So, "use" plays a part in what is meaningful because, once something is said, then we can look at the expression and the context, what the concept appears to be, its criteria, the possible judgments, etc. and see what sense of a concept we are talking about. — Antony Nickles

Nothing so obvious or mechanical. We try to imagine what sense it could have based on the context. And sometimes we get the sense of a word wrong. Meaning is only approximated by an analysis of word use.

You can refer to objects with words--say "Cat" when you see a cat; the use here could be naming, or identifying, or seeing. But this will not tell us anything about a cat's essence (what is essential to us about them) other than it is an object that can be seen, identified, and named (though even as: Fluffy). — Antony Nickles

Why not? A cat is a domesticated small species of feline. These are the essences of a cat. By the way naming is an act of referring.

That said, there is a certain interpretation of Wittgenstein I've warmed up to viz. philosophy, all discourse in fact, is simply symbolic manipulation, including but not limited to logic reminiscent of Searle's Chinese Room. Nobody understands a word they're saying is my point à la Wittgenstein's ladder.

What's inexplicable though is much like how we have no clue as to the existence of free will and still feel, our world is structured accordingly, we do possess free will, we have what could be described as an illusion of understanding.

That said, there is a certain interpretation of Wittgenstein I've warmed up to viz. philosophy, all discourse in fact, is simply symbolic manipulation, including but not limited to logic reminiscent of Searle's Chinese Room. Nobody understands a word they're saying is my point à la Wittgenstein's ladder. — TheMadFool

To be kind, even charitable, the technical term (Thanks, Harry F.) for this "interpretation" is bullshit. :zip:

It seems to me that words do have some kind of essence. The essence of the word "cat" for example can be said to be the specific order of the letters and the pronunciation.

That said, there is a certain interpretation of Wittgenstein I've warmed up to viz. philosophy, all discourse in fact, is simply symbolic manipulation, including but not limited to logic reminiscent of Searle's Chinese Room. Nobody understands a word they're saying is my point à la Wittgenstein's ladder.
— TheMadFool
To be kind, even charitable, the technical term (Thanks, Harry F.) for this "interpretation" is bullshit. :zip: — 180 Proof

:lol: Hi there 180 Proof. I just thought I might as well take the linguistic turn Wittgenstein initiated a long time ago to its logical conclusion - philosophy, every and all discourse, is, at the end of the day, simply language minus the semantics i.e. symbols (letters/words), synatax, overlaid with additional rules like, inter alia, logic. This is the apotheosis of Wittgensteinian philosophy and come to think of it, it is bullshit and Wittgenstein concurs :point:

My propositions serve as elucidations in the following way: anyone who understands me eventually recognizes them as nonsensical, when he has used them—as steps—to climb beyond them. (He must, so to speak, throw away the ladder after he has climbed up it.)

He must transcend these propositions, and then he will see the world aright. — Ludwig Wittgenstein

Dlxt kmqt tsr!

Stop embarrassing yourself, Fool. Until you actually read at least the first two works on the list I've given you, it's a waste of time for anyone to engage you on a philosopher about whom you're profoundly
ignorant. :yawn:

Stop embarrassing yourself, Fool. Until you actually read at the first two works on the list I've given you, it's a waste of time for anyone to engage you on a philosopher about whom you're profoundly
ignorant. :yawn: — 180 Proof

:blush: :grin:

Wittgenstein shows us that all language is essentially behavioural, social and public, so the grammar of the word "know" is based on behavioural verifications, not on inner objects. — Luke

I'll grant you can get that out of §246. But there's a couple peculiarities to that remark I'd like to ask about.

One is that Wittgenstein suggests that to say of me that I know I'm in pain is just to say that I'm in pain. But then if "He's in pain" is not nonsense, how can "He knows he's in pain" be nonsense? Do they have the same use or not?

The argument seems to go like this: the trouble with "I know I'm in pain" is that you would only choose this expression over "I'm in pain" if you have a mistaken understanding of the privacy of our sensations. You may only end up saying (what amounts to) "I'm in pain", but you are trying (and failing) to say something else, and that something else is nonsense.

But that means it's something like your intention that makes "I know I'm in pain" nonsense. Wittgenstein worries an awful lot about how we picture things working, how we understand them, for someone who's supposed to be a behaviorist.

This much is true: it makes sense to say about other people that they doubt whether I am in pain; but not to say it about myself.

And I have one little question about the last paragraph. Everyone seems to take this as an anticipation of On Certainty and finds it completely convincing.

But suppose instead of the §246 we have, we had this:

246. In what sense are my sensations private? — Well, only I can know whether I am really in pain; another person can only surmise it.

This much is true: it makes sense to say about other people that they surmise (guess, suppose, suspect) I am in pain; but not to say it about myself. — Not Wittgenstein

That too is pretty convincing, even if you choose to dance around "know" a little. I wasn't even thinking about §246 when I said of my claim to be able to play the tuba, "I'm not guessing." **

There's a language-game that relates knowing and guessing, isn't there? It's the one he rejects, the one that pictures our sensations as secrets we know and others can only guess. When I say I'm in pain, I'm not guessing, and that makes it, as he notes, natural to say I know I'm in pain. (Note also that the defense of others knowing I'm in pain is just that we do in fact use the word "know" this way — that settles the question even before he gets to the stuff about learning of my pain from my behavior — but he doesn't consider that defense for "I know I'm in pain.")

I'm not rejecting Wittgenstein's entire analysis here, but I'm uncomfortable with the suggestion, often made, that Wittgenstein has demonstrated there is one and only one correct way to use the word "know": it belongs to the knowing-doubting-justifying game and no others, and if you try to use it any other way it's just nonsense. It's his own damn fault, but it doesn't seem like this should have been his legacy.


** I was in fact thinking of King of the Hill.
Hank: "Do you know where I can find 4 D batteries for my flashlight?"
Mega-Lo-Mart clerk: "Aisle 30, I think."
Hank: "This is aisle 30." [It's obviously the toy department.]
Mega-Lo-Mart clerk: "15? 3!"
Hank: "Stop guessing. Either you know or you don't know."

There are a couple things to note about this. One is that "Don't you have a headache?" is a yes-or-no question...
— Srap Tasmaner

Wouldn't we say it is more in the sense of "Hey, I thought you had a headache."--as in confused, requesting confirmation; rather than a question (despite the question mark). — Antony Nickles

Which goes to my point that we often distinguish — and need to distinguish, for conversations to make any sense — the literal, conventional meaning of what we say from the use we are making of it in the circumstances. "Don't you have a headache?" does not mean "Hey, I thought you had a headache" or "I am confused about your headache status," but we can use it that way.

But then if "He's in pain" is not nonsense, how can "He knows he's in pain" be nonsense? Do they have the same use or not? — Srap Tasmaner

"He knows he's in pain" is nonsense for the same reason that "I know I'm in pain" is nonsense - because one cannot surmise and verify that they are in pain, so one cannot (technically) know that they are in pain. Grammatically speaking, to know something requires that one can surmise and verify it (and doubt it). One does not surmise and then verify that they are in pain. That's not how pain works. This is why all that could possibly be meant by "I know I'm in pain" is "I'm in pain".

The argument seems to go like this: the trouble with "I know I'm in pain" is that you would only choose this expression over "I'm in pain" if you have a mistaken understanding of the privacy of our sensations. You may only end up saying (what amounts to) "I'm in pain", but you are trying (and failing) to say something else, and that something else is nonsense.

But that means it's something like your intention that makes "I know I'm in pain" nonsense. — Srap Tasmaner

It is not one's intention. but the misuse of the word "know" that makes it nonsense.

This much is true: it makes sense to say about other people that they surmise (guess, suppose, suspect) I am in pain; but not to say it about myself. — Not Wittgenstein

Hopefully this is adequately answered by my first response in this post.

Everyone seems to take this as an anticipation of On Certainty and finds it completely convincing. — Srap Tasmaner

The difference between PI 246 and On Certainty is that PI 246 concerns knowledge of private sensations, whereas On Certainty extends the same idea to some public knowledge. Without the appropriate context, it is grammatically incorrect to say, e.g., "I know I have two hands". Whereas it could be argued that it is always grammatically incorrect to say "I know I'm in pain".

There's a language-game that relates knowing and guessing, isn't there? It's the one he rejects, the one that pictures our sensations as secrets we know and others can only guess. When I say I'm in pain, I'm not guessing, and that makes it, as he notes, natural to say I know I'm in pain. — Srap Tasmaner

You'll need to refresh my memory of this language-game.

Update

@180 Proof and others as well. What means this :point:

Wittgenstein's Ladder (Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus)

My propositions serve as elucidations in the following way: anyone who understands me eventually recognizes them as nonsensical, when he has used them—as steps—to climb beyond them. (He must, so to speak, throw away the ladder after he has climbed up it.)

   He must transcend these propositions, and then he will see the world aright. — Ludwig Wittgenstein

?

That said, there is a certain interpretation of Wittgenstein I've warmed up to viz. philosophy, all discourse in fact, is simply symbolic manipulation, including but not limited to logic reminiscent of Searle's Chinese Room. Nobody understands a word they're saying is my point à la Wittgenstein's ladder.

What's inexplicable though is much like how we have no clue as to the existence of free will and still feel, our world is structured accordingly, we do possess free will, we have what could be described as an illusion of understanding. — TheMadFool

:flower:

 "(He must, so to speak, throw away the ladder AFTER he has climbed up it.)" ~L.W.

Anything taken out of context, especially by one ignorant of the context, can be made to seem to say anything. À la principle of explosion! Sophistry (Charlatanry) 101. In other words, one can't "throw away a ladder" that one hasn't bothered "to climb". Fool is as Fool does, no less. :mask:

Anything taken out of context, especially by one ignorant of the context, can be made to seem to say anything. À la principle of explosion! Sophistry (Charlatanry) 101. In other words, one can't "throw away a ladder" that one hasn't bothered "to climb". Fool is as Fool does, no less — 180 Proof

Wittgenstein's statement, context-independent, is nonsensical e.g. he claims that if anyone understands him, that person would realize Wittgenstein's philosophy is nonsensical. It's paradoxical to assert that one understands the nonsensical. What sayest thou, o wise one?

You haven't read the TLP in full. You've no idea (sense) of what Witty means by 'nonsense'. Hint: Witty does not refute himself, rather he reorients philosophy by pointing out (only in 70-odd pp.) what 'philosophical statements' can show (re: describe, eludicate) and what they cannot say (re: explain).

The TLP is nonsense from the very first page onward. Anyone talking Wittgenstein seriously is wasting his time.

You haven't read the TLP in full. You've no idea (sense) of what Witty means by 'nonsense'. Hint: Witty does not refute himself, rather he reorients philosophy by pointing out (only in 70-odd pp.) what 'philosophical statements' can show (re: describe, eludicate) and what they cannot say (re: explain). — 180 Proof

On the first charge levied against me - "...haven't read the TLP in full..." - I plead guilty. However, in my defense, I did read the SEP and Wiki entries on Wittgenstein's take on language and philosophy. Too, over the years I've gained a deeper understanding of what it is that he wishes to convey. Like it or not, for better or for worse, my conclusion is that Wittgenstein held the opinion that philosophy, everything that has to do with interpersonal and intrapersonal communication, is simply symbol manipulation according to the rules of grammar - there being, as per Wittgenstein himself, no essence to words. That's not all, these symbols (words and some letters like "a" and "i") are also treated within systems of reasoning or, in some cases, unreasoning, depending on where you fall on the Maverick scale.

I know you disagree and I know you're a scholar with credentials someone like me could only dream of BUT...at this juncture I'd like to stick to my guns and say Wittgenstein's philosophy can be summed up as reducing humans to computers (syntactically and logically adept but semantically challenged). We don't understand either ourselves (private language) and nor do we understand each other (Tower of Babel).

And you hit the nail on the head about how critical , I quote, "what Witty means by nonsense" is.

Thank you for your time. Good day and don't forget to be awesome!

Why read what so many others (including me) writes about Witty and not you just read Witty's work instead ?

Why read what so many others (including me) writes about Witty and not you just read Witty's work instead ? — 180 Proof

As always, good question! :smile:

Wouldn't we say it is more in the sense of "Hey, I thought you had a headache."--as in confused, requesting confirmation; rather than a question (despite the question mark). — Antony Nickles

Which goes to my point that we often distinguish — and need to distinguish, for conversations to make any sense — the literal, conventional meaning of what we say from the use we are making of it in the circumstances. "Don't you have a headache?" does not mean "Hey, I thought you had a headache" or "I am confused about your headache status," but we can use it that way. — Srap Tasmaner

(emphasis added)

In the PI, Witt is trying to get us to see why we want there to be such a thing as a "literal, conventional meaning" (a "meaning"). It is the logic of our concepts that make an expression possible, but it is the circumstances which make the expression interpretable. We do not know the use of an expression until it is said in a situation (sometimes even ourselves, as speaker); we may not know the concept even without some sorting out, as we did in this case. As I said earlier, a misleading fact about language is that every word can have a definition (PI, #1), so we can look at a sentence in isolation, without a context, and it appears to have "a meaning". But, of course, even with the simplest cases--like someone saying "Slab!" (#19)--we learn that how something is meaningful to us is tied up with the importance to us (all) of ordering, pointing, seeing, responding, acknowledging, etc. (To understand a sentence means to understand a language. PI #199) That we must have our whole lives to draw on in order to understand a sentence. The idea that a sentence has a meaning (like an object, even a similarly-structured "use") comes from the desire to have a direct, certain, complete, immediate, correlation between what we say and what it "means" (a word and its referent; an object and its essence). There is no simple picture anymore for philosophy after Wittgenstein.

The other part of this is harder for people to hear (accept), as it means our role in language is much less than we had hoped. In saying language is not structured as having meanings, Wittgenstein is not simply proposing a replacement for "meaning" in the same picture with his suggestion to look at the use of a concept. We distinguish between the possibilities of a concept (like knowing), but only when conversations don't go as expected; a sentence can pass unnoticed, without meaning anything at all (a type of non-sense). This means that intention is a question asked when there is something odd about an expression, not an accompaniment to everything we say. Although some expressions are said intentionally, what is meaningful about them is not how we use them . The use is seen in the expression (afterwards). Our wish for certainty is a desire to have control over "the use" of an expression, so that we can avoid our responsibility afterwards for what we have said.

You can refer to objects with words--say "Cat" when you see a cat; the use here could be naming, or identifying, or seeing. But this will not tell us anything about a cat's essence (what is essential to us about them) other than it is an object that can be seen, identified, and named (though even as: Fluffy).
— Antony Nickles

Why not? A cat is a domesticated small species of feline. These are the essences of a cat. — TheMadFool

This is a description of a cat; these are facts about a cat for identifying a cat, say, from a dog, or a tiger. These are not the essence of a thing that philosophy seeks. The criteria for a table could be that it is flat and has four legs; but someone might disagree that a table is anything on which we share a dinner. If we can let go of the fantasy that the essence of an object or concept is some fixed universal property that is certain and continuous, than we can begin to have a discussion about what is essential--what is important about the world, captured in how we live and judge and identify. What you find essential about justice and what I do has depth and weight and matters to us (all). Though sometimes that can't be reconciled does not mean the discussion should be cast aside in exchange for rules and meanings and an "essence" (without us).

That said, there is a certain interpretation of Wittgenstein I've warmed up to viz. philosophy, all discourse in fact, is simply symbolic manipulation... Nobody understands a word they're saying is my point à la Wittgenstein's ladder. — TheMadFool

If you want to dismiss philosophy, there is every opportunity. I would offer that you suspend the urge to simplify and judge; you will not be better for having put a label on something and trivialized it. The person who started writing the Tractatus is not the same person who wrote the end of it. It is an exploration of what could be said given a certain standard. The ladder are all the claims he can make in the Tractatus with such certainty because no one would object. (Later in the PI, he will say "If one tried to advance theses in philosophy, it would never be possible to debate them, because everyone would agree to them." #128) They are not without sense, but there is no sense in having said them. Having gotten through saying them all, he finds himself without anything to say. Yet he is lucid, transcendent, aright. It is a catharsis and expiation of his desire to fix the world to a criteria of certainty that he began with. In Philosophical Investigations, he turns towards what in the Tractatus he calls philosophers' "nonsense", to take that seriously and understand the motivation for it.

Update

An essence is that quality/property necessary for a thing to be that thing. If an essence is absent, then a thing stops being that thing, we're talking about something else entirely. A wolf forebear is an essence of a dog.

Definition is basically a list of qualities/properties that are both sufficient AND necessary for a thing to be that thing. Domestication and vulpine ancestry defines a dog. If you take that list with you, you can identify a thing and if you see a thing that is that thing, whatever it is, you'll discover that that thing has all the qualities/properties in your list.

The combination of essences is the sufficiency criterion while each essence itself is necessary.

Wittgenstein is right in saying words lack an essence but words and definitions are two entirely different things. Wittgenstein seems to be conflating the two - like a bungling ( :joke: ) cop, he identifies the culprit correctly, takes aim, pulls the trigger, and shoots the wrong guy. :grin:

Just a further remark about sense.

So, when we think of meaning, think of how a word is used in the language-game that is its home. If for example, we’re talking about epistemology and how we justify a conclusion, then we’re using the word know in a way that’s determined by the logic of that language-game. The problem that arises, is when we take the use of a particular word in one language-game, and try to apply it in another language-game where the word is used in a completely different way, i.e., it has a different use, or it functions differently. This is not to say that a word can’t have the same use in a different language-game, but to say that it’s use maybe different; and thus, it may have a different sense.

For example, I might use the word know in the following way, viz., to reflect my feeling of subjective certainty, which is reflected in the way I respond or gesticulate. This is far removed from how I might use it in terms of an epistemological justification for what I believe. The problem is that we try to apply a sense that's applicable in one language-game, but not applicable in another language-game. This is probably why Wittgenstein was against religious arguments. He seemed to think that we were applying the language-game, say of science, to the language-game of religion. The two language-games are just different games with different moves. Some of the moves would obviously have to be the same, but some of the moves are just different, with different senses.

You might think that this is just another way to say that context drives meaning, but it’s not. In other words, use is normative, but context is not, you can’t just change a words sense, by giving it just any context.

I pretty much concur.

I'd add that we can, and do, move terms from one language game to another. Doing this changes the use of the term, of corse, because we are now playing a different game. Problems can occur when this is done without recognising the change in use.

For example, consider the use of "cause" in physics and in arguments for god's existence, or the use of possible worlds in logic and in quantum mechanics. Or China claiming to be a democratic nation.

This process appears to most often lead to confusion, but can also lead to insight. It's not something to avoid, but something to do with great care.

A question for due consideration is whether Wittgenstein thought that language games were incommensurable. Feyerabend seems to have thought so, and at first built incommensurability into his arguments, later changing his mind. Davidson's argument against incommensurability also deserves consideration.

6.53 The correct method in philosophy would really be the following: to say nothing except what can be said, i.e. propositions of natural science—i.e. something that has nothing to do with philosophy—and then, whenever someone else wanted to say something metaphysical, to demonstrate to him that he had failed to give a meaning to certain signs in his propositions. Although it would not be satisfying to the other person—he would not have the feeling that we were teaching him philosophy—this method would be the only strictly correct one. 
6.54 My propositions are elucidatory in this way: he who understands me finally recognizes them as senseless, when he has climbed out through them, on them, over them. (He must so to speak throw away the ladder, after he has climbed up on it.) 

These paragraphs become less troubling if one thinks of them as having been rethought between the early and the later Wittgenstein.

The issue is that, if the Tractatus forms the ladder which one is eventually to kick away, then it is apparent that the propositions therein, even if senseless, are not without use.

And explaining how they might be both senseless and useful is the task of the Philosophical Investigations. The propositions of philosophy are of use not so much because of what they say as of what they show.

Lately I've been trying to answer this question for myself. I've thought of possible answers, but nothing definitive. My problem is that most of my studies of Wittgenstein have been in isolation from much of what has been written. Mostly I've tried to read just Wittgenstein (the primary sources) just to see how my interpretation would later compare with others.

I ran into this problem on my own without reading what others have said, and have been puzzling over it.

There doesn't seem to be any absolute standard by which we judge one language-game over another. I don't believe this leads to a kind of relativism as some suggest. It's like asking if there is some standard by which we judge chess games. The standard would seem to be the actions within the game itself, the moves we make, etc.

It's like asking if there is some standard by which we judge chess games. — Sam26

Are you saying something like this:

"Is Bb5 legal?" -- Depends on the position.
"Is Bb5 good?" -- Depends on the position.

Well, both of those questions could be asked within the same game. I'm asking if there is some standard by which we can judge the language-game itself. For myself, I don't think this is a legitimate question. Although, I haven't fully come to terms with it, but I'm leaning this way. I might be missing something, not sure.