So we have to deny the yet uncomprehended process in the yet unexplored medium. And now it looks as if we had denied mental processes. And naturally we don’t want to deny them. — ibid.

This is the part that many people find it very difficult to grasp. What's worse, it seems to me that some people who one might expect to have grasped it seem to forget it when it's needed. Hence a long and pointless argument about "illusionism".

The first step is the one that altogether escapes notice. We talk of processes and states, and leave their nature undecided. Sometime perhaps we’ll know more about them - we think. But that’s just what commits us to a particular way of looking at the matter. For we have a certain conception of what it means to learn to know a process better. (The decisive movement in the conjuring trick has been made, and it was the very one that seemed to us quite innocent.) — ibid.

Yes. However, I find that many people are inclined to assume that neurophysiology and cognitive psychology between them will supply the deficit - a computer model of the mind. (The latest developments in science/technology imported wholesale into philosophy.) So the traditional language morphs somewhat, but survives.

If the beginning of PI and the talk of live versus dead signs in the Blue Book puts a certain understanding of learning language in doubt, that has consequences for attempts to form scientific theories about such activities. — Paine

You could say that he was changing the subject - dropping the pursuit of language as a abstract structure in favour of language as an activity (or a collection of them). The idea of a game has a similar ambiguity in it; there is a systematic structure defined by the rules, but the structure is only realized in terms of human activities. But the colour-exclusion argument (which I understand W took a particular interest in) does something else; it seems to show that the proposed structure has a flaw - the building won't stand up.

I read the problem as more about priority than independence from circumstances. W does not care about Aristotle's objections to a separate world of forms. What is being questioned is whether analysis breaking down one set of terms into simpler sets will reveal a more fundamental set of conditions. — Paine

The language is really difficult here. The meanings of "priority" and "indendence" have to be understood in the relevant context. As it happens, I wouldn't want to argue the breaking down one set of terms into simpler sets can never improve our understanding of them. W's point, for me, is that applying that approach to a general understanding of descriptive (true or false) language not only doesn't help, but throws up further problems. Hence the need to change the subject.

In this case, a general assignment of Plato to being the champion of the "ideal" versus whatever is assigned to what that is not. Soulez is not faulting either for that, just putting it into a context of what concerned Wittgenstein. — Paine

I take the point. There's always a tension between arguing about a particular version of some philosophical doctrine and arguing about something that's fundamental and in common between all versions of that doctrine. (If only there was an essence of idealism or scepticism, so that one could nail it down for good and all")
Sometimes, I think that philosophers should be encourage to think in more nuanced terms about philosophical theories. It should not be a matter of refutation or proof - black and white, win or lose - but in terms of a more judicious system of balanced judgements.

In fact, Witt’s method is based on the start of Socrates’ inquiry into what is commonly said in a situation. — Antony Nickles

Yes, Socrates does assume that we all understand what courage or piety is. His refutations wouldn't work if that was not the case. But the aporia at the end of the process seems to show that assumption is wrong, and I think Socrates takes those failures to show that he is wiser than any other Athenian because he knows he doesn't know, and they think they do. In the end, he rejects the common understanding and gives Plato the starting-point for his more technical philosophy. Aristotle, on the other hand, treats the common understand with respect, and accepts it unless he has reason not to.

“Science” is the umbrella term Wittgenstein is using for this desire for logical purity (a math-like order). — Antony Nickles

Yes. My lack of a clear, unified conception of science is based on what has happened since his time. That may be unfair.

“A given sensation” is creating the picture of feelings as objects (specific ones). And we do compare our feelings all the time and do classify them as different or the same. “I have a headache.” “Me too!” “No, but mine is throbbing in my neck” “Me too!” — Antony Nickles

Yes, you are right. So I should represent Wittgenstein not arguing that we cannot compare feelings and sensations, but that we cannot compare them in the way(s) that we can compare public objects.

We’ve seen logical mistakes here exposed by comparison to the evidence of simply what we say when doing a thing. — Antony Nickles

Yes, his examples are materpieces. But it looks as if he is just appealing to ordinary language and I'm reluctant to assume that ordinary language is always in order.

And, in a very real sense, we would not have that knowledge without Socrates’ curiosity, his dissatisfaction with the easy, first impression. — Antony Nickles

Quite so. Curiosity may have killed the cat, but it certainly keeps philosophy alive. Perhaps the good side of scepticism?

The question of elemental structure is clearly directed toward such as Russell and Whitehead but also to language theorists like Chomsky. Looking for a language underneath the one we use requires employing certain kinds of assumptions. We are being asked to consider an alternative approach to what is "primitive", but it is not being presented as a competing analysis. — Paine

I may be misreading this.
The argument (comments on) the idea of elements certainly includes logical atomism but is based on an alternative view - roughly that an atomic view of them is misleading because it tries to think of the elements independently of the overall structure that gives them their meaning. It is very reminiscent of Gestalt theory. The structure which they make up is the context in which they exist as elements. It enables us to define them to. Braver (if I have understood him) calls this "holism". I think that's right.

The scientific method, as we know it, was not a model for Plato. Wittgenstein does not seem interested in Plato's own problems with analysis. There are the many times when the singular essence is sought for and not found. — Paine

Of course, the method of physics was not a model for Plato. But I was referring to his use of mathematics as a paradigm for his metaphysics. (Aristotle treats biology as his model.) But I wouldn't claim that the same is true of every philosopher since then.
I agree that W is not interested in Plato's problems, except insofar as they can be seen as intersecting with his own.

Did he look for a better model of the analysis of meaning? As we know from Baker and Hacker, Wittgenstein would rather attack ‘Plato’s Betrachtungsweise’, including Russell and himself (as expressed in the Tractatus) with Plato, in order to reshape his method of ‘comparison’ with paradigms. To his eyes, Plato’s problem illustrates a misleading model or picture of logical analysis that he wanted to get rid of. This illustration in turn could be addressed to and against Russell’s conception. His contention in §48 is rather constructing a new language game in order to confute logical atomism than, in the spirit of a critical method, trying to discuss Russell’s distinctions one by one. Wittgenstein was as little interested in critical arguments or analytical sorts of discussions with ancient authors as with modern or contemporary ones. — Soulez, How Wittgenstein Refused to Be ‘The Son Of’

Could you explain to me, please, what ‘Plato’s Betrachtungsweise’ is. (Google Translate was foxed as well!)
I agree that for W Plato is just another illustration of the method he wanted to get rid of and that he was not trying to get rid of it by further analysis, and so it is not a mistake to say that he was not offering a competing analysis. He wants to go deeper and so uses very different tactics.

To use language correctly, it makes no difference if your private sensations are the same or different to anyone else's. Even if everyone saw the same object as having a different colour, and this applied to all objects, we would still learn to use the same colour language that we do now. We would still call stop signs "red" and grass "green" and the sky "blue", even though we each saw them as having a different colour, because those are the words each of us learned to associate with our private sensations of those coloured objects when we learned the language. — Luke

This was of putting it seems to allow that we might experience private sensations even if they are irrelevant to our interpersonal communication. But the argument goes deeper than that - or so it seems to me. The point is that there is no way of comparing private sensations in a way that would allow us to classify a given sensation as either they same or different from another. It is not as if we could learn what label to stick on whatever beetle happens to be in our boxes, since there's no way of identifying the beetle; if there were a box, we could stick the label on that, but the box is only a metaphor.

He is not trying to explain rule-following in the PI, but looking at it to see why we get confused about it in our hunt for purity. As Paine says, these facts are not “competing” (but not for any “elemental structure” either), but simply arrogantly presented as self-evident in service of a greater purpose. — Antony Nickles

I agree that his style can seem arrogant. But, as he says in the preface to PI, he doesn't want to save hi readers the trouble of thinking for themselves - which again can seem arrogant. But the point of the example (language games) is to get us to see things in a different context and so differently. It's not really an exercise in logic at all.

The assertion that there are no rules or norms within a practice seems obviously false. — Luke

In one way, of course it is. But surely the point is to get us to see that common ideas about rules are confused- a rule can't reach out into the future and determine all its applications We have to learn how to apply them, and in that exercise we are learning what is right and what is wrong.

Nothing forces you to play chess but you aren't playing chess (correctly) unless you follow the established rules/customs/practice of playing chess. — Luke

Yes. But there is a penalty for not following the rules as everyone else doesn. If you don't, no-one will want to (or be able to, unless they adopt your rules) play chess with you. What is a game of chess without an opponent? Not a game of chess.

Yes, apologies for jumping ahead (to PI). I was just trying to shed some light on Ludwig V's accusation that Wittgenstein had a "gaping hole" and a "complicated hinterland" with respect to mental objects dropping out of consideration as irrelevant. — Luke

I think I put my point rather badly. I seem to have conflated two different issues.
One is about notations. If W's version of solipsism is really just a different notation, it leaves the solipsist just where they were. My answer is tht the solipsist's notation is not a notation; it can't be used. There is something they are trying to express, but it is better expressed in another way.
The other is about reasons vs causes, which was the focus at that moment. There, I did offer, tentatively a criterion - me giving reasons after the event is not a report of anything that happened before the event, but a rational reconstruction, which becomes mine when I give it. I probably confused the issue by then admitting that such reports are not criteria, but symptoms - we may find them inadequate or implausible on various grounds.

The claim was that walking away from an empty food bowl counts as recognition that the prior belief(that the bowl had food in it) was false. — creativesoul

That's right. I should have been clearer that that sentence was my report of the dog's behaviour. I thought it was obvious that the dog could not have made that report.

We do that with words, which stand in as proxy, for the belief. — creativesoul

Oh, dear, now we are in deep trouble. It is reasonable to describe some words as standing in as proxy for something. But not all. That's a big, even central, issue about language. For example, there is some sense in saying that if my dog's name is Eddy, "Eddy" stands in as proxy for the dog. But I don't think it helps to insist that "1" stands in as proxy for the number 1 or "Pegasus" as proxy for Pegasus. The philosophical issue of nominlaism vs realism as an account of universals (abstractions) is precisely about this.

Of course there is more to any thinking creature than just the recognition/attribution of causality, but it seems to me that that process, regardless of the creature, is more than adequate for being a case of thinking(thought/belief). — creativesoul

Of course. I only wanted to suggest that there are other kinds of belief.
However, Jimi's belief that Janus was displeased with him because he killed the chicken does not distinguish between causation as simply correlation and causation as something more than just correlation. I think Jimi is capable of the first, but not the second - at least, I can't think of non-verbal behaviour that would enable me to distinguish the two. I could be wrong.

His belief that his own behaviour caused Janus' comes replete with the further inference/belief/expectation that if he does not, Janus will not do that either. — creativesoul

H'm. "Replete with" is not altogether clear to me. I notice that you do accept that that Jimi's belief that his own behaviour caused Janus' displeasure is distinct from the belief that if he does not behave in that way, Janus will not be displeased. So it is possible that he might believe the first and not the second. This fits well with the fact that killing the chicken is a sufficient, but not necessary, consequence of Janus' displeasure, getting from one to the other requires an inferential step, which Jimi has failed to make after the first kill, but does (apparently) make after the second.

Two comments on pp.18 - 20

Language games are the forms of language with which a child begins to make use of words. The study of language games is the study of primitive forms of language or primitive languages.

Don't these remarks invite distracting arguments about whether they are factually correct? Do w need to say more than this approach is a useful way of analyzing language and understanding how it works?

Now what makes it difficult for us to take this line of investigation is our craving for generality.This craving for generality is the resultant of a number of tendencies connected with particular philosophical confusions. — p. 17

So we can add the craving for generality to the craving for certainty as examples of the kind of answer that W is looking for. Again, though, this is not a blanket disapproval of generalization as such - the word "craving" clearly says that it is the inappropriate pursuit of generalization that is the problem, not generalization per se.

with the confusion between a mental state, meaning a state of a hypothetical mental mechanism, and a mental state meaning a state of consciousness (toothache, etc.). — p.18

This is quite right and it is, in a sense, due to the craving for generality. But it is a somewhat different form from the Galtonian photograph in the previous paragraph. It depends on adopting what can be said of some cases, as when we know that some mental event occurs in some circumstances and then trying to apply that model universally. As when "we are looking at words as though they all were proper names, and we then confuse the bearer of a name with the meaning of the name." (p. 18)

Philosophers constantly see the method of science before their eyes, and are irresistibly tempted to ask and answer questions in the way science does. This tendency is the real source of metaphysics, and leads the philosopher into complete darkness. — p. 18

Certainly, respect for science is often exaggerated and it may explain some metaphysics. Plato is a particularly clear example. But I think that W may be over-generalizing here.

And after all, there is not one definite class of features which characterize all cases of wishing (at least not as the word is commonly used). If on the other hand you wish to give a definition of wishing, i.e., to draw a sharp boundary, then you are free to draw it as you like; and this boundary will never entirely coincide with the actual usage, as this usage has no sharp boundary. — p.19

We need to show that this is not just a trivial question of notation, where we could simply agree to use our different notations. But I'm not sure how, exactly. W's new philosophy is less decisive, less certain, than the tradition expects. To expect traditional "results" from his investigations is to indulge the cravings for generality and certainty.

If it is the case that creatures capable of having meaningful experiences roamed the earth long before the first language users like us(those employing naming and descriptive practices) did, then any and all acceptable notions/conceptions/uses of "thought", "belief", and/or "meaningful experience" must be able to take this into proper account. Lest they be found sorely lacking. — creativesoul

Yes. That seems to be our starting-point. Out differences lie in what a proper account is.

It may strike some as odd, but I'm not convinced any dogs know their own name in the exact same way that we do. I would deny that altogether. Some know how to act when they hear their name being called in certain familiar scenarios. Some are still learning how to behave when they find themselves in such circumstances. Some live nameless lives. — creativesoul

No, I don't suppose that a dog that knows its own name "in the exact same way" as we do. For example, it can't tell anyone what its name is. But it can do many of the things that we can do when we know our own name. In my opinion, the overlap is sufficient.
You are right, of course, that animals that don't undergo training in human ways, won't have to opportunity to learn their name. We probably ought to think of them as using pronouns only, though our reports might use names for people.

It's all too easy for us to conflate our report(and what it takes) of the mouse's belief with the mouse's belief(and what it takes). There is a very long history and/or philosophical practice of treating these as one in the same. The report is existentially dependent upon language, for it is language use. — creativesoul

Yes, and that's important. For example, when a dog checks out a bowl, because it expects there to be food in it, and is disappointed, I don't suppose it says to itself "Oh, my belief that there was food there is wrong" or anything similar. It simply walks away. But that action counts as a recognition that its belief was false.

Please help. I am trying to understand animal thinking that is done without language, by being aware of my own thinking. besides thinking of math, — Athena

That is probably the biggest difficulty. I have some ideas about how to respond to it, but will have to try to articulate them later.

I strongly think many female humans are unaware of wanting a baby when they start putting on lipstick, and possibly dressing and otherwise using body language, to attract the opposite sex. They might even be really against getting pregnant. — Athena

As I understand it, the paradise bird's behaviour is specific to mating and breeding. Human (and, presumably, bonobo) sexual behaviour is not strongly linked to fertility. I'm told that, at least in the case of bonobos, that sexual behaviour has additional functions in their social lives. That is certainly true in the case of humans.
Dressing up may be a sometimes a preliminary to actual courtship and mating, but it has other functions as well. It would be seriously reductionist not to recognize that. It claims membership of a social group and helps give one self-confidence. In relation to others it can deter aggression and form the basis of alliances. Other animals are not all the same in this respect. One needs to look at their lives holistically to understand what is going on.

My point is we need to stop thinking animals decide to things for a reason and thinking about how unreasonable humans are. :lol: — Athena

Yes, they are and we often equate irrationality with instinctive behaviour. But it's more complicated than that. Our instincts are mediated through the social and practical rules that we have learnt, so our actual behaviour is based on instincts, which are given. It doesn't follow that they are irrational, although they might be non-rational; I mean that they are best thought of a like axioms - starting-points for rationality, which adjusts instinctive impulses to the outside world. In addition, we can explain the instincts as rational, not from the point of view of the animal, but from the point of view of the evolutionary pressure to survive and reproduce.

I am thinking what would motivate me to go out in the old? — Athena

One of the functions of rationality, it seems to me, is to balance competing desires. But there are situations when it doesn't work very well, as in your case. I deeply sympathize with your desire not to hide from life whether in a machine or something else. It is not easy. The best I can offer is baby steps, building up slowly. If going outside to check on a neighbour is too much, try to think of a smaller steps that you can actually do. Going outside for one minute. (If you see her indoors wave at her throught the window.) Ringing your neighbour. (I suggest asking if you can borrow a cup of sugar, rather than just asking if they are OK.) That's how I try to handle those feelings. Mind you, I'm not very good at it.

I feel so much pain for all the children who are punished again and again and don't just magically realize how to avoid punishment. — Athena

No-one seems to recognize that punishment only works if the person being punished takes it the right way. But there's nothing to prevent people getting the wrong end of the stick. Like the fraudster who is caught and punished and responds by getting better at doing the fraud without getting caught.

There is a whole school of dog training which emphasizes reward-based training and frowns on the traditional punishments or even stick-and-carrot training.
It's important to emphasize that there is a form of punishment involved, but it is only withholding reward. In the context of no punishment, that works to deter unwanted behaviour. So if I were training Jimi, I would make a point of being around when Jimi is around chickens and keeping him distracted - ideally by playing his best game with him, or getting him to sit with me by offering intermittent treats. Once he's got that idea, you can gradually phase out the treats.

Creatures are capable of those things. If logical/valid conclusions contradict that, then the presuppositions/unspoken assumptions underwriting that train of thought are somehow mistaken. — creativesoul

Some people might call that begging the question. One needs to explain the criteria for assertng it. But that's not a simple matter of evidence, because thinking of a dog as a sentient, rational creature is not a simple matter of fact but of thinking of a dog as, in many ways, (like) a person.

How does Jimi disconnect Janus's presence from Janus' outward unhappy behaviour? — creativesoul

Sometimes Janus is present and not outwardly unhappy, sometimes he is present and outwardly unhappy.

Jimi most definitely is capable of recognizing and/or attributing causality. That's um... sometimes as far back as we need to go. I'm puzzled at the response though. Are you averse to the idea that dogs are capable of recognizing causality? — creativesoul

That's very helpful. It clarifies what you meant when you said that all belief and thought consists of correlations. Thanks.

So Jimi's experience when he killed the first chicken might be expected to lead him to refrain from killing any more chickens on the principle that the burnt child fears the fire. But Jimi didn't fear the fire. He killed another chicken. (I'm not sure that dogs have a concept of causality as such. Simple correlations might be enough. But that's another issue.) What went wrong?
Maybe he forgot. But that suggests that he did not realize the significance (meaning) of his experience - i.e. he failed to generalize from it, in the way that the burnt child does. Then he was reminded of the first experience when he saw the chicken dead, or perhaps when Janus returned. That's the moment when he generalized from the first experience and realized that he was in trouble.
But it's not enough for him to generalize and understand that (1) whenever he kills a chicken, he will be in trouble. He also needs to understand that (2) if he does not kill chickens, Janus wll not be displeased with him.

There's more to Jimi than just recognizing causal correlations.

Are there any other ways of(processes for) thinking about thought and belief, if not as subject matters in their own right? How else would/could a creature capable of forming, having, and/or holding thought and/or belief also be capable of thinking about its own thoughts? — creativesoul

So when a creature recognizes that some belief it holds is false, it isn't thinking about its own thoughts? When a creature recognizes that some other creature is about to attack it, it isn't thinking about the other creature's thoughts?
I don't know what the question "how" means in this context. But one can think without language.

An “explanation” for him is driven by the desire for the kind of “answer” we want in looking at skepticism as a “problem” as above. — Antony Nickles

That would work. I suppose it is (or is like) the difference between those who think that "the present king of France is bald" is false and those who think it is unanswerable. The former have on their side the law of excluded middle, so we end up denying that the question is a question which seems absurd.

I’m reminded of the role of explanation with respect to the language game. There can be a language which is organized in such a way that an explanation can be an intelligible move within it. But one can only describe the language game itself, because to explain it is to do no more than to rep — Joshs

Yes, that's true. I'm not quite sure what to say.

Charles Lutwidge Dodgson published the best "argument" for this - "What the tortoise said to Achilles" - Mind, Vol. 4, No. 14 (Apr. 1895), 278-280. The form of the argument is a regress. W's discussion of "aspect blindness" is also relevant. The possibility of this "rule refusal" is always present. On the other hand, maybe in practice, cases as simple as that don't come up in real life, and in the complexities we can find the resources to help the tortoise to see the point.

There are two places we might look to understand this. One is how we actually deal with people (e.g. students) who can't "see" a logical argument. In addition, there are - let us call them - informal resources in language, which often get taken up when the standard forms let us down - notably metaphor and analogy.

He is trying to find out why the solipsist is “irresistibly tempted”. — Antony Nickles

I'm sorry, but I had the impression that his explanation of the temptattion is the only answer that I found in the text. I must have missed something.

The solipsist who says "only I feel real pain", "only I really see (or hear)" is not stating an opinion; and that's why he is so sure of what he says. He is irresistibly tempted to use a certain form of expression; but we must yet find why he is. — Paine

I’ve always thought they both start in the same place: asking what we say in a given situation, but Witt listens in a way where Socrates seems to already have something in mind. — Antony Nickles

Yes, he tries hard to get to the heart of the problem. "A feeling that the water is three feet deep." But he doesn't deviate from his view that the solipsist is mistaken.
It's a side-issue, but Socrates' irony seems to me to be a product of Plato''s writing. I don't think we can conclude that the historical Socrates was always being ironic - that would contradict his claim in the Apology that he was testing the oracle.

***turns out it’s the group who believe in the gods but that believe they don’t hold dominion of over us, as if rationality had no sway. They would be (this translation) “ministered to their souls salvation by [*]admonition” for five years then killed, for their “folly”. Laws, Bk 10, p. 909. (In America, it’s four years.) — Antony Nickles

Thanks for that. I must have misremembered or misunderstood.

I want to say here that it can never be our job to reduce anything to anything, or to explain anything. Philosophy really is 'purely descriptive'. — "p.18

I was struck by how confident he is about this. He doesn't seem to take into account that a description can be an explanation and can give us a new view of what we are already looking. Nor does he seem to be thinking of the ideas about interpretation (seeing as) that occur in the Brown Book and the PI. Maybe he only came up with those ideas after writing this.

The question is - and always has been - what does it take in order for some creature or another to be capable of thinking about its own thought and/or belief? — creativesoul

It would help if we could clarify whether we are talking about a creature being capable of thinking about its own thought and belief or about a creature that is capable of thinking about the thought and belief of other creatures. Or both. (The cases are somewhat different.)

(

Her coming to you after you call her name is inadequate evidence for concluding that she knows which dog you want to respond. I'm certain that that sequence of events is ritualistic. Her drawing correlations between her name being called, her own behaviour(s), and yours afterwards more than suffices. — creativesoul

The sequence of events - call, coming, praise - could does have a similarity to a ritual. Those correlations do indeed suffice. After all, the training consists of establishing associations between her name being called, her behaviour and the subsequent reward, and teaches he what her name is, i.e. which dog the name refers to. This training also enables her to know (after a little more training) what to do when she hears "Judy, sit" as opposed to what she should do when she hears "Eddy, sit". (At times, I have had more than one dog.)

I've mentioned on multiple occasions that the conversation was in dire need of a clear criterion and/or standards by which we can judge/assess whether or not a candidate is or is not capable of forming, having, and/or holding some thought or another. — creativesoul

How do we assess whether a proposed criterion or standard is clear and correct? By submitting cases to it. (Examples and counter-examples).

Current convention is chock full of practices that clearly show we have not gotten some rather important bits of this right. That is clearly shown by the inability for many a position to admit that other creatures are capable of forming, having, and/or holding thought and belief. — creativesoul

How do you know that current convention is wrong in not being able to admit that creatures are capable of those things? Many people accept the conclusion that they are not. So before you can demonstrate they are wrong, you must already have a clear and correct criterion.

What is a concept of a tree if not thought and belief about trees(if not correlations drawn between trees and other things)? What is a concept of food if not thought and belief about food(if not correlations drawn between food and other things)? I do not see how the notion helps us to understand our own minds let alone other species'. — creativesoul

It looks to me as if you have a reasonably clear concept of what a concept is. So there's no problem with that idea.

Correlations drawn by Jimi between his killing the chook and Janus's behaviour afterwards is more than enough. The correlation drawn is one of causality. Jimi attributes causality(draws a causal connection between what he did and what Janus did afterwards). Granting Janus' story is true, it took more than one occasion for him to alter his own behaviour accordingly(to stop killing hens).
Jimi's behaviour afterwards, complies with what Janus wants of Jimi's behaviour, but not as a result of Jimi's knowing what the rules are. Rather, it 'complies' because it fits into Janus' wants regarding Jimi's behaviour. Jimi stopped killing chooks because he did not want Janus to do whatever Janus did the first time. Jimi believed his behaviour caused Janus'. — creativesoul

The thing is, there's more than one correlation in play. He might have correlated the dead chicken, or the dead chicken and Janus' presence - or both together- with the displeasure. But neither of those is the correlation that he is supposed to make; he got it wrong. (That's why a causal account is unhelpful, because it cannot recognize that.) It seems that Jimi did learn to leave the chickens alone - even when Janus was not there - from the experience. So his future behaviour does not correlate with either a dead chicken or with Janus' presence - much less on the presence of both.
You could correlate what Janus wants with Jimi's behaviour. But that's just another rule. (BTW That's not a causal correlation, because it is possible that Jimi might not comply.)

Cavell will point out that the teacher is only “inclined to say: ‘This is simply what I do.’” (PI #217] so of course we can shut the door to further teaching with dogmatism and authority, but we can always continue the conversation in order to reach agreement and compliance, because it’s the relationship—to each other, to society—that’s more important in this case than anything we might take (or force) as foundational. — Antony Nickles

I don't know the texts well enough to comment on Cavell's comment. There is sense in what he says, but I'm not sure that it is what W wants to say.

In one way, you are right about what's important. However, the (not, perhaps, very clearly expressed) point of the ideas in the PI is (I think) that at the stage of learning how to argue and/or think, we are not in a position to make decisions about what is important, much less what is correct. We are inducted into the ways of what we do. It's not a question of argument, but of learning. That's the authority of "This is what I do". Paradoxically, my ability to dissent from and to question what I am taught (in any meaningful or relevant way) rests on my having learnt what it is to dissent and to question.

There's a moment in Plato's Laws, when he considers what to do with atheists - and he seems to mean this in the modern sense of not believing that gods exist. (There were such people among the pre-Socratics.) His answer is to corral them in a safe place outside the city and there to persuade them of the error of their ways. He is quite clear that the end of this process is only reached when the atheists recognize the error of their ways. This is not a conversation. A conversation is only meaningful if the conclusion of the conversation is open. Even refusing to end the conversation until agreement is reached is an authoritarian position.

The intertwining of authority and negotiation is very complicated, and I think it is misleading to insist that they are polar opposites.

Claiming that a male bird of paradise clears out an area and dances because he's trying to impress a female is a bit of a stretch.
— creativesoul
I wonder how one might explain that behaviour. The idea that he is doing it for fun is not impossible, but is a bit of a stretch. If females did it too, it would be plausible. But, as I understand it, they don't. Suppose that female behaviour indicates that they are attracted by what the male does. Perhaps that Is just an coincidence, but that's a bit of a stretch too. — Ludwig V

On reflection, I'm very unhappy with this comment. Setting it right, or at least righter, high-lights a complication in our question which has not gone unrecognized, but which, it seems to me, has not been fully recognized.

I don't think anyone seriously wants to reject the idea that the male bird of paradise builds his bower in order to attract a female. But @creativesoul is also right to observe that that purpose is not necessarily the bird's motivation. We ought to know this, since the same issue can be observed in human beings. Display behaviour can be observed in both males and female human beings, but it does not follow that they are motivated by the desire to make babies (though they may be, sometimes). Human beings can tell us what their motivation is, but the birds cannot. It seems to me, in fact, most likely that the birds just feel like building a bower, finding it a satisfactory and worth-while thing to do - just as so much display behaviour in human beings is done only because they feel that it is a worth-while thing to do.
But there is no doubt that such behaviour serves an evolutionary purpose. What's more, it explains the behaviour as rational; "feeling like it" doesn't explain anything.

Brilliant. Thanks very much.

The familiar Wittgensteinian paradoxes about rule following similarly block any institution of norms merely by invocation of a rule,

It all goes back to this. But doesn't it follow that the authority of a pronouncement within the language is actually conferred on it by the (brute) fact that we accept it as authoritative - and our children accept their version of the practice after they have learnt ours?

But this having reached bedrock is precisely the way out of despair, or precisely, the way to free ourselves of the meaningless that confusing empirical with grammatical certainty leads to. — Joshs

In the context of philosophical scepticism or nihilism, that's so. The remark was, in a sense, only a flourish. But I was thinking of the parent trying to deal rationally with a child who has discovered the possibility of an infinite regress of "why". In the end, the authoritative. dogmatic, answer is the only possible one.

The language game makes intelligibility possible by taking for granted a founding system of interconnected meanings that it would make no sense to doubt as long as one continued to move within that language game. This built-in normativity of our languaged practices is not a failure to properly ground meaning, but the condition for keeping meaning alive. — Joshs

I agree with that, of course. That's the explanation that makes the authoritative answer not merely dogmatic.

Successfully navigating the world requires successfully distinguishing oneself from the rest of the world. Slime molds do this. Bacteria. All forms of life avoid danger and gather resources and thus... successfully navigate the world while they survive. — creativesoul

Yes, I'm aware that the idea of autonomy can be applied to any living creature, including bacteria and moulds. (There are complicated cases, like lichens.) I didn't include those in what I said, because they are neither sentient nor rational. In fact, I think of them as indistinguishable from autonomous machines, apart from their ability to reproduce. There no question of wondering what they think or of language-less behaviour.

What is the standard and/or criterion you're using to decide/determine/judge what sorts of beliefs language less animals can and/or cannot have?
— creativesoul
Roughly, the same ones that I use to decide what believes human beings have when I cannot ask them.
— Ludwig V
Care to elaborate? — creativesoul

I can try. My thought is roughly this. I fear that if I talk about "words" here, you'll think I'm talking about words in a narrow sense and miss the point. Fortunately, concepts relate to specific words or terms in language and there are rules about how they are to be used. But in many cases - I expect there are exceptions - some of the rules are about how we should apply them in our non-verbal behaviour. A bus stop is where one congregates to catch a bus; a door bell is there to be rung to announce our arrival; etc. We often use this feature to attribute beliefs to humans when we cannot cross-question them. I don't see any reason to suppose that this feature enables us to attribute our concepts to dogs. The concept of food is not just about it can be idenitified and analysed, but how it is to be treated - cooking and eating. Hence, although dogs cannot cook food or analyse in the ways that we do, it can certainly identify it and eat it. This fits perfectly with the idea that our ideas and language about people can be stretched and adapted to (sentient and/or rational) animals.

I see no ground for presupposing she (sc. Ludwig's dog) is comparing your (sc. Ludwig's) wants to anything. — creativesoul

I'm not at all clear what you mean about comparing wants to things. It was usually pretty obvious when she wanted something and when she had got it.

Metacognition is not an idea. It's talking about our own thoughts. — creativesoul

Well, animals are not capable of talking, so that's not hard. The question is, then, is whether they are capable of knowing what others and themselves are thinking; if that means they are capable of thinking about their own and others thoughts, then so be it.

The point was that Jimi trembled as a result of drawing correlations between his behaviour and Janus'. That's all it takes. — creativesoul

I grant you that Jimi's fear might be triggered by Janus' return. But let's think this through. It might well be that he only started trembling when Janus came through the door. The trigger, then, would be the chicken plus Janus. That would explain why he killed the chicken. But it doesn't explain why he was still sitting beside it. Surely, an innocent, oblivious dog, would either start eating it or would wander off in search of something more amusing. I think the dead chicken reminded him of the previous occasion; Janus' arrival was the crisis, so he may well have got more anxious as he came in.

Jimi cannot compare his own behaviour to the rules in order for him to know that his own behaviour did not comply. Jimi did not suddenly realize that he had broken the rules upon Janus' return. He was suddenly reminded(drew the same correlations once again) when it all came together again. — creativesoul

I'm trying to think what dog behaviour might distinguish complying with the rules from knowing that s/he is complying with the rules. Nothing comes to mind, so I'll give you that one. However, I'm reasonably sure that if they are complying with the rules, they know what the rules are. Jimi's killing of the chicken suggests that he had forgotten what the rule was. There's no doubt that he remembered at some point after the event. The question is, what triggered his memory and hence fear?

But the really significant point about the story is that he never bothered another chicken. That was the lesson he was supposed to learn. What correlation do you suppose that is based on?

...I set out how a creature without naming and descriptive practices can form, have, and/or hold belief about distal objects that are themselves existentially dependent upon language users. — creativesoul

Therefore, the mouse(a creature without naming and descriptive practices) can indeed form, have, and/or hold belief about some of that which is existentially dependent upon language use. Not all. — creativesoul

OK. So we agree. I suppose we might disagree about which bits they can hold beliefs about which they cannot, but perhaps we don't need to tease that out now.

Belief that approaches are all about epistemological claims, in that they attempt to show how truth is presupposed in all belief statements and/or knowledge claims. As useful as they are in helping us to think about such things, they are useless in determining and/or acquiring knowledge of what language less thought and belief consists of. — creativesoul

You've said twice that on reflection you are not happy with this. I don't see what's wrong with it. Could you explain?

I feel that you have ignored all that I have said about theory of mind and remain close-minded to understanding it. I repeat - it's not about reading outward signs - it is about forming theories about what is in anther mind. — Questioner

I read both of the Wikipedia articles - which does not make me an expert.
Wikipedia - Theory of Mind[/url and Wikipedia - Theory of mind in animals
There's a lot of interesting empirical work here. Not much, I have to say, in the way of consensus agreements. The actual psychology under this heading seems very worth while. But the heading is very confusing.

Discussions of theory of mind have their roots in philosophical debate from the time of René Descartes' Second Meditation, which set the foundations for considering the science of the mind.

Quite so. Psychology seems to have more difficulty than any other science about escaping from its philosophical roots.

In psychology, theory of mind refers to the capacity to understand other people by ascribing mental states to them.

That seems to be clear. We do know that we understand other people. I'm not sure whether "by ascribing mental states to them" is a harmless paraphrase of "understanding other people" or something more substantial, philosophically speaking, and more controversial. But the question how our understanding works seems a sound starting-point for scientific research.

The "theory of mind" is described as a theory, because the behavior of the other person, such as their statements and expressions, is the only thing being directly observed; no one has direct access to the mind of another, and the existence and nature of the mind must be inferred. It is typically assumed others have minds analogous to one's own;

Philosophically speaking, this is indeed a theory. I read it as a philosophical theory of the mind. But that's not what is meant by "theory of mind" in this context, because each of us has our own theory. That's why I find the name for research in this area so confusing.
I'm not sure that it is wise to treat these propositions more or less as axioms when they are the focus of much philosophical debate. Perhaps it doesn't make any difference whether philosophical dualism or one of its variants is true, but if that's so, it makes a big difference to philosophy.

I’m not sure we would act for a reason (seems like a motive, or a principle), but after the fact (post hoc) we could give reasons for acting as I did (which could include causes and motives, as it could include excuses and justifications). — Antony Nickles

I don't deny that. But I think W leaves a gaping hole in the demonstration that mental objects - in the "occult" sense, drop out of consideration as irrelevant. But what makes the reasons mine, as opposed to justifications after the event? Perhaps the fact that I give them as reasons after the event is what makes them mine. In giving them, I claim them, or perhaps acknowledge them. Either way, they are to be compared to "I am in pain" or "That tastes sweet". There is a complicated hinterland here, which is usually acknowledged only in passing, that one's authority in such cases is defeasible. We may be joking or pretending. But it's time to move on.

This is the point where people say that understanding or meaning or interpretation "drop out", because Wittgenstein is insistent that anything you try to grasp as standing behind the words will be just another sign. There is something genuinely radical, or at least strange, going on here. — Srap Tasmaner

That's right. It seems to me that this is why W ends up (in the PI) with the faintly despairing "But this is what I do!" or "When I have reached bedrock, my spade is turned.

An utterance is not judged as, or as not, a ‘use’ of words; an utterance has a use—it is a plea, or a threat, or points out a difference; as are the examples regarding the pencil—depending on the context. Thus why words are not ‘meant’ by us, other than in contrast to when we jest. — Antony Nickles

W doesn't give an analysis of his use of "use" in this context, but there is more than one use of words at stake here. Austin identifies some of them when he develops his concept of speech acts - which are, after all, uses of words. (I'm thinking of locutionary, illocutionary and perlocutionary acts) But he doesn't pay attention to two different ways of thinking about language. One is the approach through the idea that language is a structure and can be thought of as existing independently of speakers - much as a game can be thought of as a structured set of rules as well as in the playing of them. Here, we can say that speakers must conform to the rules, on pain of failing to communicate or saying something we did not mean to say. In this mode, we can speak of the "grammar" of language. But this approach doesn't pay attention to the various events of speakers speaking; here, breaking (or stretching) the rules is possible, because it turns on the intentions of the speaker and the reactions of the audience.
Of course, there is a sense in which the grammar of language only exists insofar as speakers conform to it. But that doesn't mean that anything goes.

And the “theory of mind” is not an idea about what a mind is or does, expressed in generalities, but rather a theory you form in your mind specific to the mental state of another mind. — Questioner

Oh, I see. I misunderstood. But now "a theory you form in your mind specific to the mental state of another mind" seems just like a belief, so what I'm hearing is "a belief you form in your mind specific to the mental state of another mind"

I totally agree with you that it is a matter of interpretation. Our inability to agree then has an explanation. But whose is the better interpretation?
— Ludwig V

Sorry, I’m not sure what you’re asking.
What is a matter of interpretation?
What is the explanation for our inability to agree?
Whose is the better interpretation of what?

I'm afraid I have misunderstood you again. You said:-.

We do not just perceive – we perceive and interpret. the mental states of others. — Questioner

My questions followed from that.

"There is no clear standard by which to judge" was referring to the idea/claim that "behaviour expresses belief" and/or that approach. — creativesoul

I suppose you contrast the idea of metacognition, which might be considered to be clearer. However, the answers that it returns seems to me to be, let us say, odd.

When I recall my dog, I call her name. Supposing that she has no understanding of self and others, when she hears me call, how does she know which dog I want to respond? Or, if you prefer, why does she respond if she cannot distinguish herself from other dogs?
Or, when another dog approaches her, and goes through their greeting ceremonies, how does she know that she needs to respond?
Or, when she is dashing across the park, how does she avoid running into other dogs, distinguishing between what she can do from what the other dogs who are also dashing about the place are doing?
I had two dogs for a long time. They never failed to distinguish their own food bowl from the other one's food bowl. (Nor did they ever fail to check that the other one's bowl was empty when the other one had finished and walked away.)

The last suggestion/claim above has the methodological approach the wrong way around. — creativesoul

Yes, it makes sense to sort one's methodology out before trying to answer the question - when one understands the question. The catch is that if one does not understand the question, the methodology may not be appropriate. Methodology and understanding both need to be sorted out before answers can be achieved. Otherwise, one may be trying use a hammer when what is required is a spanner.
If you are dealing with a fridge, the manufacturer can provide you with instructions how to deal with the various things that may go wrong with it. If you are dealing with an unknown disease, you need to find out what methods for dealing with it work.

Would you say that the unknown details of higher maths, programming, coding, etc. are pretty much meaningless to you? — creativesoul

Yes. Not completely meaningless, but pretty much.

All sorts of creatures have regular schedules. Routine. Habit. They do all sorts of things around the same time of day and/or night. Many migrate, mate, bear young, and all sorts of other things during the same seasons(time of year).
Having a "concept of time" needs a bit more, does it not? — creativesoul

I don't remotely understand the concept of time involved in relativity theory in physics. Does that mean I have no concept of time? No, it does not. Similarly, the dogs have a concept of time that suits their lives. That concept is different from human concepts, but overlaps with it. Similarities and differences. Would you say that a philosopher who thinks that time is continuous and a philosopher who thinks that time is discontinuous have the same concept of time or different ones - or, perhaps, overlapping ones?
Archaeologists discovered an unknown script amongst the remains of Mycene. They weren't even entirely sure that it was writing. Attempts to decipher it failed for many years until Michael Ventris hypothesized that the writing was Greek. That worked. There are many similar examples. Methodology and practice develop hand in hand.

It renders the qualifications of "linguistic" and "non linguistic" when applied to beliefs suspect, at best. I used to use such language. — creativesoul

That I agree with. But I would have thought that impinges on the distinction between what requires being talked about and what "exists in its entirety" without being talked about.

It's all too easy for us to conflate our report(and what it takes) of the mouse's belief with the mouse's belief(and what it takes). There is a very long history and/or philosophical practice of treating these as one in the same. The report is existentially dependent upon language, for it is language use. The latter is existentially dependent upon language use as well, as set out earlier in this post(beers and fridges). However, the latter does not require being talked about in order for it to exist in its entirety. This peculiar set of facts results from the overlap(shared world) between creatures without naming and descriptive practices and things that are existentially dependent upon naming and descriptive practices. — creativesoul

I agree with most of that, especially the distinction between our report of a belief and the believer's formulation of it. I see this as the differences between "I believe that..." and "He/she believes that..." One of my unconventional views is that this distinction applies to all beliefs. So "..that p" is not a purely intensional context, nor a simply extensional context. It is perfectly true that conventional philosophy ignores this. (I know you won't freak out at an unconventional view!)
I would be happy to accept that the mouse does not think of the fridge as a fridge, but merely as a cool place. It doesn't understand the expansion of gases or electricity/gas. It would also be reasonable to recognize that it doesn't understand beer as we do, because it doesn't understand what alcohol is. But we can suppose that it understands beer insofar as it tastes good and has pleasurable effects - and presumably understands hangovers, though not necessarily the connection with drinking beer. (BTW It is not unknown for dogs to become extremely fond of beer. I read somewhere that even bees can get drunk when they happen upon nectar that has fermented.) Nonetheless it is perfectly reasonable to report that the mouse liked the beer in the fridge. The difference is not a question of truth or falsity, but of what pragmatically works in the context. The mouse doesn't have to understand how I report its belief to other human beings.

PS I have edited the above to put right an error in the formatting and restore the distinction between what I was quoting and what I was saying. My mistake. Sorry.

I'm having problems understanding how "meaning governs behaviour" fits into the rest of that — creativesoul

It's only a gesture at the complicated relationship between experience, beliefs and behaviour. When we close the fridge door, we act out (perhaps that's better than "express") what the fridge means to us. That's all.

He suddenly remembered. I'm assuming he wasn't trembling until you arrived. — creativesoul

So if he was trembling before Janus arrived, would you conclude that he did understand that he had
done something wrong?

There is similarity. I just think you're overstating it. Some (arguably most) children can and do draw correlations between their own behaviour and others' behaviour towards them afterwards. So, to that extent, it's the same. That's an early step in learning the rules. It's not enough though. It is enough to help increase the chances of one's own survival when living in a violent/aggressive social hierarchy. Canines have a very long history of that. — creativesoul

Forgive me, I thought that you believed that all belief is a matter of correlations. So what more do you want before accepting that Jimi believed he had done something wrong?

I see no ground whatsoever to say he believed, knew, or anticipated that he was being punished for not following the rules. — creativesoul

Ah, well, there are important differences between bad consequences and punishment. They are very different concepts. Jimi might well believe that he had done something wrong (bad consequences) and not see it as punishment. Further observations of his behaviour might reveal the difference.
However, if morality is essential for social life, then the fact that dogs have a social life - and especially have a social life that includes humans - then it would be reasonable to suppose that they have some moral (or at least proto-moral) concepts.

They are not different subject matters. The endeavor is comparison/contrast between the two. What's different is not the same. What's the same is not different. It takes discussing both the similarities and the differences to make much sense of either. — creativesoul

That's quite right. It is also reasonable not to put too much emphasis on universal differences, but to assess each case as it comes.

We, each of us, have a "theory of mind" about others - We can understand the beliefs, emotions, intentions and thoughts of others. Such a capacity is vital for complex social interactions. — Questioner

Well, yes, we do indeed develop a concept of mind. I would expect that there is a substantial common core to all our concepts, for two reasons. First, because we learn our concepts from each other as part of learning to speak and secon because if there wasn't at least a common core, we couldn't communicate about minds - our own or others'.

But do I think a dog can interpret and make inferences about human thought? No. — Questioner

Well, my concept of mind enables me to interpret the thought of dogs and some other animals.

We do not just perceive – we perceive and interpret the mental states of others. — Questioner

I totally agree with you that it is a matter of interpretation. Our inability to agree then has an explanation. But whose is the better interpretation?

I hope you will not mind if I post a comment on p. 15 - on causes and reasons - before progressing to p. 16.

If on the other hand you realize that the chain of actual reasons has a beginning, you will no longer be revolted by the idea of a case in which there is no reason for the way you obey the order. .....

The difference between the grammars of "reason" and "cause" is quite similar to that between the grammars of "motive" and "cause". Of the cause one can say that one can't know it but can only conjecture it. On the other hand one often says: "Surely I must know why I did it" talking of the motive. When I say: "we can only conjecture the cause but we know the motive" this statement will be seen later on to be a grammatical one. The "can" refers to a logical possibility.

The double use of the word "why", asking for the cause and asking for the motive, together with the idea that we can know, and not only conjecture, our motives, gives rise to the confusion that a motive is a cause of which we are immediately aware, a cause 'seen from the inside', or a cause experienced.- Giving a reason is like giving a calculation by which you have arrived at a certain result. — p. 15

The first bolded passage, it seems to me, turns on the distinction between an action being justified in principle, as it were, that is, whether or not it was performed and, if it was performed, it was performed from quite different reasons. Think of an umpire's correct decision being given, not because it was correct, but for some quite different reason. That is, W is concerned with the agent's reason(s), not whether the action is justifiable in principle. Fair enough.

The second bolded passage is confusing, at least to me. I can only suppose that he means that we may or may not know what the cause of an action is or whether a possible cause actually was the cause. I can see why he classifies the teaching process as a cause, not a reason - because it "drops out of consideration" - or, we don't need to know about it when considering how you responded to the order. But it isn't a cause like gravity or the impact of one billiard ball on another.

However, my problem is with his comparison of reasons with motives. I have to say, I think of a motive as a desire or wish or value - reasons map the path from there to the action. as in the third bolded passage. But set that aside. My question is how does this fit with the justification post hoc? It looks as if I may act for no reason, but then offer a justification post hoc, which suggests that I did act for a reason. But that doesn't fit with our immediate awareness of the motive.

There is no clear standard by which to judge whether or not the belief we are attributing to the language less creature is something that the creature is capable of forming, having, and/or holding. — creativesoul

That's true.
We might get some clues from thinking about how we decide what a human being believes or can believe and then thinking about what a creature like a dog does believe.
For example, you believe that a dog cannot form beliefs about beliefs. (Forgive me if that's not accurate, but I think it is enough for what I want to say). In my book, that needs to be considered in the light of what the dog does. Meaning is not some abstract entity floating about in the ether. It governs behaviour. So, for example, there are many beliefs that I cannot form because I have never learnt the relevant behaviours; I never learnt to write computer code or do more than elementary mathematics. While I can formulate some beliefs about those matters as they impinge on my life, but the detail is bayond me.
If a dog could read a clock and use the information in relevant ways, I would say it may know when it is 5 p.m. Does that mean it cannot have a concept of time? No, because it can show up for meals or walks at the right time. But it cannot have a concept of time like the human concept and there are other behaviours that can high-light that.

The difficulty is in discriminating between which sorts of thoughts are existentially dependent upon language use and which ones are not. — creativesoul

I have some intuition about that distinction, but I have trouble applying it. Is my belief that there is some beer in the fridge existentially dependent on language? I can only express it in language. Could a dog believe that there is beer in the fridge? Well, it can certainly believe that its dinner is in the fridge.

What is the standard and/or criterion you're using to decide/determine/judge what sorts of beliefs language less animals can and/or cannot have? — creativesoul

Roughly, the same ones that I use to decide what believes human beings have when I cannot ask them.

On pains of coherency alone. The problem is the notion/use of "thought".
The first claim is false as is what immediately follows "since". — creativesoul

I suppose you are disagreeing with "Thought and belief require a sentence/statement/proposition that expresses the content of the belief..." and "thought, belief and knowledge all involve an evaluation of the proposition"
As to the first, I may have been unclear. As to the first, it is true that one can hold beliefs that are not formulated in language. But I cannot talk about them without a formulation in language. To distinguish between what people believe and don't believe, I must complete the formula "S believes that..."
As to the second, "S knows that p" means that p is true. "S believes that p" means that S believes/thinks that p is true, but it may not actually be true. "Thinks" is more complicated than either, but is at least compatible with S merely entertaining the possibility that p is true.

A process.
Something(s) to become meaningful, a creature for that something or those things to become meaningful to, and a means for things to become meaningful to that creature. — creativesoul

We agree, then, that experience is a process. I am hoping that you also agree with me that what is meaningful to a creature affects how that creature behaves.

It's that the report of the language less creatures' thought(s) is based largely - if not exclusively - on the reporter's notion of mind. If that notion/concept of mind is incapable of discriminating between thoughts that only humans are capable of having and those that non human animals can have, then the report of those experiments, including what is purported to be the thoughts and/or thinking of the subject matter will inevitably conflate the two. That is, the reports will include false claims. — creativesoul

To be sure, the presuppositions with which one approaches describing animal behaviour are always important. If they are wrong, the reports will be wrong. You seem very confident that your presuppositions are correct. It is sensible to evaluate one's presuppositions in tne light of observations and to revise or refine them before making further observations. It seems to me very dangerous to think that observations of a particular incident can be conclusively settled without an extensive background of observations of a range of behaviour of the animal.

Claiming that a male bird of paradise clears out an area and dances because he's trying to impress a female is a bit of a stretch. — creativesoul

I wonder how one might explain that behaviour. The idea that he is doing it for fun is not impossible, but is a bit of a stretch. If females did it too, it would be plausible. But, as I understand it, they don't. Suppose that female behaviour indicates that they are attracted by what the male does. Perhaps that Is just an coincidence, but that's a bit of a stretch too.

the question "How can one think what is not the case?" — Srap Tasmaner

Now that is a very good question and distinctively philosophical. I shall look forward to that discussion.

That is, the problems philosophy worries over arise not because we don't know enough ― about the psychology of language, the nature of reality, whatever ― but because we misunderstand the nature of language or the grammar of particular words. — Srap Tasmaner

I think there are problems with this.
In the first place, it is suspiciously tidy, and does not reflect the dialogue that goes on between philosophy and the sciences. I came across an egregious example of this in the psychological approach to empathy through a concept of "theory of mind". (See Wikipedia - Theory of Mind)
In the second place, categorizing the philosophical problem as a problem about language works if one has a certain philosophical background. But many people seem to confuse the philosophical discussions with linguistics or even with logic-chopping. The real issues, they think, are about reality, not just the words that we use to describe it.

'Grammar' is an important word for him, but it's descriptive, not explanatory. — Srap Tasmaner

I see his use of this term as the remnant of the idea that language has a complete logical structure, which is quite clearly distinct from the world that we talk about. There's room for a lot of clarification, though most people (including me) seem to think that it is not difficult to graps his point. We silently ignore the traditional sense of grammar, though it plays its part in creating philosophical perplexity.

So to come back to the death of philosophy, on the one hand there will be criticism of philosophical positions that derive from misunderstandings of grammar, but there is also room to do this on purpose as a first step in exploring the grammar of our expressions, and you could maybe still call this "philosophy". — Srap Tasmaner

It occurred to me that anyone who thinks that a philosophical problem has, or should have, an answer or solution is implicitly committed to the death of philosophy. It may be that this illusion is the same illusion as the idea that a complete and final physics is a desirable aim - i.e. that the point of physics is the death of physics.

One might say that the subject we are dealing with is one of the heirs of the subject that used to be called "philosophy."
— p. 28
At least that's what I think he's up to. — Srap Tasmaner

I don't think you are wrong. But I do think that there are some puzzles and confusions in his explanations.

"This process of changing inputs into outputs—of changing sensation into useful behavior—is thinking." But all of this is, surely, the first stage of thinking. — Patterner

Thank you for this. I agree that it is important in that it puts the relationship between knowing and doing at the heart of both. Philosophy has created endless fake problems for itself by focusing on the first and treating the second as an optional add-on. Suggesting that it is the "first stage" instead of insisting that it is either thinking or not is also an excellent nuance and very helpful. I shall remember about the roundworm (and, hopefully, where I learnt about it) for a long time.

I don't think that explanation comes up in any creation stories. — Athena

No, it doesn't. it is a new creation story, and the creation story of our time. It differs from all the others in that it lays itself open to evalutaion as true or false. Which seems to be a great improvement on the traditional varieties.

An important way in which humans differ from all other animals is our highly evolved "theory of mind" - a mental capacity that allows us to make inferences about the mental states of others. — Questioner

How do you know that non-human animals don't have a theory of mind? How do you know that other people have a theory of mind?
Since the theory of mind is posited as an essential prerequisite of empathy, it seems to follow that if somone (human) can interact appropriately with other people, they have a theory of mind. I suppose.
So, if some non-human animals can interact appropriately with various other animals, including human animals, does it not follow that they have a theory of mind?
I do agree, however, that generalization about the extent to which all animals can do that would be very dangerous. I don't think that a fly has any real grasp of humans as people; nor do fish - most of them, anyway.

Rather than empathy, what a dog is experiencing when he responds to your grief is emotional contagion, which is a response to emotions without fully understanding what the other individual is feeling. — Questioner

I thought that emotional contagion was sharing the emotions of others, as opposed to responding to their emotions. It's like the difference between treating a disease and catching it.

After I posted this, I came across a separate entry in Wikipedia - Wikipedia - Theory of mind in animals

The existence of theory of mind in non-human animals is controversial. On the one hand, one hypothesis proposes that some non-human animals have complex cognitive processes which allow them to attribute mental states to other individuals, sometimes called "mind-reading" while another proposes that non-human animals lack these skills and depend on more simple learning processes such as associative learning; or in other words, they are simply behaviour-reading.

In practice, these supposed different alternatives come down to the same process. There is no way to read a mind except by reading behaviour.

I'm uh, troubled, to say the least, by the earlier flippant dismissal regarding the philosophical import of evolutionary progression as it pertains to any and all notions of thought, belief, and/or meaningful experiences. .... One's philosophical position regarding though, belief, and/or meaningful experience had better be able to take it into proper account. — creativesoul

I may be wrong to think that you are referring to something that I said. If you were, I am troubled by your impression that I would dismiss the philosophical import of evolutionary progression, let alone dismiss it flippantly. I would have thought that my general insistence that there is always continuity between what animals can do and what humans can do was evidence to the contrary. I must have said something to mislead you and I'm sorry about that.

I'm not sure what that means. — creativesoul

I hope it helps if I write that sentence as "Surely, (thought that involves trees and cats) is involved in the (behaviour that involves trees and cats)" and explain (which I should have done) that when a dog approaches a tree in order to sniffs it, it is because it believes that there will be interesting smells around it, and so on.

Problems with "what it means to say" anything aren't my concern. That's two steps backwards. Perhaps this will help...
Apple pies consist of apples, flour, and so forth. "Apple pies consist of apples" is not a problem, I presume. Meaningful experiences consist of thought and belief. Thought and belief consist of correlations. Thus... meaningful experience consists of correlations.
What's the problem? — creativesoul

My problem is the transition from apple pies to meaningful experiences. (By the way, I was wondering what a meaningless experience would be like; I can see that they would not consist of thought and belief - so what would they consist of?)
You seem to have assumed that because "apple pies consist of apples etc." is unproblematic you can substitue any noun for "apple pies" and give an unproblematic answer. But what do surfaces edges consist of? Does it make sense to say that rainbows consist of light waves or colours? What does the number 4 consist of? A recipe?
I agree that experiences are an important basis for thought and belief, though experiences, I think, are something that happens to me.
There are two slightly different senses of "thought". One makes it like "belief" in that I can believe that p and think that p; the other is an activity, so it is hard to see that experience can consist of thinking.
Belief and (thought that) is more like a state, rather than something that happens or that I do, so again, it doesn't seem plausible to think of it as a constituent of experience.

Thought and belief require a sentence/statement/proposition that expresses the content of the belief, but I'm reluctant to say that a sentence/statement/proposition is a constituent of thought or belief (or knowledge), since thought, belief and knowledge all involve an evaluation of the proposition. This is why some people are so reluctant to admit that there is such a thing as thought/belief/knowledge without language.

Behaviour is not thought. Behaviour is not belief. Behaviour is not meaningful experience. — creativesoul

I agree. But behaviour (including linguistic behaviour, and behaviours like talking to oneself silently) does express one's thought, beliefs and experiences.

What's in dispute here is whether or not all thought, belief, and/or meaningful experience consists of behaviour and behaviour alone. — creativesoul

I would be quite happy to give up any suggestion that experience consists of behaviour, in favour of the idea that experience is express by behaviour. What else, apart from behaviour, could meaningful experience consist of? What else, apart from behaviour could express experience?

Furthermore, I'm positing that all thought, belief, and/or meaningful experience consists of correlations between different things drawn by a creature so capable. I'm arguing in favor of that. — creativesoul

Well, in the same way that different kinds of thing have different kinds of constituent, so there are different kinds of correlation. For example, it is common to say that there is a difference between correlation and causation. But it is puzzling to understand 2+2=4 as a correlation.

Thought, belief, and/or knowledge is not a description. Some folk say that dogs are somehow, someway, doing calculus when they catch a ball. I say that that's bad thinking. Conflating mathematical descriptions(calculus) for knowing how to catch a ball. — creativesoul

But thought, belief and knowledge all require a description to explain what is thought, believed of known. Still, I think most people will agree with you about the dog. But most people then find themselves puzzled about how the dog knows where the ball will land. That's the point.

Other creatures capable of thought, belief, and/or meaningful experience are utterly incapable of comparing their own thought, belief, and/or behaviour to anything else at all. Knowing better requires having done so. Hence, they cannot know better. — creativesoul

Surely, when a dog approaches its food bowl, sniffs it and walks away despondently, the dog is comparing its hope that there is food in the bowl with reality and recognizing the difference.

There is no good reason to attribute thinking to creatures that do not have very similar relevant biological structures. — creativesoul

There I agree with you.

Sorry, I didn't mean to post that yet. Fat thumb syndrome.

A critical step of what? Of understanding an order? Does it go "Step 1: recognize the other person is not just making a noise; Step 2: ... "? — Srap Tasmaner

I meant a critical step in getting perplexed about understanding carrying out an order.

If I give someone the order "fetch me a red flower from that meadow", how is he to know what sort of flower to bring, as I have only given him a word? — Srap Tasmaner

If you casually said that in the middle of a battle, I think you would be met by astonishment and bewilderment. W's question needs to be prepared for; it involves abandonment of our ordinary understanding and a peculiar way of thinking about the whole process.

When you give an order, do you worry that the other person might forget, and think you were just making a noise? -- Or maybe it will just happen at random: "I understood some of what you said, but there were a couple times you were just making noises." — Srap Tasmaner

My default position is that the other person will understand me. If things go wrong, I cope in one way or another. I don't worry, because I am confident that I can cope. Normally, if I did worry about those possibilities, I would be already doing philosophy.

Philosophy has never shown any inclination to roll over and die. — Srap Tasmaner

Quite.
A history of philosophy as endless mistakes is as much a mistake as a history of philosophy as endless progress.
One might think that, though philosophy never dies, philosophies can, and do, die. But I doubt even that. Can we really say that the philosophy of Plato or Aquinas is dead? There are plenty of people who not only study them as historical documents, but seem quite happy to adopt them.
The New Science developed a way (or ways) of not only asking questions, but finding answers. Almost everybody since then has been hypnotized by its success - which, I grant you, is impressive. But that model does not seem to apply to the arts or more accurately to our thinking about the arts - not even to history itself. I'm pretty sure that, to understand philosophy, we need to look away from science towards other models.
Of course, that way of thinking about it needs to recognize that the new science was originally simply Natural Philosophy. It took a good deal of work to establish it the distinction between philosophy and science and some sort of (uneasy) diplomatic relationship.

But there may be a third sort of philosophy, which is the more or less deliberate cultivation of perplexity — Srap Tasmaner

Yes. That would be a good description of the agenda of any Philosophy 101 course. It seems to me that it is now an essential step in learning about philosophy or, better, how to philosophize. Perhaps we should assess our students' success in such courses by their level of bewilderment. Look at how carefully Descartes instils his doubt at the beginning of the Meditations.

If I give someone the order "fetch me a red flower from that meadow", how is he to know what sort of flower to bring, as I have only given him a word?
— p. 3
Where does this question come from? It's not an ordinary question, not the sort of problem people raise in everyday life. ..... Frege says that we have to get behind the signs to the meaning, precisely what Wittgenstein notes it never occurs to anyone to say about the signs we exchange in everyday life. — Srap Tasmaner

That's true, so far as it goes.
But I don't see how philosophy could have got started - in history or in individual consciousness - unless it has roots in ordinary life.

Recognizing the difference between the word as a noise and the word as an order is the critical step. But I would suggest that it does have roots in everyday life, such as encountering people who not only don't understand me when I speak - even when I speak slowly and loudly - but also make odd noises themselves, which seem to function for their friends and neighbours as my language does for me. The Ancient Greeks were very impressed by this phenomenon.

It requires a particular sort of imagination to notice what people do not do and what they do not worry about, and a particular sort of imagination to make it plausible that they would. ...... Now we have something a bit like a problem to work on, philosophically. A deliberately induced perplexity. — Srap Tasmaner

I would put it as a particular perspective, but imagination seems to work as well. Perhaps philosophy arises from a disruption of ordinary life.
But it doesn't follow that finding an answer would necessarily return us to everyday life. Doubts about the existence of the gods started very early in the history of (what we can recognize as) philosophy. Returning the doubters to everyday life would not have been a good idea. On the contrary, those doubts amounted to a new perspective on everyday life. Or, to put it another way, everyday life is a bit of a mess and sometimes a new perspective is what is required. I'm very fond of that quotation from TS Eliot about travelling the world and returning home, and "knowing the place for the first time."

there are the oddball questions which lead either to science (why does the second ball move? is also a very good question) or to philosophy. — Srap Tasmaner

Yes. Oddball questions are sometimes just muddles or fantasies (nightmares). But sometimes they are more than that.

It's all dizzying. — Patterner

Yes, indeed.

However, when that happens, nature quickly resets the balance by killing off the excess, though famine, disease or both. — Vera Mont

Isn't that exactly what is about to happen to humanity? Perhaps it would be best to scrap the present system and start again. No-one will mind except human beings.

Yet many, if not most, humans do blame animals for being animals; do judge other species, as well as other humans by human standards - but themselves. Little brains are quite capable of dishonesty, but only the Big Brain is capable of unlimited hypocrisy. — Vera Mont

I'm not sure about the Big Brain, but yes, humans find it hard not to see the world entirely in their own interests. On the bright side, it is not completely impossible for us, so there is ground for hope.

At the moment, only one species has the ability to think in certain ways/about various types of things, even though other species are able to think. We can even see how the ability to think in new ways evolved from how other species are able to think. Still, it is a new ability. — Patterner

I get the point about the first two cases. But it's all about the cases and it's not hard to think of cases that are hard to classify.

No doubt there was a time when only one species was capable of walking. That required the evolution of legs. So that was a new ability. At some point, a species evolved that was capable of walking on just two legs. Was that a new ability or just a variant of an old one?

Our ability to see developed from creatures that just had light-sensitive patches in their skins. Gradually, the rest of the eye developed - you can look up the stages if you want. The first creatures were merely sensitive to light and dark, which was a new ability. Is our ability to see a new ability or just a development of the old one? At what point in that process did creatures develop that were not merely light-sensitive but capable of seeing?

I must confess I don't know enough about how language-less animals think to know what is old and what is new in our intellectual and cognitive abilities. Of course, I understand that humans have developed some of their abilities beyond what other animals are capable of. Whether they are new or just highly developed seems a secondary question to me.

Forgot this. Extinction Level Event. — Patterner

Thanks.

Even rabbits are capable of destroying their habitat. — Vera Mont

So even our awesome power to wreck the entire planet has forerunners. The rabbits' power is not different power; rather, the humans have a "super" of a power that animals also have. I think perhaps that's a better way to think of at least some of the features that we have been talking about.

The closer we and another species are to our MRCA (Most Recent Common Success) on the tree of life, the more characteristics we share.
-We share more characteristics with other primates than we do with mammals that are not primates.
-We share more characteristics with other mammals than we do with vertebrates that are not mammals.
etc. — Patterner

Yes, of course - though the link to evolution is not, strictly speaking philosophical business. The tricky bit is distinguishing between the characteristics that we can unhesitatingly assign - anatomy and physiology etc. - and those that require interpretation.
The Cartesian suggestion that animals are simply machines seem absurd when applied to cats, dogs and mammals in general, but much less so when applied to bacteria, viruses and protozoa. The difficulty comes to a head when we start ascribing perceptions, motives, emotions and reasons to their behaviour. I think this comes from the fact that those judgments are heavily dependent on context and background.

Condemning a cat for playing with something that moves, something she does not recognize as being like herself, is just as human and irrational as applauding a human when, after some fancy play, he kills a terrified captive bull. — Vera Mont

Yes. I didn't mean to suggest that the cat was to be blamed in any way. No more than the foxes are.

Heidegger was keenly attuned to the historical nature of philosophy, — Joshs

Yes. There's a difference between recognizing that one's own philosophy is historically conditioned and not. Much more could be said - the names I cited were off the top of my head.

I would have thought that, up till Wittgenstein’s later work, what was common within analytic philosophy was a failure to recognize the interdependence of subjective and objective certainty and clarity. — Joshs

That's certainly better put, because they are indeed interdependent.

So there is no “end of perplexity” but there is a truth to our getting perplexed, — Antony Nickles

Yes, that's true (!).
But I think my point is that W seems to start from our perplexity, which may be a good starting-point in one way. But in our actual situation, we are already in the middle of philosophy, and there are people around who think they have resolved them (or some of them). W thinks they are wrong about that, but that is a philosophical position, which needs to be demonstrated. I don't say he is wrong to do that - everybody needs to start from somewhere - but it seems to rely on a wholesale dismissal of the philosophical tradition(s), as in Russell's history of western philosophy. On the other hand, other philosophers have done the same thing. (Heidegger, Husserl, Hume, Descartes etc.)

The confusions so far appear to be motivated by the desire for a “crystalline purity of logic” (PI #107) like that misapplies the framework of objects to our feelings and sensations, or, most recently, that reasoning is thought to be causality. So there is no “end of perplexity” but there is a truth to our getting perplexed, which I take as the investigation and conclusion of the PI. This book lays the groundwork, not to ‘answer’ the confusion, but to ask what that says about us. — Antony Nickles

And, of course, that desire is, at least partly, based on the desire for certainty.
It occurs to me that there may be a different desire underlying scepticism, which is the desire to undermine baseless certainties. If we see Pyrrhonism in the context of its time, when the ideas that were traditional and conventional at the time were under increasing scrutiny, it may look more like a desire to prick bubbles of superstition and dogmatism. The same applies to Cartesian scepticism. Hume draws a distinction between what he calls judicious scepticism and Pyrrhonism - he ignores Descartes, so far as I can see, in favour of Pyrrho - and it seems to me that this is perfectly correct. However, he doesn't consider that it may be difficult to distinguish between judicious scepticism and Pyrrho.

Where, in that description, is an activity outside of psychology? Wittgenstein was the one who insisted upon an activity beyond that. — Paine

I agree that he seems to wander in the border country between the two. On the other hand, he may be relying on the common definition of his time - psychology as science and therefore limited to stimulus-response (causal) connections. I would have thought he would be justified in thinking that that methodolgy excludes what he is trying to do. But the failure to distinguish between psychological ("subjective") certainty and clarity and objective certainty and clarity is very common in analytic philosophy.

What I don't understand is why a change of notation would cure the desire. (I realize that the text itself doesn't explicitly get in to that question, but it stares us in the face.) — Ludwig V

On reflection, I want to add that what a notation can do is make us look at things differently, not in the sense of gathering new facts, but in the sense of interpreting the facts that we have differently. This takes us to "seeing as".

Nothing matters more. What makes humans different from other species? What is there answer to the Hard Problem of Consciousness? How did life begin? Did anything exist before the Big Bang? All fascinating topics. And we are driven to explore the unknown, and try to answer questions. — Patterner

Well, those questions are indeed important because they disorient us and conclusive answers are hard to come by. But I also think that the everyday concerns of food and shelter and sociality are more important. Certainly, If those things are not available, it would be irrational not to give them a higher priority.

But if we do not treat others, human and others, well, then we're filthy creatures pretending to be better than we are. — Patterner

I agree with that.

No animal other than us can be judged for cruelty. They aren't thinking cruel thoughts when they do anything. They aren't choosing to be cruel — Patterner

That's certainly what I was saying earlier. But I'm bedevllied by a tendency to think of counter-examples after I've said something. I have heard that if a fox gets into a hen coop, it will kill every single one of them even though it cannot eat them all and cannot store them for the future. Farmers, I've heard, have a particular down on foxes for that reason. Would that count as choosing to be cruel? At least the fox doesn't torture them. Cats, on the other hand, I've heard, tend to corner a mouse and play with it, allowing it to escape and then catching it back at the last moment. (I've never seen that for myself). Would that count?

We still die from diseases, just as other species do. We die if we fall from great heights, which many other species do not. We take in energy the way most other animal species do. Locomotion, respiration, vision, on and on, as much like the other species as they are all like each other. — Patterner

Does that mean you agree with me?

There is no ELE like us. It might be a good idea to better understand the things that make us different, rather than deny that we are. — Patterner

I'm sorry, I don't understand what "ELE" means. But it's a fair point.

Our power to destroy them all should be power enough. I don't see a reason to deny them basic attributes like affection, communication and rational thought. — Vera Mont

I agree with that.

Can I take that as suggesting that the things that make humans so special are not necessarily important to other creatures or, necessarily, to the planet?
— Ludwig V
Of course not. Why should they be? — Vera Mont

Quite so. What I'm getting at, though, is that our power over them and lack of awareness or at best understanding of it ought to impose a moral obligation not to mistreat them. It seems to me that a primary function of morality is to restrain the unlimited power over each other. But if our moral perceptions are restricted to our own species, it's hard to see how that works. We need a concept of a pan-species morality. But then, that morality would not necessarily restrain other creatures. I'm confused about this.

But humans are super-duper-special; utterly different from other species in so many ways that are hugely important to humans. — Vera Mont

Can I take that as suggesting that the things that make humans so special are not necessarily important to other creatures or, necessarily, to the planet? The planet, at least, seems poised to wreck our civilizations and we seem incapable of doing anything much about it.
The thing is, it seems to me that since, for better or worse, we are animals in so many ways, it doesn't really make sense to say that we are "utterly" different from other species.

Saying all generalizations are wrong would be another generalization. I don't read that as what is going on. — Paine

Quite so. It's a variant of the liar paradox. Most people seem to read it in the context of the analytic philosophy of his time. I think that must be right.
The argument that all philosophy is nonsense is based on a certain view of logic and truth. A true analytic statement is true under all circumstances. Hence it denies nothing. Hence it asserts nothing. A false analytic statement is not a statement at all, but a word salad - nonsense. If you compare him with, for example, Logical Positivism, W is quite moderate. (In the TLP, as I understand it) one of the things that shows as opposed to being said is the truths of logic. It makes sense, I think.
Anyway, that's the best explanation I can think of for the way that he starts on the basis that some statements are "occult" and suggesting a specific problem - that something in the statement is not properly defined.

But I understand why that is a question that persists through a close reading of the work. If the intention is truly the end of perplexity, Deleuze was right in declaring the "Wittgenstenians" as the assassinators of philosophy. — Paine

I think that the intention was precisely that. It was a revolution after all. So Deleuze's comment doesn't seem inappropriate. One person's assassination is another person's removal of a load of rubbish. Mind you, Heidegger thought the entire history of philosophy needed to be removed of abandoned as well. I wonder if Deleuze thought about that at all. The question "what next?" did get asked after a while, but I'm not sure that anyone has written about it. The only answer I ever heard was that people would go on making the same mistakes, so the cleansing process would go on. It wasn't particularly inspiring. In the end, of course, philosophy did manage to stagger on - though there are people who regard the persistence of analytic philosophy as a mistake.

Thank you both of you. As I was working on my previous reply I started to wonder why I think language and thinking are so important. Humans can be incredibly destructive and that is far from being intelligent. Our creation story making us to be not animals but as angels made separate from the animals. ? What is that? Might that creation story be harmful? — Athena

Sadly, intelligence is not restricted by ethics. It enables us to do wonderful things, and also to do terrible things.
Well, our creation story doesn’t mention angels. But God does decide to prevent Adam & Eve from eating the apple of the knowledge of good and evil for fear that “they might become as one of us”. Food for thought. I think the harmful bit in our creation story is the idea that God gave us “dominion” over everything. If only they had said “stewardship”…!
Plato thought that we are a combination of animal and god.

I think we need to understand we are evolved as are the rest of the animals. Equally important is our heart. If our hearts are not in tune with nature might be an evil force on earth? — Athena

Yes, heart is important – arguably more important than intelligence. I understand the feeling that being out of tune with nature is a bad thing. But the natural is not always a good thing. Nature, in itself, is neither good nor bad but just what it is – or perhaps sometimes good and sometimes bad.

I haven't read all of the thread. I know this was being discussed early on. But I don't know who actually said they held that position, and had no idea anyone in still saying it. I know with absolute certainty I never said it. — Patterner

I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have referred to the earlier discussion without identifying exactly where it is. I never wanted to accuse you of saying it. The earlier discussion centred on the consequences of Cartesion dualism for our treatment of animals.

I'm just saying there is a significant difference between humans and animals. I think this is evidenced by many of the things we do and manufacture. I also think we think about things no other species thinks about. Of course, I can't prove my cat isn't pondering the nature of consciousness, trying to find an easier way to locate prime numbers, or amusing himself with the thought of the cat who shaves all the cats who do not shave themselves. But, if someone invented a machine that allows us to listen in on his thoughts, I would be willing to bet anything that he isn't. — Patterner

There are differences between human and animals. There are also similarities. So the interesting part is what “significant” means.
Actually, I think the significant differences are the ethical ones. We have moral obligations to animals – essentially, not to treat the cruelly. But they have not corresponding moral obligations to us; in fact they can’t be judged by our ordinary moral standards – though one could argue that they do have something like the beginnings of a moral sense.

A fetus becomes conscious before being born and early self-conscious emotions appear during at age 15-24 months. Yet ask yourself, if nobody had talked about consciousness to you, you wouldn't have read about it or been taught about it, would you have come to think about the nature of consciousness? — ssu

Yes. Most of the abilities that seem to differentiate us from animals depend on our being brought up in human society. The “feral” children who turn up from time to time have great difficulty in making good what they missed.

Now your cat might not think about Russell's paradox, but it quite likely can count. It could be argued that it has some primitive feline mathematical system, because counting is very important for situational awareness. Logic is also quite important in situational awareness.
Hence the huge difference isn't a biological difference, but a social and informational difference. — ssu

Your point about the cat is well made. It’s the usual thing – every time something is identified as different and specifically human, it turns out that animals (some animals) have the beginnings or foundations of them. It’s just that we have supernormal development of them.
The point about mathematics and logic also seems to be right. But it does seem that our capacity to learn all those human skills and practices has a biological basis – over-developed cortex, opposable thumb, bipedalism.

I meant to refer generally to the discussion of both, not to just the mathematical section (though, as the text here points out, even mathematically the rule does not “determine” anything; even the judgment (“wrong”) can be suspended, say, with children). — Antony Nickles

I agree it's not just about mathematics. I think W is quite right to point out that a rule has no magic powers and that we determine what it determines - the meaning of the rule is its use, that is, how we apply it.

Yes, but maybe that is exactly the motivation for following a rule based on someone else’s authority, or your own feeling as a “cause”: in order to abdicate not only our authority, but to thus try to sidestep responsibility for our acts and speech. Thus the thought we can say “well that was my perception, so…” to attempt to excuse ourselves. — Antony Nickles

I think you are over-thinking this. It is true that "I feel that..." is often (mis)used rhetorically to establish one's authority and establish immunity from criticism/disagreement . But I think that the water-diviner's case is different from that. It is comparable to cases in which we know and can assert things confidently without being able to explain why. There's no need to establish authority or frame an excuse, because we very often get these judgements right. The water diviner seems to me more like someone who tells you what the sign says, because they can read or because they speak English.

We do not apply the rule (or next step), until it is applied (taken). Thus why he makes the point of saying it can only be explained after the fact (not by a “cause”). — Antony Nickles

Yes. I can see that. I think, however, that there is a great deal more to be said about "embedded beliefs" as reasons for action.