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RussellA

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Yes, Wittgenstein makes no attempt at coming up with an answer to the questions he raises. As he wrote in the Preface "After several unsuccessful atte...
September 20, 2023 at 08:37
:up: :up:
September 19, 2023 at 15:00
The great analytic philosophy vs continental philosophy divide. My favourite city is Paris, and we always stay near the Left Bank, so perhaps I should...
September 19, 2023 at 14:52
Yes. They ignored causation. If I see someone wince, I know that something has caused such pain behaviour, whether pain or acting. I may never know wh...
September 19, 2023 at 14:35
Objects, entities and events exist in space and time in the world. In the mind, the parts of objects, entities and events are connected within concept...
September 19, 2023 at 14:12
Logical Positivism stated in the 1920's. Their central thesis was the verification principle, whereby only statements verifiable through direct observ...
September 19, 2023 at 13:49
In Referentialism, the objects in the world are observable material things, including things such as mountains, trees, crying, wincing and other behav...
September 19, 2023 at 13:37
The key paragraph is PI 43 which says that the meaning of a word is its use in language. But what about the second part "And the meaning of a name is ...
September 19, 2023 at 13:19
PI 43 For a large class of cases—though not for all—in which we employ the word "meaning" it can be defined thus: the meaning of a word is its use in ...
September 19, 2023 at 08:52
As you say "A child learns the word 'table' in the context of her life." The child asks "where is my toy". Its parent says "your toy is on the table"....
September 19, 2023 at 08:21
For example, the Decision Lab writes of Wittgenstein as one of the most important philosophers of the 20th C: Ludwig Wittgenstein was one of the most ...
September 19, 2023 at 07:46
If things in the child's world are not named, how does the child learn the names of things. The child must already know what a table is if the child k...
September 18, 2023 at 14:49
The Philosophical Investigations rejects Referentialism. In Referentialism, the child would point to an object in the world. If the child is not point...
September 18, 2023 at 14:19
After a bit of pondering, I will stick my neck on the line and say that, at the core of Philosophical Investigations, with its language games, family ...
September 18, 2023 at 09:40
As you say, Wittgenstein is responding to Augustine. I agree with Wittgenstein that Augustine's position, as Wittgenstein presents it, is too simplist...
September 17, 2023 at 10:38
When Wittgenstein talks about "use", I am unclear whether he is referring to the word having a use in a sentence or the sentence having a use in the w...
September 16, 2023 at 18:02
PI 182. The criteria which we accept for 'fitting', 'being able to', 'understanding', are much more complicated than might appear at first sight. That...
September 16, 2023 at 08:09
Simplifying, as I understand it, words have meaning in two ways. First, meaning by description, in the sense of Wittgenstein's use theory of meaning a...
September 15, 2023 at 15:45
I agree 100% that Wittgenstein does not ignore the fact that the language game has a use in the world, such as teachers, pain, slabs, roses, shopkeepe...
September 15, 2023 at 13:04
If Wittgenstein is against theorising, then why did he write that the meaning of a word can be either i) its use in language or ii) what it points to....
September 15, 2023 at 11:42
Words have a use in the language game, and the language game has a use in the world. Wittgenstein asks questions, but avoids trying to answer them The...
September 14, 2023 at 15:05
Pain is not a thing Perhaps I am missing what you are saying, but I don't understand when you say that the correct conclusion is that there is no thin...
September 13, 2023 at 09:53
Words which have a use in the language game don't name the thing in the box. PI 293 - But suppose the word "beetle" had a use in these people's langua...
September 12, 2023 at 16:30
Yes, Wittgenstein's proposition that the meaning of words in a language is in their use refers to their use in a world, not just their use in the lang...
September 12, 2023 at 10:45
I could say "ouch!" or I could wince, both serve the same function in indicating to others that I am in pain. They cannot know that I am in pain, they...
September 11, 2023 at 13:02
I agree in the main with what you are saying about Wittgenstein, and only on a few points could I quibble. Agree. "Ouch!" is a name for an observable ...
September 10, 2023 at 11:51
A sentence full of metaphorical meaning. Yet the problem is, how do I actually use such knowledge. I know what you mean, but making practical use of s...
September 09, 2023 at 09:18
I agree that the exclamation "ouch!" is not a name for the pain inside us, but rather, is the name for an observable pain-behaviour that has been caus...
September 09, 2023 at 08:27
"Ouch!" and "fire!" are not single words. As exclamations, they are complete sentences. "Ouch" and "fire" are single words. If I walked into a room an...
September 09, 2023 at 07:32
I am sure that "ouch!" is a noun and/or the name of a behaviour. If somewhere along the line I wrote "ouch", without the exclamation mark, this was a ...
September 08, 2023 at 14:12
I said that "Ouch!" is a sentence, not that "ouch" is a sentence. The word "ouch!" is an exclamation, and according to the University of Sussex, an ex...
September 08, 2023 at 12:35
If I go into a corner shop, see people say "I want a cracker" and are given a cracker, then when I want a cracker I know to say "I want a cracker". As...
September 08, 2023 at 12:23
I agree that "ouch!" is an expression, as I wrote before "In that sense one can rightly say that "ouch!" is an expression of pain." The word "ouch!" r...
September 08, 2023 at 12:13
If someone can see me, they see a picture of me wincing. If someone cannot see me, and hear me say "ouch!", they can replace the word "ouch!" by a pic...
September 08, 2023 at 08:11
"House" as a noun names a building for human habitation. "Ouch!" as a noun names a pain behaviour. PI 26: To repeat—naming is something like attaching...
September 07, 2023 at 18:05
Then why did you say the word ?
September 07, 2023 at 17:57
I didn't properly answer your question. It seems that the PI is making the case that god in the atheist's language game means something different to g...
September 07, 2023 at 17:54
Saying "ouch!" is not an involuntary act such as wincing, but rather a cognitive act as part of a language game requiring conscious thought intended t...
September 07, 2023 at 13:52
Which comes first, knowing the meaning of a word and then understanding the sentence it is in or learning the meaning of a word from the sentence it i...
September 07, 2023 at 13:13
As you point out, a key para is 244 So you are saying that the word 'pain' really means crying?"— On the contrary: the verbal expression of pain repla...
September 07, 2023 at 10:21
An English speaker would say "ouch!", an Indonesian speaker would say "aduh!", meaning that exclaiming "ouch!" is not an innate behaviour but is rathe...
September 07, 2023 at 09:31
I agree that the word "ouch" has to be in context. It could be the Organisation for the Understanding of Cluster Headache, a BBC website reflecting th...
September 06, 2023 at 15:32
I agree with the second part, as I wrote before "In that sense one can rightly say that "ouch!" is an expression of pain." However, I'm not sure about...
September 06, 2023 at 14:56
As Wittgenstein said in PI 304 "Naming appears as a queer connexion of a word with an object." A name can only name something known, something that ca...
September 06, 2023 at 12:16
My arm is stabbed, I feel pain, and involuntarily my face winces. If I don't know the English language, I cannot say "ouch!". The only way an observer...
September 06, 2023 at 10:22
"The word "ouch!" and behaviour As Wittgenstein describes, the word "ouch!" replaces a person's particular behaviour. But isn't it the case that the w...
September 05, 2023 at 10:29
Wittgenstein and the Cartesian problem Wittgenstein asks how words refer to sensations. His interlocutor asks if the word "ouch!" is describing the ot...
September 04, 2023 at 14:35
Yes, to know the name of a bird allows one to be able to distinguish it from other birds, and to know the name of a chess piece allows one to distingu...
September 03, 2023 at 11:59
Only another 692 paragraphs in Part I to go through after we have agreed PI 246. Wittgenstein is un-bolded, the interlocuter is bolded. Regarding "It ...
September 03, 2023 at 11:56
As Feynman said in Names Don't Constitute Knowledge, knowing the name of something is useful if you want to talk about it with someone else, but it do...
September 02, 2023 at 12:24