There are plenty of good reasons, supported by science, to believe indirect realism over direct realism, as I discussed at length here. — Michael

And the science of the brain and its processes is important to understand, but philosophy constructed a particular framework we should be aware of, because it did so for its own purposes. As I mentioned before, philosophy does not like the fact that we are sometimes mistaken. Instead of rectifying our errors with the means and explanations in each case, philosophy problematizes our entire relation to the world as an abstracted case—creating a space between us and the world. As an example, instead of accepting that we just see, however corruptible in particular ways and cases (hallucinating, dreaming, physiological issues, etc), philosophy projects a “reality” that we only see “indirectly” (e.g., that we have to “perceive”, or that we each see differently, or that we only see the “appearance” of, or “sense datum” of, or that create “qualia” for us, etc.), which allows philosophy to control the form of error (as a problem we might solve) or that we see “directly” which is judged by a manufactured standard that philosophy desires, creates, and imposes: a kind of knowledge that is certain, universal, generalized, abstract, etc. Basically, the dichotomy is false and manufactured and the world in all its varied forms and criteria gets abstractly judged as a single form of “reality”.

But I don't understand how we got to this point. You were saying something about us wanting to help each other if we're in pain, and somehow conclude from this that indirect realism is false? Your reasoning is confusing. — Michael

Examining the ordinary criteria and mechanics of pain, of how we judge and respond to another’s pain (acknowledging or denying it), shows philosophy’s desire to instead “know”** another’s pain (partly that it wants to avoid the claim another’s pain makes on us). Philosophy would rather turn it into an intellectual problem that is either equated or not (**subject to knowledge and certainty). This, like the example of “reality”, shows philosophy’s inclination to skip over our human lives and split our relation to the world entirely as an abstract problem.

There are plenty of good reasons, supported by science, to believe indirect realism over direct realism, as I discussed at length here. — Michael

That’s pretty straightforward so maybe we discuss it in that thread.

Are you saying that they're a fiction? — Michael

Well, in the way philosophy pictures them yes. I moved the discussion here because the article above provides some history of the parallel picture that neuroscience labors under. Philosophy has never liked being wrong so the fact that we can be (and that we are responsible for that) leads it to create the conclusion that we must not have direct access to the world (or we are ensured it), that we only see the “appearance” of something, or that our individual perspective is somehow partial or lacking or individual (my “sensation” or “perception”). That way we can have a problem to solve or a kind of knowledge or rationality to find so we will know what’s right, how to settle disputes with others, and we won’t be deceived or mistaken or judged. This is more of a story than an argument, but if there is a particularly egregious dismissal we could take that as a case study.

So because we only care about aspirin when we have a headache then it follows that first person private sensations don't exist, or that if they do exist then they are the same for all people? — Michael

Yes, but it’s not an argument, it’s a shift in perspective. Philosophy wants something with certainty, universality, uniqueness, etc. apart from our fallible, limited human interactions, which the world doesn’t provide, so it creates objects and frameworks that only rely on knowledge and intellectual solutions. At times we do have personal experiences (like witnessing a train crash), which we can keep (private as hidden) to ourselves (until expressed), but our experience and feelings are not always unique. I’m stressed about money like you are. I don’t (always) have an individual experience in going to the store. The ideas of consciousness, sensation, appearance, reality, are all manufactured by philosophy, partly to feel like we are necessarily special, as I discussed above.

Kant had the categorical imperative indeed, but that was faulty from the outset, not because he wanted certainty, but because (in my opinion) it assumes various things and ignores others to get what it wants regarding ethical dilemmas. — schopenhauer1

I don’t mean to harp on about “certainty” as if that is the only desire philosophy has. It’s just Witt’s example, which Cavell characterizes as the removal of the human (voice). Philosophy also desires generalization, abstraction, universality, predetermination, etc. The means of imposing these criteria, is, as you say, that it “assumes various things and ignores others to get what it wants”.

When we're discussing something like the hard problem of consciousness and the ontology of sensations then it very much matters to us if our pains are the same or not. — Michael

Witt would be showing how this “problem” and ontology are manufactured by our human desires. I’m not sure this thread is the place to discuss that controversial a subject. I did address it in this Hard Problem post.

Descartes is taking a pretty common sense position that I cannot LITERALLY know what the other person is thinking inside, but I can judge them to be feeling similar to me. So I don't see the big deal about certainty you (Witt?) is making there. — schopenhauer1

As I mentioned to @Michael above yes, the other is ultimately hidden from us (despite our being able to guess at thoughts or anticipating, etc), but the framework Descartes is using treats them as inhuman, as it were, unless we can “judge” they are people, as if it is a matter of proof rather than taking them to be human, accepting them, acting towards them as if they were.

The way I see those, is they are all different and often self-referential and contained frameworks that don't all have to do with exactly "certainty" in the same way say, that a scientific experiment or a math problem is "certain". — schopenhauer1

They share the desire and thus create and impose a criteria or standard that is like the idea they have of science or math. Thus why Plato discusses math first in the Theatetus, and Descartes wants to be beyond doubt, and Kant requires the imperative.

What they have in common is a construction or positive idea about reality. — schopenhauer1

One point I think Witt is making is that taking our world as, say, mitigated by “appearance” or “belief” is to exactly take a negative view of our ordinary means of seeing and communicating and judging. As if we are never connected to the world, instead of only sometimes not knowing our way about. They in a sense kill the world to save it in the vision they want: the thing-in-itself (which we can’t know directly), or the forms (which we only remember), or God’s knowledge, or only true/false propositions.

I'm not sure what this is saying either. Indeed it is good to be skeptical and try to figure out the world or not I suppose. — schopenhauer1

I’m referring to the radical skepticism that is generalized and creates a gap between us and the world that philosophy turns into an intellectual problem. Not just questioning the status quo.

Or it's because the sensation I have when I stab myself in the arm is unlike the sensation you have when you stab yourself in the arm, and so our pains are not the same and we don't know one another's pain. — Michael

Maybe the way to put this is that equating our pains is not how pain is important to us. If this situation actually did happen, what would matter to us about comparing pains would be attending to one or other of us. Philosophy abstracts this discussion to a place of equating pains, and then creates “sensation” as a kind of object, rather than just me expressing how I feel (which is too vague), so that knowledge might stand in the place of our having to react to someone in pain. What it wants is to be sure of the other person (and what to do), and not have to make the leap of faith of treating them as a person in pain.

Right, but my contention is that this thing he is setting up of "perfect knowledge" and "making due" is a false narrative, and thus a strawman that doesn't need addressing really. — schopenhauer1

That it is a “false” narrative does not explain why Plato, Descartes, Kant, Positivism, etc. got sucked into it (belief or opinion vs knowledge; appearance vs reality; the thing-in-itself; only either true or false). That is what Witt is investigating.

So I am just focusing on this idea of not knowing what someone is really thinking internally, this doesn't seem like something that needs deconstruction because it never was constructed. It's a straw man. — schopenhauer1

However, now I am amazed at how my mind is [weak and] prone to error… I also say I see the people themselves, just as I do with the wax. But what am I really seeing other than hats and coats, which could be concealing automatons underneath? However, I judge that they are people. And thus what I thought I was seeing with my eyes I understand only with my faculty of judgment, which is in my mind. — Descartes, 2nd Meditation

This is a tough one, because it’s easy to dismiss Descartes as delusional or paranoid. The particular instance is not as important as the fabrications that create it, which is not the automaton, but turning our human limitations into a problem, here, only seeing “appearance” because we want to have the certainty of “reality”, when the desire is in reaction to the fear that, in fact, sometimes we don’t know whether someone is lying; that their judgments, their decisions, etc. can exist but be unexpressed; that we may be wrong about them, to trust them, to give our love to them.

why should I care… ? — schopenhauer1

Finding yourself in the grip of skepticism is also tricky (even accepting its truth) because we don’t see that: imagining we live without it (as part of the human condition) or have solved it, is to still be in its snare.

That we say it isn't that it's true. — Michael

Right, but this might be because one is feigning agreement because they are pitying the other, or being stoic, and maybe not some way for our pain to be “truly” the same, which philosophy perhaps simple creates in order to impose the requirement we wanted all along.

And this is part of the problem of Wittgenstein. It denies the reality of reference. Many words refer to things, and the word like pain refers to a sensation. — Michael

He is not denying that we talk about how our pain feels, and, when we do, that there is not a feeling which we are describing. It’s just the framework of a certain correspondence between words and the world (as always objects) needs to be taken apart to show it is made from our own philosophical desires.

point out things as if they are novel when they are pretty readily held by the majority. In this case, the idea that we can never have perfect "certainty" of what others are feeling, so must rely on outward observations and public displays, and then take action from there and believe them. None of this is an uncommon view. — schopenhauer1

But this is not a matter of competing “views”, or explanations, or that we want to know the same thing but we just have to get at it a different way. And he is not contrasting the philosopher to the “majority” as if we were just doing anthropology, a census of opinion. In fact, even our culture pictures some things exactly based on the framework of philosophy (think “objective/subjective”), and even some here imagine “ordinary” is just what they first think of.

He is drawing out (making explicit) the type of criteria in individual cases to contrast them with the philosophical fixation with knowledge as certainty, or that we have to settle for some lesser version in contrast… because we “never have perfect” knowledge.

The point is not the answer, nor to say philosophy is stupid or useless, but to allow for self-reflection, to see our projection into our thinking. The obviousness of our ordinary criteria, once we see them, is uncanny (Cavell’s term) for me exactly because I have been trained so long to think in the frameworks of philosophy.

We are getting rather far afield from Witt’s approachability, however,

Which philosopher(s)?… No one presumably thinks that we actually can feel the same exact thoughts… a much more interesting philosophical point is that of "p-zombies", a thought experiment proposed by David Chalmers. But that is more interesting because it imagines that people don't have any inner sensation. — schopenhauer1

The idea of the automaton (Descartes’ originally I believe) is the same thing (identity) except inverse and to the absurd: the panic that we can’t know (with certainty) what is in the other’s mind, which is the possibility there is nothing; the doubt of the other as created by the desire for certainty (not just, “I can’t read them”).

…the point of it is to prove the weirdness of subjectivity and why it exists at all — schopenhauer1

The desire for certainty also creates the fantasy that I—my “subjectivity” or “consciousness”—am unknowable to others. The need to be special, that I am always inexpressible and innately unique, creates the picture of “internal states”.

…you take it on habit and as a matter of course that people feel similarly when they are in pain or other sensations. — schopenhauer1

I see that before I was falling into the trap of saying “same” and “a matter of identity” which was confusing (thus why Witt says “In so far as it makes sense” (#253), because we would only equate our pain (even in similarity) for specific circumstances, like commiseration**.

We express our pain to call attention to it (the same as a cry of pain #244). I identify it so a doctor can treat it. I identify myself with it perhaps to gain sympathy. I differentiate it because it needs attention compared to yours. “I have a hangover, and mine is bigger and so I need the last four Ibuprofen.” And, even under the ordinary criteria of pain, I can deny that you, or anyone, feels my pain. And it is possible this is not just a desire to be unknown (say I’m the man at the start of Alien, “but it feels weird in my stomach. No, I don’t have an ‘upset tummy’ Ripley!”)

The fact that we use the same word "pain" to refer to your sensations and to my sensations isn't that your sensations are the same as my sensations. — Michael

Again, sorry for the confusion, but saying our pain is the “same” is not the business of equating (or comparing); this is not an agreement on the meaning of the word pain, nor is it really an “agreement” or as @schopenhauer1 puts it “tak[ing] it on habit and as a matter of course”—and thus the importance that we look at specific cases**. We may compare and equate certain occurrences and facets when we talk about the pain of a breakup. Here we say our pain is the same, that we know the other’s pain, as a matter of connection and to identify with the other person—as commiseration. A more philosophical way to say this is that what matters to us about pain, its criteria for identity and its importance to us, is that a person has it, not the sensation itself, though that may play a part, as in location, intensity, etc. This is the “criterion of identity” that we have to be reminded of in #253.

Again, Witt’s point is not to be right about our ordinary criteria and mechanics of pain, but to draw them out to see why we looked at it the way we did in doing “philosophy”, and how that refocuses our philosophical concerns, improves our thinking. The skeptic is not wrong or confused. It is true that we may be wrong about the other, and that I might have something all my own to express, but without the pictures created by the desire for certainty, we may see the need for our relation to others (across our doubt) and our obligation of continued intelligibility for ourselves.

Is there a difference between knowing someone's pain and knowing that someone is in pain? — Michael

Excellent observation. What Witt would do is create a situation and give examples of what we’d say. “I’m in pain” “Me too” “But I have a headache.” “Me too!” “Mine’s a shooting zing behind my ear” “Right! Boy, I know your pain.” Thus why he will conclude that, as a matter of identity, to the extent we agree, we have the same pain (PI # 235).

But when I say “I know that they are in pain” I am acknowledging that the other is in pain. One instance would be someone writhing in pain and I am doing nothing. You say “They’re in pain.” To which I might say “Yes, I know. I like to see my enemies suffer.” This is not the only sense of know than that of certainty, and it is a rare occurrence, but it is knowledge of another person (as @Luke correctly clarifies).

But, as I noted, this contradicts Wittgenstein’s comments. — Luke

P. 246 does not force this realization, but it is an occurrence of the two senses colliding. He is showing that the philosopher would like to “know” another’s pain, as in be certain (identical), and that in regular use, we “know” another’s pain, as in acknowledging (as better addressed on p. 223).

So what I am not a fan of, is when something that is pretty common understanding of things is presented as if it’s profoundly innovative wisdom. — schopenhauer1

Well, if this is meant to say that our regular use is not profound, I agree, as it is meant to be obvious. The wisdom we gain is in the contrast to the philosophical criteria that we now see that we are manufacturing and imposing in approaching the matter in abstraction. The philosopher imagines “knowing” another’s mind as being (requiring) an identical equation, thus the impression you could never know my pain, have the same pain, and why the philosopher comes up with a carrier, an object, for this imagined uniqueness, as a pain “sensation”, pain “perception”.

I don't understand what you mean by "our history of human lives" in the context of the distinction made by Wittgenstein. — Paine

When I said: “Looking at what we would say when doing… for example: (following) rules, meaning (what we say), understanding (a series), seeing (an aspect), knowing (as being certain), etc., reveals the criteria (standards) of a practice (its grammar), because what we say expresses us. Our expressions show how and why we are interested in our practices. And these criteria are not individual (psychological, or “self”) interests (our feelings, being persuaded), but all our history of human lives of distinguishing and identifying and judging, i.e., what is essential to us about a practice, the various reasons that count with/to it.” (Emphasis added)

What I meant by “the history of our human lives” is that the way we judge a practice is based on our interest as a society in our practices, such as excuses, or apologies, or vengeance. What is a mistake and what is an accident is judged by criteria that have been developed and distinguished (or forgotten by our culture) as part of why we care about blame and responsibility (what matters to us about them) over the history of human life. This gives our actions and the response to them a shared context of judgment so that they are not individual or personal (though of course we can fly in the face of tradition). Most will argue that human interests should not be taken into account and will talk of “subjective” or individual (whimsical, relative, “self-interested”) or feelings or “psychological”, which I take as something like not conscious or not ours, ourself. Part of what I see Witt doing is making explicit our unexamined shared criteria, which is the same thing Plato’s interlocutors do.

philosophers are very likely to bristle at […] the idea of speaking for the person you're having a discussion with; — Srap Tasmaner

I never liked how Socrates got people to accept premises but then forced a conclusion on them. Witt allowed me to finally realize that he had rigged the question to only accept one answer. But Wittgenstein follows the same method of speaking for all of us (including the interlocutor). He comes up with examples of what we say when we talk about, say: belief when it is raining, and then proposes (on behalf of everyone) that it is in the sense of a hypothesis (that this is how it works). Now it is up to us to see its mechanics and accept that, but he certainly doesn’t make it seem like an option is to deny it, to add varied mechanics based on the situation, etc. I would say this is not a case of lack of claiming greater authority (as everyone has the same) and lack of possibility (we can all explicate this grammar), and more a case of being impolite—a poor philosophical bedside manner.

I agree with @Shawn that it is better to start with the Blue and Brown books, as, I imagine because he is in person with those whom he must bring along to have the validity he desires (the uncontroversial acceptance of us all), he has more of a speculative openness then the flat statement-like seeming conclusions his proposals have come to be once they reach the PI. As if he can skip the “As we all would agree” nature of his conjectures, and he states them as if they have already been worked through and wouldn’t possibly be readily accepted; thus his “arrogance”.

Austin suffers from the same affliction, but he is even more ruthless as he directly addresses a real person and uses them as a punching bag in showing the unanticipated implications and missteps of imposing a requirement before first looking at a practice, but he is so good at completely and reasonably drawing out our ordinary criteria that there is almost a begrudging forgiveness in the respect of acceding to him.

But I think @Srap Tasmaner is correct in that it feels invasive to be told the motivation you have in saying something, as if our reasons were not our own. But a lot of the times here people say things as if the reasoning is self-evident, so I find myself putting words in their mouth to try to politely move the conversation along (rather than saying I simply don’t understand). I attempt to be generous, as Socrates admonishes us in the Theatetus, to imagine the strongest argument they could be making, and also to phrase it that “I take you to mean” to show that it is provisional, but I am not trying to tell someone the reasons they have for saying something, but trying to show them the implications and fallout of saying those words here and now. Part of what Witt is pointing out is that our expressions always have these connotations, except when they are abstracted from any context and forced to adhere to manufactured criteria.

If there is a sense of "know" that means "acknowledging, recognizing", then you are saying that we do know another's pain (at least, sometimes). I agree, but this is contrary to your earlier statements that we do not know another's pain. — Luke

Sorry, I didn’t make it clear in that post that “know” has more than one sense. The point I was getting at is that we do not “know” pain in the way the philosopher that Witt is critiquing wants, with certainty, identity, etc.

There are two different senses of “know” here at p. (246), one being: with certainty, the other being knowing as acknowledging, recognizing. The part of the sentence you are quoting is the second kind. “I’m in pain.” “I know” or “He’s in pain!” “I know, but he’s so dramatic, he’ll be fine.” There is an assumption in thinking we understand how “to know” works; that it is just the same for pain as it is for other things, indeed, that it works the same in all instances.

This seems obvious, unless someone wishes to claim that when Wittgenstein criticizes philosophy he is at the same time criticizing himself? — Leontiskos

Me, I do. In a sense he is recognizing that everyone (and not just philosophers) wishes to side-step our part in our lives and our lives together. All philosophers including him (and not just because of who he was in the Tract) are tempted to do things like simplify things, create dichotomies, not examine premises, and, in this case, want to have knowledge (truth) take the place of our ongoing responsibility to answer for our speech and actions.

When someone engages in the psychoanalysis of philosophy they are surely not in a self-consciously philosophical frame. — Leontiskos

Philosophy has always been about making explicit, or reflecting on, what is normally not considered or examined (the “unconscious” in a sense). Witt couldn’t be more of an analytical philosopher in that regard because he is looking at what we normally say and drawing out the criteria that are contained in those expressions. He only sees that logic and interest are tied together. But Cicero argued that a good speaker had to be a good man. Plato just didn’t trust individuals to be up to the task.

To examine why philosophy wants X," is to intentionally step outside of philosophy — Leontiskos

Philosophy is in the business of asking why we want something. What benefit is the good? Why is the categorical imperative superior to Humean naturalism? Perhaps this is just icky because it is imagined to involve “feelings” or some such, or does not remove us from what we say.

This would be the difference between the question, "What is it that we are doing as philosophers?" and the question, "What is it that those philosophers are doing?" — Leontiskos

But Witt was one of the “philosophers” he is examining. The history of philosophy is rife with one camp picking apart another and calling into question what philosophy actually is. What do you imagine is being lost here that can’t be without destroying philosophy? I am not claiming Witt is calling for the end of philosophy, nor an abandonment of its issues (in keeping open the threat of skepticism).

(And the reification of "philosophy" does not change this point, nor does asking about the motivation behind philosophy as opposed to asking about the activity of philosophy.) — Leontiskos

Yes, the history of philosophy is one attempt after another of trying to remove the human, though it is easy enough to restate the claim without motivation: that it is a logical error to create a standard before investigating a topic and impose it as a requirement because it will narrow and limit the form of answer you are going to get.

And drawing a limit around knowledge is exactly what Plato and Kant did, except Plato created the metaphorical perfection of the forms, and Kant simply denied that solution while retaining a similar standard. Witt just reaches a new conclusion (claiming knowledge is not our only relation to the world), while showing the reason philosophy wants to reject it (the need for certainty).

Witt is solving a problem for many philosophers, that simply wasn't there to begin with, EXCEPT for certain ones demanding various forms of rigorous world-to-word standards.. And those seem to be squarely aimed at the analytics, if anyone at all. — schopenhauer1

Yes, analytical philosophy is the ground, for sure. But “world-to-word” being only one form (one example) of rigorous, demanded standard, and those “certain ones” including not just correspondence theory, but Plato, Descartes, Kant, the positivists, Hegel, metaphysics, neuroscience, and any other philosophy/field that believes it can solve our human condition through knowledge and explanatory theory. I would argue a large swath of modern philosophy is still either thinking it has or can “solve” skepticism or is working on the premise that it doesn’t matter.

If the critique is only a critique of a particular epoch or school of philosophy, and not a critique of philosophy tout court, then my point is moot. — Leontiskos

I would argue Witt is saving the true nature of philosophy from itself. But yes, he is not denigrating all philosophy, nor even all of the philosopher’s efforts that fall prey to the error he did.

Were you not using the word “know” as it is normally used when you said that we do not know the pain causing another to writhe in front of us (because that’s not how knowledge works)? — Luke

The insight is based on the fact that certain philosophy has a special requirement for knowing (identity), while ordinarily we would just say we know in that we see they are in pain, recognize it (or ignore it). Another’s pain is not known, it is responded to, which might shift our thought on the position we are in with each other, and the role certainty plays in it.

"To examine why philosophy wants X," is to intentionally step outside of philosophy and into psychology (or else anthropology). It is to say, "I am no longer doing the thing that philosophy does." — Leontiskos

Well now the walls are truly up and the gate is closed, and without any explanation of what they are and why. As I pointed out here, this claim doesn’t even mean actual “psychology”, nor is looking at what we might say in a situation really “anthology”, and so it is unclear what the actual critique consists in other than name-calling at this point. What even is “the thing that philosophy does”?

But yes, Witt is revolutionizing philosophy by seeing the human within it—history, interest, our limits, and, ultimately, how and when we make a stand rather than hoping knowledge will solve everything. His first claim being that our desires and interests were already involved in the very act of trying to eradicate them. Plato wanted something specific in only accepting a certain criteria for knowledge, in his fear of the sophists, who he characterizes as only persuading people. After relegating away the world, Kant still sought a standard that would be complete without our involvement. Descartes no longer wanted to be surprised by (the possibility of) being wrong, and so imposed a criteria that sets the standard for what he will accept before he even begins (the same for the author of the Tract). We are falible, limited, but, instead of aiming to be reasonable, maybe reconciliable, we turn our human condition with the world into an intellectual problem.

Wittgenstein says otherwise [than (my claim -Antony): that another’s pain is not an object of knowledge]. At PI 246, he says that: “other people very often know if I’m in pain.” — Luke

I walked into that. But at the start of the sentence he says “If we are using the word ‘to know’ as it is normally used…” (emphasis added) which is to say “not with… certainty” (as the interlocutor wants for the standard for knowledge) but as: say, for example, in its role as recognition, like “I know they are in pain because I saw their pain on their face” or when we can confirm without signs, as “I know they are in pain because I learned their best friend died and they are hiding it to be strong for the kids”. These other versions (“uses”) have different standards and means of determining when they can be said than the (philosophical) sense of knowledge as identical or constant or unmistakable (certainty), which would make our inner lives indistinguishable.

That is a predominantly psychological observation. — Paine

The critique of “psychological”, as I understand it, is not to say: affected by the unconscious (neurosis or insecurity, etc.), but on par with “emotive” or “subjective” or otherwise irrational. Part of what Witt is doing is showing that we are not divorced from our rationality; that even “objectivity” is a product of our (“subjective”) desire.

Looking at what we would say when doing… for example: (following) rules, meaning (what we say), understanding (a series), seeing (an aspect), knowing (as being certain), etc., reveals the criteria (standards) of a practice (its grammar), because what we say expresses us. Our expressions show how and why we are interested in our practices. And these criteria are not individual (psychological, or “self”) interests (or feelings, being persuaded), but all our history of human lives of distinguishing and identifying and judging, i.e., what is essential to us about a practice, the various reasons that count with/to it.

Where does the philosophy start? — Paine

For one thing, Cavell follows Witt at the end to be drawing a different kind of limit for knowledge (than say Kant’s). As with others’ souls (p. 178) or the pain causing another to writhe in front of us (p. 235), we do not know it, because that is not how knowledge works. We respond to them (or ignore them). That is how humanity and pain are treated, the way in which they matter to us, their grammar. A philosophical implication of this is that we are responsible for our actions and words, rather than the only alternatives being knowledge and certainty or doubt and interpretation. The alternative to privacy is not publicness but personally answering for what we say. Where our knowledge (beforehand) ends, we carry (on) the weight of our acts.

Thank you Manuel. Now let me explain how you’ve framed that incorrectly.

@Leontiskos @schopenhauer1 @Count Timothy von Icarus @Sam26 @Janus @Srap Tasmaner @Paine

I also have a list of irks with how Witt is taken/used/interpreted.

I have claimed the primary focus in the PI is to examine why philosophy wants certainty (“purity”), and, even more, to learn something about ourselves in the process. Traditionally, this is the issue of skepticism (moral relativism, doubt, justified knowledge, “belief”, etc.) which I would say is a—if not the—founding issue of philosophy (the generation of, or affecting, all others: knowledge, metaphysics, “mind”, the problem of other minds, morality, etc.) With the PI, we are at a deeply analytic, pre-constructive level, mostly tearing down and looking beneath what philosophers have said, but in order to learn why we end up saying it, and what we can learn from that (seemingly, but greater than, “a lesson in how to not do philosophy” as @Leontiskos has said)

The most popular ways to miss the import here (or take certain things too fervently—“totalizing” Id.) are to take Witt as either solving skepticism or dismissing it as an issue, such as: people who talk about “use” in language games or “forms of life” as if they were foundational; that philosophical issues are just confusions (say, of language); that this is just a therapy to cure us; that we are only discussing linguistics (“turning” from the actual world and our larger issues); that he is policing what can or cannot be said or what does or does not make sense.

A lot of this is caused by people not getting past looking at PI as simply a set of statements of facts/opinions/arguments about language, meaning, rules, etc. rather than these topics being just case studies (examples) in the service of a new method of looking at “language”, but in its sense of: our expressions, as in, the things people say in each case (and not a theory of meaning or explanation of how language works).

This distinction is clearest in the almost uniformly misinterpreted PI #109. “Philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of language.” It is not that language is the “means” of our bewitchment, so we just need to get clear about language in order not to be bewitched. Language is the means of “battling”; looking at our expressions is the method by which we battle.

What this amounts to is either trivializing or reifying Witt, but in each case, simply grasping at the surface of the text rather than engaging with the process, to identify with the author’s, and interlocutor’s, confusions and desires, as he works through why we end up unsatisfied with philosophy as it stands (classically) and—what I take to be the ultimate point—what that says about the human condition.

Wittgenstein is deeply time-bound in a way that Plato is not. In my estimation no one will read Wittgenstein 50 years hence. Part of it is that Plato's method is better at pulling people in and appealing to a broad audience, but that is part of his magic. — Leontiskos

I agree that Plato’s writing is better and more engaging. Witt is abrasive and speaking only really to hardcore analytic philosophers. My hope is that philosophy learns what it should from Witt and can move forward, though I don’t see that happening for the most part currently, probably because the desire he finds, for certain generalized answers, has always (timelessly) been unavoidably seductive to philosophy (e.g., Plato’s abstraction).

Do you realize why both the Tractatus and the PI come off as infinitely arrogant? — schopenhauer1

Well you hit the nail on the head with this. Unapologetically arrogant. And, on the face of it, inexplicably so. It comes off as personality, but there is something to be said. In the Tract he had a desire and an imposed standard for every statement. He would only say what he could be sure of, certain about (a la Descartes)—so it has a dictatorial ring. What he learns through the PI is that this singular requirement (before starting; an imposed pre-requisite) of what he would allow himself to state, narrowed his topics and what he would see/could say. In the PI, instead of imposing a requirement, he is looking first (investigating) for the requirements (criteria) that already exist, each different, for each individual example (their grammar/transcendental conditions, e.g., of: following a rule, seeing, playing a game, guessing at thoughts, continuing a series…).

As I’ve said, in first starting with the workings of a practice, he is making claims about them (premises of a sort) that everyone is in a position to judge, and so he, in a sense, speaks for all of us (in Kant’s universal aesthetic voice from the 3rd critique of judgment), as if to say, before each, ‘We would all accept that…’, e.g., “When someone whom I am afraid of orders me to continue the series, I act quickly, with perfect certainty, and the lack of reasons does not trouble me.” (PI # 212) If they are controversial, they are not taken as evidence (PI #128). If you look past the pompous, didactic tone, you can see that you would be able to disagree in each case if you wanted, provide your own scenarios, etc.

They don't show evidence of philosophical insight — Leontiskos

And here Leontiskos is absolutely right. The goal at this point is acknowledgement. Thus why these claims are sometimes called obvious. The insight is the comparison between these claims and the traditional claims made by philosophy. Not that the ordinary grammar is “right”, or solves (or dismisses)
the philosopher’s problems, but the contrast brings to light traditional philosophy’s hidden desires (for “purity”).

Wittgenstein possesses no authority to try to change us — Leontiskos

Again, yes. Despite the look of it, his grammatical claims (premises) do not have any authority except that which you would grant them (accept in them). And these claims in and of themselves change nothing (PI #124).

Wittgenstein is nothing like Socrates. — Leontiskos

Yes, Socrates’ requirements put him in the category of the author of the Tractatus, but the method of the PI is basically the same; thus all the questions by Wittgenstein, the interlocutor, the examination of what anyone might say that we bump into on the street, etc. And Socrates does also ultimately want us to better ourselves through the process of philosophy (it’s not all about true knowledge).

@Sam26 @Leontiskos @Wayfarer @Tom Storm @Joshs

However, if I provide numerous details for a premise I do not make, that is not so much a bad argument, as a bad faith argument. For the adherent to demand then, that you really don't"know" what he's doing, it's "radically different" and "playing on a different turf", then we are already not playing the game. — schopenhauer1

emphasis added

His conclusion would be for you to see what is being pointed out, which in this case involves a shift in perspective, seeing something we may be blind to, avoiding. The difference in outcome though does not excuse Witt from being responsible for evidence (what we imply when we say what, when), in claiming premises that must be acknowledged (the mechanics of an activity), and coming to conclusions (as I discussed above, even about the human condition).

To move us forward, I think the actual problem here is not his lack of “saying something” but more his style of saying it, which, I grant you, comes off as not “saying” anything: being cryptic, cagey, etc. And, worse, that some nevertheless take the text as self-evident anyway, and then cannot provide, as you point out, anything else but the (impotent) words themselves (as if they were patently clear), rather than further elucidation. I would go so far as to grant that anyone is copping-out who refuses to answer (continue) any call for further intelligibility, though, importantly, not only in a required form, even an “answer”** (as if philosophy were only about problems to be solved).

I can only say that he is writing to a particular audience (certain philosophers), as embodied by the Tractatus’ (his previous) rigid, imposed requirement for judging whether we are saying anything. Given this fixated intransigence, he is now (in the PI) resorting to any means necessary to break that death-grip hold for knowledge (certainty) to take our place (the “picture that holds us captive” PI, #115). Thus the questions without answers, the foil of the interlocutor, the riddles, the… indirectness. He is doing this because he feels that philosophy needs to be radically revolutionized, and so his style, as Cavell puts it, “wishes to prevent understanding which is unaccompanied by inner change”, i.e., change from the position we are in (philosophy has been in), our “attitude” (see above), how we judge (our “method”).

…he's playing with different rules and it is somehow UP TO US, to understand his rules. Why?” — schopenhauer1

Again, I would argue he is not asking for, nor does he avoid, “the rules” (evidence, premise, conclusion), but, yes, it is up to us, as it is with any philosopher, to work to get through our assumptions, first impressions, etc., in order to understand the other from “within”, as, in other cases: the place of “forms” to the Good; what “God” is to Descartes; what imperative, categorical, and on-and-on are for Kant. These are not “rules” but grounds for understanding, agreement, shared vision and criteria for judgment. The import of philosophical expressions are much, much less self-evident than I think most take them to be, and, yes, I absolutely think it is up to US to do that work (you would grant that we are not asking to be spoon-fed); more, I would argue this intellectual empathy is the point of philosophy: to better ourselves in seeing the world as a larger place.

Wittgenstein's very point in PI is that we must understand the language of the game in order to understand how to use language. — schopenhauer1

I see here how you maybe take him to be dictating the terms of argument (“…why can't I make the rules, and you go to me?”). I would reframe your paraphrase that he is looking at the language of an activity (“game”), not for us to be allowed to “use language” (or to bar grounds for disagreement) but to understand an activities’ specific rationale. The point being not to normatively police our activities (though some use him this way) but to take the que first from our history (not our desires for knowledge). Thus why Wittgenstein is not outside the tradition as much as cutting across it in a new but rational way.

Which makes this critique so fascinating because the main realization of his investigation is that imposing a standard (the requirement for “crystalline purity”, PI #27), before looking at what matters to a particular activity, limits our ability to see the different yet rational (“truth value”) ways in which the world works—to our issue, including philosophical discourse.

**And, anyway, isn’t a claim to what is or is not a “legitimate form of discourse” to (ironically) guard the gate?

how are we to interpret [“Wittgenstein’s language” (terms)] without recourse to the categories of intention and knowing subjects? — Leontiskos

The same way we interpret other philosophical terms: context, distinction, implication, comparison to other senses of the words, and all our other time-tested practices.

Edit: I think the subject is important in the sense that I am the person that can be held responsible for explaining further (or may try to duck out).

I do think we are circling the gist of the grievance, but you frame it as: “Wittgenstein is either saying something or else he is not.” First, wanting him to just “say something” misses the reason that about half of PI is questions; as I said, questions for you to work out, to change you. But your dichotomy also overlooks the crucial part of who he might be saying it to. Do you mean to say that he is either saying something to you, or he is not saying anything? (Nietzsche felt his audience hadn’t been born yet.) But I do hear the desire to want Witt to, in a sense: just stand still already so one can punch him in the face. Why can’t Witt just take a stand?

Witt isn’t being coy when he confronts us with a riddle like “My attitude towards him is an attitude towards a soul. I am not of the opinion that he has a soul.” P. 178 (emphasis in the original). He is definitely making a claim about the way my position to others works (confronting the classical problem of other minds, for @Shawn and @kindred and @schopenhauer1 to see he actually is addressing history). But he is also forcing you through the wringer because (for some) it must be like an epiphany to see that although we, obviously, can not know (be certain) about another, we do not, because of that fact, fall back onto opinion, or other well-worn lessor ideas of knowledge, like: belief, or emotion, or “subjectivity”, or, with respect @Joshs, theoretical interpersonal gymnastics (perhaps including “knowing subjects” with “intentions”). We cannot know other minds because our relation to others is not knowledge, but how we treat them, our “attitude” in relation to them, in its sense of: position “towards”. I treat you as if you have a soul. His claim is that is how our relation to others works; that is the categorical transcendental mechanics of it.

Now that’s saying more than something; it’s a revolution in terms, perspective, and frameworks, going back to Plato. And of course he could be wrong. But the disagreement is between two (or more) totally different ways of picturing philosophy and the human condition. Someone just “saying” (stating, telling) something of that nature is going to sound incomprehensible to the other. So, if you want to fight from your own turf, you will feel like he isn’t playing fair. But with any philosopher (worth their salt), if you don’t try to understand them on their terms, your “disagreement” will just be a dismissal without hitting the actual target (thus perhaps the feeling of frustration).

can Witt be wrong, even just in principle? Because the way you describe it, he can’t be wrong, because he’s not making claims.. — schopenhauer1

I’m not sure if this is meant to mean my description (then, where) but I would not say he is not making claims, just claims about the implications of what we say in a situation, such as that with: “I believe it is raining”, that it is in the sense of a hypothesis. Now of course he could be wrong. As Austin could be wrong about the functioning of an excuse in connection with an action. But, given the acceptance of those claims, his conclusions (more, the import he draws from the example) are meant to have you realize something, see something in a new way, so claiming it is “wrong” might be missing the point. You might already admit it without seeing any importance, not be moved to change your attitude (perspective), deny that you (must) see it that way (despite the evidence, and even without providing any countering evidence), but “wrong” would imply he’s claiming he is “right”, when what he is doing is, “Hey, did you notice this?”

I guess the question needing answered here is: where does he say something that is wrong? (Perhaps you are right.)

many of the ‘analyticals’ are really pretty rigid in their concentration on ‘language games’ and the like and they often use the famous last words of the Tractatus to stifle discussion of what I consider significant philosophical questions. — Wayfarer

This is a shame. I do not find as important what he is telling us (nor what he might be “showing” us), but more the example he sets during his investigation. People tend to “use” Wittgenstein as if he solved skeptical doubt, or otherwise closed the issue, and thus as a normative tool to dictate behavior, which I think is the most egregious of what @schopenhauer1 is getting at.

Do you believe that Wittgenstein can only be refuted by better readings of Wittgenstein or could Wittgenstein just be wrong and refuted thus? — schopenhauer1

But if you’re not doing a thorough reading of a philosopher (pointing to textual evidence, taking into account their terms, etc.), how can you be sure you are refuting “them” and not just how you superficially take them (isolated, on your terms)? If you misinterpret the premise, what point is saying the conclusion is ”wrong”?

How can it be that an approach which claims to privilege the common use of language does not use language in a common way? — Leontiskos

This is off-topic, but yours is a common and understandable question. Witt isn’t “privileging” “common usage”, he is looking at examples of a time and a place when we say something, to see what would be the implied means of deciding about it, like connotations; in order to find the ordinary standards (and situations) for judging that sort of thing (rather than just T/F or justified, etc.). He himself has a bunch of “terms”, like: concept, criteria, grammar, etc.

@Wayfarer @Joshs
One more thing I think is happening sometimes is people take everything Witt writes as if it was a statement, like a claim to knowledge or an argument for the purpose of having a conclusion admitted. But I hear them like conjecture, or even more, like characterizations of remarks, that only lead to asking: “why would we say that?” Or: “look at it in this way”. But the only way to treat a picture like a conclusion is to accept it whole hog, without justification and without means of refuting it, when the picture is just meant to say: “do you see what I see in this (by/for yourself)?”

We do, however, find in the Tractatus a comment about two ways of seeing a cube. (5.5423) — Fooloso4

Interestingly, perhaps, though for another time, as we do in the PI (#139).

Getting someone to see something differently is harder than getting someone to admit something true, because the denial is a shutting out, rather than a disagreement, and apathy is just as sufficient as opposition. But I appreciate the kudos.

[pointless or trivial] is the reciprocal of how their interests are regarded by him. — Wayfarer

Witt can be very dismissive (calling things “nonsense”) and high-handed (unceremoniously judgey), but what he’s interested in is the motivation of the skeptic, not showing them to be wrong or silly, nor merely lost. He takes skepticism seriously, but in seeing its discoveries, not by accepting or refuting its conclusions. Changing someone’s mind, in the sense of an opinion or knowledge—and so a matter of “proof”—is different than turning their head (to look a different way). Goals are not always shared; why isn’t that acceptable?