try to just imagine that terms are a word in a foreign language and that you have to understand them by inference and context. The sense of understanding that I am talking about is through "being understanding", instead of, I don't know how to put it--assuming they should write to you rather than you come to them; learn something new rather than assume you have the tools to figure it out ahead of time; or that the whole thing crashes down because you can poke one hole into it based on a general standard or logical necessity.
And I am not saying read the words and simply agree to them. It takes work to see what they see, it takes stretching your imagination, putting things in the context of the philosopher they are reacting to and the history of texts in the tradition. I think reading the words is only a start, and more people need to treat philosophers as if they are not easy to understand (Nietzsche knew this problem, and I think Witt suffered under it--taking the author of the Tractates and of the PI as the same person); as if everything is a statement that you either agree with or not.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
I suggest going back through all these comments and find the places were I am imagining something someone might say (in quotes). Those are the instances of method (I think there are some on the Witt page too. Sometimes it is "Imagine what one would say..." as well. The (sure, speculative) claims to the Grammar of the concept from the implication of what we say is meant not to be taken as independently justified; it is justified if the example allows you to see and agree with it. If not, you can (must) object to it with a different example, a more detailed context, etc. I do think you will balk at what you see as the indirect nature of this, but I think that is part of not seeing how the ways we live are reflected in what we say in a situation.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Sometimes (in regular life) you'll want to know the intention, as I have said, because something is fishy. But the picture that everything said is tied to a "meaning" or "intention" is the misconception that Austin and Witt spend their entire books overcoming, so maybe I'm not going to get you to see that here.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Seeing the Grammar is to look at what we say when as instances of "how [when] our lives have come together" (I would say "when"). Our description of the Grammar of those concepts is subject to disagreement, but thus also open to agreement.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Possibilities of a concept (plural)--the senses of a concept, the ways it is moved forward, its conditions of employment, etc. Not possibility of a concept, as in its potential to be (at all). Sorta like the conditions of possibility in the Kantian sense.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
The description is of what you see implied in the example of what we say when. You want to call the implications "things"? Sure.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Well, the description is a claim about the ways in which intention works (sort of, basically, the Grammar of intention); you may disagree. But the description does not need a theory because it is based on the evidence of what we say when. I would not describe intention as a "cause" as it is not only not a part of an action, the actor may not even have an answer to a question about intention, and, as I said previously, the difference between motion and an action is not a matter of "intending" it; our motions are seen as "actions" based on our concepts (responding, anticipating, defying, etc.). This is going to require you to shift your whole picture of language and meaning.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Well, you can theorize about the "cause" of mistakes, or we can ask when we might say it: "What was the cause of your mistakenly shooting the cow, and not the donkey?" Of course, this is probably a different sense of "mistake" (not as used re actions) than I believe you are using. But how would we ask your question? "I made a mistake." "What was the cause?" Now there are a number of answers here, perhaps they show the grammar of explaining a mistake (as in confessing to it, asking for help in correcting it, or learning how it went wrong, etc.) Now do we want a theory to avoid the mistake? or is the theory the "cause" of the mistake (having created a standard for what is "right")?
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
I wouldn't say the control we have over our shared lives is through description (maybe politics, decent, violence, etc.--Emerson will call this "aversion", Thoureau of course, civil disobedience). I do agree that we can disagree over our descriptions of our Grammar (though we are not doing sociology), but there is a logic and rationality to this (through OLP's method), though no certainty of agreement, or the kind of justification you might want.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
This all works for me except we have not set our criteria ahead of time in making an assessment of a description of the implications of what is said when (Austin calls this "the descriptive fallacy"). It is a competition of details and breadth and imagination--like I said, if you have a better example and more details or a different context, we can sort that out rationally, though just not always, as with talk of art, or morals. Oh, and I understand "theory" here as like a guess, which is fine, but it is based on evidence.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
That doesn't follow, I can break the Grammar of an apology; that doesn't mean an apology is not an apology, but that I am a jerk. Part of the Grammar is seeing the consequences (or means of reconciliation)--what comes after. This is one of the important lessons of OLP (historicity of acts/communication--which Nietzsche learned about morals; Hegel/Emerson about our growth).
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
I would suggest that in learning (reflecting on) how "activities" (concepts) work, we are learning about ourselves, and the possibility to better ourselves in seeing our part in them and where we might go from there. One lesson of OLP is the responsibility we have to what we say; a responsibility traditional philosophy wanted to get out from under by having a picture that did not include that responsibility (and possibility of failure). As Cavell says, knowledge is not our only relation to the world.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
One of the great philosophical words, "directly". Others include "actually" "logically" "exactly" etc. Ironically, in a sense, traditional philosophy has been staring at itself (the picture it created) instead of turning and looking (Plato and others will say remembering) our ordinary Grammar.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Well I would simply call this cynicism (we're talking pretty fundamental human concepts here), but it is philosophy's interpretation of our human condition of being separate (bodies) to make the individual special (and unreachable), or that the failure of knowledge is our separateness turned into an intellectual problem--that this separateness is our differences which need to be constantly reconciled (as if with every word). I'm not going to try to talk you out of this, but this is the slope that leads to a picture of every expression being intended or meant or thought and understood or interpreted, and those are all up to you and me. As if we were responsible not to what we have expressed (held to it), but that we are responsible for everything--the whole process--thus the need to perfect language (rather than ourselves).
I obviously can not get this across well (it is complicated), but I think it would be best, if you are still interested, to read a better explanation with much better examples than mine. I would try Cavell's essay Must We Mean What We Say (found the link) from the book of that name or, better yet, Knowing and Acknowledging from the same book (though that does not appear to be online).
Seems quite an irrational move, remarkably so even, given that ordinary language is one of many irrevocably crucial elemental constituents of ordinary language philosophy.
One would think/believe.
I haven't denied altering one's own standards, I just said the person has to establish consistency between the new information and one's standards. Sometimes the existing standards might be judged as wrong. That's the point I was arguing with Mww, knowledge is not only a matter of building onto existing principles, it's also a matter of rejecting principles once believed to be true, if later discovered to be false.
I haven't yet seen what "understanding" involves in OLP. I don't think Antony has gotten to that point yet.
Quoting Joshs
I didn't posit any internal templates or representations. What I posited was the need for interpretation. I don't think that interpretation is carried out through templates or representations, in most cases. As I said earlier, it's commonly a matter of familiarity, habit, and this involves recognition. So you might class me as closest to interaction theory, out of those three.
Quoting Mww
I can't say I understand what you're asking. I distinguish between artificial and natural. A 2 didn't "get into Nature" it was created, just like a house, a car, or a chair, they are artificial.
Quoting Antony Nickles
I'm afraid I will never understand you then, if you're not willing to compromise with your terms, and explain yourself in a way which appears to be intelligible to me.
Quoting Antony Nickles
I just don't see the method. You mostly ask questions like "what do we mean when we say...?". To me, a method would be a way to answer such questions. How are we to answer that question, what method would we apply to determine what is meant by...? If, simply asking the question, "what do you mean by...?" is the method, then you ought to be very proud of me because I'm practicing it very well. I've been asking you, what do you mean by "ordinary criteria", by "grammar", etc.. It appears I'm already proficient at your method. But now you insist that I shouldn't be asking you to explain yourself, you think I ought to just be able to know what you mean without asking. So which is it? Should we ask what does this or that mean, or should we assume to be able to know what it means without asking?
Quoting Antony Nickles
I totally agree with this. That is what I tried to bring to your attention, when I spoke of familiar, habitual activities, which most of language use is. These language acts are mostly just responses, reactions, to the particular circumstances which we find ourselves in, we might even call them reflexive. So these language acts cannot be directly tied to any meaning or intention. You didn't seem to want to listen to me at that point, insisting that there was some type of criteria at play here, ordinary criteria. But I insisted that applying criteria is an intentional act, negating the assumption that these familiar, habitual acts are carried out without intentional direction. Therefore we cannot assume that there is criteria involved here.
Quoting Antony Nickles
The problem is much deeper than this. As I explained toward the end of the post, we have not really "come together". We are still spatially, temporally, and psychologically separated. So the claim that we have "come together" is not justified. To say that "our lives have come to together" is a false description. Our attempts at togetherness are a never ending, ongoing effort to increase closeness.
Quoting Antony Nickles
I explained why this claim is completely unintelligible to me, and you've done nothing to clarify it, only reasserted it. You've defined grammar as a description concerning how we have come together in our lives. Clearly my intentions are quite distinct from your intentions. So if you think that you have a description of how our intentions have come to work together, I'm ready to hear it. Otherwise I think it's a false premise, and the true premise would be that getting distinct people with distinct intentions to work together is an arduous task, not something which ought to be taken for granted.
Quoting Antony Nickles
I find that there's a problem with your example of "mistake". A mistake, no matter when or where it occurs, is a product of the particular circumstances. I think that is the only generalization we can make about mistakes, other than that something has gone wrong. You keep going on as if we can make some sort of general description of a mistake, the grammar of a mistake, but each mistake must be dealt with as a particular individual, just like each human being is. Your idea, that we can describe all the human beings together as a Grammar of our being, or all the mistakes together as a grammar of mistakes, is deeply flawed.
Quoting Antony Nickles
The big question though, do you see that we have control over our own descriptions, the descriptions which we make, of whatever we describe? We can choose whatever words we want, even make up new ones. Furthermore, there is no need that we be truthful, or accurate, we can leave things out, and do all manners of deception, depending on what one's intention is. The intention of the individual is not completely irrelevant. So, how can there be such a thing as "our Grammar"?
And if we apply the OLP method and ask "what is meant by such and such?" how do we know the descriptive method which the describer who has control over one's own description, as well as individual intention, is employing? The togetherness which is implied by "our Grammar" has to itself be wanted, intended, or else OLP loses any footing it might have had. What good is a philosophy which is only useful so long as everyone is behaving honestly, and no one is practicing rhetoric, or sophistry, because it takes togetherness of intention as a premise?
Quoting Antony Nickles
If you break the Grammar of an apology, then you are not making an apology. If the thing is not consistent with the description, then it is not the named thing. Otherwise you could call anything an apology.
Quoting Antony Nickles
It's not cynical, it's just a description based in evidence. The evidence I cited is physical and obvious, spatial temporal relations. Further, the psychological evidence of human emotions, and moral attitudes, indicates that the small degree of togetherness which we do enjoy, is difficult to maintain, requiring effort, and dedication.
Quoting Antony Nickles
This takes us right back to where we first engaged. It does not lead to a picture of every expression being intended, I don't know where you derive that from. I spent considerable time explaining to you that the majority of our expressions are habitual, and not thought out. The problem though, is that embedded within this habitual activity is where we find the majority of mistakes. This is why, in philosophy we employ things like criteria and the like, in an attempt to avoid such mistakes. These are avoidable mistakes, and your attitude of 'oh well we shouldn't worry about those mistakes' is disturbing. Philosophy only sees the need to perfect language to the extent required to better ourselves (avoid making mistakes). But improving language is a real need because bettering ourselves requires working together, which couldn't happen if we continually misunderstood each other (made those mistakes).
Well I won't take this as deliberately obtuse (I assume you have not read the 20 comments at the start trying to iron this out nor the list of additional misconceptions I made halfway through)--I'll say cheeky, which is fine. I will simply say that "ordinary language use" makes it sound like it's contrasted to philosophical language use (as if I am merely advocating: "No terms!" "Speak like regular people!" "My opinion matters!" "Common sense!!"), and, more importantly, as if we are talking about "language use" as in a theory about how we use language, and not a (poorly-named) philosophical method (like, say, Hegel's) and as if "language use" is one thing (explained generally), instead of as varied as there are things to do and say, as Witt and Austin are attempting to show (the Grammar of each, how each works differently, basically--very basically.) And you failed to consider my response? or it just made so much sense you've moved on, yet somehow irrevocably changed?
We're pretty far apart...
Quoting creativesoul
"We are separate people, but not separated by anything, so we are answerable for everything that comes between us." - Cavell (roughly)
In order to understand another thinker, another worldview, another's world, their meaning, their behaviours, their aims, their desires, their fears, their states of mind, etc., we must attribute much the same meaning to much the same things by virtue of drawing much the same sorts of correlations that they've already drawn. It is best when ours match theirs as closely as is humanly possible. That's when we've acquired the best possible understanding; when we've drawn many or most of the same correlations; made all the right connections; associated all the same things one to another. Complete understanding of another's language use requires omniscience, and amounts to drawing each and every correlation that the other has drawn throughout their lives. It's an unattainable criterion. Good thing omniscience isn't required.
When looking at use, when contemplating another viewpoint, when seeing certain words articulated in a novel or curious way, understanding results in thinking anew, but requires the ability to carefully consider another's viewpoint.
We can intentionally suspend our judgement regarding whether or not some position or another counts as rational; or whether or not some statement is true; or some language use meaningful(lacking self-contradiction); or some thought, belief, and/or method practical; etc. We suspend our judgment as a means for carefully considering another's viewpoint; for grasping where another is coming from; what another means by something they've spoken and/or written; especially in order to understand another viewpoint that is itself seemingly contrary to our own in some way...
This is what it takes for understanding another's philosophical position(worldview) when key terms are being used quite differently, or when otherwise familiar things have been shown to have had quite different meanings tied to them by strangers.
Unless we are capable of wanting to hear from another, unless we are capable of satisfying that urge, unless we are capable of carefully considering another's worldview, unless we are capable of entertaining - sometimes said to be "for argument's sake" - we will never quite understand the other. Unless we begin our conversations with strangers with an attitude that everyone deserves a certain modicum of respect, it will be impossible to hear them out as thoroughly as is needed to understand in as complete a manner as possible.
That is exactly how it always happens. Acquiring an understanding, that is...
Regarding the world being always already interpreted...
That which is interpreted is already meaningful. If that were not the case, there could be no such thing as misinterpreting. This is a pivotal tenet on my view.
Our original worldview is almost entirely adopted, and all the stuff you learn to talk about is already meaningful to those with whom you learn to talk about it with. In this way, the world is always already meaningful, if and only if, the world is equal to word(to what one can talk about, what has been talked about, or what can be talked about). It's not.
Putting on the glasses of language use... and nodding to Heiddy's valiant attempt at naming all the different effects/affects language use has upon us...
The way we see the world is effected/affected by the way we've learned to take account of it and/or ourselves. Of that, there is no reasonable doubt left to be had. Until we borrow another's eyes we cannot understand them for it takes borrowing the eyes of another in order to see the world as they see it. We put ourselves in an other person's shoes by virtue of listening to them and imagining if we walked in those very same shoes. Shoes are a metaphorical device here. Walking in another's shoes is understanding what sorts of things have effected/affected an other and in what ways. It's living through the exact same sets of circumstances, as if you were them, by virtue of drawing correlations between what's happened and the effects/affects of those happenings. This is done by virtue of one method alone.
Listening.
Quoting Antony Nickles
Surely everything said is meaningful at least to the creature saying it, even if it sounds like gibberish to everyone else. Everything said after-all can be said again. No? If nothing is being said, then there is no question of whether or not it is meaningful.
I do not like the phrase "tied to" unless it amounts to having a relation to, and if that's the case, then surely there's no issue here with saying that everything thought, believed, spoken, written, uttered, and/or otherwise expressed is meaningful to the individual creature capable of thought, belief, and/or language use(experience).
If communication is a pre-requisite to learning, as you claim, then a child without language should not be able to learn, right? But children - who start off with no language - do learn. How do you account for this?
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
He offers this as an example of a common philosophical misconception of language, not as an endorsement of the idea. He starts with this example only to undermine it throughout the rest of the work.
Otherwise, tell us: what language does a child "already know...in order to learn a language"? A private language which is comprehensible only to one person? Wittgenstein argues against this possibility. Do you have a counterargument?
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Why are "rules required to learn rules"? Because you say so?
Again, people learn how to use language every day. I do not mean by that that a child learns rules or a language by a particular age and then their learning is finished. Learning is a continual process, not some end-point. However, one can be judged to have attained (via learning) a "level" or an adequacy of competence/knowledge/fluency of a language or of the rules. You can become fluent in a language or in the rules of a game without knowing any of the rules to begin with. This is happening every day.
The whole point of interaction theory is that standards don’t have any existence outside of their use, and in their use they are altered to accommodate themselves to what they are applied to. The way you are understanding them is precisely as internal templates or representations, which are first consulted and then compared with something else.
That reminds me of the target of Davidson's paper on malapropisms... what counts as having a language and/or successful communication, conventionally speaking.
Being written is not equivalent to being used when it comes to standards. Being written is most certainly a way of existing. Interaction theory, if your report is accurate, is wrong.
I'm all for striving to use as much common language as possible to explain something or other. The simpler the better assuming no loss in meaningful explanation. I'm also inclined to believe that Ockham's razor is worthy of guiding principle status, so...
Witt did not have a good grasp upon human thought and belief. Otherwise, he would not be looking for "hinge propositions" as the 'bedrock'. "All doubt is belief-based" was spot on though.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Oh the irony. The sense I was saying it was: being understanding. Of the sense as in "knowing", Witt will speak of "mastery of a technique" ("is able to") #150 or "now I can go on" #323 or that it is "in the application" #146 based on the "particular circumstances" #154. As if not a middle ground or agreement that people reach between my meaning and your interpretation, and not an inner process, but, as it were, being able to continue from the point of the other; the circumstance dictating what it is to show one can continue--here, being to apply a method.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Not just asking questions. And not asking them on behalf of you, to me. Not "what do you mean by___" It's: "what do we mean when we say___?" This may appear trivial to you, but it is crucial to come up with something we would say about the concept, and prepare to elaborate on the context. And, as I said, then we can see and make claims about the grammar from the example. And "we" is, as I said, ever English speaker, as it is a claim to universality (subject of course to clarification, etc.)
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
But this is to just divide acts/expressions into intended ones and unintended ones, so the intended ones still fall under the picture of a ever-present cause (for those "intended"). And this is different than my proposing the question of intention only comes up sometimes, not that it applies to all acts that are (pre?) "intended". And there will need to be very many more examples than of accidently and mistakenly to show all of intention's Grammar, which I will leave to Austin and Witt. After many examples, Witt will say we are inclined to say intention is internal to an action, it is "interpreted as the accompaniment to action." p. 219. That I can know what you intend, not as guessing thoughts but, that I might know what you will do (p. 223), as if it is imbedded in the situation. #337.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
This is not "we" as in "you and I". It is "we" as in all Engilsh speakers (Cavell will say "native" speakers, not to be racist or exclusionary (intentionally) but to record the fact that learning a language is to learn (be trained in, is more accurate given Witt's student) all the things that we do and say. And here I am not saying people don't then disagree or have hidden motives or speak past each other or mistake a claim for a statement, etc.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
I guess I don't see where I implied that mistakes happen without circumstances--"product of" seems to need accounting for, as if a mistake was a result of, at least an outcome of, the circumstances. "I made a mistake." "What about the circumstances led to the mistake [as an outcome]?" And this seems like it is more of a desperate act than a mistake (in what context I can imagine). And "What circumstances was the mistake a result of?" And this could almost be an excuse; you see what looks like me trying to do one thing and messing it up (making a mistake), but to offer the circumstances up to qualify the mistake... I'm not sure this example works for a mistake or if it's hard to imagine the context this would be in--and this is what makes OLP hard sometimes. But it may turn out that "I" have to "own up to" the act of shooting the cow, as if my intention is the only thing it being a mistake hangs on. And we can here say "my intention" would not have come into the picture if I had hit the donkey (unless perhaps it was your donkey).
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Did I say this or you? What? Felicity in action!
Quoting creativesoul
That is actually a misapprehension based on a misquote. The teacher is only "inclined" to draw the line and say "this is what we do". His desire is not to "ground" anything as needed by one attempting to solve skepticism. The teacher is always open to try again to reach over the gap between us (except Ms. Kemik, horrible woman).
No, "language" is the more specific term, while "communicate" is more general. Using language is a form of communicating, but there are forms of communicating which do not use language. If language is a specialized human form of communication, then the child might still use more animalistic types before learning the human type.
Quoting Luke
Right, it's a sort of dilemma which the philosophical misconception of language creates. The resolution to that dilemma is to recognize that the philosophical representation of language, which assumes rules as a necessary aspect of language, is wrong. Language allows for the existence of rules, which are expressed via language, and therefore cannot exist without language. This is a big part of that "coming together", the description of which Antony calls Grammar. If we allow, as a philosophical principle, that understanding some rules is prerequisite for language use, as is the common philosophical notion, then we have to account for the acquisition of these rules which are not learned through language use, as they must be already understood to be able to learn language. These rules would be private rules, constituting a private language, which is what Wittgenstein rejects.
Quoting Luke
You don't seem to grasp the issue. Rules are expressed in language. Therefore one must know how to interpret language to be able to learn a rule. To know how to interpret a language means that one knows how to use that language. Therefore one must know how to use a language prior to learning any rules. Consequently, we must conclude that rules are not a necessary part of language. You might try to avoid this conclusion by assuming some type of rules which are not expressed in language, but this leads to the private rules and the private language which Wittgenstein argues is an absurdity.
Quoting Joshs
I can accept this. with a slight revision, and this is what I've been arguing. We can not call this a "standard" then. That is why I rejected Antony's use of "criteria". The point though, is that we also have stated standards, and criteria, laws, which are not intended "to accommodate themselves to what they are applied to", they are intended to be steadfastly adhered to. These are exemplified in mathematics and logic. And they are what those words more properly refer to.
So, we clearly have a difference here, between the standards, criteria, and laws, which are intended to be adhered to, and these 'guidelines' (or whatever we ought to call them) which are intended to "accommodate themselves" by being alterable. Due to this difference, we ought to call them by distinct names to avoid confusion, equivocation, misunderstanding and mistake.
What I see is a distinction between the public and the private as Wittgenstein exemplified. Within the public realm, we must honour our words, stay true to our principles, and establish an equality between individuals. This means that we must establish rigid standards, criteria and laws, which must be rigorously adhered to, to maintain equality which is the basis of empathy and understanding. However, these standards which we adhere to (and in extreme cases of "law", we enforce), are not a true representation of the principles which we use within our own private minds, in our acts of speaking and interpreting, and acting in general. Within our own minds we use some sort of guidance mechanisms which are completely flexible. They must necessarily be, to capacitate learning, and to be adaptable to circumstances.
We might call these "principles", (as completely opposed to Mww's proposed definition of "principle" as an absolute truth) . But this is how we speak in moral philosophy, we have principles which provide our moral guidance. The unique particulars of the very distinct and unique situations which we find ourselves in, makes it impossible for us to govern our lives through strict adherence to any rigid standards or criteria, because these general, universal principles cannot be applied in the majority of those mundane situations. However, the moral person seeks to establish principles which can act as true standards, or criteria, because of the public domain which we partake in, and the necessity of interpreting one's acts, and the law, in a way which is consistent with others. In a sense then, there is a public pressure, for the rigid standards which we must adhere to in our cooperation with others, to enter into our private flexible guidance mechanism, as "principles".
Quoting Joshs
The internal "principles" cannot be templates or representations. The whole point of such a principle is its applicability, usefulness, therefore it must be to the greatest possible extent, something general, universal. A template or representation is by its very nature, something particular. Since it facilitates action, as the mechanism for decision making, "the principle" must exist in a direct relation with intention, or will, if these words refer to the motivator of action.
So consider this description you made: "interaction theory claims that we do not consult an internal set of representations or rules in order to relate to the other , but perceive their intent directly in their expressions." If this is the case, then what is involved in my recognizing what another person has said, is simply a matter of switching out my intention, and replacing it with the other's intention. My "principles" have a direct relation to my intention, and the switch allows a direct relationship with the other's intention because I have assumed the other's intention to take the place of my own. The important word is "assumed", because the other's intention doesn't actually take the place of mine, i simply allow it to seem that way.
Now here's the complicating factor. This scenario, in its most simple and raw form, allows for unfettered deception. You can see that I would not intentionally deceive myself. But if I allow another's intention to freely take the place of my own intention, and the other's intent is to deceive, then it is just as if I intend to deceive myself when I allow the other's intention to take the place of my own. Since we actually do employ some safeguards against deception, this simple and raw form of "interaction" as I have represented it here, is not complete. It may provide a basic representation of habitual speaking, in which one completely removes one's own intention from the conversation, to have direct access to another's (direct access to both at the same time is not possible because contradiction), but this is never really the case in actual conversation. So this "direct access" is a type of assumption, a switching which we allow through some sort of "principles", but because there are these "principles" which for allow it to occur, the other person's intention's access to my mind is not completely unfiltered, and not really direct.
The conclusion to this is the principle I've been arguing, that there is a distinction to be made between hearing a person, recognizing what that person is saying, and actually understanding the person. Recognizing what the person is saying is the habitual act of assuming a direct relation with the other's intention. We might call this apprehending the meaning of the other's words. It's done by identifying with the other, allowing that my intention has become one and the same as the other's. However, that I really have direct access to the other's intention is an illusion, it's not a true assumption. I make the assumption for the pragmatic purpose of facilitating apprehension of the other's words. If I adhere to this assumption as a truth, deception is actually facilitated.
Therefore we must assume another level, which constitutes true understanding. Hearing and recognizing what a person is saying, is just to identify with the person, allow that person's intention to be mine, therefore to see what the person has said as if it was me who said it. To truly understand the person is to then remove this switched intention, which creates the illusion of understanding that allows for deception, and understand what the person has said, as a separate person, with distinct intentions.
Quoting Antony Nickles
You're right back to incoherent nonsense now. Each act of saying something is an individual act of an individual person saying something in a particular situation. Context plays an undeniable role in meaning. Your phrases "we say", and "we mean", are incoherent, as if a phrase could be properly interpreted outside its context. This is representative of your false premise, that we "have come together", that "we" exist as a entity united through a common Grammar.
Quoting Antony Nickles
You are simply denying the reality of the situation. Human beings are intentional beings. They always have goals and therefore they cannot separate themselves from their goals, as if they could pass some time without having any goals. So an habitual, "unintended" human act, exists within the wider context of intention. When I walk to the store, my legs are moving in an unintended habitual way, but this is within the context of me intending to get to the store. When I talk to my brother, my lips are moving and I'm making sounds in an unintended habitual way, but this is within the wider context of intending to speak to him about some subject.
Your proposal, "intention only comes up sometimes", needs to be rejected as a false proposition. Intention is always there, as part of the background, the context.
Quoting Antony Nickles
If it's difficult to justify the idea that "you and I" exist as one united entity called "we", how much more difficult is it to justify your claim that "all English speakers" exist as such a united entity?
Quoting Antony Nickles
Have you never looked at your own question, to ask what is meant by "a mistake"? A mistake is something which occurs when a person has not properly accounted for the particulars of the situation. Therefore it is always an outcome of the circumstances. "What about the circumstances led to the mistake?" The fact that the person (oneself a part of the circumstances) did not properly account for the particulars. "Why did you shoot the cow instead of the donkey?" "Someone put the cow into the donkey's stall and I didn't confirm that it was the donkey I was shooting." This is the answer to "why" in every instance of a mistake, "I did not take into account all the particulars of the circumstances". A mistake is an intentional act which was made without adequate knowledge of the particulars of the situation, therefore it does not result as intended. It is because each situation consists of particulars which are unique to that situation, as "the circumstances", and the person fails to account for the particulars, that mistakes are made.
Quoting Antony Nickles
The biggest problem of idealism is to account for the fact that we, as individual minds, are separated. There is a very real medium of separation between your mind and my mind, which we call the material world, and this very real separation forces the idealist toward principles to account for this reality, to avoid solipsism. If you deny the reality of this separation between us, you force us into a reality in which there is no material world, and we are all just one solipsistic mind.
We only know what is written by reading it , and reading involves interpretation. Each time we return to a written page to read it , we interpret it slightly differently than the last time. So saying the written word ‘exists’ without us doesn’t tell us exactly what it is that is existing.
Quoting Joshs
Moving the goalposts.
Written standards can exist outside of being used, and be perfectly meaningful in doing so. They can be unambiguous and not followed. If they are not being followed, they are not being used, unless to show how they are not being followed. If they are written, not being followed, and not being used to show that they are not being followed, then they exist despite being not being used. Former standards fit here.
Look no farther than the United States Government for real life examples of standards existing in writing but no one following them, or using them to show that no one is following them.
I don’t mind disagreements with my words. They should actually be my words, though.
No need to rectify it; just letting the world know I committed no such metaphysical blunder as defining principle with “absolute truth”.
Quoting Mww
One need not know or interpret the rules to learn them. The knowing is shown in the using. We do not call trees "cats". Etc. We learn that trees are called "trees" by drawing correlations between "tree" and trees. Learning the rules is embedded in language acquisition. We learn that "Shut the door" can have several different meanings, depending upon the speakers' tone, facial expressions, volume, etc. The different contextual elements are part of the different meanings(uses) 'tied to' the same words. The same words are part of several different uses. We learn about the differences in meaning by virtue of drawing correlations between the same words and the different contextual elements(tone, volume, facial expressions, etc.)
We do not make promises unless we intend to make the world match our words.
Husserl made a distinction between free and bound idealities. Mathematical logic is an example of of a free ideality. It is designed to be able to be identically repeatable outside of all contexts, it it is by itself empty of intentional meaning.
Spoken and written language, and all other sorts of gestures and markings which intend meaning, exemplify bound idealities. Even as it is designed to be immortal, repeatable as the same apart from any actual occurrences made at some point, the SENSE of a spoken or inscribed utterance, what it means or desires to say, is always tied to the contingencies of empirical circumstance. In other words , no matter how hard we try to steadfastly adhere to a standard , there is always contextually driven slippage. That’s why a document like the constitution is worthless outside of its interpretation, and its interpretation is a widely varying as the subcultures which make use of it.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
It sounds like you are saying that we have unaltered access to a standard first, and only after do we pick and choose what parts of it to apply to a news contextual situation. I’m saying that regardless of how hard we attempt to keep our understanding of the original standard an exact duplicate of the first time we became acquainted with it , there will be continual slippage in the meaning of that standard. Such slippage will be subtle enough, at least over short periods of time , that it will go unnoticed. For all intents and purposes we can claim to be able to consult an unchanged version of the standard every time we think of it in our mind or re-read it.
But it is important to recognize that learning , and experience in general , beginning at the most basic perceptual level , is not a matter of accumulating bits of data , but of transforming one’s past knowledge in the face of the present context. The past (our standards ) is changed by what it occurs into.
New approaches have moved past the Enlightenment notion of thinking as objects in the head that are shuffled around to correspond with objects in the world. We know know things in the world perceptually by interacting with them. Perception is based on schemes of bodily interaction with an outside.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Dan Zahavi discussed ‘putting oneself in the others shoes’ in the context of a comparison between theory theory, simulation theory and interaction theory.
“ According to Goldman, we don’t need a theory in order to understand others. Rather, we can simply use our own minds as a model. Our understanding of the minds of others would be grounded in our introspective access to our own mind;our capacity for self-ascription precedes the capacity for other-ascription. More specifically, Goldman argues that my understanding of others is rooted in my ability to project myself imaginatively into their situation. I literally use my imagination to put myself in the target’s “mental shoes”. If I for instance witness an immigrant being harassed by a desk clerk, I would be able to grasp the immigrant’s mental state and predict his subsequent behaviour by means of the following procedure. By means of an explicit simulation, I would imaginatively put myself in his situation, would imagine how I would feel and react under similar circumstances and on the basis of analogy I would then attribute or project similar states to the person I am simulating (cf. Goldman 2000). In my view, both sides in the theory of mind debate are faced with difficulties.When it comes to the simulation theory of mind, one might initially question whether there is any experiential evidence in support of the claim that our understanding of others relies on conscious simulation routines. As Wittgenstein once remarked, “Do you look into yourself in order to recognize the fury in his face?” (Wittgenstein 1981,Sect. 220). Furthermore, one might ask whether it is really legitimate to cast our experience of others in terms of an imaginative exercise. When we project ourselves imaginatively into the perspective of the other, when we put ourselves in his or her shoes, will we then really attain an understanding of the other or will we merely be reiterating ourselves? To put it differently, will a process of simulation ever allow for a true understanding of the other or will it merely let me attain an understanding of myself in a different situation?
In contrast to the take favoured by simulationists and theory-theorists alike, the crucial question is not whether we can predict and explain the behaviour of others,and if so, how that happens, but rather whether such prediction and explanation constitute the primary and ordinary form of intersubjectivity. There is a marked difference between the way we engage with others in the second-person and the third-person case. When we interact directly with another person, we do generally not engage in some detached observation of what the person is doing. We do in general not at first attempt to classify his or her actions under lawlike generalizations; rather we seek to make sense of them. When you see somebody use a hammer, feed a child or clean a table, you might not necessarily understand every aspect of the action, but it is immediately given as a meaningful action (in a common world). Under normal circumstances, we understand each other well enough through our shared engagement in this common world, and it is only if this pragmatic understanding for some reason breaks down, for instance if the other behaves in an unexpected and puzzling way, that other options kick in and take over,be it inferential reasoning or some kind of simulation. We develop both capacities,but we only employ them in special circumstances. Neither establishes our primary nor ordinary access to the embodied minds of others. They are the exceptions rather than the rules. In most intersubjective situations, we have a direct understanding ofthe other person’s intentions, since these intentions are manifested in the person’s behaviour and embedded in a shared social context. Thus, as Gallagher remarks,much is going on in our understanding of others that exceeds and precedes our theoretical and simulation capabilities. At best, the theory–theory of mind and the simulation theory of mind only explain a narrow and specialized set of cognitive processes that we can employ when our usual way of understanding others fall short (Gallagher 2005, p. 208).
https://cfs.ku.dk/staff/zahavi-publications/Book_Ratcliffe_Hutto.pdf/
Quoting Mww
Well, footnote 1 talks about philosophical problems common between OLP philosophers and that similar questions enter into their attempts to deal with those problems. He says it is with these questions he is concerned, and qualifies that to say, with what he understand them to be. I take that to refer to the fact that among the common problems there are similar, but not the same, questions, and that Cavell counts (understands) certain of those questions to be his to answer among all the similar (though non-identical) ones that enter into dealing with those problems. I will also note that Cavell interestingly earlier says philosophy for him is a set of texts rather than a set of problems, so it may be that he counts (understands) the questions to be categorically about something else (the "what") than problems.
That's all you took from that essay?
Quoting Mww
I enjoy Cavell because he talks about bridging that trans-continental divide, which I take as meaning that analytical philosophy can be meaningful to how we live our lives (being a better person, to use the parlance of the scurge that is self-help). I did talk about Witt's take on "understanding" with Meta in the last few comments.
Quoting Mww
Well this sounds like a loaded question--what is "mentality"? Are we saying imagination? Or just the ability to bring up an image? I would say "part and parcel" sounds like a lot even with either in terms as general as "human" anything, but I'd need more I think.
So ‘original intent’ is a thing?
Understanding as:
Quoting creativesoul
Hear, hear. An ethics of understanding, being understanding to reach the point I try to make of Witt's in my further response to @Metaphysician Undercover--where we can go on from/for the other, and the similar necessity in OLP that the criteria for Grammar being true is that you can see it for yourself, come (from where I am, what I have said) to it on your own.
Quoting creativesoul
You bring up a good point which I have overlooked; that interest, attraction, and what is meaningful are very important. Now what is meaningful for us (everyone) is what shapes our lives and our Grammar of our concepts (our shared interests in judgments, distinctions, what counts, how we decide, or reconcile, etc.--for each concept). But there is also our personal interest and what attracts us about something--meaningful as impassioned. Witt will say "Every sign by itself seems dead. What gives it life?—In use it is alive. Is life breathed into it there?—Or is the use its life?" #432 That is to say something happens in the expressing (not within the language, or me), the fact of me saying this now, here and the options of the concept that come into play. That language is dead is to say that writing comes before the speaking (as if opposite of Derrida I believe @Joshs). We make our concepts come alive by being sloppy or ignorant of the way they work, or calling for a higher justice (aptness) as it were for our expressions--being answerable for them, called out by them, and openly prepared for further intelligibility.
Quoting creativesoul
Well, not really (everything?)--sometimes we say things flippantly, mechanically, under duress, etc. To a certain degree we could say the person may care about receiving a basic respect for having said something, but some people don't care about that even. Sometimes we are passionate, sometimes we just say things we don't care about.
‘Writing’ for Derrida means that what is spoken is not immediately understood but is deferred, delayed in its reception.
“ When he writes himself to himself [or speaks to himself], he has no immediate presence of himself
to himself. There is the necessity of this detour through the other...”
In same fashion , when I speak to another , this detour through the other is necessary.
“ . A living being - whether a human being or an animal being - could not have any relation to another being as such without this alterity in time, without, that is, memory, anticipation, this strange sense (I hesitate to call it knowledge) that every now, every instant is radically other and nevertheless in the same form of the now. Equally, there is no ‘I’ without the sense as well that everyone other than me is radically other yet also able to say 'I’, that there is nothing more heterogeneous than every 'I’ and nevertheless there is nothing more universal than the 'I’.”(Arguing with Derrida)
This is not a denial of conventional use.
“No doubt, for a meaning to be understood and for discussion to start, for literature to be read, we need a community that has, even if there are conflicts, a certain desire for normativity, and so for the stabilization of meaning, of grammar, rhetoric, logic, semantics and so on. (But, by the way, if these imply a community, I wouldn’t call it a community of 'minds' for a number of reasons - not least those touched on In response to your last question regarding the 'inner' .) This is obvious. And, again, I would say that it is true even for animals, for animal societies. They form a community of interpretation. They need that. And some normativity. There is here some 'symbolic culture‘.”
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
I think maybe you are taking this as a statement, when I am trying to explain the method of OLP, which necessarily involves fleshing out the context in which the example would be said.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
I hope you see that this makes your rebuttal to my point appear to be that you know what reality is, and I do not.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
I am not denying that people have goals or "intend" to do things, just that I think the picture is framing them a particular way (I could say they seem to be in the present, when we can see from examples--below--that they are about the future), as if there was the intention, and then the action. Or that there is some thing "the intention" which divides these two types of action (habitual and intended), maybe rather than dividing them between movement and action? Anyway, you say "my legs are moving in an unintended habitual way, but this is within the context of me intending to get to the store. When I talk to my brother, my lips are moving and I'm making sounds in an unintended habitual way, but this is within the wider context of intending to speak to him about some subject." (Which, by the way, is close to doing OLP, but these are explanations.) Can we not just say: "I'm going to the store." or: "I'm speaking to my brother about something." We do not need your picture of intention here-- what is the determination of where the line is between intended an unintended? I could say: "I'm intending to go to the store." and there is a context you can imagine for this. And also "I'm intending to speak to my brother about something." and a context or this as well. And these show us something about intention--that it is a hope for the future, which, however, may go wrong (like shooting a cow instead of a donkey).
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
"Our" is not an "entity" but merely a way of saying our language, its Grammar, our shared lives, are owned by each one of us and together--a form of social contract. And with each expression, we consent to the contract (agree to be bound by our expression), or break it.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
I can see what you see here as part of the Grammar of a mistake: failing to account for the particulars of a situation, and I agree. And I think this is a very good job of using OLP to get there.
"We are separate people, but not separated by anything...
— Antony Nickles
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
I was referring to the point I made previously, which Witt gets to and Cavell elaborates (in Knowing and Acknowledging); we are separate bodies, and that gap can not be intellectually solved by knowledge--we have a further relation to each other. We make claims of the other, and they accept those claims, or deny them (see my post on Witt's lion quote). Character is higher than intellect Emerson says. And Nietzsche is pointing to this as well.
If it matters, not at all what OLP is about. But I agree Kant and especially Hegel could have dialed the terminology back some.
I agree; and this is an important fact for OLP; that we learn our language (concepts) and the world at the same time. That our language is molded by the interests, judgments, distinctions, etc. that we have shared over the course of our (everyone's) living in the world.
I don't agree that being repeatable in any or all contexts makes mathematics empty of intention. That also would be the claim of those who support the idea of "pure mathematics", axioms created without the influence of intentional meaning. But the goal to produce something like that, with the possibility of universal application, is itself intentional. So I don't believe that we can escape intentional meaning in this way. As living human beings, even sleep might not free us from intentional meaning, as dream interpreters might show. Some might argue that meditation seeks to free us from intention, but meditation requires effort. I think it is inherently contradictory to engage in an activity which would have as its goal to free one from intention.
Quoting Joshs
I agree with this, but I believe that the "slippage" extends even to fundamental mathematics. Evidence of the slippage in fundamental mathematics is the fact that we have numerous distinct ways of numbering, natural numbers, rational numbers, real numbers, for example. As living human beings, with living conditions, living needs, and the constraints of a living body, we cannot produce pure principles which would be free from the influence of empirical circumstance.
Quoting Joshs
As I said, I would not call these "standards", I'd prefer to call them principles. The fact is that we allow slippage, intentionally, for whatever reason. Since we intentionally allow slippage, not adhering to them because the principles are not universally applicable, or whatever, then we are actually appealing to a different hierarchy of values, one which does not give that principle the status of "a standard" in that hierarchy.
We can see this very clearly in moral philosophy. We learn and accept moral principles, but then we intentionally stray from them. In other words, we sometimes do what we know is wrong. This is the argument Plato used against the sophists who claimed to teach virtue, insisting that virtue is a form of knowledge. To know the difference between, and be able to judge between, bad and good, wrong and right, or incorrect and correct, is not sufficient to ensure that one does not intentionally do what that person knows is wrong. We judge the act as wrong, yet we do it anyway.
When we call them "principles", I think we recognize that they are themselves, free to be judged by us, in relation to other principles. When we call them "standards", I think that we think of them as the basis for judgement, therefore we think that we cannot judge them, because we'd have nothing to base that judgement on.
Quoting Joshs
I would not accept this proposal. To put myself into another's situation is far too difficult and complex, and it appears to be completely inconsistent with my experience. Instead, as I proposed in the last post, I think we allow the other's intention to replace one's own. In other words, we submit to the other, to do what the other person wants from us. We can see this quite readily, in education, the child does what the parents want, the student does what the teachers want, etc.. So as a listener, to understand the speaker, we do not try to project into the speaker's position, we simply open up in trust, and allow our own intention to become one with the assumed intent of the speaker. We simply try to do what we think the speaker wants us to do.
The advantage of my perspective is that doing this is very quick and easy and doesn't require the mental gymnastics of attempting to put oneself in the other's position. There's one simple question, what does the other want from me, and we learn to judge this very quickly as children. Since the judgement can be made very rapidly, conversation is facilitated. We go back and forth in conversation very quickly and smoothly, from listening, judging what the other wants, to speaking, showing the other what you want, without even noticing the transition.
Where there is a problem, is that we are often not forthcoming in showing the others what we want from them. And if our trust for each other wanes, we will throw up more and more roadblocks to understanding, until these insecurities become habitual, and the person is naturally difficult to understand.
Quoting Joshs
There is a distinction to be made here between simply observing a person and judging what is that person doing, and engaging communicatively with a person where I must judge what does the person wants from me. At first glance, you might think that the latter would be a more difficult judgement to make, but I think the reality is that it is much more easy. This is because what the person is doing in communicating with you, is intentionally showing you what is wanted from you. In the other case, the person is just doing things, and you must judge what they are doing without the person trying to show you. So communication is much easier than putting yourself in the other's shoes, which would be determining all that the other is doing, it's just a matter of determining what the other wants from you, which is one of the things the person is trying to do anyway.
Quoting Antony Nickles
Yes, you suggested that a human being could remove oneself from the context of intention, and I think that's simply unreal. It's no different from asking me to accept a proposition which I strongly believe to be false. I'd tell you that if you believe that proposition you simply do not know the reality of the situation.
Quoting Antony Nickles
We could say that, but intention is implied when we say "I'm doing...", "I'm going...", "I'm speaking...". To say that we ought to discuss these activities as if there is no intention involved would be foolish.
Quoting Antony Nickles
Yes, we always have a view toward the future, so intention is always present. A mistake does not remove intention from the scene, it just means that things did not turn out how it was intended.
Quoting Antony Nickles
Again, this is incoherent to me. My life is my life, and yours is yours. We are separated by space, we are born and die at different times. There is no such thing as a shared life, except perhaps the Siamese twins'.
Do these "more animalistic" forms of communication have rules?
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
It's a simple solution for you to claim that language is necessary for rules but rules are not necessary for language. I would agree that language is necessary for the linguistic expression of rules (as you imply), simply because language is necessary for any linguistic expression. But why are rules not necessary for language? Is your position that language has no rules?
There are right and wrong ways to use words and to make sense with words. This is what grammar is about. Besides, you appear to acknowledge that language consists of rules, when you say:
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Private or not, you are effectively saying that rules constitute a language.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Rules can be expressed in language. They don't have to be.
A rule is: "one of a set of explicit or understood regulations or principles governing conduct or procedure within a particular area of activity."
It certainly matters. I'm in dire need of getting over the the name of the method, and looking more towards understanding the benefits thereof a bit better than I currently do/can.
Do you have another link to the paper that's more friendly towards my antiquated mac?
Meta either cannot or will not set aside his framework, and thus either cannot or will not understand another's if it is too different from the one he works from. Arguing over definitions for the sake of doing so... never getting to the comparison/contrast between the consequences thereof.
Must be closer to needing a new computer to play around with. This one is corrupted, I suppose. This forum is about the only place that it is possible to successfully navigate...
Good enough for now, aside from the fact that I cannot open all linked things... some though. Not this time. Thanks for trying.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
I understand you want to let me know that you disagree, but you simply rejected this with no justification than I'm not living in reality. It is arrogant and not even an argument. I find it rude and I will not tolerate it. This is a philosophical discussion. If you speak to me like that again I will not respond.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
This is unacceptable behavior. I feel I have been quite patient and met with nothing but refusal of consideration. It is not a foolish argument. I appreciate the opportunity to attempt to refine how I present this material but a blanket denial in the end leaves nothing to say. I hope you have learned something from all the effort I put in but I fear you are not ready to hear from others other than to defend your beliefs.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
It must seem like a lonely world. Good day sir.
It's a good approach, one that I think can be deeply assimilated to make your life and everyone else's better while conducting any inquiry that requires talking. The idea that it 'died' is false; its insights were simply assimilated into the wider contemporary mass of analytic philosophy. I don't really think that's a kind fate, since analytic philosophy as it stands now is sort of bad. The tendency to think of it, along with logical positivism, as a philosophy somehow 'outdated' or 'refuted' is laughable – it's something I think everyone should have to contend with.
Besides all the usual crap everyone knows about – you know, Strawson on presupposition, Grice on implicature, speech act theory – OLP spawned some of the most exquisite methodological discussions about how inquiry itself works that I've ever read. To read Ryle on what constitutes 'ordinary' language, what it is for words to have a 'use,' and so on, is truly a pleasure, and the back-and-forth between Ayer and Austin, and Mates and Cavell, are wonderful. I don't think analytic philosophy ever reached such self-awareness and methodological heights again. It was a rare burst of sophistication. The less-celebrated OLPers, such as Malcolm, Wisdom, Urmson, Ambrose, and Lazerowitz, are all worth reading in their own right.
Quoting creativesoul
Well that's refreshing. The name leads to a lot of confusion. If I didn't already suggest it, this essay by Cavell is a good explanation and example (way better than I appear to be doing); though a little dense, it's only 40 pages.
https://sites.ualberta.ca/~francisp/Phil488/CavellMustWeMean58.pdf
(I provide the whole link as I understand you are working on a 1994 PowerBook)
It's strange but the idea is that we formulate an expression, say, "I know..." (maybe a regular one or a traditional philosophical one) and then imagine a context where this would be said, or what about it makes it impossible to imagine a context, (even a fantastical one), and other variations of this, and in doing so we see something traditional philosophy usually skips over, that has the same legitimacy and addresses the same issues.
If you skip through the comments and find ones with quotes, like in the OP, those are examples (though pretty horrible really). I made a list of Witt quotes too and tried to list out some misconceptions again somewhere in the middle. I really need to re-write the OP in having learned where a lot of people are coming from, and the assumptions they carry about OLP.
Quoting Snakes Alive
Well, you are officially in charge of this thread. I'm finding "explaining" it is either beyond me or does little to shift people's framework to consider it, and I'm afraid I don't seem to have the skills to provide compelling examples and don't even do a good job of stealing Austin's or Cavell's. I have posted a few other oblique attempts, and I will, of course, carry this on.
Quoting Snakes Alive
I'm impressed. I have read everything Cavell has written (the essay in "Conditions Handsome and Unhandsome" looking at Ryle on rules is even better than the Mates' one--great political philosophy book) and Witt and not enough Austin, and I have a book of Wisdom's, but I will check those out. I have considered reading Stephen Mulhall, Alice Crary, Tracy strong, or Cora Diamond--people "influenced by" OLP, but I find myself reading back with fresh eyes on late Heidegger, Nietszche, Hegel, Kant, Marx, and Emerson. Any modern/old interests?
Quoting Joshs
I put your name in there as I thought you might have a better idea of Derrida's take on this idea of the life and death of language, or of the priority or primacy or metaphorical temporality of voice and writing (the garmene?) I know there is a "trace" and the idea of "presence" but I'm not sure they come into play here.
Yes, we learn rules from their linguistic expression. If one simply observed an activity and made up so-called "rules" to follow, from the observations, in order to engage in that activity, this would not be a case of learning rules, it would be a case of making up so-called "rules". Those would be private rules which don't qualify as "rules", under Wittgenstein's restrictions, or criteria, as to what constitutes following a "rule".
Consider the difference Wittgenstein describes between thinking oneself to be following a rule, and to be actually following a rule. Think of this as a part of Wittgenstein's definition of "rule", as a restriction placed on the word's usage. If I watched an activity, and made up rules for myself to follow, and then proceeded to engage in that activity, I might think that I was following a rule, but I wouldn't actually be following a rule.
Quoting Luke
I see no reason to belief that rules are necessary for language. I have seen no acceptable logic which leads to this conclusion, and I see no evidence of learning rules in early childhood learning of language. I see that people only learn rules after they learn language. And rules are only a part of more advanced language development like writing, mathematics, and logic. Therefore I conclude that rules are not necessary for language use. So it is not my belief, that language has no rules, I think that they are a feature of advanced languages, we could say they are an emergent feature in language use.
Quoting Luke
If you truly believe this, then you ought to be able to provide some examples. Show me some rules, or even a rule, which is not expressed in language. Remember though, a repeated pattern, or any type of pattern, does not constitute "a rule", but the description of it may be a "rule".
Quoting creativesoul
I do this intentionally, to demonstrate to people like Antony who take agreement, "our coming together", "our shared lives" as a fundamental premise, that their premise is false.
Quoting Antony Nickles
I justified with both explanation, and examples. My legs moving, in the context of walking, exists within the context of an intentional act, going to the store. My lips moving, in the context of speaking, exists within the context of an intentional act of speaking to my brother. I explained that even if we find simple habitual acts, which appear to be unintended, they exist within the overall context of a living human being who has ongoing goals, intentions, which influence those seemingly unintentional acts.
You said:
"Can we not just say: "I'm going to the store." or: "I'm speaking to my brother about something." We do not need your picture of intention here--"
The fact of the matter, the reality of the situation, is that this is simply the way that 'we' (meaning most ordinary normal people), talk about these things, that they are intentional acts. What do 'we' mean by "I'm going to the store"? 'We' mean that I am engaged in an intentional act with the goal of getting to the store.
If your purpose is to deny the intention implied by such phrases, when you answer the question "what do we mean by...", then you are not practicing your professed OLP, because you are not answering the question truthfully. This is part of the hypocrisy I warned you about. If however, it is a part of your method, to provide untruthful answers to such questions then your method is one of deception..
Quoting Antony Nickles
That I refuse to accept the principles of a hypocrite is unacceptable behaviour?
Quoting Antony Nickles
Take off your tinted spectacles, and take a look at the situation! Who is the one in denial here? In defense of your denial of the reality of intention, you suggested we could take sayings like "I'm going to the store", and truthfully consider what is meant by them, outside the context of intention. I've simply pointed out to you, that it's not a realistic representation of how we speak, of what we mean, your proposition that we speak about human acts as if they exist outside the context of intention.
Quoting Antony Nickles
Why do you think I'm here, engaged in this unpleasant situation?
Ok. I’ll wait.
————
Quoting Antony Nickles
No. I discovered where you got your writing style.
With respect to content, however, there is this, which I found enlightening, after dropping out all those stupefying cogito interruptus parentheticals:
“....What now needs emphasizing is that (...) justifying a statement or an action is not (...) justifying its justification. The assumption that the appeal to a rule or standard is only justified where that rule or standard is simultaneously established or justified can only serve to make such appeal seem hypocritical (...) and the attempts at such establishment or justification seem tyrannical (....)....”
pg 191
And with this next...
“...And what we mean (...) to say, like what we mean (...) to do, is something we are responsible for....”, pg 197
.... is merely a reiteration of that which has always been the case, long before this article was written, because the rules for what is meant by what is said, are never simultaneously established in the saying, but already completely established beforehand in the relation between the words said and the conceptions thought, from which they arise. And to which the question regarding images becomes its most relevant.
I don't think there's much point in trying to convince people. While OLP is good, it relies on a certain psychological leap that it never figured out how to instill in other people. Lazerowitz said it was a matter of 'clicking,' or like seeing through a magic-eye painting. Much of OLP was, and I think should still be seen, as destructive to philosophy, and is a matter of 'seeing through' it. People who are invested in philosophy as part of their identity have a predisposition not to listen, and even someone who wants to listen has no guarantee it will 'click.' That's the major shortcoming of the method – no one figured out how to make someone see that initial insight. Philosophy is, in some sense, stupid or defective, but we're cognitively disposed to fall into its traps.
The thing that did it for me was Malcolm's 'Moore and Ordinary Language,' which contains something like the OLP 'master argument' in the allegory of the animal, and the argument over whether it's a fox or a wolf.
Suppose we're going through the forest and we hear rustling, so we go to investigate. We look beyond and in a clearing there's an animal. We are close enough to see it perfectly clearly. You say it's a wolf, and I say it's a fox. When you protest, I ask, how can that possibly be a wolf? It looks and acts like a fox – it has all the features typically associated with a fox. But you protest, and say 'I grant you that – it has all the characteristics of what we would normally call a fox. Nevertheless, it is a wolf.'
The idea is that here you're doing philosophy, in insisting that a fox is a wolf. The point is to consider – what sense is there in saying that a creature that has all the characteristics of what is normally called a fox, not a fox? Yet this is precisely what the philosopher spends the great majority of his time doing.
Except that philosophy didn’t die with Wittgenstein. It absorbed his ideas and reinvented itself as post-metaphysical ( Derrida would say there is no such thing as post-metaphysics, he would instead say that one must work at the margins of philosophy. He would also suggest that olp rests on implicit metaphysical
assumptions.).
I’m saying exactly the opposite(unless you’re just referring to analytic philosophy, in which case I agree) and here’smy list of philosophers who absorbed the lessons of olp ( whether they read it or not) and moved on from it:
Heidegger
Derrida
Foucault
Deleuze
Jan-Luc Nancy
Lyotard
Gendlin
Merleau-Ponty
Rorty
Dan Zahavi
Shaun Gallagher
Matthew Ratcliffe
Jan Slaby
Thomas Fuchs
Andrea Jaegher
Gadamer
Ricouer
Francisco Varela
Evan Thompson
John Protevi
Brian Massumi
That’s just a sampling . Please defend your claim that this philosophy isn’t any better than the pre-olp philosophy. My hunch is you haven’t read much of any of these authors.
This list doesn't make any sense, since it includes philosophers who wrote their major works prior to or during the time OLP was being worked out. Rorty is the only one here that really makes sense as having 'learned from' OLP – many of these guys probably hadn't even read it or weren't aware of it.
And yeah, if I'm meant to be impressed by Heidegger and Gadamer and so on as examples of 'good' philosophy...well, our notions of what is good are probably too different for any interesting discussion to happen here. I have no interest in 'team continental' versus 'team analytic' nonsense, which this post smacks of.
How is language use any different to these sorts of rule-governed activities? Language use is itself an activity that we are taught how to do, with rules to follow about how to do it properly (or adequately, at least).
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
How can this be a definition (or part of a definition) of the word "rule"? "Rule" means actually following a "rule"?
The meaning of the word is an explanation of its use. Explaining a particular use of a word is describing a rule for its use; describing how the word is used by (e.g.) English speakers. To repeat, a rule is "one of a set of explicit or understood regulations or principles governing conduct or procedure within a particular area of activity."
If actually following a rule is "part of Wittgenstein's definition" of the word "rule", then you acknowledge that a word's definition is initimately linked with the activity of language use; that there are right and wrong ways to use words (or to make sense using words). According to Wittgenstein, "For a large class of cases...the meaning of a word is its use in the language." (PI 43)
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Of course you have, except that you are blinded by a particular definition of "rule" which you think requires that it must be expressed in language.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Using language is following rules. Perhaps you are thinking of language only as some abstract entity, forgetting that we physically use it and are taught the principles governing its use.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
You want me to express in language that which I am saying needn't be expressed in language, thereby proving your point that rules are only expressed in language? Okay I'll try. Off the top of my head:
Corporate culture is an understood set of behaviours which are often not explicitly expressed in language. That's one example. Also, rules and laws are often made explicit only after there has been some transgression of the implicit, understood principles of conduct. There's also pets. Sometimes we train pets to respond to particular verbal commands. We might say that our pet understands to do (or not do) something, or behave a certain way, even though the pet doesn't speak English, and we might never make the rule explicit - to the pet - in English. We might instead train the pet to follow rules only with food rewards or verbal reprimands. Finally, there is language itself. When children are trained how to use language, they learn "the regulations or principles governing conduct or procedure" for the activity of language use, which is a definition of "rule(s)". Obviously, children don't already know the principles that govern (i.e. the rules of) speaking English before they learn how to speak English.
I have the feeling if this is not just a trap, it is a guessing game or riddle; which, of course, I can't help but play/try to solve. If calling up an image has to be accepted as essential to "mentality", and it is not related to imagination, then... mentality is the group of stuff you can do by yourself, like talking, remembering? I feel like this is too trivial to be right.
Quoting Mww
Ohhhh, found out! Yes, I have read too much Cavell. The reason I picked that up is that I find it respectful and an acknowledgement that this is a claim on you, not an explanation/statement, and there is the possibility I have not got it right and there might be additional evidence to be considered (but specifically not that I can take it however I want for any purpose).
Quoting Mww
Tangential to the extreme. I've found the point is that part of philosophy is listening to what interests you, and another point is that this is not a theory so much as an investigation, one that opens avenues for further inquiry, so there are a lot of questions left unanswered, which is separately an essential part of OLP: that you answer the questions Witt etc. asks, for yourself, to see what they are seeing for yourself (what Grammar is shown be the examples).
Quoting Mww
I'll let the formulation of Grammar as "rules" go for now, and say I agree that Grammar has been established beforehand (as part of learning and joining society), though "completely" is also a bit far, as seeing that "we are responsible for" "the saying" does play an extra part because, once said/done, we are bound to our expressing, acting, "responsible for" having said it, for answering why, how, among all the possibilities and among what part of the context is important, we said this now, here--we are called out by it, seen in it. And also to point out that Witt and Austin's goal is that our lives ([all] our judgements, distinctions, interests, in this language-game) are attuned to these words (concepts**), not that words "arise" from "concepts" (as in "ideas" I would guess) which are thought (casually, or otherwise). Witt's idea of "concepts"** (completely different) is a grouping of regular and complex parts of our lives (language games) like justice, meaning, understanding, but also, forgiving, threatening, sitting in a chair, pointing, learning a series, seeing, seeing an aspect, and that each of these have their own Grammar (roughly, ways they work, as they are part of our lives); the point being that an investigation of those shows us something about our philosophical issues (not to justify those claims, again, as it were, like Cavell says).
Quoting Mww
And here I think I can say that if the idea that I am guessing as the answer to the riddle--of "concepts" being thought (then?) turned into words--is what you mean by "mentality', then I would say Witt is trying to diagnose the reason people are drawn to that picture by showing how public "meaning" and language are, and how "understanding" is relational (see comments above) at a point where knowledge reaches its limits.
They didn’t have to read it to have absorbed the essence of its advances. Do you think that olp’s ideas are proprietary, that they don’t belong to larger movements in philosophy that includes hermeneutics , phenomenology, pragmatism, constructivism, social constructionism, philosophy of science?
Quoting Snakes Alive
My post smacks of a respect for continental as well as any other style of philosophizing that can offer important ways to understand ourselves, which is why I don’t limit myself to one particular strand. My ‘team’ is all of the above. The list I offer includes writers who integrate insights from many disciples and styles of philosophy.
I particularly recommend Zahavi, Ratcliffe and Gallagher , all of whom are thoroughly versed in Wittgenstein as well as analytic approaches, pragmatism and hermeneutics, and combine all these with the work of Husserl, Merelau-Ponty and Heidegger in order to arrive at vital new models in cognitive science pertaining to the understanding of affect , psychopathology , intersubjectivity and perception.
So in that spirit I’m hoping you’ll reconsider your claim that philosophy is no better now than it was before olp.
You have a passion for olp writers. Why not expand your horizons and explore a new generation of thinkers taking the next step.
I have 'expanded my horizons' – I'm talking about OLP in this thread because that is what the thread is about, not because, somehow, that's the only thing I ever managed to read.
I think that, in a thread about OLP, coming in and listing a bunch of random philosophers who never engaged with it and have nothing in particular to do with it is not helpful – to claim that they somehow assimilated all of its points without being aware of it is then absurd. Philosophical movements are contingent historical things, and you can't magically grasp them without engaging with them. And no, what goes under the moniker of 'OLP' is not just Wittgenstein, which your post heavily implies.
Quoting Snakes Alive
More off-topic than this?
Quoting Snakes Alive
Quoting Snakes Alive
No, it would be terribly unhelpful. The nerve of me.
A recent paper by one of my random philosophers, Shaun Gallagher:
Doing phenomenology with words:
“Abstract
I'll argue that in some historical discussions between phenomenologists and analytic philosophers of mind we can find complementary phenomenological methods. One method follows along the line of Husserl and Merleau-Ponty. The other follows the kind of analysis of speech-acts, avowals and “unstudied speech” proposed by Ryle and Austin in what they called their phenomenologies of our in-the-world, enactive use of language. I propose that one might conceive of combining these methods into a 'double phenomenology’. One place where this double phenomenology can do some work is in the area of social cognition.“
http://www.ummoss.org/gall17doublePhen.pdf
Here are other philosophers on my list who have specifically engaged with Austin:
Jacques Derrida : Signature Event Context
Matthew Ratcliffe:Trauma, Language and Trust
Philosophers who engaged with Wittgenstein:
Jean Francois Lyotard: The Differend ( the book is centrally influenced by Wittgenstein)
Eugene Gendlin: What Happens When Wittgenstein Asks "What Happens When ...?
Dan Zahavi: Expression and Empathy
Quoting Snakes Alive
I think you’re wrong about that. I read Wittgenstein and olp after having read phenomenology and deconstruction, and concluded that the essential ideas of Witt, Austin and Ryle (not the details of methodology of course ) were not only pre-supposed by those approaches, but the phenomenological and deconstructive perspectives thought more radically about the basis of language than olp did.
Quoting Snakes Alive
I sent the link to the OP of this thread a few weeks ago, and he seemed quite enthusiastic about reading it. In fact , we debated a number of the authors on my list with regard to their engagement with, or critique of, olp. So if the OP thought it was worth his time to engage in lengthy discussion with me on his thread on these issues, maybe you should take a hint.
Again, I don't care that you prefer some philosophers over others, or thought they were super deep or whatever. It's just not relevant to the thread. Nor is the fact that at some points in history, some continental philosophers have engaged with or cited some analytic philosophers.
If you want to start talking about why you think these connections are appropriate, citing the works and how they interact, in a way that demonstrates you know what you're talking about, I'd be game. As of now, you're again, as Banno mentioned earlier in the thread, just making this about a random handful of philosophers who happen to be your favorites. But no one cares who happen to be your favorites.
Quoting Snakes Alive
There is much made of some OLP philosophers, Moore, Austin, etc., taking OLP as solving skepticism. And some who take Witt as either solving it or making analytic philosophy a confusion that can and should be undone (permanantly), as I believe is Rorty's stance. But I think Cavell is on to something when he talks about "the truth of skepticism", which builds on Witt's seeing the limits of knowledge (and thus our responsibility), which also is a thread which bridges the gap between analytical and continental philosophy (as everything is not explained through manipulating a general theory of language/knowledge). I do believe the methods and revelations of OLP are capatible with traditional philosophy (taking the good from the bad).
For me it clicked with Cavell's Knowing and Acknowledging, which I've just realized, references Malcolm.
Quoting Snakes Alive
This records the fact that traditional philosophy strips away our ordinary criteria and any context in the attempt to generalize for universality and ensure certainty by fixing the picture of language, even with identity for particulars (Austin works very hard picking out Goldfinches). The step we really run into trouble with is the need for justification that it is a "real" fox.
Yes, I think for the most part philosophy is bad inquiry, and bad inquiry is often mistaken for deep inquiry. Realizing this often causes philosophers to panic and ask after the conditions of good inquiry. What makes OLP interesting is the realization that these conditions are tied to conventions of language use in a certain way, since philosophy is primarily a conversational enterprise.
I think we just don't know very much about how to think well, or how our languages work. A major part of that is out not understanding the way that the conditions under which we ask questions affects their intelligibility and the truth of their potential answers. In this respect, it's the radical pragmatists like Travis that carry on the OLP legacy, if anyone. Philosophy itself as a first-order discipline is fairly tedious to me at this point, because once you see through its small bag of tricks you recognize them everywhere, and you can't be duped anymore The OLP philosophers are in large part responsible for that kind of realization (though the positivists and some others helped, and I imagine, though I have not personally witnessed, that you could traverse the same path by Kantian means) – it only has any interest, for me, as something to be studied anthropologically, as a clue as to human cognition and its weird quirks and defects.
In rule governed activities, if I have any doubts about what I ought or ought not do, I can consult the rules. I see a semblance of rules for mathematics and logic, and some sketchy ambiguous rules for reading and writing. But although I can find a little guidance on pronunciation, I really can't find any comprehensive set of rules for talking, which constitutes the majority of language use. In my experience, I see that people learn to talk, and do so adequately without reference to rules. And if I have doubts about how to express what I want from someone else, there are no rules for me to refer to. That is how language use is different from a rule-governed activity. For the majority of its activities there are no rules to consult if one has doubts about what ought or ought not be done, but a rule-governed activity has rules which can be consulted.
Quoting Luke
This is what is known in philosophy as a category mistake. You are talking about "a particular" and you switch it for a general, "rule". To explain a particular use of a word requires a description which is designed for the uniqueness of that particular instance of use. And this cannot be done through reference to a general rule. The general rule will not distinguish that particular instance of use from another, and therefore will not explain the meaning which is specific to the particular context.
This is exactly why language cannot be a rule-governed activity. Each instance of language use occurs in a particular and unique set of circumstances, and the meaning must be designed, created, for that specific context. General rules cannot give us what is required for creating meaning which is designed for the peculiar, unique, features of the particular circumstances. Nor can general rules therefore, explain a particular use of a word. To explain any particular instance of use of a word we must refer to the particularities of the context in which it was used, because the meaning was designed in relation to that context. General rules are insufficient.
Quoting Luke
This is meaningless babble to me. I have no idea what you mean by "corporate culture", or "understood set of behaviours". But I'll repeat what I said already, a pattern of occurrences does not constitute a rule. It is the description of those occurrences which is the rule. So "understood set of behaviours" refers to description, in words, and therefore is expressed in language, despite what you assert.
Quoting Luke
So let's see what you're saying here. I am doing something you dislike, then you state a rule to prevent me from doing it, and you present me with that rule. Now you want to argue that I was knowingly breaking the rule before you even presented me with the rule. Your claim that I understood the principles of conduct before you presented me with the rule is imaginary fiction. "Implication" requires logic, which requires stated premises. So there is no such thing as "implicit" rules without language.
Quoting Luke
To "understand" does not require following a rule. You are simply begging the question, assuming that one cannot understand without following a rule. To understand requires some sort of empathy. The nature of this, identifying with the other, I have been discussing with Josh, but it really cannot be characterized as following rules. I described my experience of understanding another as presuming to allow the other's intention to become my own, such that I do what I think the other wants me to. The fact that it is presuming allows for the reality of misunderstanding. You might think that it's odd to believe that a dog or cat has intention, and that it allows my intention to become its own, and that's why it does what I want it to do, but it's no odder than believing that such animals "understand", and clearly these animals act with purpose.
Quoting Luke
That a person behaves in an habitual way does not demonstrate that they have learned "the regulations or principles governing conduct or procedure". If this were true, then we'd have to conclude that birds, insects, and probably even single celled beings have learned the regulations governing conduct and procedure.
Quoting Luke
It's an inductive conclusion. All the rules I've ever known have been expressed in language, therefore I think that a rule must be expressed in language. I've already invited you to disprove this principle, and I'm still waiting, as your attempts seem to have failed. Until you provide that proof, I'll adhere to my reasoning.
Recently Nat Hansen made the case that certain strands of experimental philosophy were in effect doing a contemporary ordinary language philosophy, but I don't really buy it.
“Completely” wouldn’t be a bit too far, if there is a time frame earlier than, or in addition to, learning and joining society. It seems to me, that if the onus is on each of us to take responsibility in the saying, if we are “bound to our expressing”, we’d want something more authoritative than the meager accolades of society. That which merely assuages the ego, as in, “Hey, you expressed that correctly! Good for you!!”, comfortably disguised as “Ok, fine; you’re playing by the rules”....isn’t the taking of responsibility. Yours is the beforehand as part of learning/joining, but with no true account of the extra part of being bound by the responsibility in expression because of agreement with the rules.
Your form of OLP wants to turn what it looks at as learning/joining, into rote instruction. There should still be an account for how learning is done. Your OLP wants to account for responsibility in expression by a subject, but doesn’t account for the authority within the same subject, by which the responsibility is obtained. It follows that the rules are contained in the subject, antecedent to, and hence authority for, any expression whatsoever.
What your OLP doesn’t understand is that rules are a euphemism in the accounting for language. The brain doesn’t use rules; they only appear in the discussion of the brain’s activity. It shouldn’t be a contention that whenever language is in use, something necessary is occurring beforehand. Otherwise, we are nothing but mere playback machines, to which, of course, responsibility in expression cannot pertain.
There is absolutely nothing whatsoever contained in “Finnegan’s Wake” relating to particle physics, but Gell-Mann named the first-ever exposition of a particular member of it, a “quark”. Point being, no matter the word, somebody somewhere at some time, determined its relation, and that determination had nothing to do with learning or joining society, but rather, contributed to a society for its members to learn.
But I get it, honest, I do. There are immeasurably more people these days, so few new experiences, so few new words. Everybody uses the same words, but with uncommon intimations, which facilitates an examination of the expressive ambiguities of the many at the exclusion of the compositional certainty of the one. Just beats the hell outa me how so much emphasis can be attributed to that which takes no account of its fundamental conditions. Incredible waste of time and effort, I must say.
————
Quoting Antony Nickles
See what I mean? What I posed as just a simple question, you turned into a riddle. There is no reason to do that, there’s no hint in being a mere question that there is a disguised sublimity contained in it. You, of your own accord, before even considering a response, thought my expression as having qualities not justified by the words used in it.
Quoting Antony Nickles
People generally aren’t drawn to that picture, your “concepts" being thought (then?) turned into words”. They haven’t a clue that’s what happening, because it’s all theory. Could be no one does that. So why diagnose a reason for something that is no more than speculative theoretic?
By showing how public meaning and language are......what?
To show how understanding is relational....has already been done.
To show how understanding is relational to a point where knowledge reaches its limits.....I can’t unpack that. Knowledge has it limits, but such limits don’t have anything to do with understanding. We can understand a possibility without ever knowing the reality of it.
Quoting Antony Nickles
I understand that. Even if our lives are attuned to these words, it still would seem relevant to say where these words come from.
Quoting Antony Nickles
I don’t have a problem with calling all those things “concepts”. I would only say the objects of those concepts are what’s part of our lives. Seeing is a concept; what is seen is the object of the concept of seeing; learning is a concept, a series is the object learned about, etc.
What does the double asterisk and the (completely different) attached to “concepts” mean, from the point of view of Witt and OLP?
Have their own Grammar (roughly the way they work).....sounds an awful lot like rules to me. And we’re right back where we started.
So....nothing on images? Familiar with the science of visual thinking? From mention by Einstein, 1942 to books by Pinker, 2007, and originating as a speculative condition for human cognition, in Kant, 1781, the idea has been around quite some time. Being around much longer than OLP isn’t sufficient reason for it being better, but it is sufficient reason for OLP to account for the possible validity of it.
Quoting Snakes Alive
I think seeing how our language and philosophy can get moving is a major accomplishment of OLP. And I enjoyed Heidegger's What is Called Thinking? (thinking as "being called"). The idea that thinking is more like external problem solving and about our attitude and approach (an ethical epistemology).
Quoting Snakes Alive
It's been a while with pragmatism for me but I found it settled onto practical matters, as if philosophy's problems could be side-stepped. But I do find more of a sense of truth, and that the conditions of intelligibility are specifically under consideration, with OLP by Witt, Austin, and Cavell. And I would consider the first two as only superficially understood and thus still relevant (necessary). And the sense of hope for our providing answers for ourselves is what Cavell is doing to breath life and usefulness into philosophy (both analytical and continental--literary, film, politics, etc.)--along the lines of Emerson's call for "self-reliance".
Quoting emancipate
Searle and Derrida talking past each other made it seem like the life was drained out of OLP. And so many of its early practitioners came to the conclusion (or were taken to, i.e., Witt) that OLP either solved or dissolved radical skepticism in showing how philosophy's singular focus on certainty and knowledge overlooks all the varied ways each of our concepts work and our part in that. I think Stanley Cavell has done the most to advance the lessons from early OLP (very effectively continuing its method at the beginning of his career).
:rofl:
Well, the Mac I use is not that antiquated, but thank you very much for that providing link.
In general, without yet having read the article you've provided(I'll report back after having read through it enough that I feel confident that I've understood it), the benefit of OLP seems to me to be two-fold. First, folk like Moore show us how certain philosophical tenets/approaches(Russell's???) lead to absurdity, such as not being able to effectively explain why we cannot say something true about ourselves like "it's raining outside, but I do not believe it", when we've no issue at all saying much the same thing about another. Or why so many people refuse to understand that simply knowing what "this is a hand" means proves beyond any reasonable doubt that there is an external world(Witt's private language argument aims at much the same thing, but he struggled with the infinite regress of justification as his remarks throughout OC show).
Another broader benefit leads us to consider specific situational circumstantial context aside from just the statements and/or words being used as a method or means to correctly translate and/or better understand another's meaningful language use. This bit has a few things in common with folk like Heiddy, as well as speech act theorists. It expands the scope of our metacognitive endeavors and considerations seeking to understand how meaning works. I understand that many reject the very notion of one single overarching theory of meaning, simply because there has yet to have been an acceptable one(one that is amenable to evolutionary progression, and is somehow relevant and/or explanatorily powerful enough to exhaust the acceptable parts of all the rest, while also being able to explain the unacceptable parts).
There are numerous papers written that show the shortcomings of conventional academic understanding when it comes to an acceptable theory of meaning. This shortfall has produced many many notions that i find personally unacceptable, but I do not want to get sidetracked here.
I'm puzzled by the lack of clear unambiguous distinction being drawn between statements and belief statements when discussing things like Moore's paradox or Gettier.
Moore's paradox shows that self-contradiction is a natural occurring limit upon our belief, and that there is a difference between accounts of belief and belief. One cannot believe that both statements are true when talking about oneself, but we've no issue believing or saying that it's raining outside but another does not believe it is(both are true regarding another).
The reason/acceptable description/explanation for this has gone largely unnoticed as best I can tell. There is a clear distinction that needs to be drawn and maintained between the truth conditions of a statement(when spoken by an individual that believes the statement) and the statement itself - when take in general - completely divorced from the individual believing speaker. Sometimes, they are remarkably different.
"It's raining outside" is a true statement if it's raining outside. "It's raining outside" is believed true if one believes that it is raining outside and knows how to talk in such a way. Thus, one cannot believe both, that "It's raining outside, and I do not believe that it is(raining outside)".
With Gettier, the difference between the truth conditions of a statement and the truth conditions of a belief(statement) expressed with the same marks is remarkably undeniably different. So, in this way, what one believes does indeed play a determinative role in what it takes for that belief to be true.
"The man with ten coins in his pocket will get the job" when taken as a statement of Smith's own belief has remarkable different truth conditions than that very same statement when completely divorced from Smith. When considering Smith's belief, "the man with ten coins in his pocket" is Smith himself. Smith did not get the job. Smith's belief was not true.
The same approach shows the shortcoming of "Either Jones owns a Ford, or Brown is in Barcelona". When considering Smith's belief that "Jones owns a Ford or Brown is in Barcelona" is true, we can also confidently know that Smith does not believe that Brown is in Barcelona. Rather, if he believes the disjunction is true, it is because he believes Jones owns a Ford. The only thing that makes his belief true is if Jones owns a Ford, whereas the disjunction is true if either of the disjuncts is... again only when we take that statement completely divorced from the believing speaker.
These, and many more examples of philosophical problems are the result of not getting meaning right to begin with. Meaning arises/emerges within belief formation. Getting meaning right requires getting belief right.
So far 'we've' not.
OLP helps by virtue of expanding the focus upon more than just the words.
Weird that you'd hold up a physical permanent connection such as conjoined twins as your example of what ought count as "our shared lives". Quite sad that you'd use that example to justify your claim that their premiss is false. Ironic that you'd use common language in order to do so.
Is that "ironic" in the sense of funny, and sad in the sense of distressing?
Lol, now that's irony!
Again with the attack on philosophy. Since I can’t give you a list , I’ll give you an incredibly skimpy summary of my claim justifying the continued vitality of philosophy after Witt and olp. You will have to provide your own summary of what you think this movement has done to destroy the self-justification of ‘philosophy’ as you understand it, but I have a pretty good idea of what the term means to you.
I certainly know what a dirty word philosophy was to Rorty. But then I thought he read Heidegger and Derrida badly , and. missed the point of phenomenology.
So here’s my very thin summary. Witt and olp shows us that meaning emerges out of contexts of interaction , not as the result of a subjective mind mirroring an independently existing objective world via concepts , and using words to refer back to these concepts. Philosophy before olp was constantly trying to erect what Rorty called ‘skyhooks’, removing it from contextually driven human interaction.
So far so good. But phenomenology takes this interactive thinking one step further, or rather, one step back. Rather than beginning from a notion of interaction as that which takes place between persons, it begins from temporality. That is to say, prior to my interacting with another person, my interaction with myself moment to moment is already an interaction with another, my exposure to an outside. So this kind of philosophy begins from difference, transformation, contextual change , the in-between, rejecting everything that Rorty disdained about metaphysically grounding philosophizing. This radically temporal discourse doesn’t claim to negate or ‘’refute’ the analyses of Witt or olp, but it makes them derivative and abstractive of a more primary basis of the social.
Well , I warned you this would be way too brief a summary.
Quoting Mww
What I was trying to say is it is not responsibility "in" the expressing, it's "to" the expression, so it's not learning "completely" or expressing correctly (in "agreement" with a concept's Grammar) it is being answerable to it once you've done/said it. As, based on the examples above, we ask: "Did you intend to shoot the donkey?"--as if intent is not (always) first. We are bound to answer for what we've done (or shirk it), thus the need for excuses--"no, my finger accidentally slipped on the trigger." To continue to be intelligible and explaining along the different ways under each concept (or refusing to; or pushing it into another context).
Quoting Mww
I agree with accounting for learning, though not as sociology so much as it shows how we grow with our concepts, as our practices. Witt spends a lot of time showing how learning a concept is being able to continue a series.. even into new contexts. I would call it training more than rote when done overtly but most of our learning society's alignment along the lines of our judgments, identity, what counts, what matters, what our shared interests are, in each concept: as in meaning, learning, understanding, apologizing, etc., is just by growing up and assimilating into our society/culture. These are not learning "rules", but, our sharing lives (though not as justification).
Quoting Mww
Our criteria (Grammar) for what we do/say (our concepts as practices) are public, prior to us. The question of authority is interesting as, in expressing, at times, we assert our self, "I say this!" (Emerson roughly) to assert/create our self as separate (averse to conformity Emerson says). We are our own authority in this regard--our responsibility is to the consequences of and questions about our actions. We may break, stretch our Grammar as well because of their not being our justification, or we their cause.[/quote]
Quoting Mww
I'm not sure if you mean it shouldn't have to be said (it should be uncontested) or that no one should say that something is occurring beforehand, so I'll just take it as the first and say that Witt would say it is not (necessarily, every time) how "language is used", as in my intent or causality, but "looking" at a concept's "use" (afterwards), which is to say which option (his term is: in which "sense") of a concept (see "I know" in the OP above now) and how that fits with the context of the situation and context of the Grammar of the concept. So to say "something" is "occuring" beforehand, makes a lot of assumptions which I believe would come from the picture Witt and Austin are trying to shed light on. Many things have occurred beforehand; all of our lives lead up to the possibilities of our concepts (even Witt's builders need to be familiar with calling, pointing, counting, etc., to be able to ask for something).
Quoting Mww
Language does have the ability to be set (terms, labels, etc.) yet even in this limited case there is a relation, even if it is determined, to our lives (e.g., the builders' "world" of concepts). The assumption that all of our concepts are created by naming, say, idea=word, word=world, is the picture that Witt is investigating in the PI.
Quoting Mww
What you call "fundamental conditions" I think OLP would consider part of the standards desired (for certainty, control, my specialness) which Witt shows creates the picture of referentialism or the interior. As if you control the use and (intimations) of our language; the words being the same but that "I" at least know, am certain, about what I "mean". That every expression has the possibility of ambiguity in it because of the picture that "I mean" something specific (their composition is certain) but the other has their own "I understand", thus ambiguity is inherent in every communication, instead of being situational, contextual--"meaning", as "intending", only coming up when something unexpected happens (as worked out in the examples above).
Quoting Mww
Hmmm.."simply"? You failed and refused to explain or define the term "mentality" that you were using, saying it was "whatever I think it is". Thus, I had to guess what you meant or work out what I made of it backwards from the context of everything else--if that is not a riddle, it was mysterious or, at the very least, coy. To say "there's no hint", and that the "qualities" of expressions can not be seen by me, or that "I turned' it into something, is wrapped up in the picture that you control an expression's "qualities" (I, and Cavell, would say its implications), and that "the words" make your intention certain (or, the other way, that your intention is in those certain (fixed) words) because they can be understood independently (the picture that words stand on their own is the way philosophy strips the context out of our expressions). This picture is how we can avoid the responsibility to what we (and others) express; that, apart from what you want, you can be read by what you say, and that our expressions can be made more intelligible if necessary and we remain answerable to them (as possible obfuscations, tricks, etc.) Our word is our bond Austin will say.
Quoting Mww
This is complicated (it took the whole PI to draw it out), but the idea is that humans have a desire for certainty, and a fear of our human frailty (failings), and philosophers slide from there into radical skepticism, which, along with our ability to understand words without context, allows for a theoretical philosophical picture of how (all) language works, which skips over our human frailty and separateness.
Quoting Mww
How much language and our concepts are public (rather than determined by me); that they are meaningful to (all of) us in the ways our lives are attuned "in judgments" Witt will say (not only in definitions of words). #242.
Quoting Mww
I give examples of "understanding" above, but the "limit" of knowledge is just to say knowledge is not our only way of relating to the world. This was the point in my post on the lion quote where "I know you are in pain" is not an expression of knowledge as information, but knowing as acknowledging (Cavell says)--I accept or reject (this is how it works, it's Grammar) the (moral) claim of your pain on me. Emerson will say "Character is higher than intellect". I've also realized Cicero was onto something when he insisted that a speaker had to be "virtuous".
Quoting Mww
I don't think I need to disagree with this characterization of what "objects" are, and, if you are saying that Witt's "concepts" (practices as it were) are not an "object", I would also let that go. I guess this just means you think something needs to be an object to be part of our lives. Then I'm not sure what to say to get you to see that "seeing", "sitting in a chair", apologizing", "intending", "understanding", "continuing a series", are "part of our lives"; maybe to say that by: the "way we live" I mean our judgments, distinctions, ways to identify, etc. with each concept. There is a quote by Austin above that Banno put up from which I draw out this sense in a response.
Quoting Mww
The ** was left in by mistake. I incorporated the list of what Witt would consider "concepts" into the sentence. I have differentiated them as "practices", but "thinking", "intending" etc. are also these type of concepts and calling them "practices" is a little off. The point being that a "concept" for Witt is not like an "idea" of something, or, say, conceptual--just language.
Quoting Mww
Well this one is a toughy. I'd say read from #200-#300 in PI or Cavell's essay The Argument of the Ordinary (with Ryle), but off the top of my head: we don't "follow" Grammar, as we do rules; that Grammar is more open-ended; they can be extended into new contexts or broken but still be recognizable; they can be vague or highly specific, and rules are too fixed and determinative; rules gives the impression that we "set" Grammar; and there is some sense of arbitrariness of when a rule applies, but, frankly, I've forgotten more about this than I ever learned, so you can't take my word for it.
Quoting Mww
Well, as I said, I wasn't sure where to start--and I do not have experience with any of that. All I can put out there is that I think OLP's early intent on accounting for the desire for the picture of language as something internal (meaning, thought, intention, "mental activity" Witt will say) attached to or corresponding to a word or object, lessens its interest in anything else "mental". That isn't to say that they don't account for it; Witt looks at what we mean when we say "I imagine" as a way of seeing our concept of imagination (imagining) and also the activity of bringing up an image for yourself. Also, part of OLP is "imagining" cases, though that's neither here nor there I think. As Witt says, none of this is to attempt statements of facts or theories, so the science of any of this would be moot upon what the implications are when we say "I imagine..". (Also not to say philosophy is not accountable to the discoveries of science, but that they are two separate methods in two separate fields--though it has not always been that way.)
Other than OLP's take on thinking, I was influenced by Heidegger's What is Called Thinking? and Emerson's framing of thinking as passive reception, rather than active; but Witt would say "thinking" is more like solving a problem (guessing, testing, imagining cases...). That is not to say that people do not "think" as philosophy is accustomed to picturing it, but that I would call that, all of the things above, except, (talking) to yourself.
Not sure how to respond to that since I don’t know what olp means to you. I’m on more familiar ground with Wittgenstein , and I’d say that a fair amount has been written recently connecting him to phenomenology.
Quoting Snakes Alive
Medieval? How so? Many of today’s philosophies have Kantian and Platonic influences so you may have to be a bit more specific( perhaps in a new thread). Husserl, the founder of modern phenomenology , had many influences, including DesCartes, Kant , Hume
and Brentano, but his notion of the cogito and the subject-object relation transcended these. Merleau-Ponty showed the influence of Hegel, but again his work transcended Hegel. And then there’s the phenomenological work of Eugene Gendlin, who was a friend of mine. He credited Dilthey, Wittgenstein, Dewey, Merleau-Ponty , Marx and Heidegger.
I don't have any thoughts on what it means 'to me,' but 'OLP' typically refers to a few strands of thought in analytic philosophy, mostly spurred by exegesis of Moore and Wittgenstein, as well as the work of Austin, that had a boom in popularity in England, especially in Oxford following the second world war. To see what it is, it's best just to read it – some of its major works can be found in the 'Linguistic Turn' collection, ed. Rorty, the 'Ordinary Language' collection, ed. Chapelle, and 'Philosophy and Ordinary Language,' ed. Caton.
Quoting Joshs
This wouldn't be the thread for it, but phenomenology was effectively begun by Brentano, and the notion of intentionality he used and that Husserl took up is a medieval one that involves thought directed at an in-existent object.
The writers you're referring to are part of when phenomenology was just assimilated into the general soup of continental philosophy, and so lost most of its unique identity and methodological concerns (much in the way that OLP was subsumed into the soup of analytic philosophy more generally, and so lost its specific identity). The authors your bud mentions here are just general big names that all continentals read, and besides Merleau-Ponty, aren't even especially related to phenomenology (though like with much in philosophical movements, people sometimes retroactively declare every author to be everything).
Children are often corrected when they learn to talk, by parents, teachers and others. They may not be taught explicit rules - that's my point - but they are still taught how to speak properly, and this training constitutes "the regulations or principles governing the conduct" of language use. As the Google definition of the word "rule" states, such regulations or principles can be either "explicit or understood".
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
You will do so in language, presumably, and one that is understood by the other person.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
There are rules you can consult if you have doubts about what ought or ought not be done with language, e.g. dictionaries, thesauri, rules of syntax, other fluent speakers, written examples, etc. Language is a tool. Learning how to use a hammer won't tell you when or where you should hammer, either.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
If every use of language were this unique, then we could never use or understand language from one situation to the next, nobody would ever be able to learn a language, and dictionaries would not be possible. There's a good reason why I don't need you to define every word in each of your posts.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Look it up.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
According to the dictionary definition I gave earlier, a rule is: "one of a set of explicit or understood regulations or principles governing conduct or procedure within a particular area of activity."
Unless you have a more authoritative reference other than your personal say-so?
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
It's part of the dictionary definition of "rule": "one of a set of explicit or understood regulations or principles governing conduct or procedure within a particular area of activity."
If a dog can be trained to respond appropriately to the command "sit" as well as a child can, then they understand the meaning/use of the word, even though a dog would not be able to understand an articulation of this "regulation or principle governing conduct or procedure within a particular area of" language use (i.e. an articulation of this rule).
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Intention is irrelevant to our disagreement, which is whether or not rules must be made explicit.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
I didn't mention habit. You've overlooked the training.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Put simply, you're mistaken. The dictionary defintion I have repeatedly given states that a rule can be either "explicit or understood". You appear to be using a special meaning of the word "rule" that excludes the (unarticulated) "understood regulations or principles governing conduct or procedure within a particular area of activity".
Quoting creativesoul
Well, I guess I am the winner then with a '96 iMac.
Quoting creativesoul
Well, OLP moved on from Moore's standard of the contradiction of what everyone knows to be true (granting that my Moore is hella rusty), through Austin to Witt focusing on the implications when a concept is expressed in a context and shared language. I'll be interested to hear what you think of the Cavell, as his reading of Witt is that he does not go so far as Moore (solving skepticism; or dismissing it, actually) and leaves the threat of skepticism open and as a lesson regarding the limitation of knowledge (that we are in a position to each other and to what we say that is beyond knowledge).
Quoting creativesoul
I'm concerned by the sense we are categorizing contexts to "correctly translate" what someone else is saying. As if reducing Austin's contribution to merely cataloging what people (can? must?) mean in certain circumstances (rather than describing how expressing specific concepts, as in practices, are differently meaningful). And as if the way our concepts worked was baked into the world (the circumstances) and determines what is said--taking our responsibility for our expressions out of the equation. That being said, the essay by Cavell will skirt that line of the "must" of our shared criteria in a different way.
Quoting creativesoul
On pp. 190-191 (x) in the PI Witt uses examples of what we say to make the claim that "I believe" is a hypothesis, a conviction ("I think it's going to rain), a disposition, and not a measure of uncertainty compared to a statement that can be true or false (as Austin's examples are meant to show are not the only kind of statements, nor the only expressions with the value of truth).
Quoting creativesoul
Witt will describe this as our inability to infer our conviction in our expressions--it can be said that "I do not see or hear myself [my conviction]". That the look of "I believe..." tempts us to look at believing differently in ourselves. Cavell will frame this that I do not accept my expressions, where I believe the other because they say it.
Quoting creativesoul
There are two things going on for me here. One I like is that we are measuring that there is a difference between a statement and the expression of a statement (at a place and time; that I own). Now, that being said, the abstraction ("divorcing") of statements from their expression removes a context for them, which allows for the creation of criteria for certainty, universality, etc. in general--as in the difference between a "true" (certain, universal) statement and a statement of belief (uncertain, contingent).
Quoting creativesoul
OLP's initial mission (with Austin and Witt) was specifically to show that there is not "one single overarching theory of meaning"; to bring our expressions back to the ordinary criteria of each of our concepts.
Quoting creativesoul
So once meaning is internalized, we can have certainty and feel like we have avoided metaphysics through a general theory about how meaning is said and then understood, if only we could get it right, or get science involved, or... anything but take away our control over "meaning" (as it is public) and put us in the position of being responsible for what we have said.
To be corrected is not to be taught a rule. My point is that there is no such thing as a regulation or principle which governs, that is not explicitly stated. You could keep denying this forever if you want, but you'll have no success at persuading me that I'm wrong unless you show me how such a rule might exist, if it does not exist as an expression in language.
The issue appears to be, that if rules of language use don't exist as an expression of language, then the rules do not exist within the public domain. If they are public, then where else could they exist if not as language? So we must turn to the private, internal domain of the individual to find these implicit rules, if they are real. Within the internal, private, we find what I called (for lack of a better word) "principles", in my discussion with Josh. The argument is that there is a very significant need to distinguish these private "principles", which serve as some sort of guidance to free willing, intentional choices, and public "rules", which are explicit regulations that govern conduct. The difference is immediately evident in the role of correction.
Quoting Luke
None of those, and all of those together, do not tell me how to express my self coherently. They are not rules for how to talk. The hammer is a good example. There are no rules for how to use a hammer, so long as you do not damage private property, or injure someone.
Quoting Luke
How is intention irrelevant, when to follow a rule is to intentionally act according to the rule? If we remove the relevance of intentionality, this just produces the ambiguity required for you to freely equivocate between following a rule in the prescriptive sense, and following a rule descriptively. You do recognize the difference between these two don't you? If we remove the role of intention, as Antony proposes, then you might make the absurd claim that a person could unintentionally follow a prescriptive rule, by appealing to the descriptive sense, like physical objects follow the laws of physics, then concluding that intentional acts like talking are acts of following rules in that sense. But that's not what we're talking about, we're talking about people in freely chosen activities. So hiding the role of intentionality is clearly a misrepresentation, which is unacceptable because it produces a misunderstanding of equivocation.
Quoting Luke
This is evidence of your delusion. You think that the dictionary definition provides a stated rule for how the word "rule" must be used, and if I step outside the precise boundary of your interpretation of that stated rule, I am necessarily mistaken.
Isn’t that reducible to experience? If context stands for the the myriad distinguishable opportunities for using a concept, doesn’t that presupposes the time and place of them, which is the same thing as experience? It follows that a possible miscommunication using a common concept can be merely a matter of uncommon experiences.
—————
Quoting Antony Nickles
I grant that humans have the innate desire for certainty, but I reject they fear their failings, at least on the same scale as they desire certainty. But I suppose OLP’s idea of failing has to do with general language use and because humans are always talking, they’re always in fear of failing in their language use. So...even while we are aware OLP has exposed what it considers a problem, has it done anything to fix it? What does a philosophical picture of how all language works, actually do for human frailties, other than seeming to disregard them?
Ironically, you and I are in the same leaky boat here, insofar as the average smuck on the street doesn’t care how my speculative epistemology works, and he doesn’t care about your how all language works. On the other hand, is it the case that for sufficient importance, procedures are in place to prevent failings in language use, so in that sense, there is a fix, albeit hardly philosophical.
————
Quoting Antony Nickles
A concept is just language? You know...I think I might know a reason why he comes up with that. It is impossible to have language without concepts, so if I speak, I must already have the ground for speech. Or writing, or communication in general. Combine that with this somewhat less than satisfying metaphysical gem (A50/B74), “....(spontaneity in the production of conceptions)....”, in that nobody likes the idea of stuff just popping up unexplained. So for Witt, the spontaneity is relinquished for the objective manifestations of concepts in language. But he’s just kicked the speculative can down the philosophical road, wouldn’t you say, in that we still need to know what makes language possible.
————
Quoting Antony Nickles
OK. The “how much” was missing from your original and my C&P of it.
Kinda tautologous, but ok. Language not public isn’t really language anyway, right? Didn’t somebody say there’s no such thing as private language? Even that ubiquitous “voice in my head” manifests in the same speech as I would use publicly.
Concepts, on the other hand, as I’ve hinted before, always originate privately, by the first instance of it, and which usually, but not necessarily, subsequently become public in the communication of it. For which we must fall back on spontaneity....but, so be it? Not many choices in the matter, actually.
————-
Quoting Antony Nickles
Agreeable, in principle, yes. The lessening interest in anything else mental would be redundant, hence not necessary. This is part of the certainty humans desire, as you said. All certainty is a relative judgement, once a judgement is made, there’s no profit in belaboring that judgement. It remains possible nonetheless, to replace it with a better one, a more certain one, which is merely an interest of its own.
Quoting Antony Nickles
Also agreed, in principle. The rules I’m concerned with are not something to be followed, as in some sort of objective conformity. Rules in the sense I’ve been using, merely indicate a logical significance in accordance with a complementary system, the empirical knowledge of which we have no privilege. It’s the same as, we don’t know why that happened but there must have been a reason for it....this theory doesn’t tell us how this happens but if it wasn’t in conformity to a rule we can say it wouldn’t have happened.
Probably doesn’t relate to your Grammar....just thought I’d throw it at you, see if it sticks.
I would agree that intentionality was effectively begun
by Brentano. Kohler and Koffka studied with him
and were inspired to found gestalt psychology, Freud took classes from him and created psychonanalysis. So, three different interpretations of intentionality led to 3 distinct approaches.
Brentano founded psychological intentionality on the cartesianiam of empirical naturalism, which Husserl
rejected in favor of a thoroughgoing subject-object interactionism, so Bretano’s intentionality is not Husserl’s phenomenology. The central method of phenomenology, maintained by Heidegger and Merleau-ponty as well , is the epoche , the bracketing of the taken-for-granted objective world.
Quoting Snakes Alive
In order for it to be assimilated it has to be understood , and from my vantage most continental
writers haven’t effectively done so yet, which is why the group of writers I mentioned to you who work in the overlapping terrain of constructivism, hermeneutics , phenomenology , enactivism and self-organizing theory are so valuable to me. ( the journal Phenonemology and the Cognitive Sciences showcase a lot of this work).
They don’t stick just to one phenomenologist but preserve its methodological concerns.
Quoting Snakes Alive
There is much more overlap and cross-fertilization among strands of philosophies that you seem to indicate here. Each phenenologist offers a unique perspective , and built into that unique perspective is the influence of particular works outside of phenomenology. So Gendlin isn’t just naming influences in common with other continental philosophers , his phenomenology is fused with some of these influences. And yet I recognize his method as unquestionably phenomenological.
It’s not so much communicating experience. It’s more like training someone (indirectly most times) in a practice (in one or a few contexts and then people are able to extend a concept (say, asking or pointing) into new contexts; as I said, this usually just happens from us being around people and picking up the way things work; this is based on our ability and the flexibility of concepts into new contexts (another reason their criteria (Grammar) is dissimilar to rules). I would also tweak "myriad distinguishable opportunities for using a concept" as a concept has its possibilities (like Kant's), thus it has some uses (like options), and, even though concepts can be taken into new contexts, they won't go into every/any situation. The time and place is the event of me saying something. The fact of our concepts being common (as English speakers)'makes any uncommonness of our experience less important (say, you may have seen something that no one else did).
Quoting Mww
Well the fear (philosophically) is basically a reaction to radical skepticism (uncertainty), and the picture it creates is that we need a theory of how all language works. Austin and Witt start with showing that we already had tons of individual ways that language works (the Grammar for each concept), but Witt (further developed by Cavell) saw that knowledge has a limit (which I discuss in relation to the Other in that post on the lion quote), but, with our expression, it means that I say something (at a time and place) using the options of our concepts, along their Grammar (but not conscious of, or justified by, them), but after that, I am responsible for that expression, answerable to it. So knowledge and theory end at a certain point and (after saying something) I take over; this is the fact that skepticism records, that everything can fail between us, and Cavell will label this part of our human condition (the "truth of skepticism"), so there is no "cure" or dismissal of skepticism. So OLP, in bringing a rationality back to every concept, simply gives us a view of our condition and to see (philosophically), reflect on, the ordinary (only) ways we have to resolve each situation. As you say "procedures are in place to prevent failings in language use, so in that sense, there is a fix, albeit hardly philosophical." Responding to that last bit, I would say that is the new approach OLP brings to the situation, claiming that: looking at what we mean when we say something, IS Philosophically relevant.
Quoting Mww
Cavell will see this as not that philosophers are different from other people, but that there is a moment for philosophy--where we do not know what to do; where we do need to turn and look at the criteria for our concepts (each with their own) in order to examine how far our criteria take us to understand the position we are in and, in learning about the criteria of our concepts, to learn about ourselves.
Quoting Mww
Sorry I write by assuming the continuation of words so I remove them (probably from being a twin). I should have written
a "concept" for Witt is:
Not like an "idea" of something,
Not "conceptual"
Not "just language."
Quoting Mww
Wouldn't we say poetry (at least some) is language without a concept? And here, again, Witt's term "concept" is not a "ground" for communication (as I said above, if there is any "justification" or "ground" for communcation, it is us--being responsible for what we have said).
Quoting Mww
Again, this is not like an "idea", or some other thing, that gets "manifested" in language. Witt's terms "concepts" is just a shorthand grouping our, say, practices, together (like pointing, asking, sitting in a chair, intending, knowing, etc.). They are not (put?) IN language (we could say, maybe, they are expressed by language). "What makes language possible", or, as it were, communication, is the fact that, in each concept, our ways of judging, making distinctions, knowing what counts, how to continue, when to question, etc. are in line with each other (Cavell say "attuned"), as well as everything else in our lives that surround and come before, e.g., believing (as discussed with Creative Soul above).
Quoting Mww
So, again, this is not how Witt uses "concept". And the picture of an idea originating in me which is then "communicated" (as explained through some theory)--or something of that order--is the picture Witt is investigating in PI. That he is trying to get people to see that language is public, is to say we, in a sense, lock ourselves into a public way of expressing (a use of a concept); we give ourselves over to it. Expression is not (always) taking my ..."experience" and putting it into words. Apologizing, threatening, lying, are concepts that make my expressions meaningful, not me.
Quoting Mww
Well this is a lot, and, as I said, the section on rules in PI is not my strong suit, so I would check that out, or the essay by Cavell. I may review that section and come back to this.
I thought the argument was clear.
You claimed that standards do not have any existence outside of their use. I argued that they are not always used, despite the fact that they are written. Either written standards do not exist by virtue of being written, or standards have existence outside of their use.
My compliments; a fine sample of proper philosophizing, these last few pages. I could continue to argue almost all of it, but to more spoil your effort than gain from mine. Just as it would have been, were our dialectical roles reversed.
Carry on.
Thank you sir. Always a pleasure.
Are you saying the dictionary definition is incorrect?
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Try these:
Convention_(norm)
Unspoken_rule
Unwritten_rules_of_baseball
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
:roll:
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
This is meaningless babble.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
There are conventional ways to use a hammer. These conventions are not explicit, but implicit rules. In case you missed it, a rule is "one of a set of explicit or understood regulations or principles governing conduct or procedure within a particular area of activity".
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
This was already answered by the quote. Our disagreement is over whether or not rules must be made explicit. You are trying to change the topic.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
There might be no explicit rules for how to use a dictionary or the words it contains. But, then, there are unstated, conventional rules for their uses, including the conventional uses of the word "rule".
It's ironic that you accuse me of drawing precise boundaries. Your attempt to exclude unwritten rules is an attempt to restrict and censor the dictionary definition. Otherwise, by all means, tell me how I've misinterpreted.
I don't recall having this discussion.
Sorry, I should have went back and checked. It was Creative Soul; I fixed it.
I've bolded and italicized the portions above which piqued my interest.
Whether or not we can know for certain of the existence of the external world is the kind of consideration that can only be arrived at via very complex self-referencing language use(metacognition). Ordinary people do not become paralyzed by such contemplations. Ask a non-philosophical thinker whether or not an external worlds exists, or if other people have minds(thoughts, beliefs, and human experiences), and they will surely look at you as if you're mad/crazy/insane, and rightly so, because you are not far from it if you believe that doubting the existence of an external world or other minds is warranted. When such an argument comes from an otherwise seemingly intelligent person, it smacks of dishonesty and/or insincerity.
Sure, there are certainly valid logical arguments that lead to having/holding such doubt. What this shows me, beyond a reasonable doubt, is that an argument can be perfectly valid and false; that validity(coherence) alone is insufficient for truth, and as a result of my knowing that much, validity alone is also insufficient for belief/assent/warrant. Hence, logical possibility alone does not warrant belief.
Who assumes such things to begin with? If the charge is made that I am assuming an external world, I would respond by saying that if it were not for an external world, there could be no such a thing as making a mistake, or being mistaken, or unexpected results/consequences, or being caught off guard, or being pleasantly surprised, or experiencing cognitive dissonance, or being in a state of confusion, etc. I grant the possibility and look to see where it would lead. It leads to claims that are in direct conflict with what happens on an everyday basis. If it were true that there was no such thing as an external world, there could be no such things as just described.
But there are.
And what does it even mean to say that we assume that others have minds? To whom would an author stating such a thing even be talking to? Both of these are laughable questions/consideration; patently absurd on their face. Again, who assumes such a thing? If it were not for other minds, and an external world, there could be no such thing as misunderstanding. There could be no correction thereof. There could be no shared meaning. There could be no language use, etc. It is not that we assume that there is an external world and other minds. To quite the contrary, it's that the existence of an external world including other minds is the only way to make good sense of our own human experience and/or everyday lives.
So...
Cavell actually grants far more than I would to begin with regarding those two, by granting the claim that such things as external worlds and other minds are assumed. Although I do strongly agree with much of the criticism of philosophy that s/he puts forth in the paper(I'm still mulling it over), and I also agree with the idea that philosophical discourse has become so disconnected from the lives of ordinary everyday language use, that's it's become so obtuse to everyday language users, and lost touch with everyday life as a result(and lost it's practical application as well). Such historical philosophical 'problems' have led to the demise of value and respect for philosophy and philosophers. That's a sad situation, given that all governments are based upon considerations about how to best govern a nation of ordinary people, and that is nothing but the moral belief of very few being imbued with legal power to impose those beliefs on the many.
All that being said, I do not think that everyday common language use, is the standard-bearer when it comes to acquiring an adequate understanding or knowledge of the human condition; our own minds; our own capability to form, have, and/or hold thoughts and beliefs; or the ability to have what we call "a human experience".
Common language use is how philosophy began, mind you. To labor the point, I certainly agree that it's gone horribly wrong somewhere along the line. Actually, that's an understatement, because it is my considered opinion that it's gone wrong in several different ways, in several different respects, all of them stemming from not getting our own thought and belief right to begin with.
Genuine clarity between and/or regarding what, exactly?
Two problems immediately come to mind. First, there are multiple different accepted uses/senses/definitions of the same term, and not all of them are compatible. We know that much the same thing is true regarding phrases as well. Secondly, we're still left with the need to further discriminate between these distinct uses.
Regarding the first problem...
Looking at common use is a path which arrives at different, accepted but often incompatible, senses of the same term.
Say we find that some native use of the term "believe" is accompanied by doubt. We can recognize some hesitation from the speaker to proclaim assuredness, certainty, or knowledge because we know what it's like to be uncertain. I'm sure most native speakers of an American English dialect would be perfectly capable of making the right sort of sense of someone else saying "I believe so" when the signs of uncertainty appear within their facial expressions and are supported by body language(shoulder shrugging, perhaps). So, we can agree that uncertainty can and does sometimes accompany the native speaker's use of "I believe". However, that's certainly not the only accepted use. There are common ordinary everyday situations where there is no difference of certainty at all in one's use of "I believe", no more certainty; no less certainty; equally on par with "I know", or "I am certain of it". Doubtlessness.
So, this exercise brings us to the crux of both issues. Clearly, instances of native use alone cannot be expected to be used to further discriminate between philosophical notions and native visual dopple-gangers in any meaningful way whatsoever aside from being used to show that there is a difference between them. There's also differences between different ordinary native uses as well. If we throw out the philosophical notions, we would be throwing out one, or several, of many incompatible meanings/senses/uses/definitions, but we would still be left with others. Upon what ground, by what standard are we further discriminating between different uses, aside from some are native, common, everyday uses and some are not?
Reaching a compatibility standard clearly isn't the aim here, nor is eliminating incompatibility. So what does this method provide us with that no other method has been able to? By what measure to we intend to judge which of these terminological uses is worth saving and which deserves forgetting? Which is more valuable to us, as an accounting practice, and how?
By the way, I am impressed by his treatment and discussion about the use of "voluntary" regarding the argument referenced between Ryle and Austin...
I'm still wrapping my head around the three kinds of statements made about ordinary language, and it seems that grasping that is a key part of rightly understanding the methodology.
I had to consciously refrain from criticizing this...
It is one of the historical conventional mistaken practices that paved the way to Gettier; misunderstanding belief, and neglecting to take careful note of the differences I laid out earlier in my refutation of Gettier. It's too tangential for this topic though. So...
I'll leave it here.
True belief statements are true statements. A statement can be certain and false, and uncertain and true. So...
And? Not....or? For a, re: singular, statement?
I'm saying that the the dictionary definition does not qualify as a "rule". Having said that, you can use "rule" however you want, there's no rule telling you how it must be used. But sloppy use of words is conducive to misunderstanding. That's the point. So, we can see that as language evolved, human beings produced rules, logic, and understanding was facilitated.
Quoting Luke
You can insist that "convention" implies "rules being followed", but that's just fallacious logic, unless you define "convention" in a way which only begs the question. The reality of the situation is that "conventional" is used in numerous different ways, and you are arguing by equivocation. Your use is most consistent with my OED definition #6 "following tradition rather than nature". This does not even imply "agreement", as in definition #1. So even to claim that "conventional" as you use it, implies "agreement" is fallacy by equivocation.
Furthermore, if we proceed to assume that "conventional" implies agreement, as your fallacious, deceptive, equivocal argument would lead us to believe, we still must address the fact that "agreement" to a rule does not imply that the rule will be followed. So even if there were agreements concerning how one ought to use a hammer, as the equivocal, argument would imply if it wasn't fallacious, this does not mean that the activity of using a hammer can be described as people adhering to that agreement. This is because people have free will, and they often simply decide not to adhere to their agreements, for various reason. This is a very important part of moral philosophy, there is no necessary relation between agreeing to something, and actually adhering to the agreement, the act of adhering to is completely separate from the act of making an agreement. So when it appears like someone is adhering to an agreement, we cannot conclude that an agreement has been made, because we do not have that logical relation. All we can conclude is that there is an act of "adhering to", but this is completely distinct from making an agreement.
So, we can see two completely different types of fallacies involved in your argument. First there is equivocation in the meaning of "conventional". If we let that get past us, then we have an is/ought separation, whereby "what ought to be" does not necessitate "what is", because people have the freedom to do what they ought not do. So if we work backward, from a description of "what is", in your example, "there are conventional ways to use a hammer", we do not have the necessity required to assert that "what ought to be", in this case an assumed rule of how to use a hammer, has caused this situation of "what is".
Quoting Luke
Yes, that describes the disagreement. Intention is relevant because following rules is an intentional activity. I am not changing the subject. There is a very real, and relevant question of how can a person follow a rule if that rule is not explicit. If you want to characterize following-a-rule as something which is not an intentional activity, then it is you who is changing the subject. I suggest that this is the case, you want to change the subject, yet give the new subject the same name. That is done for the purpose of equivocation. The new subject, is perhaps what is named in my OED under the #6 sense of conventional, as "following tradition", and you want to give it the name of "following-a-rule", and I see no other reason for you to be doing this, other than for the purpose of equivocation.
Quoting Luke
This is nonsense. How could a dictionary definition qualify as an "unwritten rule"?
I've already explained to you your misinterpretation, but I'll briefly describe it again.. An individual cannot judge oneself to be following a rule, because this just means "I think I am following the rule" which is not necessarily a case of following a rule. Therefore the judgement of whether or not a person follows a rule must be made in reference to the rule as existing in a public setting, not a rule as existing within one's mind. Such a public rule could only exist as expressed in language.
This is explained in the part between 199 and 206 which you left out for some reason:
202. And hence also 'obeying a rule' is a practice. And to think one
is obeying a rule is not to obey a rule. Hence it is not possible to obey
a rule 'privately': otherwise thinking one was obeying a rule would be
the same thing as obeying it.
You don't seem to be apprehending the significance of this passage, which Banno brought to my attention, (I'll thank him for that), years ago when I debated the private language argument with him at the other forum. Under no circumstances does having a rule within my mind, and believing that I am following that rule, necessitate the conclusion that I am actually following a rule. This means that the rule cannot exist within the mind. If the rule does not exist within the mind, it must exist outside the mind, if there is any such thing as a rule whatsoever. If the rules exist outside the mind, then the only form that they could have, which would be intelligible to us as rules which we could followed, is as expressed in language.
I did say OLP was analytical philosophy that worked within the tradition. I've also said that it looks at what we might say at a time and place (in context) to make claims about what the ordinary criteria are (the implications, etc.). It does not speak in "ordinary language", nor is it trying to explain skepticism to lay people.
Quoting creativesoul
Traditional philosophy has become irrelevant because people are still applying methods from last century, especially when they think that they aren't or when they think they have moved on from the traditional philosophical issues.
As I discussed above, Witt will call these the "senses" (as in options) for a concept (like "I know" discussed above), and thus why it is important to fill out a context which differentiates one sense from another. These senses are not endless.
Quoting creativesoul
As Cavell will point out, the examples are not a survey of what people say (sociology as it were), they are examples in a context to make a claim about the criteria that is implied. The claim is to the criteria. Now I think your example is to say sometimes "I believe" is like a guess, "I believe the child is hiding behind the second shrub." (This is the sense that belief is like a hypothesis (from Witt, as I discussed above).) Now I would claim that the criteria of this is not that there is uncertainty in the person, as opposed to a feeling of certainty. What if I say "The child is behind the second shrub" and they are not? Was I not certain? (And I think this is what you mentioned with Gettier.)
Perhaps we can say there is no reason in this case to say "I know"? If I did have a reason--"I just saw them go back there"--but they were not, would we now say you only "believed"? or were just wrong? If I guess, and am right, is there a case where it would matter if I had no reason? At least now, we have some things to discuss and a means for being more specific in cases in order to settle them between us. There are not endless senses, just not "one" (There is also a believing as in hoping). And with these questions we can see maybe that there is more to consider before putting the cart before the horse with a picture of "knowledge" as just opposed to "belief".
Quoting creativesoul
We, you and I, are agreeing on my (universal) claim about the implications when we say "I believe" in a certain context (in a certain sense). This is not judging that one is "common", and one is "not", but agreeing about the criteria for judging it is being used that way (in that "sense"). If you can not see for yourself than either the example is not correct, not detailed enough, etc., but you can make a competing example or bring out different details in a case, claiming different criteria are involved, and thus we have a rational discussion.
Yes, this is the part people skip over. It is not making an argument in everyday language (or for it), it is making claims about the criteria (or Grammar) of our concepts. So we take a concept like "believing" and we come up with examples of when we would say "we believe" and then make claims about what the implications would be: the necessary threshold situation that would have to be in place, the consequences, the type of judgements that would follow, the kind of things that would not be said, etc.
Understood. Never implied otherwise.
Again, understood.
I'm still struggling quite a bit here. I'm trying to wrap my head around what the purpose of this method is? What is achieved? What does it have to do with the historical philosophical problems mentioned in the opening paragraph?
Say we follow the metholodogy to a tee, as precisely as possible. We will arrive at multiple different senses of the same words, each respectively accompanied by their own sets of special circumstances and/or implications(whatever those may be).
What have we done here that is philosophically interesting or relevant aside from parsing out different acceptable uses, albeit in a bit more detail than usual? Surely, this is a method capable of acquiring knowledge about language use, what different people in different situations may or may not mean when they say______. But...
It quite simply cannot be done effectively in an armchair. Can't happen. Sitting around thinking about what other people's use of some word or phrase implies doesn't do anyone much good at all regarding any of the acceptable uses that are unknown to us. It looks like a recipe for some pretentiousness about another's language use.
Ought we not ask others?
By the way, I may have very well misunderstood your response to the bit I offered about "I believe" sometimes being accompanied by uncertainty and sometimes not. To be sure, are you denying that "I believe" can be accompanied by certainty and uncertainty both? Are you denying that "I believe" is sometimes used in a manner that is not a guess?
Whoops. Its been all sides so I might have jumped to that reflexively.
Quoting creativesoul
It is not "other people's use" it is a claim on behalf of everyone. The "we" is all English speakers. I make that claim in the first-person plural (as discussed in the post on objective aesthetics, in Kant's "universal voice" regarding the Beautiful). What is implied when we say/do is justified by your being able to make the same claims, or see for yourself that I am correct. (I feel like there is a sense in which you can hear when it is wrong, but epistemologically this adds nothing.) There is no further justification. Cavell will refer to these insights as "philosophical data" but only when they fully account for everything at issue--they are not just arguments in themselves. I have been trying to focus on the method as I feel the examples are being dismissed or argued with independent of trying to understand the method.
Quoting creativesoul
Well the example of Austin's about accidentally and mistakenly (above) is part of seeing that intent (meaning, thought) is not a cause of action/speech. He will use this and a whole mess of other examples to say we only speak of intention when there is something unexpected, inappropriate, etc. to an action in that context: "Did you intend to... ?" There is also the claim (Cavell's) that when we say "I know" (above) it is in one sense an acknowledgment, as part of an argument that knowledge is not the only relation we have to the world and that at a certain point we are left with how we answer to the other's claim on us, that we are responsible to what we have said as it defines us.
Quoting creativesoul
Yes, Witt's claim is that when we say "I believe" the implication is a hypothesis: "I believe it is going to rain" is, in other words, "My guess is that it is going to rain." Now you can say "I believe the earth is flat", but in this sense, belief is simply a claim to knowledge (as if you just said "The earth is flat"), and knowledge is a different matter. Witt does also talk about a sense of belief as a feeling of confidence or determination, which (grammatically) is expressed: "You're going to make it to the finish line!", i.e., I believe in you. And he does mention that certainty has a similar sense (of a feeling): "I shall [am certain I will] burn by hand if I put it in the fire." PI #474. I didn't think these senses of belief or certainty applied, though Witt also talks about feeling certain (about what time it is) but without any justification, and Cavell discusses whether being (feeling) certain is necessary for a claim to knowledge or not (can't remember how this comes down).
My understanding (though don't hold me to it as I did not prepare to get into a defense of this) is that this is part of Witt's argument that a certain difference between knowledge and opinion ("belief") is created to separate and dismiss certain types of justification in order to maintain certainty, universality and other skeptically-mandated criteria for knowledge. He says that Moore's formulation would be as if two people were speaking out of my mouth PI p. 164; Cavell is more conciliatory and says it would be as if you said "It is raining" to a person on the phone, and then covered it and said "but I don't believe it" to someone else.
I'm not going to object to the idea that we can acquire knowledge regarding everyone's language use. That is, we can make universal statements about each and every native English speakers' use of "I believe", and those claims about that use can be true of each and every native English speaker. However, it will quite simply not be true if we claim that all native English speakers' use "I believe" in the same way/sense of those words, because they quite clearly do not. Otherwise, we would not have different acceptable senses of the same terms. But we do. So, clearly it is false to say that we(each and every English speaker) uses "I believe" in a manner that implies something about what has not yet happened but is expected to(hypothesis about future events).
Need this be further argued?
Quoting creativesoul
This would seem to be a kind of census; like linguistic anthropology. We are not "acquiring" knowledge; we already have it from growing up and learning English at the same time. We are just making what is implicit in saying something, explicit. Socrates and others will refer to this as "remembering".
We may agree upon specific scenarios/situations/circumstances in which "I believe" implies a guess. That's one language game(Grammar?) involving the use of "I believe". It's not the only one.
Quoting Antony Nickles
Right. Sometimes this is quite unproblematic. Could be trivial even.
However, and this is to further labor the point being made...
If we take the words "I believe", when spoken by someone with unfettered confidence that something just happened, and what immediately follows that particular use of "I believe" is nothing other than a description thereof(a belief statement about what happened), it makes absolutely no sense whatsoever for us to make a universal claim that all English speakers' use of "I believe" implies a hypothesis about future events.
Do you agree?
That doesn't answer the question. You clearly disagree with the dictionary definition which states that a rule can be either "explicit or understood". You already agreed earlier that our disagreement was over whether or not rules must be made explicit:
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
If a rule must be made explicit, as you claim, then it cannot also be "explicit or understood" as the dictionary definition states. That is, unless you can explain how "explicit or understood" means only "explicit".
Whether or not the dictionary definition of the word "rule" itself qualifies as a rule is a separate issue to whether or not you believe the dictionary definition is incorrect.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
I simply posted a link to the Wikipedia article on 'Convention'. I didn't make any argument.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
What do you mean by "Your use"? I posted a link to a Wikipedia article.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Oh? What does the OED definition #1 say?
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
I haven't made any such claim. You seem to be arguing with the voices in your head.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Don't blow a gasket, sweetheart. I never mentioned the word "agreement".
You asked how can a rule be public if it is not explicitly stated. I indicated my answer by linking to the Wikipedia article on conventions. It appears you do not disagree that conventions are public, nor that conventions are not explicitly stated. Perhaps you disagree that conventions are rules? Your argument appears to be that conventions cannot be rules because it isn't necessary to follow conventions. But how are explicitly stated rules any different in that respect? Rules are made to be broken, as they say.
If there is any sort of agreement in conventions, then "This is not agreement in opinions, but rather in form of life" (PI 241). Google defines "convention" (in the relevant sense) as: "a way in which something is usually done." Is this a rule? Well, I'd say it is "one of a set of explicit or understood regulations or principles governing conduct or procedure within a particular area of activity", so yes.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
What's nonsense is your relentless twisting of words and meaning. The dictionary definition of the word "rule" states that a rule can be either "explicit or understood". According to your own personal defintion of the word "rule", you want to exclude the "understood" and leave only the "explicit". What this - the agreed-upon subject of our disagreement - has to do with your question is beyond me. I never suggested that an explicitly stated definition qualifies as an "unwritten rule".
What might qualify as unwritten rules here, however, are how we use dictionaries and how we use the words contained within them in terms of writing style, tone of voice, body language, and a host of other things that surround, support and provide sense to explicitly stated language.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
There you go again trying to change the subject. Our disagreement, as you agreed, is over the definition of the word "rule" and whether a rule must be explicitly stated or not (in order for it to be a rule). Let's sort out what a rule is first, and then we can discuss rule following. I've offered you a class of examples of an understood, implicit rule in the form of conventions. How are these not rules? And what authority do you have to disagree with the dictionary definition?
Well, the claim I'm making is quite a bit more nuanced than that...
We do not have the kind of knowledge about our own minds; about our own thought and belief; about our own imaginings, experience; worldview; about our own operative influences that I'm talking about simply by virtue of growing up and learning English at the same time. If such knowledge acquisition were that easy, none of us would be wrong.
But yes, we certainly do know how to use certain words in certain situations for specific reasons simply by virtue of growing up and learning English at the same time(we learn the Grammar of certain words by learning how to use them at the right time and place for the right reasons).
That's what separates 'ordinary' language philosophy from the study of language as an empirical science. The ordinary language is ordinary in that the inquiry is conducted by someone who can only inquire because they are, in some sense, already masters of the domain.
I've asked a few different questions, and raised a few different concerns. Do you believe that you've answered and attended to those satisfactorily?
Quoting creativesoul
Well, Wittgenstein comes at it a number of different ways so maybe it is hard to see with just my one example/route, but "it makes absolutely no sense whatsoever"? If to say "I believe it's raining" is not, in a sense, to say "I believe it might be raining, let's check" or "I beliiiieeeve it's raining, I might be wrong" than what are we saying? Does it change it to say someone has "unfettered confidence"? Kinda? It sounds like it could be a bet, even if something happened in the past: "I believe [confidently] the Packers won; $5 says I'm right." But if the Packers did win, it is only that the person was right; and wouldn't we just say they guessed right? And if that is not a hypothesis (guess), what would we say? in what context? It might just be that we are talking about a claim like "I believe that the earth is flat". But, again, we can just say "The earth is flat". If someone questions us, we will have to provide some proof or justification. But this is the grammar of a claim to knowledge.
Quoting creativesoul
And wouldn't it be appropriate to say we are asking about intent because something unexpected happened? And mens rea (intent) can be inferred by actions (without confession) based on circumstances. The point is that we made an assumption thinking that intent (or some other internal placeholder) came before action or expression. And that leads to the question: why do we want (need) there to be internal causality? (There is another occasion where I could say "I intend to go to the market" say to hedge my bets because I'll probably end up at the bar and need an excuse. There are perhaps other senses; do any help us here?)
Quoting creativesoul
Part of what Witt is trying to do is elevate the publicness of our communication. Not to deny that we imagine things or have individual experiences or that we can think to ourselves, but just, to put it roughly, those things are not as important as we think. Not that we don't have misunderstandings, but that it is not a confusion between your meaning and my understanding. The gap is that you and I are separate bodies. If I make an expression, it is through public means, so it is now apart from me, but I still have a future with it. I can answer for any misunderstanding or I can try to wiggle out of it by saying "That's not what I meant." But we can be understood (read) through what we say. As Witt says, sometimes I can know better than you what you are going to do. PI p. 225 Anscombe Ed.
I thought the implication was clear. That I disagree with a proposed definition does not mean that I think it is incorrect, it simply means that it's not a definition I would use for this purpose.
Quoting Luke
It's very clear to me, that a rule can only be properly understood if explicit. I asked you for examples otherwise, and you haven't yet produced any. Your examples of habitual behaviour were clearly not instances of understanding a rule. So I'll maintain my proposition as most likely true, until you produce the evidence required to support your dispute.
Quoting Luke
I think you need to pay more attention to what you are saying. Clearly you used "conventional". Here's what you said:
Quoting Luke
Quoting Luke
We could argue dictionary definitions forever, without getting anywhere, for the simple reason that dictionary definitions do not constitutes rules for usage in natural language use. There are no such rules. And, you are grasping at straws insisting that I must adhere to your dictionary definition, in order to prove that one must follow rules to use language.
Quoting Luke
Conventions are agreements, they are not rules. And even if they were, they are not necessarily followed, as I indicated in my last post. We cannot exclude the unconventional as not part of language use.
Quoting Luke
No, but I'm still waiting for an example of how a rule could be understood which is not explicit. This mode of arguing by dictionary reference really doesn't make any sense. All you need to do, is refer to OED #2, which states "a prevailing custom or standard, the normal state of things.". But all this means, is that you and are are talking about different things, one described by #1, the other described by #2.
You want to talk about the part of language use which conforms to such customs and traditions, I want to talk about the part of language use which is unconventional. The problem is that you don't even recognize the existence of this part, insisting that language use necessarily conforms to such traditions.
Quoting Luke
No, let's not, because we will never sort out "what a rule is". We will not ever sort this out, because it always depends on how the word is used, in context. Otherwise, I will refer to definition #1 "a principle to which an action conforms or is required to conform", and you will refer to definition #2 a prevailing custom or standard; the normal state of things", and we will always disagree as to "what a rule is".
The problem is that you do not seem to apprehend the fact that we cannot use definition #2 when we "discuss rule following". When we say "rule following", definition #1 is implied, not definition #2, because to judge whether a custom or standard, normal state of things is being followed requires that the custom or standard be described in words, and this becomes the "principle" referred to in definition #1.
So, we cannot talk about "rule following", and assume definition #2 without equivocation. Do you agree? And do you agree further, that any sense of "rule following" implies an explicit rule, as the "principle" in definition #1? This is because "rule following" implies a separation between the rule and the activity which is judged to follow the rule, so the rule cannot exist within the activity itself, and must exist somewhere else. Where else could the rule exist if not as expressed in language?
I've asked a few different questions, and raised a few different concerns. Do you believe that you've answered and attended to those satisfactorily?
All accounting practices require something to be taken account of, something to take account of it, a means in order to do so, and a creature capable of doing it.
OLP is taking account of... how it takes account.
The aim is the implicit meaningful content accompanying specific instances of ordinary language use.
Yes... I left the rest unspoken...
Because some belief statements can be both uncertain and true, and certain but false, it only follows that certainty has nothing at all to do with truth.
The attempt to create a dichotomy between belief and knowledge is asinine. It's akin to creating a dichotomy between an orange and a valencia orange. Knowledge is a kind of belief.
I've no issue at all with rejecting the idea of private language. To reject private meaning however, shows an inherent inability to take adequate account of language creation and/or acquisition, successful communication, and/or the minds of any and all creatures prior to having done so.
That's unacceptable.
If you could, would you mind revisiting the post where I described Gettier's mistake? Imagine, before you do, that I'm employing a similar approach to OLP. I'm setting out what Smith(anyone and everyone in that same situation) must mean if he's(they are) talking about himself(themselves), which he purportedly is.
Smith believes, for good reason, that he will get the job. Smith does not believe that anyone else but himself will get the job. Smith believes, again for good reason, that Jones owns a Ford. Smith believes "Either Jones owns a Ford or Brown is in Barcelona" is true, because Jones owns a Ford. Smith does not believe that "Either Jones owns a Ford or Brown is in Barcelona" is true because Brown is in Barcelona.
Is this not the aim of OLP? To make explicit what is otherwise implicit in some native speakers' language use?
The underlying, unspoken aim is a better account of meaning.
What purpose? There was no purpose. Instead, you made these absolute claims:
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
You make no mention of context or purpose here. Instead, these are absolute claims regarding all rules.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
This is a total mischaracterisation. You want to pretend as though my position all along has been that rules can only be non-explicit and that all rules are unwritten? You must be a post-truth philosopher dealing in alternative facts.
It has been your position throughout that a rule can only be explicit. My position, in line with the dictionary definitions, has been that a rule can either be explicit or understood (i.e. explicit or non-explicit).
Now that you have finally acknowledged that a rule can either be explicit or non-explicit, as per your own OED definitions #1 and #2 of the word "rule", then you must also acknowledge what I have been telling you for five pages: a rule does not have to be explicit.
I've had what seemed like the same objections leveled at OLP a number of times so I may have lost some. There are a few responses after this so maybe those answer some things. I went back over your responses and I found these:
Quoting creativesoul
We aren't discriminating between "uses"; the examples we imagine are even how they are used in philosophy but they have to be put in a context--which traditional philosophy doesn't do--of when we express our concepts, like "believing", in order to see and claim a description of our ordinary criteria, based only on your agreement, your ability to see for yourself.
Then these claimed criteria of our concepts like thinking, knowing, intending have to account for the issues of the philosophical tradition.
When one has never even had the thought of the chair collapsing, there could be no possible belief that it would not. Believing a chair will bear our weight is to consider(think about) whether or not it will collapse under our weight, and believing that it will not. That's exactly what having the hypothesis that a chair will bear our weight amounts to.
There's a little irony here, regarding the method I'm using.
Then what?
:brow:
Those who hold that all belief content is propositional are using different senses of the term "belief", ones that cannot possibly take proper account of belief that exists in it's entirety prior to language use unless they somehow attempt to claim that propositions can exist prior to language in such a way so that they can be the content of language-less belief. All propositions are proposed. All propositions require language. Language-less belief cannot. Thus, such a notion(that all belief content is propositional) leads - on pains of coherency alone - to a denial of language-less thought and belief.
Like that?
:wink:
Sure we are. It's a bit curious that you'd deny that that's exactly what we're doing.
Concepts...
Muddle on top of misunderstanding.
I'm not sure what metacognitive means but I don't know how figuring out our ordinary criteria can be considered "meta" if anyone can be the judge. Just because we normally don't think about walking doesn't mean we can't explain the difference between it and running if we think about it. And I wouldn't say "exposing and/or discovering" but remembering or seeing. And the "content" is the "criteria" of "concepts" (both terms of Witt's I have explained above) not "some particular language use". But you are correct that it "is satisfied solely by virtue of offering an adequate account thereof. "Adequate" being to speak for both of us (all of us), for you to see what I see.
Quoting creativesoul
It has to account for itself because its method is also a critique of the philosophical tradition. But it is also seeing what counts in our concepts, what matters to us in them.
Quoting creativesoul
As I've said above, what is meaningful to us are our shared judgments. This is not an accompaniment or a justification; they are the criteria for our concepts.
A misunderstanding is a lack of shared meaning.
Usually, when one misunderstands another, they've misattributed meaning somewhere along the way. However, in the case of Mrs. Malaprop, understanding another requires misattributing meaning to the speaker's actual words, because those words were misspoken to begin with. Hence, both speaker and listener misattribute meaning to the speakers own words, and successful communication happens despite the speaker's mistaken language use.
Thinking about thought, belief, and language use as topics and/or subject matters in their own right.
That's quite the impoverished notion of what is meaningful to us...
I believe my work is done here.
I think you're right this isn't an instance of believing as hypothesizing. From the paragraph before I think we can infer that Witt is using this as an example of believing as a feeling, like hoping.
"#574 A proposition, and hence in another sense a thought, can be the 'expression' of belief, hope, expectation, etc. But believing is not thinking. (A grammatical remark.) The concepts of believing, expecting, hoping are less distantly related to one another than they are to the concept of thinking."
There are multiple sensible uses of the term "belief". Not everyone knows and/or uses them all. Some of them are in direct conflict with others.
That does not bode well for what you've been arguing here.
Witt is helpful in expanding our understanding of what all goes into some meaningful expression or another. Witt's failures(on my view) are what so many people hold with high regard(the claims about not being able to get beneath language, the limits of one's language is the limits of one's world, and that sort of thing). Those are the sorts of considerations that made it so tempting to link him to folk like Heiddy. Both had a clue of the impact that language has upon one's life and worldview, but Witt's was just an inkling of a clue that could not be developed to the extent that understanding results as a result of his pre-existing beliefs being too unshakable. Heiddy just failed to make much sense because he did not quite have the basics down in order to be able to effectively take proper account of the affects/effects that language use has upon it's users.
Anyway, I'm busy in real life. Sorry if I seem short here, but my full attention is needed elsewhere.
Take care. Be well. Until next time...
:flower:
Quoting creativesoul
Witt will ask, what are we denying? #305-306. Haven't we accounted for language-less belief? "What we deny is that the picture of the inner process gives us the correct idea of the use of the word...."
Quoting creativesoul
For OLP usually the example is something expressed with a context. When we have something like this, or something like "I only see the appearance of a chair" or "I know that I am in pain!" we try to imagine the context this would go in. With this, say, Jones has a house in Barcelona. We see someone in a Ford drive up to Jones' house and go in. We know Brown owns a Ford, but we didn't think Jones had one, so "Either Jones owns a Ford, or Brown is in Barcelona." It is a conjecture or hypothesis that one or the other is true. Sure I can have a feeling about it one way or the other, but it will take something else to know if it is true.
I discussed this above in looking up the definition of a kayak. That we learn our lives and our language at the same time, so learning about our ordinary criteria is to learn about the world.
Quoting creativesoul
And here It would seem appropriate to provide some examples of expressions of different senses (uses) of belief that are in direct conflict.
Quoting creativesoul
If I'm not mistaken, this might be from the Tractatus, which basically walled off a part of the world as unspeakable. He spends the whole of the PI showing that our language operates in different ways as varied as our lives together.
Quoting creativesoul
I have elsewhere tried to show how "meaning " is part of a picture Witt is trying to unravel, and, in doing so he does account for language acquisition (we learn it as we learn our lives), communication (expression in a shared language), language creation (that our concepts carry into new contexts) and even what we would consider the "mind" (He does not deny it, as I mentioned.). I think it would be easier for me if you just read the thread for those arguments; I was hoping to only explain OLP here. And, spoiler alert; do not read Philosophical Investigations.
For the purpose of of this philosophical inquiry into the nature of language. How the obvious escapes your apprehension I cannot fathom.
Quoting Luke
Do you understand equivocation? We cannot use both definitions #1 and #2 for a logical proceeding. We must choose one or the other, or produce another, as required for our purpose.
So, we've been talking about "rule-following". As I explained, this use of "rule" is consistent with definition #1 and not consistent with definition #2. Do you agree that we can move forward with our inquiry by using definition #1, and rejecting definition #2 as irrelevant?
There's a delicious irony here: you demonstrate that you have understood my point that a rule can be defined as either #1 or #2 - as explicit or understood - but you refuse to explicitly state that you were wrong. I have no interest in "moving forward" with "our inquiry", thanks.
...and I surmise the unspoken part tacitly implies a plurality of subjects expressing the same statement. It remains, nonetheless, that for each subject, his statement can only be judged in accordance with one of the four logical possibilities intrinsic to a matrix with a pair of conceptions and their respective negations.
————-
Quoting creativesoul
Agreed, in principle, in that certainty is a quality and truth is merely a logical condition. But logical conditions are themselves predicated on a necessary quality, so it seems as if there exists a relation between them. I think the only way your assertion works, is to say my certainty has nothing to do with your truth, and vice versa.
————-
Quoting creativesoul
Attempt to create....agreed. But it doesn’t need any attempt, if it is an intrinsic condition of human cognition itself, in which case it isn’t asinine if it is given necessarily. After all, if it is the case that the human cognitive system is logical, relational and complementary.....there must be dichotomies by the very nature of the system. Or at least dualities. Theoretical as they may be.
Creating a dichotomy between an orange and a valencia orange is absurd, sure, such being reducible to mere experience. Doing that, between oranges, however, is not the same as creating a dichotomy between belief and knowledge.
I take issue with “knowledge is a kind of belief”, while not creating a dichotomy between them. I reject outright the logical validity of knowing and believing the same thing under the same conditions, which makes explicit, under those conditions, knowledge and belief do not share a kind between themselves, but do each partake of an antecedent kind common to both of them, and that is judgement. In other words, knowledge is a kind of judgement, belief is a kind of judgement, but that does not equate to knowledge is a kind of belief.
Minor point of contention on my part.....same as it ever was; I’m with you on most of your responses to Antony, regardless.
Yup. The Kantian difference. Judgement as a talent.
:wink:
Be well.
It appears you never read what I wrote. I repeatedly said that you can use "rule", or define it however you want. There is no rule which dictates how "rule" must be used or defined, that was my argument. You were the one arguing that such rules of usage exist.
The issue though, is that we were discussing a specific context of use, "rule-following". This specified context provides us with limitations.as to how we can accurately interpret "rule". If you now want to argue that you can give "rule" whichever definition you want, #1, #2, or any other random definition, in reference to that particular context in which it has been used, then the actual context of that particular usage gives me grounds to judge your proposal as right or wrong. Notice that I am not referring to a rule to make this judgement, I am referring to the particular context.
I don't know about "repeatedly". You didn't say this until the previous page (page 11). Before that, you had made the absolute claims that "a rule must be expressed in language" on page 10, and that "rules cannot exist without language" on page 8.
I should have looked more closely at your #1 and #2 definitions, which I had assumed drew the same distinctions between explicit and non-explicit rules that I was trying to point out to you with the Google definition that I posted earlier. However, this is not the distinction between them. Your #1 definition of rule is: "a principle to which an action conforms or is required to conform". This is very similar to the Google definition, and likewise allows for the principle or rule to be either explicit or non-explicit. I was probably quick to overlook this because your definition #2: "a prevailing custom or standard; the normal state of things" is close to what I had in mind when it comes to non-explicit rules.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
This may be the case if you're not concerned with making sense, or if you're Humpty Dumpty.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Wait, isn't this your position, which you claim you've "repeatedly said" and which you repeated again at the start of your post? Except, I wouldn't include "any other random definition".
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
What do you mean by a "context"? If a context isn't a rule, then you can't mean any of the OED definitions of "rule". Do you think language ever gets used in the context of "a prevailing custom or standard; the normal state of things"? It seems fairly obvious to me that this OED definition #2 of "rule" has at least some part to play in the teaching of language, the meanings of our words, and the contexts in which those words are used.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
I was trying to say, in accordance with Wittgenstein's view, that grammar is not restricted to explicitly stated language. For Wittgenstein, "grammar consists of the conditions of intelligibility of a language. It is the conventionally-established basis on which we can make sense: 'Grammar consists of conventions' (PG 138), keeping in mind that conventions here are not due to a concerted consensus, but to an unconcerted agreement in practice" (Moyall-Sharrock). This is why I've been arguing that rules can be non-explicit. Rules can be explicitly stated, although they don't have to be. I probably didn't help at all, but I was trying to assist @Antony Nickles in his explanation of the ideas and methods of OLP, which is supposed to be the purpose of this discussion.
We were talking about "rules" in the sense of "rule-following". Obviously when you define "rule" in some other way, which is not consistent with this use, then i would not adhere to that claim about what "rule" means. That's why equivocation is a fallacy.
Quoting Luke
To "follow a rule" is a judgement. I'm still waiting for you to show how such a judgement can be made when the rule is not expressed in language. Until then, all your assertions, and google references, which assert that someone could be following a "non-explicit rule", have no import.
Since you seem to have such difficulty understanding, let me explain very clearly what I am asking for. To copy another person's actions, to mimic, is not to follow a rule, because a "rule" is a generalization concerning numerous actions. Therefore the "rule" must exist independently of the actions it may describe. Now, if someone is said to "follow a rule", this implies that a judgement of accordance has been made between the person's actions and the rule. Can you explain to me how that rule could exist in some form other than in language, which could allow it to be referred to, in order for that judgement to be made?
Quoting Luke
"Context" is a rule? Use your dictionary Luke. Sometimes you seem to have extreme difficulty with the English language. "1 the parts of something written or spoken that immediately precede and follow a word or passage and clarify its meaning". "2 the circumstances relative to something under consideration".
Notice that each of these refers to something particular, the particular position of a word amongst others, or the particular circumstances which are relevant to a subject of consideration. A "rule" is a generalization, it does not refer to a particular situation. To describe a context as a rule is to make a category mistake. Therefore, language never "gets used in the context of 'a prevailing custom or standard; the normal state of things'" because to say this would be to make a category mistake. You would be claiming that the particular circumstances (context) are something general, a prevailing custom. Quite simply, "a prevailing custom", or "a normal state of things" is not a context, it is a generalization.
I'm not defining "rule" in some other way. The Google definition is of a rule in the sense of "rule-following"; a rule which can be either explicit or understood (i.e. non-explicit).
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
I have shown this, several times. I linked to Wikipedia pages on Convention, Unspoken Rule, and the Unwritten Rules of Baseball, for example. You have provided no reasons for why these are not examples of non-explicit rules (that are followed).
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
According to what definition? I'm not going to accept your own made-up definitions of words.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Regarding judgment:
Maybe that helped, maybe not. Anyway, even if a rule needs to be made explicit in order to judge whether or not someone has followed a rule, this does not imply that a rule needs to be made explicit in order to be a rule.
I believe I explained the deficiencies of your examples. We're going around in circles, and I'm having difficulty getting through to you, but I'll try again. How does one judge whether these "unspoken" and "unwritten" rules are being followed unless the rules are spoken or written? Assertion, and appeal to authority (Wikipedia) does not suffice. The assertion that unspoken or unwritten rules are being followed is completely useless, or meaningless, unless we have the means for judging the truth or falsity of whether any rules are actually being followed.
And, when we do formulate these rules in a way, (expressed in language), so as we can make such a judgement, we find that there are many exceptions to the rules. Therefore we can conclude that it's false that rules are being followed in such situations. It's merely a convenient assumption, "unwritten rules are being followed", which when analyzed, we find to be false.
Quoting Luke
I agree with you here, because we can define "rule" in whatever way we please. However, we are explicitly talking about rule-following here, and rule-following requires a judgement. So if there are some different types of "rules" which are non-explicit, and therefore impossible to be followed, these types of rules are irrelevant to our discussion.
What Wittgenstein describes in some of those quoted passages, is that we can make judgements which do not require a rule. But this does not imply that we can judge whether a rule has been followed without a rule. That would be contradiction.
Question: are images part and parcel of human mentality?
Witt, awhile ago:
What really comes before our mind when we understand a word? — Isn’t it something like a picture? Can’t it be a picture?
Philosophical jigsaw puzzle.
“...For understanding is, according to what has been said above, a faculty of thought....”
(A69/B94)
“....Isn’t it (what comes before our mind when we understand a word) something like a picture?....”
(P.I., 139)
Mind, understanding, thought, pictures.....all belong to human mentality. So it looks like images are indeed part and parcel of it. So obvious....dunno why it couldn’t just be admitted as given.
—————
So I hear the word “cube”, and what comes before my mind, say, something like a picture of a cube....
The perception is hearing, so that “picture” which has come before the mind cannot be some external, objective illustration; it is, therefore, because it is before the mind, it must have been drawn by the mind, and is a representation of this kind of perceptual sensation.
((“....extension and shape. These belong to pure intuition, which exists a priori in the mind,...” (A20/B54))
And “before the mind” merely indicates presented to the mind, in this case by means of sensibility, rather than antecedent to the mind, for the consistency of the thesis requires the mind as the ontologically unconditioned, to which nothing having to do with its operation, can be antecedent.
.....but Witt allows the something that comes before the mind to immediately relate to the perception....I hear “cube”, I immediately image “something like a picture of”, a “cube”....
(“...say, the drawing of a cube...”)
(ibid 139)
Witt then asks, “In what way can this picture fit or fail to fit a use of the word “cube”?...”
(ibid 139)
Witt says nothing about the speaker of the word, but only the receiver of it: “...your mind when you hear...”. It follows necessarily, that it is utterly irrelevant what the speaker meant by the word, it is irrelevant what his understandings are relative to the word, and it is irrelevant how his knowledge of the word relates to his use of it.
In addition, there is no indication of what it is to “use” the word “cube”. So far, all that’s been accomplished is to bring it “before the mind”, “your mind when you hear”.....which doesn’t carry the implication of being used for anything. Still, he says, “a use....”, which implies use in general. But we’re not talking about in general; we’re talking about “you mind when you hear”, which seems to indicate no use at all.
From the sensibility of the receiver, then, “the way this picture fits” cannot be otherwise than to immediately relate to the perception, for if it didn’t, there is no explanation for the drawing of THAT picture by my mind. This makes explicit I already knew what a cube is. According to Witt, I hear “cube”, I image “cube”. No in-between, no alternative possibilities. This is the fundamental flaw in this particular example, which is meant to characterize the entire philosophy, hence, by association, the fundamental flaw in the entire philosophy.
On the other hand, to then ask in what way the drawn image does not fit the perception, is an exercise in pure irrationality, insofar as it is necessarily a case of forcing my understanding into a contradiction with extant knowledge. It would seem quite inexplicable how to immediately relate the sound of the word “cube” to its only legitimate representation in “something like a picture, say, the drawing a “cube”, if I didn’t already have that image in my mind.
Which glaringly begs the question.....”if that picture occurs to me and I point to a triangular prism for instance, and say it is a cube, then this use of the word doesn’t fit the picture.”....why in the hell would I ever point to a prism and say it’s a cube? Merely to indicate some disconnected, non-intuitive, use of a word? What legitimate reason is there to do that? It is patently absurd, for I could point to every singe thing available to my perception, and say it doesn’t fit the picture of “cube” that occurred to me upon hearing that particular word, on the one hand, and on the other, I must already know what a prism is in order name it as such and comprehend the use of that word “prism” I merely thought, doesn’t fit the picture of the word “cube” I perceived. From which follows the irrationality, expressed as....
((“....I can think what I please, provided only I do not contradict myself...” (Bxxvii, a))
....and from that, it is clear Witt should never have qualified the example with, “say, the drawing of a cube”, and he should never have volunteered me into something I had no reason to do.
Now the kicker: up to this moment, it is me hearing and me picturing in my mind. At this point, after I have already understood the picture of “cube” that occurs to me before my mind, fitting with the prism to which I point, is a case of which “the use of the word does not fit the picture”, Witt chimes in and has the audacity to ask, “But doesn’t it fit?”, which implies there is a way it does fit and perhaps I should find it.
Witt finishes by saying, “I have purposely so chosen the example that it is quite easy to imagine a method of projection according to which the picture does fit after all.”
Errrrrr.....wha??? Where did he do that? I’ve already established in my mind the parameters by which a perception relates to its image, and given an example of how something else I point to wouldn’t “fit the picture”. Neither he nor I ever suggested how the picture of “cube” before my mind would fit with some different object to which I subsequently point.
All in all, this is a poor example of so-called OLP. Witt defeats himself by mandating that a word brings up an image immediately relating to it (which does happen under certain conditions), but doesn’t stipulate the mechanism for that relation (which is given in the historical literature), and what’s philosophically more disastrous, does not allow for the possibility that the perception and the image do not relate (which does happen under other than those certain conditions), except by means of some post hoc epistemologically invalid imaginings.
Rhetorical opinion.
No, you haven't.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Conventions, unspoken rules, and the unwritten rules of baseball are not impossible to be followed. These are all relevant rules.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Our disagreement started with your claim that rules are not necessary for language because a child does not have grammar/rules to begin with. This was all based on your starting assumption that rules must be explicitly stated. I have now shown this assumption to be false: rules do not need to be explicitly stated in order to be rules.
Our disagreement/discussion was never about the ability to judge whether or not a rule is being followed. You are trying to move the goalposts. I'm not interested.
This is not Witt speaking, but his questioner; his Interlocutor (or, as it where, Witt's former (positivist) self asking the question). And the next paragraphs are Witt imagining cases of what an answer would look like, and to account for other applications.
We are missing what comes right after this, which is essential:
(my emphasis)
Here Witt is asking for a grammatical answer, the ways in which the uses of the word cube with this picture might fit (or fail to). And the interlocutor is proposing a version of language that connects picturing a thing when we understand a word. Before accepting it, Witt pauses ("Weeeeellllll"--see above) and asks us to imagine ("suppose", above) a use of the word cube like this and if there are other uses of the word that include this picture.
Quoting Mww
This is the first framework that comes to mind; Witt will say we are "inclined" to it, or it "forces" itself on us. We know what cubes are, we can picture one, even without it in front of me. But this does not dictate the use of the word cube; say, that it can only be used as the relation of what is pictured to what is perceived.
Here the picture of the word; there the use or application of the word (even without the picture).
Quoting Mww
It is asked by the Interlocutor if we understand a word instantly, and by Witt, if we see the fit of a use immediately as well. #138-139. As we have seen one is separate from the other, so we can ask: what do we understand when we picture a cube? does the picturing/perceiving have meaning? or does the use?
Witt then asks, “In what way can this picture fit or fail to fit a use of the word “cube”?...”
(ibid 139)[/quote]
And here is the OLP methodology of imagining examples that would show us the place of picturing a cube to the use of the word "cube" to try to understand if the word cube allows for only one use--the representation or understanding ("meaning") of the picture. He does give an example, but it is like a riddle: he says (rephrased) it is easy to imagine a method of projection that allows for pointing to a triangle prism and saying the word "cube" that actually fits the picture of a cube. We have a picture of a cube (which is technically a type of prism) and we are projecting the use of the cube's "prismness" onto a different (triangular) prism. And this is a different use of the word cube (comparing aspects) than the framework that comes to mind when we imagine understanding an object when picturing/perceiving it, or imagine meaning a word as expressing the picture. The picture without the use has no meaning.
Though "the picture of the cube did indeed suggest a certain use [practice] to us [representation], but it was possible for me to use it differently [as an example of a prism]." #139. He will say this "called our attention to (reminded us of) the fact that there are other processes, besides the one we originally thought of, which we should be prepared to call 'applying the picture of a cube'." #140
Quoting Mww
Yes, I don't think this is his easiest example (I would see my discussion of "I believe" above). But it is not epistemology as finding (facts or other) justifications for explanations of a general theory of meaning or language; this is an investigation (it is an epistimology) to see how our concepts (practices) work differently, or similarly, and that there are different ways each can be used. And part of OLP is imagining cases, (even fantastical ones--to make sense of a context for philosophy's fantasies) to compare, or draw connections, or show distinctions, etc.
Quoting Mww
Isn't that just to describe how we bring an image to our mind (as one thing of many we can do--bring up a memory, even of a smell)? And that there are criteria even for doing this. "I can see the schematic cube as a box;—but can I also see it now as a paper, now as a tin, box?"PI p. 208 3rd ed. And here there will be certain things we can imagine and those we can't within the criteria of a cube because we grew up with cubes as we practiced naming and picturing and focusing on aspects of objects and the language that goes with these activities. I investigate above what we imply when we say "I imagine" or "I see an image".
[quote="Wittgenstein PI". #140 ]What is essential is to see that the same thing can come before our minds when we hear the word and the application still be different. Has it the same meaning both times? I think we shall say not.[/quote]
He does also offer examples that choosing the appropriate word is not flipping through a book of mental images, but that there are different (ordinary) criteria for what is appropriate in each case and context:
(The interlocutor is in italics)
Here, the "appropriateness" of the word is its "aptness", as Austin says, for this context and the uses of this word, and criteria for applying one to the other. That a word is appropriate is not a connection between "something that comes before our mind" which is "the exact picture we want to use here", ( emphasis added) say the/my "meaning"?
And I underlined "inclined" because Witt likes to show why it is possible to imagine picturing (or other "mentality") as a singular explanation for language: because words can have meaning independent of context, because different words can have the same criteria for use (say, as objects), and because we can create representations of words.
Since you're having so much difficulty understanding this simple matter, I'll spell it out for you in the form of a simple deductive argument. First premise: to follow a rule means to act within the confines of that rule, and not stray outside of those restrictions. Second premise: people often act in ways outside of conventions and unspoken rules. Conclusion: conventions and unspoken rules are not rules which are followed.
Having said that, there are some conventions which serve as rules that we follow, like the rules of mathematics. But by the preceding deductive argument, not all conventions serve as rules which we follow. Therefore some conventions serve as rules which we follow, and some do not.
What I propose is that the only conventions which we can truthfully say that people follow as rules, are some of the ones which are expressed in language.
Quoting Luke
Don't you see that in order that a rule is being followed, such a judgement is necessary? How could anyone be following a rule if there was no judgement that the act is in accordance with the rule? You do understand the necessity for an interpretation of a rule, do you not?
Even if your bare assertion that people often act in ways outside of conventions and unspoken rules were true, people more often act in ways inside of conventions and unspoken rules. Therefore, your conclusion does not follow from the second premise. Do you honestly believe that conventions are not followed? Conventions could not exist if that were true.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
I've already said that it may be necessary to make a rule explicit in order to judge whether a rule is being followed. That wasn't our discussion/disagreement. You made the absolute claim that all rules must be explicit and that children couldn't learn rules prior to learning language because of this. I'm not going to keep repeating myself.
To follow a rule means to stay inside that rule. If you do not stay inside the rule, then you are not following the rule. I think that's straight forward enough. Following a rule does not mean to act in accordance with the rule more often than not. Try telling the judge, I only murdered twice in my entire life, that should qualify as following the rule, so I think you should let me go free.
Quoting Luke
Yes, of course I believe that, I find it very obvious, and I'm dumbfounded that you refuse to face the reality of this situation. What I think, is that this whole way of describing human behaviour as fundamentally consisting of rule-following activity, is completely wrong at the most basic level. I believe we are fundamentally free willing human beings, making free choices, and this is completely inconsistent with your representation of human beings as creatures who are following rules in their behaviour. And I believe it quite obvious that the evidence supports my perspective, because we really are not very good at following rules, even when we try really hard.
Quoting Luke
The point, which I've been repeating, is that "following a rule" is that judgement itself. The judgement that "a rule is being followed" is what constitutes "following a rule". It seems very clear to me that "X is following the rule" is nothing other than a judgement that X is following the rule.
Since "following a rule' requires a correlation between "the rule" and "the action", what else could make this correlation but a judgement?
Not all rules are laws.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
If you believe that conventions are never followed - as the conclusion of your deductive argument implied - then you're a fool living in a fantasy world. Of course, conventions aren't always followed, but then rules and laws aren't always followed, either. So, what's your point? Should we now class rules and laws, together with conventions, as being inappropriate to rule-following and impossible to follow?
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
The underlying false assumption here is that rules compel us to follow them, as if they were laws of nature. Neither rules nor laws nor conventions force you to follow them; they will not rob you of your free will.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
I'm not interested in moving on to this new argument of yours. Our disagreement was over what counts as a rule and whether a rule must be explicitly stated or not. You can refer to the dictionary again for that answer. The goalposts aren't moving.
Oh boy Luke, this is becoming extremely dreadful. I think you need to read that post over. Not only have you demonstrated an inability to interpret a deductive argument, but also you didn't even remember what I wrote following that conclusion. When a person says "not all conventions serve as rules which we follow", and you represent this as saying "conventions are never followed", that's an inexcusably horrible straw man.
The conclusion indicates that we cannot make the generalized claim that conventions are rules which are followed. In other words, we cannot truthfully assert "conventions are rules". Therefore we ought not describe conventions as rules which we follow because this would be a faulty description. In no way does this imply "conventions are never followed". Furthermore, following that conclusion, I explicitly stated "there are some conventions which serve as rules that we follow".
Quoting Luke
This is the crux of the problem. And I went over this with Josh earlier in the thread. Let's assume that these things which you call "rules" (and I'm trying to get away from this word so that we can distinguish these from true rules), act as some sort of guidelines for behaviour which we freely choose to either follow or not follow in our common activities. Then we cannot describe this behaviour as "rule-following behaviour", because the real nature of the behaviour consists of deciding whether or not to follow the "rules", and the actions resulting from both decisions. If you only allow into your description the part of that activity which is observed to be rule-following, then your description of the activity is deficient because it doesn't account for the other part which is not rule-following.
Language use is this type of activity, in which we have free choice to either follow or not follow the guidelines. So if you describe language use as an activity which follows those rules, your description is incorrect, because it excludes all that part of language use where people choose freely not to follow those rules.
I think, "protocol" would be a more apt term to use when explaining how communication works.
It seems nit-picking to me. We all use reasons for our actions and thoughts. Arguing over whether or not we use the terms, "rule" or "convention" or "protocol" when these terms represent the reason we use some word rather than another, is trivial.
How do you learn a rule as opposed to how you learn a convention or protocol, and is any of that really different than, say, how you learn to play soccer?
Oh boy Meta, you are painfully dense. Try substituting "rules" for "conventions and unspoken rules" in your argument:
P1. To follow a rule means to act within the confines of that rule, and not stray outside of those restrictions.
P2. People often act in ways outside of rules.
C. Rules are not rules which are followed.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
The substituted conclusion indicates that we cannot make the generalized claim that rules are rules which are followed. In other words, we cannot truthfully assert "rules are rules". Therefore we ought not describe rules as rules which we follow because this would be a faulty description. In no way does this imply "rules are never followed".
Sound reasonable?
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
I don't understand what you're blabbering about here. Just give up, please.
Quoting Luke
Quoting Antony Nickles
Doesn’t matter; it’s all part of a whole.
Quoting Antony Nickles
You have a point....
“....A philosophical system cannot come forward armed at all points like a mathematical treatise, and hence it may be quite possible to take objection to particular passages, while the organic structure of the system, considered as a unity, has no danger to apprehend. But few possess the ability, and still fewer the inclination, to take a comprehensive view of a new system. By confining the view to particular passages, taking these out of their connection (...), it is easy to pick out apparent contradictions...” (Bxlvii)
........but is was #139 taken from another comment, thus subjected to rhetorical opinion in mine. Still, any arbitrary section subjected to dismemberment by a continental X-Acto knife, would miss the “comprehensive view”, provided only that there is one.
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Quoting Antony Nickles
Without it in front of me and given extant experience of them, the picture in the mind is the a priori intuition of empirical cubes in general, yes;
No, the image.....the picture/that which is drawn before the mind......does not dictate the use of the word; such is the purview of judgement alone, from the philosopher’s point of view as a matter of interest, yet only intention from Everydayman’s point of view, as a matter of mere desire.
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Quoting Antony Nickles
I covered that implication, and it reduces to irrationality when done with serious intent, or merely idle fabrications if otherwise, both of which are anathema to knowledge.
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Quoting Antony Nickles
I covered that. Again, there is no logical reason to do any of that imagining, for it is known what a cube is, and because it is known as nothing other than a geometric figure, the objective cube can only be represented by one general intuition empirically and only one general conception a priori.
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Quoting Antony Nickles
I covered that. I can think anything I want, provided only that I do not contradict myself. The word “cube” does name a single thing, and the word represents the conception of a single thing, and the conception immediately relates the perception of that single thing, as phenomenon, to the image of it, “drawn before the mind”. It follows necessarily that the picture does very much matter in the use of the word. Under the condition that the word is used correctly, of course. And if not, we’re right back to irrationality or idle fabrications. It matters very much; it is the apodeictic justification for NOT calling out the object prism with the word “cube”.
(Caveat: and I covered this as well, insofar as this only works for perception of already known objects. For unknown objects, we are not rationally prohibited from using examples of extant pictures in order to determine “a fit”, from which a name for the unknown object may follow.)
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Quoting Antony Nickles
Perhaps, but the framework that comes to mind when we imagine understanding an object as picturing it, is an absolutely necessary ground for knowledge of the object, and meaning the word as expressing the picture, is how we communicate the validity of the knowledge. Neither of those epistemological necessities reside in OLP.
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Quoting Antony Nickles
There are other processes, or, there is only one process used in other ways. Much the more parsimonious to subscribe to the latter than the former. It just makes sense that it is easier, e.g., to correct a mistake in one process, than to investigate more than one process in order to even determine which is responsible for the mistake.
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Quoting Antony Nickles
Why not just talk to somebody, see if he understands what you said? If he does, yours and his conceptions are congruent, if not, they’re not. No need for an investigation full of examples already present whenever folks communicate.
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In ordinary language, application can be different, yes. Hearing the word “orange” can bring up the object “orange” without regard to its color, or, the word can bring up the a priori color “orange” without regard to its object, which are obviously non-congruent meanings of a common word. However, while the common word “orange” represents different conceptions, one of them was cognitively antecedent to the other, and serves as ground for it. I’m guessing the object named “orange” came first, and the color obtained its name merely from similarity.
Some applications cannot be different. Hearing the number one, for example, can never be applied in any other way than to an image of a single unit, hence must have the same meaning to everyone hearing the word.
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Quoting Antony Nickles
Surely you realize it is impossible to intuit smells, which is the same as being impossible to bring up a memory of a smell. We only intuit objects that have a property from which smells arise, but we cannot bring the smell itself to our conscious attention. Same for all sensations except vision. Which is why the notion “image” in cognitive philosophy has so much theoretical power.
All this shows is that of the many things we are said to be able to do.....some of them we actually cannot.
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Quoting Antony Nickles
I submit that words are the representations, words representation conceptions. We cannot speak in images or intuitions or conceptions, just as we cannot think in terms of the natural forces which govern the physiology of that by which thinking occurs. They all need translating into a method of communication, words being the basic units of that method we use as language. From this perspective, it is clear words are at the tail end of the system, and are not even necessary for the operation of the system, but only the objective manifestations of it.
More rhetorical opinion.....
Pull the other one.
I don’t know what that means.
One could Google it:
Pull the other one
So.....I get a postcard, and the message is in French, I can either drop it in the circular filing cabinet, or run down to the library and research a translation. Hmmm....lemme think on that a minute.
Ability does not imply interest.
Did you hear the one about the zoo that only had a dog in it?
No.
Well, basically @Mww is responding to my first draft.
I edited my response quite a bit after initially putting it up; it looks like if you click on the link provided in a notification or whatever, it does not take you to the most updated version, unless you refresh the page. I don't know how to fix that.
In any event, I'll give Mww a chance to look at the current version and paste in what responses still fit. It is much the same except I got a better handle on the way Witt uses the word cube in his example.
In case you missed it, the point of my three examples was to suggest meanings of "one" you may not have thought of, in order to try and demonstrate that "one" needn't have only the meaning of "a single unit", as you asserted.
I think "protocol", which refers to something even more formal than "rule" is a step in the wrong direction. The point is that in the majority of instances when we use language, when we speak, the circumstances are very particular and unique. The combinations of words chosen are therefore specific to the particular circumstances, chosen specifically for that particular, unique situation. And in the majority of cases there is no evidence of any general rules or protocols being referred to for guidance. So it appears highly unlikely that we follow any sort of general rules or protocols when choosing words in the majority of natural language use.
Quoting Luke
The whole point of that deductive argument was to show that "rule" in the sense of rule-following, has a very distinct meaning from "rule" in the sense of unwritten rules. We discussed the difference between OED #1 and #2. So you're just providing further proof of my point, by showing the absurdity of making that substitution. If you're not doing this substitution thing to help demonstrate my point, but instead think that it somehow supports your position, then I believe you still haven't learned that equivocation is a fallacy in logic.
You'll have to do a lot more work than that. If your deductive argument was intended to demonstrate that your "true" rules are very distinct from conventions and unspoken rules, then why does the substitution produce exactly the same results for both? And why does it produce the absurd conclusion for both that rules (including conventions and unspoken rules) are not rules? There seems to be a problem with your reasoning.
The substitution is invalid because "rule" in the sense of "to follow a rule" has a different meaning from "convention". Perhaps you might think I'm begging the question.
But I can agree to your substitution if you insist, just to humour you. I don't see the point though, because it doesn't show that rules are not rules, as you claimed. It only shows that rules are not followed. And I already addressed this issue. Human beings are not rule-following creatures, as I described, we choose freely, with free will, whether or not to follow any given rule. We often choose not to. Therefore we cannot make the general statement that rules are followed, and we are left with the converse, rules are not followed, if we desire the general statement. See, it is false to describe human activities as rule-following activities.
You can deny this all you want, because it doesn't make sense to you that people could communicate with each other without following rules, but I think the evidence is very clear. So continue with your denial, if your illusion keeps you satisfied.
It's not my claim, it's yours, as your summary of the conclusion of your own deductive argument:
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Simply substitute the word "rules" for "conventions" in the above. To make things easier, I already did this for you:
Quoting Luke
The absurd conclusion of your summary of the argument is: "we cannot truthfully assert "rules are rules"."
The conclusion of your argument, if you substitute "rules" for "conventions" becomes:
Quoting Luke
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Your deductive argument is invalid and begs the question. Here is your original argument again:
Argument 1 (your original argument):
P1. To follow a rule means to act within the confines of that rule, and not stray outside of those restrictions.
P2. People often act in ways outside of conventions and unspoken rules.
C. Conventions and unspoken rules are not rules which are followed.
The conclusion should be that conventions and unspoken rules are rules which are not always (or only often) followed.
In order to arrive at your original conclusion, you require another premise stating that conventions and unspoken rules are not rules. Since that (hidden) premise is also your conclusion, you are begging the question.
Let's try some other versions of your argument to clarify the matter:
Argument 2:
P1. To follow a rule means to act within the confines of that rule, and not stray outside of those restrictions.
P2. People NEVER act in ways outside of rules/conventions/laws/unspoken rules.
C. Rules/conventions/laws/unspoken rules are rules which are ALWAYS followed.
Argument 3:
P1. To follow a rule means to act within the confines of that rule, and not stray outside of those restrictions.
P2. People ALWAYS act in ways outside of rules/conventions/laws/unspoken rules.
C. Rules/conventions/laws/unspoken rules are rules which are NEVER followed.
This removes the ambiguity and does not lead to absurdity.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
And, as I have repeatedly stated, this is no different for conventions. We choose freely, with free will, whether or not to follow any given convention. Conventions are just like rules because they are rules.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
I cannot make sense of this. Is it "false to describe human activities as rule-following activities" even when at least some of those activities include rule-following (e.g. sports)?
You are going to extreme lengths to try and dispute a dictionary definition.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
That's not an argument, though, is it.
What is a rule if not an action that should be performed given a particular set of circumstances? The rule, "Dont run around the pool" only applies in a particular circumstance of moving around a pool.
To say that there is no guidance, when we have books on proper grammar and spelling, tests for measuring ones skill and professors that teach you the rules, is just absurd. I really dont get your aversion to using the term, "rule" when using language. Rules of logic must also be applied. Rules are not set in stone. Rules can be broken and adapted. Thinking that rules are always rigidly applied is a misconception if rules. Rules can also be like a guide and not necessarily a dictator.
A rule is not "an action". It is a generalization which may apply to numerous actions. If you say that a particular action should be carried out in a specified set of circumstances, then to justify the "should" you might refer to a rule.
Quoting Harry Hindu
You'd have to go back and read the thread, but I don't argue that there's no guidance, I argued that in the majority of instances of natural language use, we do not refer to any such rules. So I argued that rules are not fundamental to language use, they exist as part of specialized language use like math, logic, and writing. Therefore it's wrong to characterize language as a rule following activity. I discussed with Josh at one point, what type of guidance is employed at the fundamental level of language use, since it ought not be called a form of rule following. But this was just speculation, there is no real understanding here. What we can say though, is that it's not a matter of rule following.
Quoting Harry Hindu
I avert it because I see it as an oversimplification which is simply wrong. And using such words which create "a picture", model, or representation, which is actually wrong, is misunderstanding.
Quoting Harry Hindu
Actually, the misconception is in thinking that such a situation can be described as rule following. If rules are not being rigidly applied, say they exist there to be consulted, and the person looks at the rules and decides whether or not to follow them at each individual instance of judgement, then we cannot say that rules are being followed, because the person often decides not to follow. We cannot even say that such a rule would serve as "a guide", because when the person decides not to follow, it provides no guidance.
What is glaringly obvious, is that there are no such rules which we consult during natural language use. When we speak in most ordinary circumstances, we speak the words which rapidly come to our minds, designed for the particularities of the circumstances, without consulting general rules. So this whole conception, that language use is based in some sort of rule following activity is a misconception..
Quoting Luke
Strawman, the conclusion would be "rules are not rules which are followed". There's nothing absurd about having a rule which is not followed. And if the general conclusion is, no rules are followed, this is in accordance with the fact that we are free willing human beings, and it is a false description to describe us as rule-followers. Of any rule, all that is required is one violation, anywhere, anytime, and we can correctly conclude that the rule has not been followed. Therefore the general conclusion is not absurd at all, it's a simple brute fact of human existence, that all rules are broken by free willing human beings.
"Rules are not rules which are followed", and that statement simply reflects the nature of freedom of choice.
Did you even read my post? Your argument is invalid. The valid conclusion of your argument is that rules are not always followed, not that no rules are followed.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
If your general conclusion is that "no rules are followed", this must mean that humans are not free to follow rules. So it's probably a good thing that your argument is invalid. "Rules are not rules" just seems off somehow.
.....except those two, not three for one was repetitive, are precisely examples of a single unit.....one thing to pull, one joke not heard.
There may be demonstrations that successfully counter my assertion; those are not them.
I would consider "(one) leg" (to pull), "(one) joke" and the pronoun "one" to be different in meaning to "a single unit". Surely "a single unit" is different in meaning to the words "leg" or "joke", even though there may be only a single unit of each of these. And the pronoun can refer to any person or to people in general, so not necessarily even a single person. At the very least, would you agree that "one" can mean, but doesn't always mean, "leg" or "joke"?
A rule is a generalization of actions that should be taken in a particular instance, or circumstance based on prior observations of those actions working in similar instances or circumstances.
"No running at the pool" is a generalization of actions to be taken in a particular circumstance. That isn't to say that the lifeguard can't run to the pool and dive in (even though there is also a rule stating that there is no diving) to save a drowning person. The rules at the pool are meant to be a guideline for being safe at the pool. That doesn't mean that following the rules will keep you safe in all circumstances, or that running at the pool is prohibitive in all circumstances.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
What you are actually talking about here is simply reasoning. Applying knowledge of prior actions taken in prior situations similar to situations in the present moment is how we reason. Judges have the power to interpret law/rules. Not every rule is applicable to every situation. They are only meant to be a guide. I think we are talking about the same thing here and it's just a disagreement on terms.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
I don't understand this part.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Rules are only followed if they are enforced in some way, either by gunpoint, or by recalling what action worked in similar situations. Reasoning is the act of providing reasons, or rules, for your actions. Knowledge itself is a set of rules for interpretting sensory data. The rules can change, but there will always be some rule (reason) for why you acted some way in some situation.
.....to which you are quite entitled.
Nevertheless, I find nothing you’ve contributed to be sufficient diminution of the components in my adversus dialectica with Antony.
I’m working on it. This format makes long posts on different pages, hard to juxtaposition.
That's the conclusion which comes about from your proposed substitution. My conclusion was "conventions and unspoken rules are not rules which are followed. " The proposed substitution yields "rules are not rules which are followed". Since all it takes is for a rule to be violated one time by one person, for us to say that the rule has not been followed, I think that conclusion is very true. And as I said, this simply says something about the free willing nature of human beings, we are not rule-following beings. Whether or not we have the capacity to follow rules is irrelevant, the true description is that we do not, we break rules. Therefore, "rules are not rules which are followed".
I didn't pay attention to your arguments 2 and 3 because they are not even related. Rather than a simple substitution, you completely alter premise 2, so what's the point? We're not even talking anything remotely similar at that point.
Quoting Harry Hindu
That's surely false. If the rule says no running or diving, this applies to the life guard as well, unless it's stipulated that there are exceptions. If the lifeguard runs and dives, then clearly the rule has been broken by that action if there are no stipulated exceptions.
And if your argument is that rules are just guidelines, and meant to be broken, then we're not talking about following rules anymore. We're talking about looking at suggestions for action, or something like that, not following rules.
Quoting Harry Hindu
It might be similar to how we reason, but it isn't reasoning, because it's dome habitually without recalling memories. We know which words to use in a particular situation without recalling similar situations in the past, to figure out which words to use.
Quoting Harry Hindu
I don't think that your appeal to "similar situations" is the answer. So many of the situations I find myself in are completely new, not really similar to anything I've already experienced at all, but this doesn't leave me at a loss for words. So i don't think my choice of words comes from recalling similar situations.
"
As I said, your argument is invalid. This is what your argument should have been (with a valid conclusion):
P1. To follow a rule means to act within the confines of that rule, and not stray outside of those restrictions.
P2. People often act in ways outside of conventions and unspoken rules.
C. Conventions and unspoken rules are (rules which are) not always followed.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
This is ambiguous. It could mean either:
(i) Rules are not followed in all cases; or
(ii) Rules are not followed in some cases.
If (i) were true, then I would agree with you that "we are not rule-following beings".
However, if (ii) is true, then it follows that:
(iii) Rules are followed in some cases.
It may not be immediately obvious that (ii) and (iii) are not mutually exclusive, although they might appear to be so with the ambiguous wording when "in some cases" is omitted.
If both (ii) and (iii) are true, i.e. if rules are followed in some cases and not followed in others, then we could equally say that we are "rule-following beings". That we follow rules in some cases but not in others is just what Premise 2 of your argument tells us, particularly with its use of the word "often" (not "always").
You want to draw the conclusion that people don't follow rules, laws or conventions because it sometimes happens that people don't. However, people also do follow rules, laws and conventions in many cases. I think you'll find it far more likely that they are followed than not followed. The conventions of language use are no exception.
You haven't shown any fallacy. You're rendition just changes the conclusion so that it is the same as P2, which is to make it appear to be be begging the question. I already acknowledged that you might interpret it as an instance of begging the question. But that's obviously a misinterpretation because it requires that you alter the conclusion, when there is no need to alter the conclusion because mine is valid. Accepting my conclusion as valid, rather than altering the conclusion as you propose, avoids the charge of begging the question.
Quoting Luke
Right, your proposed substitution results in ambiguity because there is no longer the distinction between "rules" in the sense of what people follow (def#1), and "rules" in the sense of unspoken rules (def#2). That's the point of my argument. I've been requesting that you uphold this distinction to avoid such ambiguity and the equivocation which follows. You refused, and substituted "unspoken rules" (#2) with simply "rules", creating ambiguity by dissolving my requested distinction between "rules" (def#1) and "unspoken rules" (def#2), so your equivocation of my requested distinction created that ambiguity.
If you weren't so stubborn in your request to allow equivocation into the deductive argument, because you want to hide the valid conclusion, you wouldn't have such ambiguity in the conclusion. In other words, the ambiguity you refer to is the product of your substitution which is an act of equivocation.
Quoting Luke
We must adhere to some fundamental principles in this judgement as to whether a rule is followed or not. If a rule is broken once, then we cannot say that it is being followed. That's fundamental to the descriptive (inductive) principles of scientific method. And, since people often break rules, we cannot make the inductive conclusion that people follow rules. Observation tells us that people break rules and this means that rules are not being followed. Therefore you are clearly wrong to say that it's far more likely that rules are followed than not. And since you want to extend the definition of "rule" to include all sorts of unspoken rules, traditions, customs, and norms, which differ throughout the world, and are actively evolving as we speak, being broken time after time, you are simply bringing more evidence against yourself. So the evidence is clear, it is more likely that rules are not followed than followed.
I proposed a distinction between a type of rule which people consciously try to follow (rules expressed in language), and a type of rule which has no expression in language (unspoken rules), such that it cannot be identified or formulated in any way which would allow a conscious mind to attempt to follow it. And this is consistent with def #1, and def #2 of my OED. My proposal is that for the purpose of this philosophical inquiry, and logical proceeding, we only use "rule" to refer to the first, so that we can avoid ambiguity and equivocation. Then we can proceed to examine the actions of #2 without the inclination of confusing those actions with rule following in accordance with #1.
You steadfastly refuse to acknowledge this common distinction, and so you continue to equivocate between #1 and #2. This stubbornness on your part forces the conclusion on you, that "rules" are not followed, producing that dilemma which is specific to your ambiguous interpretation of "rule". If you simply would allow the distinction between rules which we consciously attempt to follow #1, and "rules" in the sense of some descriptive similarity of actions without conscious effort to "follow", #2, you would not be faced with making this glaringly false claim: "I think you'll find it far more likely that they are followed than not followed."
The exception is a given because lifeguards are there to save lives. Just as there are various contexts in which to use some word, there are various contexts in which to apply some rule.
What you don't seem to realize is that I am agreeing with you and you are contradicting yourself. If words can be used without rules, then why are you bending over backwards in trying to apply strict and rigid rules for how you use the word, "rule"?
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
This is patently absurd.
What you are saying is that you can speak any language without knowing the rules. Can you speak Swahili fluently, MU? Why or why not?
You are also saying that you have no reason for why you use the scribble, "I" to refer to yourself rather than some other scribble, like, "you".
Conscious memory is learning memory. Once you learn something well enough, whether it be walking, riding a bike, driving or a language, it can become automatic. The steps, or rules, are no longer routed through conscious memory. That isn't to say that they aren't still there. If you thought real hard, I'm sure you can remember going to grade school and learning how words are spelled and the basic rules of grammar.
You know we can imagine anything we like, any time we like?
(“....Imagination is the faculty of representing an object even without its presence in intuition....” (B151))
It needs explaining why there are certain things we cannot imagine. Why is it we can imagine things about an object without knowing it, but we cannot imagine certain things even if we do know it?
Quoting Antony Nickles
Isn’t naming the source of words? And aren’t words the source of language? If so, practicing naming is not language, but is antecedent to it, and the supplement “language that goes with these activities”, is false. Language doesn't go with it; it comes after it.
We grew up with cubes, which is the same as saying we know them as certain things. This is not in itself enough to satisfy why we cannot imagine things about cubes, but only that such imaginings do not support the knowledge, or, as Witt says, they are not within the criteria of cubes.
We don’t care what a cube isn’t, we don’t usually waste cognitive effort imagining certain things about cubes that do not belong to them as they are known. We want to know how it is that an object becomes named “cube”. So we build a theory around an image we have, rather than imaginings we don’t need. That is what we imply when we say “I imagine” or “I see an image”. Which still isn’t technically correct, in that we don’t “see” the images we use to name objects, but what is implied remains true.
—————
I’m guessing the part left off “Something that etc”, is “comes before the mind”, which transforms the quote into, “the fact that one speaks of the appropriate word does not show the existence of a something that comes before the mind”. Yet, it does exactly that, for otherwise it must be the case there is something named or nameable, that does not exist as coming before the mind, which is absurd.
Speaking of this picture-like something is an inclination, yes, but to speak of this picture-like something, as an act of language use, is never a mere inclination, it is a necessity, otherwise there is no verbal language use at all. And one doesn’t speak because he can find the appropriate word, for he can always be inclined to speak yet speak incoherently, which makes explicit he has not found the appropriate word, perhaps because there isn’t one. Nevertheless, if one is inclined to speak, and wishes to be understood, it is in response to this picture-like something for which there must already be a word representing it.
Finally, to speak of this picture-like something just because an appropriate word can be found, makes no allowance for the advent of new words which by definition can never be found in the manifold of extant words. In that event, without the appropriate word to be found, is it then given that one cannot speak at all? I think not. As such, new words are not found at all, but invented. And even if “one can find a word appropriate” indicates the capacity for word invention, there is still required the existence of the something picture-like with which the newly invented word relates, in order to appropriately speak of it. Recall my mention of quarks?
Was there anything else you edited, that I can make a mess of?
So if you're somewhere to save lives, rules don't apply to you? Is that why an ambulance might go through a red light? I suppose the paramedics are allowed to take all the belongings from the helpless person as well. That's ridiculous. And what's equally ridiculous is the idea that one can claim exceptions based on context.
Quoting Harry Hindu
You haven't been reading enough of this thread Harry. I already explained this. Rules are introduced into language for the purpose of logic and reasoning, as a means for understanding. Misunderstanding is actually quite common in natural language use. This is a philosophy forum, the goal is to understand, therefore I see the benefit of bending over backward trying to apply strict and rigid rules for that purpose. Equivocation leads to misunderstanding.
Quoting Harry Hindu
This is actually what is absurd. I didn't I learn rules to learn how to talk. It became what you call "automatic" simply by doing it, trying, having success, and practicing. My conscious mind wasn't routed through rules, it was focused on trying to learn how to talk. There was something to do, which I tried to do until I could do it. The basic aspect of learning how to do something is fundamentally different from learning a rule. Do you recognize a difference between theory and practice?
Quoting Harry Hindu
As I said before, writing is a higher form of language, with logic involved, and there are rules involved in writing.
Quoting Mww
As I've said, you can say anything you like but only certain things in certain circumstances will count as, say, an apology--insincerity, lack of acknowledgement of wrong, not saying "I'm sorry" without qualification, etc. are all ways it can go wrong. That's why we have a whole nexus of concepts like excuses, qualifications, mitigating circumstances, etc.
Quoting Mww
I'm not sure about the "source" but Witt starts the PI with the picture of a child learning language as naming. The investigation starts from there looking into why we want all of language to work the same way. What Witt is trying to do in this section is grant the interlocutor the framework that they want (meaning as picturing) and still show how it can't account for how language works.
Quoting Mww
And this is the picture that there is an entire world of activities, and that learning our language is simply pointing and saying the word that goes with it. That there is a "before" and "after". But we learn language and the world together; we are corrected, we mimic, we observe, etc. Of course this is not a lesson in education, but the analytical observation is that all the different ways language works (and is learned) are as varied and deep as our lives with which they are wrapped up in.
Quoting Mww
The full thought is that deciding a word is "appropriate" does not "shew that the meaning of a word is a something that comes before our mind... [which is] the exact picture we want to use...." #139 (my emphasis in bold). What he is trying to demonstrate is that we use the options (publicly) available in a concept. Here, we can picture a cube in our mind (give the interlocutor what they want) but we still speak of the fact that it is a prism in connection with a triangular prism. So Witt's point is that the picturing of something is not "meaning" something exact, i.e., when we picture the cube are we "picturing" its squareness? its edges? that it's a prism?
Fallacy of ambiguity, hasty generalisation. It has been shown. Read my previous post.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
A reminder of your original argument:
P1. To follow a rule means to act within the confines of that rule, and not stray outside of those restrictions.
P2. People often act in ways outside of conventions and unspoken rules.
C. Conventions and unspoken rules are not rules which are followed.
Your inclusion of the word "often" in P2 creates the ambiguity. P2 could be rewritten without loss of meaning as: People act in ways outside of conventions and unspoken rules in some, but not all, cases. From there, you hastily and illicitly reach the general conclusion that "Conventions and unspoken rules are not rules which are followed". The wording of this conclusion is ambiguous and raises the questions: are conventions and unspoken rules not rules? Or are they rules which are not followed?
Judging by the history of this discussion, you started out arguing for the former, claiming that conventions and unspoken rules are not rules. but you've recently switched to the latter, claiming that conventions and unspoken rules are rules but they're not followed. This was just after I pointed out that your argument produces exactly the same result for explicitly stated rules as it does for conventions and unspoken rules. Apparently, that spoiled your assertion that conventions and unspoken rules are not "true" rules, so you decided to start claiming that rules are not followed instead. But this is ambiguous, too. Are rules not followed in all cases or only in some? This ambiguity can easily be resolved just by noting the word "often" in P2 - indicating that rules are not followed only in some cases - but you refuse to acknowledge it.
So what'll it be? Are you going to stick with your new game plan where you strongly imply that rules are not followed in all cases, or are you going to return to your old strategy where you argue that conventions are not "true" rules? Make up your mind, dude.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
I'm happy to adopt your terminology of "def#1" (or "#1") for explicit rules and "def#2" (or "#2") for non-explicit rules, but I'll remind you that your OED definitions #1 and #2 do not make the same distinction.
You'll need to specify how my substitution "results in ambiguity".
My substitution simply demonstrates that your deductive argument applies equally to explicitly stated rules as it does to conventions and unspoken rules. There's no mistaking #1 for #2 here. You originally applied your argument to conventions and unspoken rules ("def#2") and I demonstrated that the same argument equally applies to rules ("def#1"). This supports my argument that conventions are rules and that rules don't have to be explicitly stated. Arguing that conventions are rules and that rules need not be explicitly stated is not equivocation.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
I didn't dissolve the distinction. I showed you what difference results from drawing the distinction, which is none. Your deductive argument has the same effect on both rules and conventions, which only supports my claim (and the dictionary definition) that rules can be either explicit or not-explicit; #1 or #2. And/or it demonstrates that your argument is problematic.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
If a rule is followed once, then we can say that it is being followed.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
And, since people often follow rules, we cannot make the inductive conclusion that people don't follow rules (in all cases).
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Observation tells us that people follow rules and this means that rules are being followed.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Therefore you are clearly wrong to say that rules are not followed. (In all cases? In some cases? You wouldn't clarify.)
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Your conjectures constitute neither argument nor evidence. I'll repeat my earlier argument that if conventions were not followed in most cases, then there wouldn't be any conventions. A convention - defined as "a way in which something is usually done" - exists only because it is followed in most cases; it would cease to exist otherwise.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
It is not consistent with the OED. The OED def #1 you quoted earlier - "a principle to which an action conforms or is required to conform" - does not exclude unspoken rules. The distinction between explicit and non-explicit is not stated as part of that definition. On the other hand, the Google definition that I quoted earlier states that a rule can be either explicit or understood.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
I reject your proposal, and so does the dictionary.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
No, it was your ambiguous, invalid argument that forced the conclusion and dilemma on us. Besides, I've been arguing that we do follow rules, remember? You're the one arguing that we don't.
There's no hasty generalization, you're just refusing to accept the premises which are true and widely supported by the evidence we see all around us.
Quoting Luke
Bull shit Luke. I switched only at your insistence, that I make the substitution, and look at the argument from the perspective which the substitution provided.
Quoting Luke
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Making that substitution results in the conclusion that rules are not followed. The thing is, that when we make a generalization to describe a certain type of thing, it must apply to all of the things in that class, or else it is a faulty generalization. "Swans are white" means that all swans are white, and if we find something which appears to be a swan, and is black, we need to either exclude it from the class, or reject the generalization as false. In this case, we started way back, with the generalization: "human beings follow rules". You want to make "convention" equivalent to "rule", when the evidence is clear that many conventions are not being followed by many people. That leaves us with the choice of either rejecting the generalization "human beings follow rules, or taking conventions outside the class of "rules". I argue for the latter, conventions are not necessarily rules. But you insisted on the equivalence, which leads to the necessity of rejecting the generalization.
Quoting Luke
Obviously, the choice is yours. Are you going to stick with your insistence that conventions are rules, in which case we must conclude that human beings do not follow the rules, or are you going to come over to my side, and allow that conventions are fundamentally not rules, thereby allowing that rules are a special sort of convention which human beings use conscious effort to follow.
Quoting Luke
OK, so here is the difference between def #1 and def #2. In def#1 there is a "principle" to which an action conforms. In def #2 there is simply a custom, or tradition, and no talk of any "principle" or conformity. So, if there are "non-explicit rules", customs, or traditions (def#2), these do not exist as principles of conformity, because this would be to equivocate with def #1. However, we might observe such a "non-explicit rule" and state it explicitly, the statement intended to express a principle of conformity. If you are ready to accept the distinction between def #1, and def #2, can you also adhere to the standard of non-equivocation, and accept that to be a "rule" under def #2 is not sufficient to be a "rule" under def #1? This is because there is no necessary principle of conformity in def #2, which is the defining feature of def #1. And when we talk about following a rule, we are using def #1, referring to a principle of conformity.
Now here's the difficult part. Do you recognize that a principle of conformity, def #1, must have some type of existence somewhere, somehow, or else the principle could never be found, identified, or interpreted, and no judgement of conformity could ever be made. We can see that such a principle only exists as a statement in language. This is why I interpret def #1 as explicit rules, and def #2 as non-explicit, and only explicit rules, def #1, are rules which are followed, principles of conformity.
Quoting Luke
Not if we're following Wittgenstein's principles, he's very explicit that to act according to a rule once does not constitute following a rule.
Quoting Luke
Yes it does exclude unspoken rules, because it is only through language that we refer to a "principle". Without the act of speaking there is no principle being referred to, therefore no rule in the sense of def #1. This is how Wittgenstein refutes Platonism. The Platonist will insist that the principle, Idea, or Form, exists independently of the words which refer to it, in some eternal realm inaccessible to our senses. But Wittgenstein shows that the "principle" is what is created by word use, and therefore does not exist separate from it, nor prior to it.
Just a note here to avoid confusion. I suggested a different use of "principle" earlier in the thread, one half way between the Platonist, and the one described above. In that suggestion I requested a separation between "rule" and "principle", such that a "rule" is created by word use, but "principles" are prior to rules, as private. But Wittgenstein appears to want to reject private principles.
Yes, we do that. Isn’t it then a matter of what options are available in a concept? If the thought is that there is only one option available in a concept, that being its relation to something, what other options can there be? All that’s left is that to which a concept does not relate, or, a plethora of somethings to which a concept can relate.
Quoting Antony Nickles
I guess our differing notions of picturing are irreconcilable. I agree picturing something is not necessarily meaning something exact, but only indicating something exact. When we wish to communicate meaning, we then use the word belonging to the concept belonging to the picturing. If that is the case, we are never going to use the word prism when we mean cube.
So, yes, when we picture a cube we picture the manifold of its form, which immediately eliminates non-cube forms. Even if for the very first time ever picturing an object of nothing but right angles, even if there is no name for it, nothing without right angles is going to be pictured. It just makes no sense to me that we might bring up prisms when we mean to speak of cubes.
Nevertheless, I understand the finer points rely on less definitive conceptions. We in fact do make a mess of some concepts that have multiple relations, or multiple implications for singular relations....apologies, as you say.
————
Quoting Antony Nickles
To say how language works I take to indicate mutually consistent understandings, language works if you understand what I say, and I understand what you say, and language isn’t working if we just look at each other with empty stares. That about right?
If so, then the framework I want is that in which such understandings are given. But there is no way I can promise you’ll understand me, from which follows that granting my framework is itself not sufficient to grant that language works, but still grants how it can work, if only we eventually agree on the meanings of the words being used. So my framework can account for how language works, even if sometimes it doesn’t, but we cannot say it never does, so the claim we cannot, is false. Or....I’m not right in what Witt is saying.
You tell me.
Quoting Mww
We might be getting tripped up on Witt's term "concept", but, as I laid out above, the concept of, say, "knowing" has a number of different options in which it can be used (a skill, information, acknowledgement). And these don't "relate" to anything, they just are how we use the concept of knowing, how knowing is in our lives. Now the idea in this section of the PI is that you have a cube, a number of things of which can be pointed out with the word's options ("uses" or "senses" Witt calls them), one of which is the fact that it is a prism, similar in that way to a triangular prism. The point being it is not whatever you have in mind that provides the meaning, but the public concept (of prisms and cubes). You are expressing one of those "uses" (not "using words") rather than there being something like a mental picture that gives the word a "meaning".
Quoting Mww
By "framework" I was not referring to something personal to you, like your background or way of looking at things ("my framework"), but that Witt is trying to allow the interlocutor the "picture" of meaning that they want--the philosophical theory that when we see a cube or say cube, there is an image in our mind (our meaning).
I think what is happening is you are adamantly defending something you think I (or Witt) is trying to take away. And this is getting in the way of seeing the rationality of OLP's method even before we get to whatever you believe the repercussions are. Above I try to address what it is people believe Witt is trying to deny (e.g., the individuality of our expressions), and how that is satisfied in other ways.
I don't think you have this quite right Antony. What Witt is showing is that the particular application gives the word "a meaning", just as much as the mental picture, which is attributed to what you call "the public concept", gives the word "a meaning". The mental picture is produced from what the person has learned, it is what you call the public concept. But a judgement has to be made as to whether this picture "fits" the particular application. That's why he concludes 140 with the possibility of a difference between these two. "Has it the same meaning both times? I think we shall say not."
Notice that neither one, nor the other, is "the meaning". Each is a different meaning. So we cannot, at this point, assign "the meaning" to either one of them. Then at 141, the particular application (method of projection) is shown to be more important than the picture which comes to one's mind from the mention of the word (the public concept). And, because there can be an inconsistency between these two he distinguishes between a "normal" application and an "abnormal" application, at the end of 141. So we might say that in the abnormal application the word has a meaning (by method of projection) which is not consistent with the public concept.
I don't refuse to accept the premises (depending on the definition of "often"); I refuse to accept the conclusion. The premises are no less true for the following argument:
P1. To follow a rule means to act within the confines of that rule, and not stray outside of those restrictions
P2. People often act in ways outside of explicitly stated rules.
C. Explicitly stated rules are not rules which are followed.
I have not altered your original argument in any way, other than by replacing "conventions and unspoken rules" with "explicitly stated rules". Do you not find this conclusion to be problematic?
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
So the original intention of your deductive argument was an attempt to demonstrate that conventions and unspoken rules are not rules. Thanks for clarifying.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
As I pointed out in my previous post, the wording of your conclusion leaves it ambiguous whether rules are not followed or whether rules are not rules. Maybe we can settle for 'rules are not (rules which are followed)'?
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
You mean like how your P2 doesn't apply to all cases? Or how you derive a conclusion which applies to all cases from a premise which doesn't apply to all cases?
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Let's clear up this lingering false assumption of yours once and for all. Explicitly stated rules are not followed in all cases, either. You seem to think this somehow applies only to conventions and unspoken rules. A good example of explicitly stated rules is in sports. People cheat (i.e. break the rules) in sports all the time. For example, Lance Armstrong or doping at the Olympics. So, the evidence is equally clear that many explicitly stated rules "are not being followed by many people". For some reason, you seem to think that explicitly stated rules are different to conventions in this respect.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Please decide what you are arguing for. Is it that conventions are not rules, or that conventions are not followed. And, if the latter, is it in all cases or only in some?
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Yes, I'm going to stick with my insistence that conventions are rules, because this is in accordance with Wittgenstein's philosophy, which I am trying in vain to convey to you. As @Antony Nickles has repeated several times, "we learn language and the world together". Language is a social activity, which is why it is closely associated with conventions. You have gone awry with this sort of thinking:
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Learning a rule is not a "theory", and neither is language. Language is a practice. Games, sports and other explicitly-stated-rule-bound activities are simply codified practices. You can refer to the rules if you are in doubt, but if you know how to a play a game or sport, you usually don't need to. Even if you don't know how to play, you can join in the practice until you break a rule, and then others can make you aware of it, and you learn it.
No, I have no problem with that conclusion, and I've already explained more than once why. Rules are broken, even explicitly stated rules. That's the nature of free willing beings. So if we are given the option for a general description of human activity as either rules are followed, or rules are not followed, we must conclude rules are not followed. That's the simple fact which observation gives us. And this is the difference we can observe between human beings and inanimate matter, we do not necessarily follow rules, as does inanimate matter.
Quoting Luke
I don't see how a rule is anything other than theory. So if language is practice, and if this practice involves the application of theory, then we have a divide to cross. How does theory get into the practice? If we say that practice always involves the application of theory (rules in this case), then we have either infinite regress, or Platonism in which theory precedes practice in an absolute sense. To avoid this problem we need to assume a practice which is not an application of theory. This is where we first engaged on this thread and we have not progressed at all.
You accused me of equivocation earlier because you thought your argument applied only to conventions and not to explicitly stated rules. It seems you've changed your mind. You also informed me in your last post that the original intention of your argument was to demonstrate that conventions are not rules. I've just used your argument to demonstrate that explicitly stated rules (def#1) are not rules - and you agree! Now you're back to arguing that rules are not followed.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
In all cases? Or are you just going to continue to ignore this question? You did not even engage the problem I pointed out with your argument: that you make a conclusion about all cases from a premise about some cases.
You say we must conclude that rules are not followed, but we can equally conclude from the premises that rules are followed. Why isn't that your conclusion instead?
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
An observation, not a deduction?
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Isn't your position that one needs to learn language before one can learn and follow rules? How can inanimate matter do this, and how does it learn a language?
Earlier you were arguing that we need to be conscious of rules in order to be able to follow them, and now you're arguing we don't follow rules at all? Gimme a break. Talking to you is an endless rabbit hole. You just keep changing your position.
That's not my argument, it's yours. You took mine, changed it to suit your purpose, and asked if I was OK with the conclusion. I'm ok with it, because I told you I would go along with your substitution just to humour you. But I haven't changed my mind.
Quoting Luke
I don't make a conclusion about all cases, I make a conclusion which contradicts a general statement which is intended to apply to all cases. So there's no such problem, as I explained, some cases contrary to a general descriptive statement concerning all cases, is all that's required to disprove it. "Grass is green" is disproven by some cases of grass that is not green. "Human beings follow rules" is disproven by instances of human beings not following rules.
My argument is just an example of how we utilize deduction to disprove faulty inductive reasoning.
You've been looking for excuses to reject the deduction, in order to cling to your faulty inductive conclusion, that human beings can be described as rule followers.
Quoting Luke
We discussed this already, the difference between the prescriptive and descriptive sense of "following rules". We are now discussing whether human beings can be described as rule followers. This is the result of the changes you made to my argument, the difference caused by switching my use of "rule", (def#1), for yours, (def#2). Your obtuseness never ceases to amaze me Luke.
So do you agree with the conclusion that “Explicitly stated rules are not rules which are followed” or were you only humouring me? In your last post you said “I have no problem with that conclusion” and went on to detail why you had no problem with it.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
It’s taken you a while to admit it. Therefore, your conclusion should be stated as: “Conventions [and/or explicitly stated rules] are rules which are not followed in some cases, and which are followed in other cases.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Which statement is that? I’ve never claimed that rules or conventions are followed in all cases.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
I didn’t change the structure of your argument in any way. The same argument applies equally to both #1 and #2.
Besides, what does any of that have to do with inanimate matter? The supposed “rules” that inanimate matter must follow (i.e. the laws of physics) are not the same type of rules we have been discussing here (e.g. the rules of a game). That’s equivocation.
Yes I agree with that conclusion, for the reasons stated already.
Quoting Luke
Many deductive arguments have the same structure. You changed the content, so that what you presented was not even similar to my argument.
How was it “not even similar”? It produces the same conclusion for conventions as it does for explicitly stated rules.
Conventions, as you use the term, are not explicitly stated rules. So doing that switch, changes what the argument is about, while maintaining the structure. You might switch "books" in there, or whatever you want. The switch makes it so that we're talking about something different.
What do you mean it "changes what the argument is about"? Let's remind ourselves of the original purpose of your argument:
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
You produced your deductive argument as support/proof of your initial claim that conventions and other non-explicit rules are "impossible to be followed". Since you accept the conclusion of "my" argument (with its substitution of "explicitly-stated rules"), this implies you would agree that explicitly-stated rules are likewise "impossible to be followed".
Later, you offered a different interpretation of the conclusion, suggesting a different purpose of the argument:
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Did you need to go to all the effort of a deductive argument simply to draw a distinction between explicit- and non-explicit rules?
But that's clearly not your purpose here. You were desperately trying to make the case that conventions and other non-explicit rules do not qualify as "rules" - as you use the term - and that "true" rules can only be explicitly stated. Let's re-write your argument to make explicit your true intention:
P1. To follow an explicitly stated ("true") rule means to act within the confines of that rule, and not stray outside of those restrictions
P2. People often act in ways outside of non-explicit rules, such as conventions and unspoken rules.
C. Conventions and unspoken rules are not explicitly stated ("true") rules which are followed.
The conclusion does not even follow from the premises, and your question begging is now made starkly obvious. P1 and P2 are each about completely different things. That's because you assumed that they were different, and that conventions could not be rules, before you ever derived the conclusion.
But there's a further problem here. Even if your deductive argument does demonstrate that conventions are not explicitly-stated rules, it also demonstrates that explicitly-stated rules are not explicitly-stated rules:
P1. To follow an explicitly stated rule means to act within the confines of that rule, and not stray outside of those restrictions
P2. People often act in ways outside of explicitly-stated rules.
C. Explicitly stated rules are not explicitly stated rules which are followed.
Oh shit, even with this explicit wording, "true" rules are not "true" rules. (I would add the "which are followed", but let's not forget your intention was to prove that conventions are not "true" rules, so that's the part of the conclusion we're concerned with here.)
Explicit rules obviously are explicit rules, and they obviously are followed in some cases, which is what your second premise allows. But exactly the same can be said about non-explicit rules: that they are non-explicit rules and that they are followed in some cases. So, your argument fails to achieve what you intended.
If you define "rule" such that it must be explicitly stated, then obviously a non-explicit rule won't qualify. But you've provided no good reason for restricting the definition of "rule" in this way, other than it's for the purpose of your "philosophical inquiry".
When you change the subject, you change what the argument is about. Don't you think?
I thought we were making progress when you said that you'd respect a difference between OED def #1, and OED def #2.
Quoting Luke
However you continue acting as if there is no difference. That's hypocrisy. You say 'I'll play by that rule', but then your actions violate the rule. I will not play that game with you.
Quoting Luke
Yes, I did need to go to that extent, because you continually refused to look at the difference between those two, assuming that customs and traditions (def#2) are "principles" of conformity (def#1).. Now I thought you had finally agreed to accept that difference, such that we could analyze these two as distinct, but then you went right back to acting as if there is no difference between the two. Within a logical procedure, acting as if there is no difference is called equivocation.
This distinction was made very clear in my last post. Here it is again, simplified for you, ensuring to maintain a very clear distinction between explicit and non-explicit rules:
P1. To follow an explicit rule means to not break that explicit rule
P2. People often break non-explicit rules
C. Non-explicit rules are not explicit rules
This can be re-stated as:
P1. To follow E means to not break E
P2. People often break N
C. N are not E
The conclusion does not follow, since P2 has no relation to P1. The conclusion is not inferred from the premises; it's an assumption or definition that is required by the premises at the outset.
Begging the question "occurs when an argument's premises assume the truth of the conclusion, instead of supporting it."
I changed your P1 from "rules" to "explicit rules" because your position is that "rules" must be explicitly stated and non-explicit rules are not (true) rules. If you look at your original argument, you have equivocated in your use of "rule", as the abbreviated argument above clearly demonstrates.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
That's not at all true. I have emphasised the distinction which was hidden in your argument. You required the equivocation in order to be able to draw a conclusion from your premises.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
See my quote at the top of this post and my stipulation that I agree to your distinction between explicit and non-explicit, but that the OED definitions do not distinguish def#1 and def#2 along the same lines.
I'm arguing (or just reading the dictionary, which tells us) that rules can either be explicitly stated or not. I have been maintaining this distinction and have been referring to them as explicit and non-explicit rules. However, I am confident you will urge that we collapse this distinction and demand to return to your original argument, despite its equivocation and question begging.
After a fashion, perhaps. If I succumb to the way Witt wants me to understand my language practice, he will have taken away the “framework” I have always understood language to entail. I don’t fear that, however, not because Witt’s argument isn’t justified, but only because it isn’t sufficient......
Quoting Antony Nickles
........the lack thereof demonstrated right there. My favored philosophical theory characterizing the image in my mind as the identifying representation of an object, has nothing to do with my meaning upon its subsequent use when I talk about it, or just me when I think about it. As such, my naming is nothing but a relation between the image and my conception of it by which it is known by me. Witt has generalized concepts as having optional characterizations which are then used by anybody, when parsimony suggests concept generation is as private as the mind that contains them.
Quoting Antony Nickles
Tripped up indeed, in that “knowing” is not a concept, it is a mental activity, or part of a methodological procedure, as is “conceiving”, and understanding, judging, cognizing. Knowing information and knowing a skill, etc., are all relations between a particular knowledge system, and that which is presented to the system. From that, it is clear that “how knowing is in our lives” is nothing more than......hey, big deal....we know stuff. I mean, it is quite absurd to suggest that we DO NOT know stuff, so how important can it be to wonder how knowing is in our lives? And if the argument is that knowing has a number of different options in how it can be used, again....big deal. No matter how many options there are for its use, the end result is exactly the same. We know stuff. Thing is....we all know different stuff, and, we all know the same stuff differently. So even if how knowing is in our lives is a valid expression, it doesn’t say anything we didn’t already know.
Witt went backwards, as did all analytic language philosophers. It used to be that the fact we know things is given, and the quest was in how is knowledge possible. That fundamentalism evolved....probably because of its intrinsically speculative nature....into the broadening of how knowing things interactively affects us, and that broadening determinable, made possible, because the language we use to express how each of us are affected by different options for knowing, is right there in your face, thus being very far from speculative.
Hardly a satisfying philosophy, I must say.
P2 is related to P1 through the concept of what it means to follow a rule. That's what the argument is about, what we were discussing, the concept of what it means to follow a rule, and whether traditional, customary, or conventional activities qualify as activities of following a rule. That's what the argument is about, the activity called following a rule.
P! is intended as a definition of "to follow a rule". P2 is intended to state that activities related to conventions ( call them conventional activities) are often outside that definition. The conclusion is supposed to state that we cannot claim the conventional activities to be rule following activities. That's what was meant by the argument, perhaps I didn't state the conclusion clearly, but now that you've addressed the argument appropriately, I'll make it clearer for you.
The argument is not meant to prove anything about the nature of "a rule", because this would be begging the question. That there are distinct referents for "rule" is taken for granted. It is premised that there is "rule" as in def #1, and "rule" as in def #2, and that the two are different. The argument is meant to show that the activities described, or referred to by "rules", def#2, what you call unspoken rules, or conventions, do not qualify as activities called "following a rule", as dictated by def#1.
Quoting Luke
As I explained already, a few times, the difference is def#1: a principle of conformity, def #2: a custom or tradition. What I want from you is to accept that a custom or tradition def#2, is not a principle of conformity, i.e. not a rule being followed, nor a rule to be followed.
Quoting Luke
Just so that we have clarity, can you define "rules" for me? Are we talking about rules which people follow, def#1, a principle of conformity, or are we talking about "rules" in some other sense? After we have a clear definition of what a "rule" is, which we both agree on, then we can proceed to determine whether rules must be stated or not.
The only possible connection between P1 and P2 that I can see are the words "act" and "outside of". The logic of your argument is no different to this:
P1. To follow a rule is to not act outside of that rule
P2. People often act outside of the theatre
C. The theatre is not a rule
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
P1 defines following and breaking a rule. P2 tells us that people often break conventions. You know what that means:
P1. To follow a rule is to not break that rule
P2. People often break my heart
C. My heart is not a rule
The conclusion does not follow from the premises. You have begged the question with your argument and assumed what you set out to prove.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
This leads to ambiguity and confusion, as has been demonstrated. Also, I'd hate for there to be any equivocation.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
How so? You gave a definition for following a rule in premise 1 and in premise 2 you say that conventions are often not followed. What's the connection between them, the word "follow"?
P1. To follow a rule is to not break that rule
P2. People often do not follow a sports team
C. A sports team is not a rule
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
But, of course it is. Even the dictionary says customs and traditions are rules. And following a rule is one of the main things you can do with a rule.
Maybe if you had a better argument I might be convinced otherwise.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Certainly. A rule is one of a set of explicit or understood regulations or principles governing conduct or procedure within a particular area of activity.
Right, the argument concerns a type of action, what we were calling "rule-following". That's why P1 and P2 have "act" in common. I believe you've graduated from kindergarten to grade one, in your effort to understand the argument, but I don't think you'll ever obtain a full understanding in my lifetime. In fact, I think that if you don't understand by now you never will, because you seem to be unwilling to make the effort, and I can't see that changing at all.
Quoting Luke
OK, now let's follow your definition.
Do you see that a custom, or tradition, is not a regulation or principle governing conduct or procedure within a particular area of action, because such things as customs and traditions have no capacity to govern our conduct?
And so the OED has a distinction between def #1, which is consistent with your definition, and def #2,: "a prevailing custom or standard; the normal state of things". Do you agree that a prevailing custom is not a "rule" by your definition because it has no capacity for governance? It is a "rule" by def #2, but we ought not equivocate. And do you acknowledge that our ways of talking, our ways of using words, in ordinary language use, are customs, rather than rules by your definition (which require regulations or principles governing conduct)?
I can see that P1 concerns the act of rule-following. What I don't see from your argument is how P2 concerns the act of rule-following.
The argument is basically:
P1. Rules are followed
P2. Conventions are (often) not followed
C. Conventions are not rules
P2 is about convention-following, not rule-following. What does (not) following conventions have to do with following rules? There must be some relationship between them in order to infer the conclusion from the premises. It can't be that there is no relationship between P1 and P2.
What is described in P2, conventions and unspoken rules, do not concern the act of rule-following, that's whole the point of the argument. to show that you were wrong in assuming that they did. I'm glad you now understand that this type of activity does not concern rule-following
So, let's forget about that argument, and move on to your definition of "rule" now. Do you agree with the following from my last post:
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Then how does the conclusion follow? Explain it to me like I'm a first-grader.
When one is proving that B is not an A, then what is required to be an A is stated (definition), and the description of B is stated. If the description of B does not fulfil the stated requirement for being an A, then the conclusion follows that B is not an A. It does not matter that B is a completely unrelated thing, it might be a theatre, or a broken heart, or anything, so long as it does not fulfill the condition required to be an A, then the conclusion follows, that it is not an A.
If "animal" is a stated defining feature of "human", then anything mentioned which does not fulfill that condition of "animal" can be ruled out as not being human. It doesn't matter what is mentioned, it could be a plant, a rock, a car, so long as the mentioned thing is not described as an animal, we can conclude that it is not human.
In your argument, you are attempting to prove your conclusion that a convention (B) is not a rule (A). Your argument does not state what is required to be a rule (A).
Try again.
How many times do I have to repeat the same thing Luke? A is an action, the action of following a rule. The first premise defines this action. It does not define "rule". The argument concerns actions, what type of actions qualify as "following a rule". That is what we were discussing. I may not have stated the conclusion clearly when I first posted the argument, but I clarified later, the conclusion is that the actions referred to as customs, traditions, conventions, unspoken rules, do not qualify as rule following actions.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Right, okay. Your argument demonstrates that a convention is not the act of following a rule. Or should that be: The act of following a convention is not the act of following a rule?
Sorry to be a pain, but how do we infer this from the premises?
I'll try and follow what you've said:
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
I'm just a little unclear on how the description of B does not fulfil the stated requirement for being an A. That is, how does "often act[ing] in ways outside of conventions and unspoken rules" not fulfil the stated requirement of "act[ing] within the confines of [a] rule"?
Do we assume that conventions and unspoken rules are rules and, therefore, that people not following conventions and unspoken rules are not following rules? Otherwise, I don't understand how the stated requirement is not fulfilled by the second premise. If the second premise were instead that "People often act in ways within conventions and unspoken rules", would the conclusion then be that the act of following a convention is the act of following a rule?
Obviously, going outside the boundaries contradicts staying within the boundaries, therefore going outside the boundaries does not fulfil the requirement of staying within the boundaries.
Quoting Luke
No, we conclude that so-called "unspoken rules" are really not instances of rules being followed.
Quoting Luke
No, because acting sometimes within the bounds of a rule, and sometimes outside the bounds, does not constitute (fulfill the requirements of) following the rule, as defined by the first premise.
How does going outside the boundaries of a convention not fulfil the requirement of staying within the boundaries of a rule?
What is the common factor here? Is a convention a rule (prior to the conclusion)?
If a convention is not a rule, then what does staying within the boundaries of a convention, or not staying within the boundaries of a convention, have to do with staying within the boundaries of a rule? If the answer is "nothing", then what is the common factor between the premises that enables you to derive the conclusion?
Then how would you ever know if someone were following a rule? Any observation that they appeared to be might at any future time be undermined by an observation that they fail to. You could never say "X is following a rule" if the criteria for that assessment were that they continue to do so forever".
It seems rather pointless to me define away an otherwise perfectly useful term by creating a definition for it which we can never actually use.
Luke, how many times must we go through the same thing? If a convention is proposed as a rule, then we must determine whether it fulfills the conditions of being a rule, to make that judgement of whether it qualifies as a rule or not. That's called criteria.
Quoting Luke
Do you understand the concept of criteria? We stipulate the criteria, by which a judgement is to be made. We propose things to be judged according to the criteria. We judge yes or no, as either fulfilling the terms of the criteria or not. It does not matter that the proposed thing has absolutely nothing in common, or is even in any way similar to what is stipulated by the criteria, we still reject the thing as not fulfilling the criteria. The question is, does this commonality between P1 (criteria), and P2 (description of the thing in question), exist. If it does we make one conclusion, if it does not we make the opposing conclusion.
Quoting Isaac
I went through this with Luke already. As human beings, we do not really follow rules. We are free willing beings who choose. We can, and often do, choose what is contrary to the rule. In relation to rule following, the closest we can get is to attempt, to try hard, and this requires significant will power. To describe us as rule following beings is a faulty and misleading description, derived from a determinist perspective, which is a misunderstanding of human activity. Therefore I believe that in this context, the context of a philosophical inquiry, where we are discussing the fundamental nature of human activities, especially natural language use, "rule" is not a "perfectly useful term", because it perpetuates that misunderstanding.
Ah, I see. Everyone should stop using it because you personally don't happen to agree with one of its possible uses. Sounds about par for one of your arguments. As you were then.
Well, we are past trying to understand the method of OLP and even Witt's example and on to just a statement of a theory of language justified by the fact that it is, the simplest conclusion? So we could go down a road where I try to give enough examples where you might see that we do not generate "concepts" or "conceptions" in the "mind' but simply express ourselves in our shared language that mirrors our similar lives in a public process of the uses of our common activities. I don't really want to try to recreate the entire attempt of the Philosophical Investigations to shift people's perspective and attitude, especially because what I seem to be met with appears to be just dogmatic refusal to even consider or understand the process. Not that this isn't a normal and understandable end in philosophical discussions, it's just that in this instance this type of change in perspective is not reached through argument but in you being able to see for yourself what I am (and Witt is) describing. I have tried above to attempt a straightforward argument at times (though that is not the method of OLP), and I would certainly consider discussing specific examples in the PI or any specific one imagined (I just addressed one in the post "How and Why").
Quoting Mww
The word "concept" here is used as a "term" by Witt with a specific use, not anything like a conception or an idea. It is merely a general grouping of the kind of activities that he is investigating--like, conceiving, understanding, judging, etc., except he is trying to show that they are not like creating meaning with words or generating an individual idea, but, for example, that "thinking" is more like problem solving or trying something new or following a theme into a new context, listening to and seeing the world, etc., than reflecting, or considering, or mulling over, or imagining, or talking to oneself--which all have their own grammar and are their own things separate to "thinking".
This vision of a more public process of language does not mean that I am not an individual with my own interests, insights, perspective, or even experiences; but that all these personal matters can all be expressed (or kept secret) in a more "public" process (one not determined beforehand) that requires our responsibility instead of our "meaning".
Quoting Mww
And here you see the examples, but are trivializing the impact, which is one of the attitudes taken towards OLP (it can also seem dogmatic, as in: you are not apologizing if you don't follow the criteria of an apology!). With all this agreement, you still feel the need to hang on to the feeling that we "all know the same stuff differently". There is the part where you grant it and the part you take it back Austin will say. The skeptic does have a point, Cavell says in Knowing and Acknolwedging, and OLP must record and take account of it (this is not what I am discussing now though--there are links above to a few Cavell essays that might be interesting on that front). And there are possibilities where we "know the same stuff differently", like "knowing" (in the sense of, experiencing) a movie or a sunset, but we can't be said to "know" our phone number in different ways (the criteria being, we can recall it--and with OLP's method you either agree or not with this claim to criteria--though of course we may remember it in different ways). And when you say "So even if how knowing is in our lives is a valid expression, it doesn’t say anything we didn’t already know" that is exactly how OLP works; Witt will say it leaves everything as it is. We are not finding something new, but rememebering what we may have forgotten--something anyone can see.
Quoting Mww
This could be said to be the history of the Enilightenment and how science (or positivism's influence) has, justifiably, chipped away at what philosophy only handled with a speculative epistimology. And the determinism and certainty that this brings is explicit and "right there in your face". However, OLP is addressing the issues that are skipped over that only philosophy can still bring to light--self-knowledge through understanding our responsibilities and the implications we are subject to in the world in our actions and expressions; our human conditions; what a moral moment is; art; political standing and consent; etc.
Quoting Mww
Philosophy and OLP specifically will have its own endeavors and its own satisfactions. Part of what Witt is trying to show in unearthing our desire for certainty is to turn us around to see our real needs and desires. If anything is individual, our interests are, and there is no argument to change that if someone just doesn't care, which is fine.
Was it assumed in the argument that a convention is a rule? If so, this is the first I've heard about it.
I asked you two posts ago whether this was the assumption, and you responded "No":
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
How do we determine that going outside the boundaries of a convention does not fulfil the terms of the criteria of staying within the boundaries of a rule?
Well, if we're going to proceed with a philosophical inquiry concerning where, or how we might find rules, we need some criteria as to what qualifies as a rule. You and I don't agree on this, that's obvious, so it's doubtful we'll ever have any progress on this matter.
Quoting Luke
No, that's what was proposed by you, outside the argument.
Quoting Luke
If this is true than it proves that a convention is something other than a rule. It's pretty much the same conclusion stated in a different way.
If what is true? I asked you how do we determine that going outside the boundaries of a convention does not fulfil the criteria of staying within the boundaries of a rule.
I understand why going outside the boundaries of a rule would not fulfil the requirement of staying within the boundaries of a rule, but I don't understand why going outside the boundaries of a convention does not fulfil the requirement of staying within the boundaries of a rule.
Surely, it must be possible that either following or not following a convention, or acting in some way with regards to a convention, could fulfil the requirement of staying within the boundary of a rule? Or have you simply presupposed that either following or not following a convention does not fulfil the requirement?
If going outside the boundaries of a convention is the same thing as staying within the boundaries of a rule, then obviously a convention is not the same thing as a rule.
If staying within the boundaries of a convention is the same thing as staying within the boundaries of a rule, then obviously a convention is the same thing as a rule.
Yes, we could make that judgement. But we don't stay within those boundaries, that's P2. I know you disagree with P2, and you could have saved days of back and forth just by refusing to accept it, rather than all the other shenanigans.
Now you're going to say that we don't stay within the boundaries of rules either. And I'll say, I know, that's the nature of free will, and we ought not describe human beings as rule following creatures. We've been through this all already.
Now, let's get back to discussing whether one needs language before one can learn rules/conventions...
You can make them that way if you want, it's just a matter of definition. You can simply define "rule" in a very ambiguous way, allowing all sorts of things to pass as rules without differentiating distinct types under the one name "rule". But if you do define them like that you cannot take advantage of the analytical benefits obtained from separating the distinct types of things.
Despite the fact that we break rules, we can make a conscious effort to follow rules. But to do this, the rule must exist, in some form which we have access to, such that the conscious mind can consult it and determine how to follow it. This is, as expressed in language. In other words, to adequately judge correct and incorrect the rule must exist in a form which we can consult, i.e. in language.
Those other things, which you are inclined to call rules, such as customs, traditions, and habits of language use, do not exist in any form which we might consult in order to make a decisive determination of correct or incorrect. In fact, we cannot say that there is necessarily even a principle (rule) being followed, if it's just a matter of copying or imitating, so there's no way to say that one person's display is the correct one while another's is incorrect when there are differences.. Sure imitation requires some sort of effort, but it is not at all the same thing as interpreting a rule and adhering to it,. And, in the case of imitation there is no written rule or principle to refer to in order to judge correctness, when different people are carrying on in slightly different ways.
I haven't read much OLP (some Austin, basically, and that a while ago) but I've picked up some of the flavor of their thought, which has become more palatable the older I get. That's the disclaimer, since I want to engage with your post here, & am aware I have some domain-specific limitations.
But I have a hunch that what's going on is something like:
In the the fox/wolf conversation, the 'wolf' guy has all sorts of complicated stuff attached to wolves- values, emotions, modes of awareness. For whatever reason, he's at a point in his life where all these things have gotten attached to championing wolfness, whenever possible (and through the exercise of an intricate structure of axioms and inferences which serves that purpose). For the pro-wolf guy, if the fox can't be called a wolf, then all those values and emotions are in jeopardy. In defending the wolfness of the fox, he's trying to defend all these things. I think the impulse to defend those things is good and fundamental to being human, but the way in which that impulse is attempting to be realized suggests a deep confusion.
If I understand OLP correctly, the move to look at what's actually happening in philosophical discussion is right - people are talking about words and how they're used. A lot of the animus toward OLP seems to stem from a feeling that it's trivializing those values and emotions and modes of awareness. But values are borne out in action, not discussion; And emotions, or different ways of attuning to the world, are borne out in activities that do that kind of attuning. The 'click' can only happen if you're also willing to give up the (implicit) idea that living-well (in accordance with your values, say) means simply verbally laying claim to the right kind of thing, or discussing the world in a certain way.
Some of the tone of (early to mid 20th century) analytic philosophy I've read veers into being hammily scotch-and-a-cigar-in-the-drawing-room. There's a wry irony in Quine, or Davidson, say. That's bothered me in the past, but there's a case to be made that it stems from a refreshing self-awareness of the actual stakes, which are the stakes of talking about words over scotch and a cigar.
This must be what you did in your argument, then? You know, since you ended up agreeing that a convention is the same thing as a rule.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Breaking a convention is not the same as breaking a rule? I thought we just agreed that it was.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
We can never know whether "customs, traditions, and habits of language use" have been broken? Didn't Trump break with tradition by not attending Biden's inauguration? I guess we'll never know.
So it's not just that people are too emotionally invested, and don't want to admit they're just trying to use words in nonstandard ways. It's more that language is the medium in which philosophy takes place, and there's some lack of meta-cognitive awareness of what goes on when we use it, in general. But sadly, I think philosophy itself is also not a great medium for giving people these meta-cognitive skills. Any understanding of the destructive portion of OLP has to start with the recognition that philosophy, objectively, doesn't work. That is, it is not what it claims to be – a form of effective inquiry.
Sorry Luke, you misunderstood again, as usual. I didn't agree that a convention is the same thing as a rule. I agree that for you it is. But I believe that's a misunderstanding you have, which I don't share.
Where did you ever get that idea from?
Yeah, I didn't want to suggest it was just a matter of emotion. I think the pull toward 'discovery' is also part of the same nebula of things I'm talking about with values, modes of awareness and so forth. But I take your point - you're focusing more on the 'how' than the 'why.'
From the preceding discussion, obviously.
Or perhaps you'd like to try and answer this again:
Quoting Luke
Quoting csalisbury
At the same time, I think the how and the why are pretty criss-crossed - isn't that Lazerowtiz's thing? A kind of wish-fulillment in words? I think there may be something about abstract language-use in particular (especially when you're proficient in it) that makes it harder to 'pop out' to a meta-level, and reflect on what you're doing.
Do you agree with (at least some interpretations of) Wittgenstein that the role of philosophy then becomes a form of therapy for resolving conceptual confusion?
We don't need to make that determination, because if this were the case, the conclusion would be the very same, that a convention is necessarily not a rule.
Then:
Quoting Luke
Same answer, that convention would not be a rule.
Because you've begged the question and presupposed it?
Premise #1.
How many times can you go around the same circle Luke?
Quoting Luke
No, because I don't think philosophy has a good track record as therapy either. My position, and I've expressed it here before, is that philosophy ought to be exited, and viewed from the outside anthropologically. We should look at philosophy as a practice that we are no longer 'natives' of, and that we do not engage in, but that we do seek to try to understand, much like an anthropologist might for a foreign culture.
Philosophy, in other words, is something certain human beings in certain cultural situations do – and it isn't what it claims to be, and doesn't work, and so there isn't that much good reason to actually practice it, not even for therapeutic reasons. But looking at it and understanding why people do it, and what cognitive factors drive it, is interesting in understanding how human inquiry works.
To be fair, maybe philosophy as therapy hasn't been given much of a chance. I'm not sure that pronouncements can be made about what philosophy or philosophers ought to do, or who should make them, but you might be right that philosophy could go the way of alchemy.
That makes sense. As someone who, in my teens and 20s, had (unconscious) power/control fantasies about philosophy, and only painfully shed them, that's the narrative I gravitate toward - but it makes sense that that's only one path to it. (Incidentally, I think it's interesting how, initially, the shedding of those fantasies constitute a last gasp of those fantasies. There's a weird moment where you're ready to shed them, but still want the shedding to take place according to those old rhythms. That's kind of where the conversation went last time we talked on here. I think we're both past that now, you may have already been then, but it's something I'm curious to understand better at some point. There's probably some old myth that captures it well, but none come to mind immediately.)
Quoting Snakes Alive
I don't think philosophy is good therapy, but I do think it can do some work at helping inoculate you to bad arguments. I guess it depends on where you're at. I read someone who made the argument that a lot of cringe-worthy internet atheists are posting in Baptist basements. If you read them in a Unitarian living room, they sound ridiculous - but maybe for them that kind of sheer, almost drag, intensity is a necessary step in their decoupling from a rough abusive-religious situation..
If you grow up in a milieu of reasonable, stolid, middle-class people you can take a lot for granted. For someone else, in an emotionally volatile atmosphere where people use choppy arguments only to the extent it gives them emotional leverage, it may be helpful to sort of gravitate toward the goofy pure philosophy vision as a way to get some breathing room. Then, hopefully, a second exit, later.
I definitely think being taught critical thinking, rhetoric, and some sort of informal (not unrigorous, but informal) logic is good. But to the extent philosophy does teach this (and honestly I don't really think it does very well), it always does so as a cover for what it's really interested in, which is less benign and useful. A lot of philosophy, I think, actually positively harms your ability to think well.
And yeah, I think philosophy more than other fields is used as a means for people to work through themselves and express their deeper desires. That's partly symptomatic of why it's not very good – you can project anything onto it, say whatever you want to. I would advocate looking at it a bit more dispassionately – people trying confusedly to express themselves is fine, but we also want things that are actually real, work, and so on.
"If" it were the same... but it's not. A rule consists of a stated principle of conformity, therefore defined boundaries. A convention, by your own admission does not. Therefore staying within the boundaries of a convention is an oxymoron. A convention has no boundaries. You just think it does. And thinking that you're following a rule is not a case of following a rule.
Only according to your own self-imposed stipulation for how the word "rule" should be used.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
If this is true, as you say, then the second premise of your deductive argument is false. People can't act outside the boundaries of conventions if there are none.
i have no further interest in being mired in your bad arguments with you.
As I said, you can use "rule" however you please, there's no rule which dictates how you must use the word. However, if you are trying to remain consistent with Wittgenstein, I already quoted PI 202. This is a pivotal point of PI, where the "rule" is stipulated as being outside of the private mind, to be defined as necessarily public.
So, if the boundary of a convention is implicit instead of explicit, we cannot get beyond "I think I am following a rule", because the boundary is only thought of. That is what "implicit" means, it's only produced by thinking. Therefore conventions with implicit boundaries do not qualify as "rules" by Wittgenstein's demonstration of how "rule" ought to be defined, at PI 202.
It really does not bother me if you simply want to define "rule" in a way which is inconsistent with Wittgenstein. I am often inclined to use it that way myself. What bothers me is that you pretend to adhere strictly to Wittgenstein's philosophy, while not adhering to this very important point, how we must define "rule". That's hypocrisy. But I believe this hypocrisy is not intended by you, it's the product of a simple misunderstanding. So I feel the need to bring it to your attention because I think if you developed an appropriate understanding, you would be inclined to change your ways.
As though a convention is something that exists only as an idea.
Unless stated as rules, the boundaries of conventions only exist as ideas. This is what is meant when people say agreement is "implicit", they mean that the existence of the agreement spoken about is implied only. That means that there is an act of thought required to draw the conclusion that there is such an agreement. The assumed agreement is not something which can be observed as if it were stated on a piece of paper. It is theoretical only, its claimed existence relies on that act of thought. It is not something which can be empirically observed, which it could be if it were written down.
Yeah, exactly, that's what I was trying to get at in my first post. The need to confusedly express one's deepest feelings and desires is natural, even laudable; but philosophy isn't a good vehicle for that.
Quoting csalisbury
I appreciate taking a stab at understanding OLP and joining the conversation. I would only add that, yes, OLP is looking at what is said in philosophical discussion (expressions) but also the other uses there are for the activities like thinking, believing, knowing, intending, but also regular expressions and uses of apologizing, sitting in a chair, pointing, seeing, etc. And in talking about the uses of words we see the criteria that frame a use--the way it works (its Grammar Witt says), which, ultimately, provides insight into our philosophical issues, and ourselves.
Quoting csalisbury
I won't quibble here, as I think the gist of what you are trying to point out is relevant. It is hard to avoid the dismissive nature of OLP (Moore, Austin to an extent) when it does not take the effort to account for the legitimate concerns of traditional skeptical philosophy (Cavell does a better job of this). And I agree with looking past philosophical theories to connect them to a motivation. That it is doing more than making a claim; it is a person taking a stance, and it reflects on that person. Cavell will discuss this as "living your skepticism". I would also point out (as I did above regarding a kayak) that when we are making claims about the criteria of our expressions (and actions), we are at the same time making claims about the ways we live in the world--not just discussing language, nor just speculating without any of the value of truth.
First & foremost, a formal thing: I apologize for coming into your thread headfirst and missing the whole. What sucks about forum discussions is once it veers into 3+ pages (much less 15+ pages) it reaches a point where you simply can't catch up on what's already being said. Snakes Alive is someone I follow, so to speak, and I saw his posts here and dove in, in media res, responding solely to that post. I'll cop to not having read the OP, initially, but I've just gone back and read it. It's refreshingly well-presented. Not that I don't support whoever is coming onto a philosophy forum and opening up a conversation, regardless of their skill-level - but the OP in this thread has a lot more meat and is, brass tacks, on another level.
Quoting Antony Nickles
That's a good point. The implicit throughline in my above posts is that there's a place for deep personal values/approaches to the world etc; and that that place is not philosophy; and that OLP did a service by severing philosophy from those impulses.
But I think you (& OLP?) are correct in pointing out that that's not quite it- there's a lot to learn about how & what we value by looking at how we talk. & There's also something fun (even creatively joyful) in sussing out our implicit criteria.
From a very different angle, my feeling is that the first-generation, ingenuous postmodern thinkers also do this in their culture studies, but that most of that aspect of their work has been drowned out by their second-generation interpreters. Going back one generation, Walter Benjamin's Arcade Project is in the same spirit. In pop culture, I think there was a move in this direction with Carlin & his heirs. Or, to be fair, Lenny Bruce -->Carlin-->Next generation. Obviously it's a little looser, but there's something OLP-y about Seinfeld, for example, at least if you squint.
You can see precursors to it in the early analytic concern with meaning, especially the positivist conditions on intelligibility, but the positivists never asked the question in such an explicit way, not of which sorts of things were meaningful, but what it even meant for something to be meaningful, and how this might be made intelligible in terms of actual linguistic practices. This is a very powerful move, and one that I take to be 'naturalistic' and 'anthropological,' as opposed to the kind of (what I take to be) misguided neo-Kantian attempt to look for the origins of meaning in transcendental conditions that, say, Habermas fell into. The OLPers had a view of the foundations of meaning, where the foundational conditions were not coherently deniable from within, as you made use of those very conditions ('ordinary language is correct language,') but which themselves were multiform and contingent (something like the the shifting riverbed).
Quoting Snakes Alive
Witt will talk a lot about philosophy not being able to work, get traction, be anything but a house of cards, a fly in a bottle. Heiddeger and Emerson say that the more we grasp (for certainty) the more slips through our fingers; our acceptance of only a narrow criteria for knowledge blinds us to our more varied lives.
So to the extent OLP is "destructive" (of the house of cards) it is to set aside the "picture" (the paradigm) of positivism in order to see our ordinary criteria (amongst the rubble Witt will say). My claim in this OP is that OLP is an effective method of inquiry that allows us to get some grist for the mill of our fundamental philosophical issues (morality, meaning, art, knowledge, truth, the betterment of ourselves, etc.). That "Essence is expressed by Grammar" PI #371 Not just a different form of "essence", but providing us a view of what is essential to us--what matters to us about something; what differentiates it from something else; how we judge, see, count in its regard, etc. Our ordinary criteria express our needs and desires and hopes and agreements--our lives. As well, @csalisbury, although there may be a need to say philosophy should not be a home for dogmatism or ideology or envy or fear, it need not erase the human, the fallible, the partial, the uncertain. That without any surety that we will agree, we nevertheless may have a productive discussion.
My view of philosophy is a bit more prosaic. It's just a bad method of inquiry, based on misconceptions that we have no reason to bind ourselves to anymore. It's like entrail-reading to try to see the future, say. We just don't really have a reason to do it anymore.
emphasis mine...
:smile: :point: :smile:
Obviously this is a very legible approach (i.e. you can name what it's thrust is, and approach it thusly) that is easy to break down. But it's hard to to consistently, coherently come at it in a way that doesn't mess up the foundations you're coming from. I think it's a trickier puzzle than it seems at first glance.
If you're really interested in knowing how these things go, my advice would be: read history, read anthropology. Insofar as you read philosophy, read it historically, the way you read about reading entrails. Don't actually do it! [And knowing more about history and anthropology makes philosophy less appealing cognitively, I think inescapably – it persists in ignorance].
Quoting csalisbury
Austin is entertaining in his ability to play with our concepts and yet in a way that resonates and satisfies the desire to actually get down to brass tacks and be able to sort the wheat from the chaff. I would add that looking and describing the grammar of a concept is only the first step; that creating examples to make claims about our ordinary criteria provides the discussion point for our philosophical issues (Cavell will call the examples "philosophical data").
Quoting csalisbury
Cavell has a high opinion of Benjamin, but I have yet to try anything. Cavell uses culture as examples for philosophy, but I had not thought about the fact that actual stand-up comedy does unearth our unreflected shared lives, a very interesting point. And maybe the satisfaction of comedy is the feeling of community in realizing something we had not considered is common to others, and that the humor comes in part from the surprise of the unrealized. Cavell (and Nietszche) will examine the tragedy of missing, dismissing, or overlooking this insight into ourselves.
Quoting csalisbury
Hmm, I'm not sure what you're getting at. Are you saying that philosophy comes from the 'landed' esoteric tradition, and it's not possible to shake it off?
Quoting Snakes Alive
By "method of inquiry" are we not taking OLP as such a thing? that we investigate to learn knowledge of ourselves that we had not realized before that provides insight into what we inquire about? And this wouldn't be trying to see or ensure the future so much as remember our past, uncover what we are agreeing to when we say something so we may consent to our future rather than be determined by it. Should it lead to a different outcome? or be held to a different standard? or be concerned with things other then when we don't know what to do; how to live a better life; how we might come to agreement about art and politics? And isn't part of philosophy its internal criticism to root out misconceptions? And what would be better equipped to do that?
Yeah, i was being a little oblique. I should probably check myself here, recall the thread I'm on, and remember I don't know all that much about OLP. Ok, this is my best stab in broad terms at what I've been hinting at:
The element I was thinking of, drawing on landed vs aspirational, is that (today, anyway) landed classes tend to downplay the things they've got. Someone (secure psychologically) who's coming from old money probably isn't going to boast about their wealth. But they will definitely notice when someone else, who doesn't have it, is acting like they do. How they express disapproval is often subtle, in a rarefied register. I think a disavowal of philosophy often works in similar ways. You might not overtly champion Hegel or Quine or whomever, per se, but you're still going to register when someone is making a philosophical faux pas.
Ok, easing into the concrete. So you can imagine witnessing regular people debating the meaning of words, while also thinking that they're not quite getting at the shit Austin, say, is getting at. The conversation isn't reaching that level. I believe you have a background in linguistics, so this is tricky. Clearly there are things about language that a professional can see, that a typical language user won't. I think for the point of my post, that can be bracketed (though I welcome a correction here.) But the idea is this:
You can talk to a fisherman about life shit and they will have a lot to say, right? (& yeah, this is classic liberal wisdom-of-the-working-man pap that has been around since at least Wordsworth. Nevertheless it's true, I spend a lot of time talking to fishermen & fisherman get heady if you give them the space to) A lot of what they're saying is going to, occasionally, take a philosophical flavor; the tuned-in philosophy brain will take this stuff into a mental vestibule, without letting it into the main room. You understand what they're saying, but you see the mistakes they're making.
So what's happening? Here you can take the historical or anthropological perspective and kind of break down what's going on. They are doing an anthropologically known activity that you are not, or are no longer, doing. Ok. But fold it back on itself. A martian anthropologist, or whatever. What's happening when you're recognizing, from your post-philosophy anthropological perspective, what they're doing? You listen and nod, but for a canny observer, who knows how you act in other situations, it's clear you're not expressing real agreement. For the martian anthropologist, this looks a lot like someone who, idk, is familar with olympic-level athletics, tolerantly observing a sub-olympic performance. Advanced biometrics and the deal's sealed - this is someone simply tolerating a performance they know is lacking.
Anthropologically, that's all you've got. This isn't as good as that, and these value judgments are part and parcel of sociological differentiation. The only way out* is to introduce some normative idea of why an Austin is doing something different. I want to really focus on this - because even the fact of meta-cognitive illusion etc only matters from a normative perspective. It doesn't necessarily have to be a philosophically normative perspective, but it is going to be normative. There's no reason why being confused on an object level is worse than having a clear meta-perspective, unless you bring in a normative dimension. The 'puzzle' in my earlier post is to explain why OLP is a better approach than, say, german idealism (or, more to the point, the fisherman going off on his thoughts) without using philosophical resources. I think this is actually very hard.
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* well not quite. another way is to just say: yes, I judge others for the sake of differentiating myself from them, and that's the only reason I'm doing it. But that seems unappealing.
I'm not sure people who are educated in philosophy are doing better than fisherman, so that they have any special insights into 'mistakes' they're making. There are a couple very basic things of informal logic, sure. But other than that, I genuinely am not sure that philosophy really grants you a skillset – sure, it allows you internally to see what someone is doing wrong 'from the point of view of philosophy,' so you can be a snickering grad student on Twitter laughing when someone claims not to give a shit about the is-ought gap (but Hume is so important! You've never read him! etc.) or says no one should give a shit about Quine or whatever (but you don't understand!), but I honestly think those grad students don't really know anything. They are privy to a certain bunch of books and rituals for talking about them, but do they know anything more than the fishermen? Are they able to think better, avoid mistakes they make? I think, no. And further, I think philosophy actually makes you capable of making mistakes the likes of which you'd never dream of if you didn't get into it – I really do think that to a large extent it makes you think worse, because it introduces you to malformed thoughts and gives them prestige. Reading Heidegger literally makes you dumber (I've witnessed it). Just like, say gorging yourself on New Age books (and taking them seriously) makes you dumber.
Quoting csalisbury
I think if you can see through it you do have a sort of skill, but I don't think it's like being a great athlete, or being smart, or something. I think it's a kind of fluke. The comments of the late Wittgenstein were essentially due to a troubled mind, and not indicative of the wider stream of philosophy (this is why today he is more of a saint than a 'researcher'), and a few people picked up on them, along with the English common sense, and came to some realizations. It really happened by accident – the insights weren't assimilated by the broader public or academia, and they won't be in the future. Same for people who for whatever reason happen on this stuff later and are cognitively primed to see it. I really think it's happenstance, much like the skeptic who achieves ataraxia by accident according to Sextus.
So basically it's like being the weirdo in Rome who thinks that reading the bird guts is all a bunch of hokum – there are people who knew it was nonsense, but they could never gain much social currency, and the reason they knew was probably accidental (smart people believed it, educated people believed it, etc.). Now, it may be that in the future, it becomes obvious to everyone that philosophy is all a bunch of hokum (which it is), in the same way as it's obvious that bird augury is a bunch of hokum. But that would come as the result of changes made elsewhere – better competing paradigms for explaining and manipulating the things philosophy is 'supposed' to answer for. Maybe that will happen, maybe not. But there is a reason we are susceptible to philosophy, just as there's a reason we're susceptible to augury.
Is this similar to Bird Augury? Yes, in some ways. But is there an OLP of bird augury? Brass tacks, if we drop any pretense, if someone who comes to you with hume stuff, you're going to recognize someone who is at an early stage of a path of thought you've gone down, and is confused. Imagine: 'no man, this is just some superstition shit, you don't need to get into that'. Ok, maybe. But really think about that. Imagine someone told you back in the day that the stuff you were getting into was bogus. Imagine you didn't work through this stuff, but were nudged away from it. Good anthropologically, maybe. But would you feel as confident saying its hokum? I think it's important to be clear here - think about it - you can say its hokum confidently - can the fisherman? What's the difference?
The point is that many fisherman really do take a step down that path. This is what I mean by landed vs aspirational.
Of course. But I think being good at fishing is a real and useful skill, whereas being 'good at philosophy' doesn't really entail being good at anything, unless you're on the job market in philosophy.
Quoting csalisbury
Sort of. History always adduces random skeptics of prevailing doctrines. The point is that they're ad hoc, and have no special gift – things just 'click' for them. I actually do think philosophy is losing its popular prestige, and while philosophers are smug about this in a weird way, I think part of them knows that they don't know how to justify their existence, and the people who make 'crude' criticisms of it can't be kept at bay forever, because they are, at their kernel, correct.
Quoting csalisbury
It depends on the social context. One reason I don't have to be nudged away from, say, flat-earth theory, is because I grew up in a context in which the reasons it was inadequate were obvious enough that trying to adopt it would be a huge affront to my ability to make it through the day (I would need to make sense of how my plane trips worked). You could imagine a world in which we just know enough about the way our own language and cognitive faculties work, and this was such an ambient part of an ordinary person's knowledge, that the idea of adopting philosophy would look as silly as adopting flat-earthism or bird augury.
True, but orthogonal. I'm not saying philosophy is more useful than being good at fishing, I don't think it is. I'm saying that fishermen often get philosophical, naturally, in a way that philosophers don't tend to get naturally fish-y (pace Izaak Walton.) Midnight, a few beers down, smoke break on the porch. The philosopher isn't going to talk about fishing unless he's already into it accidentally. The fisherman is likely to wax philosophical.
Quoting Snakes Alive
I don't think this is actually true. I don't have data, but anecdotally there is a proliferation of Secret Wisdom Through The Ages books and videos with Plato and so forth that people are super into these days. People are definitely skeptical of like, academic philosophers, as part of a broader distrust of elites, but that's another beast.
Quoting Snakes Alive
Yeah, maybe. Not compelling to me, but there's not much more I can say besides that.
Quoting Snakes Alive
I would say a part of all philosophy is about philosophy--in critique of its past aims or means or other philosophers. And "the search for the conditions under which expressions become meaningful, and what it is for something to be meaningful" seems a pretty good description of OLP's method of uncovering the conditions of our expressions which are how "it is for something to be meaningful" but it seems dismissive to say this is "meta" or "semantic" as if we don't learn anything about our world and ourselves in explicating the conditions and possibilities of what we say about them.
Quoting Snakes Alive
The idea that we are talking about "ordinary language" is one of the misconceptions that I have tried to dispell about OLP. Moore's insistence on solving skepticism with "common sense" is basically the cliche that OLP is associated with from then on. But when Wittgenstein moved from the Tractatus to PI he was trying to investigate why people had this desire for "foundations of meaning".
And I have an insight into how it appears that a concept's "conditions [are] not coherently deniable". If I make a claim about the "conditions" (the criteria) for what entails an apology, and you agree that those are accurate, then it can be said we agree that if one doesn't meet those conditions, they have not performed an apology. Now, as I have said elsewhere, this is not a claim that ordinary "language" is correct, but that our ordinary criteria of apologizing are just what it is to apologize--our path to forgiveness from the other--made explicit (not usually considered). An apology is either done correctly or not (with felicity or aptly Austin will say), but this is not to secure a foundation for apologies, but we simply use our insight of these drawn-out ordinary criteria to learn about ourselves, our world, and our lives together (this is not "semantics", nor simply "pragmatics"). To deny the conditions of a concept is simply to rationally disagree with my claim to the terms of our ordinary criteria for it, through the imagined examples and contexts of OLP, about what constitutes an apology.
What's the ingenuous reaction to a guy doing that? It's funny to think about.
Quoting csalisbury
I have said this in another post about "ought", but any force of "normativity" does not come from OLP's claims to descriptions of our ordinary criteria for apologizing; it comes from apologizing itself.
You still have not justified the validity of. or done anything to disambiguated, this proposed concept "ordinary criteria". If "ordinary criteria" refers to the criteria which an individual person applies in ordinary situations, in one's day to day life, and in use of natural language, then it refers to something which is specific and particular to the individual. But if "ordinary criteria" refers to rules of logic which are taught to us, like the rules of mathematics and geometry, then it refers to what Wittgenstein calls the "normal" picture at PI 141.
The problem is the inconsistency between these two, what is taught, and what is actually applied in the circumstances. And, as Wittgenstein indicates at PI 140, in natural language use the context of the particular application takes precedent as what is important to the meaning, thereby rendering the normal (what has been taught) as not necessarily relevant. This means that if "ordinary criteria" refers to what Wittgenstein calls "normal" (the concept as taught), we cannot rely on ordinary criteria for determining meaning.
But if you insist that "ordinary criteria" is the means by which we determine meaning, then you must allow that it refers to criteria which is specific to the particular individual, being applied according to the circumstances present. That is because what is normal (the concept as taught) is unreliable in common situations of natural language use, due to the presence of the abnormal.
I do see it; I find it, the description, insufficient. It is like describing the construction of a house, but beginning from the second floor.
Quoting Antony Nickles
Which is the same as re-defining a term. As we all know.....one can make anything stick by simply changing extant definitions to fit what’s being said. If Witt has something new to say, he should use terms specific to the novelty.
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Quoting Antony Nickles
It isn’t a feeling, it’s an empirical reality. One may know an iceberg as a floating chunk of ice, another may know an iceberg as a broken piece of glacier.
Quoting Antony Nickles
Correct, only insofar as the knowledge acquisition system is consistent across the species in general. That does nothing to prohibit the validity of me coming to know my phone number under different conditions within the system, from you coming to know yours within the same kind of system. Rote memorization vs. intrinsic pattern recognition. Extrinsic similarity. Hell.....why not mere hypnosis? For PIN’s or license plates....sheer invention.
Quoting Antony Nickles
Subject to implies empirical psychology or social/linguistic anthropology. Fancy words for “group-think”. Speculative epistemological metaphysics is the doctrine used to bring to light....not skip over.....understanding the implications of that which we are each the subject of.
House description...second story start; house description...foundation start.
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Quoting Antony Nickles
Our desire for certainty is contained in reason itself; no need to unearth it, for it is manifest as a predicate of an intrinsic human condition.
To turn us around to see our real needs and desires presupposes we don’t already see them. Being both presumptuous, insofar as that which belongs to me necessarily, cannot but be apprehended by me, and self-contradictory, insofar as my intrinsic “desire for certainty” must already contain them. Furthermore, as “real” needs and desires, herein taken to indicate fundamental or characteristically personal as opposed to empirically determinable, they are not susceptible to experiential incursion, for they are derived from purely subjective causality. Which ultimately reduces to some form of moral philosophy anyway, which I wouldn’t think has anything whatsoever to do with OLP.
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Quoting Antony Nickles
True enough, with the caveat that interest is predicated on, hence determinable by, sufficient reason, while care is merely some degree of relative quality an interest may invoke. I am interested enough in OLP, and by association, what you have to say about it, in accordance with the reasons claimed to be sufficient for it, without having any care whatsoever in adopting it or them.
There’s a French cooking show on tv I watched, that explained how to do this fancy-assed duck recipe that involves pressing out blood....yes, there’s a mechanical press designed specifically for that purpose.... to make the accompanying sauce. Interesting, even if only that it would take a Frenchman to dream up something so bizarre, probably to satisfy a bizarre French king, but trust me when I tell you I wouldn’t care to partake of it.
All in the name of nothing better to do.......
Yeah, that's fair. I tend to get on here for the sake of arguing. I think there is something to the idea: 'leaving philosophy' is a canonical move in the anthropologicaly observable practice called philosophy.' You see that happen all the time. But you see that in every field, too. Part of what I was drawing attention to is that there is something different in kind from posting on a philosophy forum about the worthlessness of philosophy, and posting on a fishing forum about why fishing is bogus.
For sure, I get that. The 'normativity' in my post is about, like : The implicit criterion according to which one selects good approaches to philosophical conversation.
It's also clear why one would think that fishing catches you fish. It's not clear why one would think that the methods of philosophy can unlock general features of the universe – on reflection the idea seems somewhat insane. That's why it's interesting to think about why people might have been led to believe in the methods.
Why portray philosophy in the way you do? Take Socrates for example. Socrates used philosophy to show that what people commonly believed about the general features of the universe, was wrong. That developed into the method of skepticism. When commonly held beliefs are false, do you not see a value in proving them as such?
I think part of what makes this tricky is that philosophy is much closer to conversation than fishing. What we're doing here, talking about philosophy's place, could plausibly be talked about as philosophy-like, philosophy-ish. More concretely, getting at intuitions: I think if you showed a regular person this conversation, and told them this was a 'philosophical conversation' they'd go 'yeah, seems like it.' It may be something totally different than philosophy, but it's harder to draw that line. On the other hand, a fisherman talking about why fishing is bad is, in talking about it, manifestly not doing fishing.
I think the only way to coherently describe philosophy as a certain practice in the way you're suggesting would be to pinpoint an essence - some cluster of certain sufficiently identifying characteristics - in order that one can identify it when it presents itself irl. The only other option would be to do it historically, by lineage - say, what Plato did was philosophy, and anything deriving from that is philosophy is well. You can then use historical documents, textual analysis etc to say whether or not a particular thing is philosophy (that is, traces back to Plato.)
It seems possible that there's a weaker stance to take here - at certain thresholds of development, most civilizations secrete philosophical-type talk. It's part of the general culture, like a million other things (humor, dance, religion, flirtation, ritual, exchange, feasts etc) and that, as with all those things, there grow over time specialized, eventually rigidifying, ways of channeling and structuring that thing.
Part of the throughline of what I was talking about with the fishermen is that this stuff seems to crop up pretty organically. A fisherman, like anyone is likely to have spontaenous philosophy-ish questions (as I did before I studied any formal philosophy)
Now, the guy who got into Hume's thing that I was talking about, got into it because a guy he went to high school with became a philosophy phd. To go back to your point, it *is* likely that if our society valued bird augury more, he'd have been more likely to know someone who became a recognized bird augurist, and to bring snippets of bird augury he'd learn back into the general shared-conversational space you could call 'shooting the shit.'
I think that is a fair point.
But I also think that people talking about stuff, the way we are, is philosophical-ish. And that this is just part of what we do, in a way that can't be neatly separated from other aspects of what we do. It's a hazy thing that also veers into other areas - aesthetics, general meta-discussion of anything (since, of course, fisherman can 'pop out' of the complex, hyper-internally-differentiated practice fishing, to then talk, from a meta-perspective, about a unified thing called fishing, without that being philosophy), formal argumentation, mythic/narrative framing etc. I think philosophy is probably a loose, baggy thing that sits loosely with those things, as those other things might loosely include philosophy as a partial ingredient.
In that regard OLP, from what I understand, sees first and foremost a reaction to a particular formation of a practice that could be understood anthropologically, and that brought together a bunch of different currents.
On another anthropological, or sociological, or just general human note, I think there is a tendency to devalue one's own stepping stones. Part of growing older is looking back at what you thought was super important, perhaps embarrassingly valorized, and downplay it, now that you're a little more stable, a little wiser. You can imagine an old trader talking to a wild-eyed 20 year old who just got into bitcoin or pennystocks.
This seems like a mere projection of your own disaffection with philosophy. Perhaps some of the pre-Kantian metaphysicians might have imagined that philosophy (specifically metaphysics) could show us "general features of the universe"; if they thought that intellectual intuition is a thing. The idea that intellectual or rational intuition can yield real knowledge has mostly fallen out of favour.
The problem is that we cannot demonstrate whether it can or whether it cannot produce real knowledge; unlike empirical sources which can be tested and confirmed or falsified, there is no way to confirm or disconfirm the deliverances of rational intuition.
Under the assumption a Kantian follows Kant text closely, and given that there are 16 uses of “proves” in CPR, of which three are negative and the rest affirmative, it would seem quite the case that the Kantian does in fact prove something. Perhaps you mean to say, the Kantian never proves anything to your satisfaction. Which is fine, you’re far from alone in that regard. Outnumbered, I might say, but not alone.
Quoting Snakes Alive
The Kantian knows nature of the mind certainly cannot be unlocked in the same way as the nature of the world, so who is the Kantian no better than, by granting that division?
Quoting Snakes Alive
It is clear enough to he who thinks there is a necessary commonality between the methods and the unlocking. Perhaps it is that the methods of philosophy are not themselves sufficient for unlocking the features of the universe, but they are necessary for a human to determine how to unlock them. Method informs how to think; thinking informs how too unlock.
It wouldn’t be clear for those who don’t examine their own thinking, which becomes evident in the clarity of fishing catches fish, insofar as the average hook-wetter never stops to think that its absolutely necessary to go fishing in order to catch fish, resolutely confident in the ends, without considering the means. We are reminded of this principle by lottery purveyors when they say, “you can win if you don’t play”.
Quoting Mww
Well it's not anything new (like, say, the "thing-in-itself"), it is just for referring to a grouping. And he didn't choose the word; it's translated from the German, Begriff, or "term" (ironically) as I understand it, instead of Idee or Konzept. The index includes things like the concept of: experience, a game, a material object, mathematical certainty, noticing an aspect, a number, order, pain, propositions, saying something inwardly, seeing, sensation, and understanding.
Quoting Mww
And here is the "conviction" in the "picture" that Witt is talking about prior to his quote about understanding lions (PI p. 252 3rd Ed.). When we talk about "reality" there are things we contrast it with like fantasy, or delusion, avoidance, etc. And when we talk about what is "real" we are discussing whether it is a fake, or not a prop. etc. But these examples are skipped over by the fixation with the need for certainty, which projects the quality of "reality" onto the world (I'll take this up in another thread).
Now you might be conflating knowledge with experience; but even then, most times it won't matter to say yours and mine are not the same (we both ate horrible food, we would both say our experience was terrible), though we could make a point of being particular about our experience, to say there was something special about it--but, where not necessary or applicable, this would be self-aggrandizing; "entitled" to our own standard, above our judgement. And, as I said, with somethings our experience is always different (movies, sunsets, private moments). But Witt gives many examples to show that knowing, as well as meaning, intending, and understanding, are not experiences.
Quoting Mww
Wittgenstein will see this not as either of you "knowing" an iceberg your own way, but just that you are focusing on different aspects (noticing a use of the word), both of which are options in our relation to icebergs (as with the prism and cube earlier). There is the "use" of the concept iceberg that points out that it is a floating chunk of ice, "Look out! There's an iceberg ahead of the boat!" And there is the use of it in its relation to a glacier, "Wow! That huge iceberg over there just calved off the glacier." And these are contexts in which these uses are meaningful (there may be others).
Quoting Mww
I'm not sure if this is just meant to be cheeky, but, when I said "subject to", I meant that we are answerable to the implications of our expressions. We are subject to (on the hook for) someone asking, "Was that supposed to be an apology? Because you didn't even say you're sorry!" We can avoid or ignore our responsibility for our expressions and their implications, but their may be consequences, one of which may be rejection from the polis; that we are dismissed as incompetent, ignorant, insane, which, of course, may not be justified. But uncovering our ordinary criteria is not an anthropology, nor a popularity contest, nor just about language (and not the lives we lead in so many ways). And, again, they are not our "ordinary" expressions and actions, they are the unspoken implications and criteria of those (and our philosophical ones too).
Quoting Mww
Well, very self-aware; some may not see the lengths it compels us to, say, even to set aside our humanity and define our condition as less than perfectly rational, mired in doubt and belief.
Quoting Mww
The idea of everything being "seen" and readily apparrent is a fantasy of philosophy. If you are human; you are, even in a philosophical way, blind to yourself (apart from psychology's insights). To avoid our fear; to have a sense of complete control over our expressions, we internalize the possession of meaning; so it is entirely "apprehended" by me. But when we speek, we are open to being called out by our words, held to their implications apart from our wishes, more than what we may have apprehended.
And to the extent we are not explicitly aware of the criteria and conditions and possibiities of the use of our concepts in the context we find ourselves in, we do not consent to them freely, but are determined by them unwittingly.
We know how to walk, but do we thus know ("apprehend") the conditions of walking, the criteria that differentiates it from hopping, running; what about for: requesting, thanking, cursing, greeting, praying, ordering, obeying, guessing, etc., not to mention: thinking, intending, meaning, appearing, etc. We do not "already see them"--their grammar--though we can ask ourselves and others about how they work (or don't) and what constitutes their being what they are (and not something else).
And my "intrinsic desire for certainty" does not "contain them". It skips over their vague rationality and partiality because they do not meet the created and imposed criteria of certainty and universality demanded by knowledge capable of facing skepticism. And they contain our desires and needs because what makes an apology an apology (the criteria, conditions, possibiities, and process), is what we value about it, what counts for us in it--the forgiveness of ourselves and others, the qualification of moral action gone wrong--these are the place it holds in our lives, why it has come to be what it is over thousands of years; what is essential about it--why we need and desire it to be the way it is.
Quoting Mww
Well, this is not a knowledge of new facts or scientific "incursion" or reason to "determine" something with certainty (there are empiricism's problems, and there are philosophy's issues), but something that we seem to know already, but have to remind ourselves of to give an account, though it is open to plain view to everyone (and subject to claims by everyone). And to say it is uncertain, not "determinate", personal, caused by the "subjective", is to dismiss OLP's knowledge because it does not reach that standard, without investigating its own (varied) rationality and criteria, some of which do not lead to certainty or agreement or universality, but nevertheless fulfill what we need from them. Being condescended to with derogatory words thrown from an ivory tower of "reason's" own creation is simply dogmatism, prejudice, and judgement without any understanding (See a new thread I've posted). And to say it "reduces to some form of moral philosophy" is the same old division that what is not certain etc., is characterized as a morass of unresolvable relativism. And OLP is the direct showing against this dismissal of our vague, fallible lives as emotivism, etc.; that our everyday criteria do show us what is essential, how our world is determinable in different (partial) ways--and that we have a part in our actions and expressions beyond knowledge. This is not personal or "caused" by some idea that each person creates the world all on their own, but in the lives all of us have lived together (yet even including the personal, the adverse, and the new in that vision).
So philosophy 'teaches how to think about things in different ways.' Someone ought to tell philosophers that's what their subject is about – it seems they haven't gotten the memo! They talk about, for example, the nature of mind, the world, language, and so on.
But of course, this isn't a serious position – people only (predictably) roll out the old 'philosophy's not supposed to do what it claims to do or spends its time doing' when challenged directly.
To talk about "the nature of the mind, the world, language, and so on" would be to talk about the different ways in which we can think about those things, or what are the most plausible or most productive ways to think about those things. When we talk about what would be the most plausible ways or productive ways to think about those things, then the questions arise as to whether we should be informed by science in considering various questions and to what varying extent in which areas science has things to tell us.
You speak as though philosophers all maintain the same monolithic attitude as to what they understand the purpose of philosophy to be. That's a simplistic view as I see it. If you're critically examining different ways of thinking about the nature of mind, the world, language and so on, then you'd be trying to identify inconsistencies and incoherencies in the views being examined, no?
So talk talk about X is not to talk about X, but to talk about how we think about X?
Even if this were so, philosophers aren't any good at the latter either.
Philosophers are trying to save the human race from their greatest enemy, themselves. They haven't been able to do it, therefore philosophy is a failure. Wait a minute, human beings haven't annihilated themselves yet, so on what basis is "failure" claimed.
The point being that we judge a process as a success or failure in relation to whether it achieves a stated goal. Snakes states the goal of philosophy as to "unlock general features of the universe", and concludes that since features remain locked, philosophy has failed. But Snakes seems completely ignorant of the role which philosophy has played in unlocking those features which have already been unlocked.
So it would seem!
“....(except for psychology’s insights).....”
Ants at a picnic.