Don't think I've ever read him saying that. He worked from JTB, though... right?

Remember Sam...

Posthumous publications can include things that would have otherwise been edited out by the deceased.

Could you post that passage though, I'm now curious?

There are other passages, but I'd have to look them up.

284. People have killed animals since the earliest times, used the fur, bones etc.etc . for various
purposes; they have counted definitely on finding similar parts in any similar beast.
They have always learnt from experience; and we can see from their actions that they believe
certain things definitely, whether they express this belief or not. By this I naturally do not want to
say that men should behave like this, but only that they do behave like this.
285. If someone is looking for something and perhaps roots around in a certain place, he shows that
he believes that what he is looking for is there.

Will you say there are no leaves because they attached to trees? Do they only come into existence when they fall? — Janus

I'm saying that leaves have no existence independent from the tree. The fact that they fall to the ground does not negate their dependency on the tree for their existence. So any proper explanation of their existence would attribute their existence to the existence of the tree.

We can either say to Jimmie that it is certain that the sun will go down; or we can change the conversation from when he should be home to one of astronomy or induction. The spade is turned when we hit the bedrock that the sun goes down each day. — Banno

This is a false description though, the sun does not go down each day. That description involves the sun as the active subject and going down as the predicate. The true description involves the earth as the active subject and spinning as the predicate. The earth turns such that where we're at on the earth spins toward the sun each morning and away from it each afternoon. That is what Jimmy learns in astronomy.

If everyone always accepted as bedrock, and undoubaible "the sun goes down each day", then no one would have ever discovered that this is a false description. The phenomenon cannot be properly described with the sun as the active subject, going down each day, it must be described with the earth as the active subject, spinning. It is only by doubting the fundamental descriptions of what we sense, that we discover the true reality.

which bedrock will turn the spade depends on where you dig; which propositions are to go unchallenged depends on the language game, depends on the conversation, depends on situation, depends on the practicalities.

Are we so far apart in our ideas? — Banno

We are still far apart, because you, as well as Sam, believe that there are certain fundamental propositions which it would be unreasonable to doubt under any circumstances. I believe that it is circumstances which make it reasonable to doubt propositions, and no proposition is beyond doubt in all possible circumstances. Therefore I think it is unreasonable to assume any proposition will go unchallenged

...under any circumstances. — Metaphysician Undercover

Did Sam say that? I'm pretty sure I did not.

I think Sam and I said that there are propositions that are taken as certain within a given language game.

Did Sam say that? I'm pretty sure I did not.

I think Sam and I said that there are propositions that are taken as certain within a given language game. — Banno

The argument has been that it is unreasonable to doubt specific fundamental propositions. This implies that these propositions cannot be reasonably doubted under any circumstances. That is what is supposed to form the foundation of justification. It prevents the infinite regress of asking for justification of a proposition, then asking for justification of the justification, etc..

Yeah. That's the one I found too, but online, so wasn't sure of it's authenticity.

What's to be reconciled?

Why must Jack be required to be able to think about his own belief in order for him to be able to know that his bowl is empty? — creativesoul

Perhaps it would help if I set out what I think is going on.

There's this word, "know", that is used like other words, confidently and productively by the speakers of English. Folk said they know what tine it is, they know that it is raining. All good innocent fun.

Then along come some of those speakers come along and write a dictionary in which they try to set out the meanings for words, including know. Of course, they never got it quite finished, because the way we use words keeps changing. Others came along, perhaps folk who did not like the uncertainty of continual change, and claimed it was wrong to use words in some ways; these apparently included folk who thought it wrong to use "know" except when one had a "true belief with an account".

So whereas it perhaps once was OK to say that the cat knew it was hungry, some of these new fangled ideas seemed to rule it out. Whereas our common folk talk said it was OK for a cat to know things, it seemed this new fangled stuff said that cats could not give an account of their belief, and so know nothing.

So it depends on which side you choose; in common folk language the cat does not have to be able to think about his own belief in order for him to know the bowl is empty. But in sophisticated greek-inpoered philosophy, it seems the cat can know no such thing.

The argument has been that it is unreasonable to doubt specific fundamental propositions. This implies that these propositions cannot be reasonably doubted under any circumstances. That is what is supposed to form the foundation of justification. It prevents the infinite regress of asking for justification of a proposition, then asking for justification of the justification, etc.. — Metaphysician Undercover

SO in all that time we were talking about how bishops can only move diagonally, you missed the bit that said within the game of chess. No wonder you were confused, thinking Sam and I believed that a bishop stuck to the diagonals under any circumstances.

So I apologise for misleading you; and assure you that when you are not playing chess, you can do what you please with the bishop.

My only excuse is that it had until now not occurred to me that someone might miss the part about rules being part of a game-like activity.

...the sun does not go down each day. — Metaphysician Undercover

Frame of reference?

In some, it most certainly does.

Yup. I'm with you there. It's the 'rules' of each game that I'm busy unpacking in order to show the consequences...

Common folk don't typically navel gaze!

;)

S knows that P if, and only iff, iS believes P, iiS is justified in believing P, and iiiP is true. — creativesoul

If we 'connect' this to Plato, S's being justified in believing P would be that S has an account. Accounts are existentially contingent upon language.

I want to say that a belief is justified or not prior to the believer offering the account. The justification is the offering. The account is of the ground that the belief rests upon. A well-grounded belief is justified prior to the account being offered. Some belief is justified despite the agent not being able to offer an account. The fire example.

I think that one underlying problem here is privileging language over belief. The former is always existentially contingent upon the latter, but some examples of the latter are existentially contingent upon the former.

Depends upon the belief. Epistemology(JTB) doesn't take this into account. The notions of justified and belief suffer the consequences.

Say for whatever reason it takes a person until they're well into adulthood prior to burning their hand in fire.

Is their belief that touching the fire caused the pain unjustified until they tell someone? Of course not. It is knowledge. It is true. It is well-grounded. It needs no account be given to another. Justification is for proving to another that one's belief is well-grounded and true. The act doesn't ground the belief.

I think that Witt was skirting around these same kinds of considerations in OC.

:D

Witt held that belief has propositional content. Thus, he insisted that a belief must be stateable. — creativesoul

You said that a belief must be stateable. However, OC 284 and 285 implies that beliefs can simply be shown in the actions of people. Why does a belief have to be stateable? It's true that within language beliefs do get stated, but that doesn't mean they have to be stateable or stated, which seems to further imply that beliefs aren't beliefs unless they're linguistic. Also, does this mean that if the actions of "rooting around," as W. puts it, never get stated, that it doesn't imply a belief. It doesn't seem to me that W. held that beliefs (necessarily (my words))have propositional content, some do, but others do not.

Anyway Creative, that's my take on it. I understand though that you seemed to leave open the possibility that beliefs are not necessarily propositional.

The argument has been that it is unreasonable to doubt specific fundamental propositions. This implies that these propositions cannot be reasonably doubted under any circumstances. That is what is supposed to form the foundation of justification. It prevents the infinite regress of asking for justification of a proposition, then asking for justification of the justification, etc.. — Metaphysician Undercover

Banno was correct in saying that there are certain proposition that cannot be doubted within a given language-game, or within a particular context. W. demonstrated that while Moore's proposition, as stated before the audience was senseless, viz., could not be known or doubted. He also demonstrated that Moore's proposition could be doubted under the right conditions or context. So it's the phrase "under any circumstances" that I take issue with. I think that we can safely say that Moore's propositions cannot generally be doubted. I think this is more accurate. Moreover, it's true as you say, that these propositions when acting as bedrock, I believe, solve the infinite regress problem.

SO in all that time we were talking about how bishops can only move diagonally, you missed the bit that said within the game of chess. No wonder you were confused, thinking Sam and I believed that a bishop stuck to the diagonals under any circumstances. — Banno

I went through this Banno, I told you your "game of chess" analogy is not applicable. That's when you accused me of being disrespectful. The game of chess does not allow that the players change the rules, but language and knowledge allow for this. Our subject is "knowledge", and if you insist on comparing it to a "game", then consider it a game with evolving rules, where the players decide the rules as they go. But then it's not really like playing a game at all. However, because this really is the nature of knowledge, then it's unreasonable to insist that any of the rules are beyond doubt.

My only excuse is that it had until now not occurred to me that someone might miss the part about rules being part of a game-like activity. — Banno

Do you agree with me then, that to describe things like "knowledge" and "language" as "game-like" activities, is not an acceptable description? It is not acceptable because "game-like" implies that there are pre-existing rules which one must follow, and this would lead to an ontology of Platonic Realism, where the rules pre-exist the players. This description misses a large and very important part of the activities which are knowledge and language, and that is the creation and evolution of the rules.

So the game-like description is really false, it misses the mark because it implies that one ought to follow the rules, to be properly engaged in the activities, when in reality a large part of that activity involves doubting, questioning, and changing the rules.



It is this, describing language and knowledge as game-like, which leads Wittgenstein astray in the end, as demonstrated in On Certainty. The analogy is only good so far as it compares to the part of following rules. But in metaphysics we have to give credence to "the rules". What kind of existence do the rules have? If they always existed, then they are eternal platonic Forms. If they are not eternal Forms, then we have to allow for them to come into existence. If they come into existence, then they are most likely created by the human beings playing the game. But then the game analogy gets lost because the players really do not have to follow the rules, they use their free will to decide, and create the rules as they go.

So I think that Wittgenstein saw the problem of infinite regress in justification. This problem occurs if we refer to the rules for justification. This problem normally would normally be resolved by assuming eternal platonic Forms, necessary rules. Wittgenstein didn't want to go that way, but he also didn't want to admit to the claims of the skeptic that everything is doubtable. If you take my position (the skeptic's) that the rules are simply created by the human beings as they go, then nothing is certain and everything is doubtable. So he proposes the hinge-props as bedrock, to form a kind of compromise solution. But in my mind, this is just a vague, ambiguous proposal which doesn't resolve anything. If the hinge-props are not completely certain, necessary and undoubtable, then we must give in to the skeptic's position that all is doubtable. If they are necessary, they are nothing other than platonic Forms. So he just leaves vagueness and ambiguity as to what the hinge-props really are, such that we can go either way with them.

So I think that Wittgenstein has taken two world views which are completely incompatible and attempted to establish compatibility between them with the proposal of hinge-props. In my opinion it fails because the two world views are incompatible, and so the attempt is misguided.

Frame of reference?

In some, it most certainly does. — creativesoul

If you believe in that frame of reference bull shit, then take your geocentricity, and make yourself the centre of your universe. (Hmm, my spell check changed "geocentricity" to "egocentricity")

want to say that a belief is justified or not prior to the believer offering the account. The justification is the offering. — creativesoul

Yeah, you want to say that the belief is justified (past tense) prior to the act of justification. You ought to give that up. Why don't you just say that the belief is true? Then you have a proper distinction between true and justified, and you follow more closely to traditional philosophical principles. A well-grounded belief is one which corresponds, it is true.

Is their belief that touching the fire caused the pain unjustified until they tell someone? Of course not. It is knowledge. It is true. It is well-grounded. It needs no account be given to another. Justification is for proving to another that one's belief is well-grounded and true. The act doesn't ground the belief. — creativesoul

See, you are describing the belief as "well-ground", "true", but now you want to hand to it "justification" as well, without an act to justify it. The act of putting words to what you have experienced, and expressing it in a way which is comprehensible, and acceptable to others, is very important to epistemological knowledge because this provides the means for temporal persistence of the belief. Your memory, my memory, and especially Banno's memory, are each very limited (just kidding Banno). We get old, forget things, die and forget everything. So, what you and I "know" (in that sense of the word of personal memory), what we remember, our true beliefs cannot enter into the communal "body of knowledge", which is what epistemology deals with, without that act of justification. This act of justification gives your true belief, and knowledge in general, its temporal extension, instead of just being a flash in the pan.

I'm saying that leaves have no existence independent from the tree. The fact that they fall to the ground does not negate their dependency on the tree for their existence. So any proper explanation of their existence would attribute their existence to the existence of the tree. — Metaphysician Undercover

Sure, and the existence of the tree is dependent on the seed, the sunlight, the rain and the nutrients within the ground in which it is anchored and growing and so on. I don't see the relevance to the point, though, which was concerned with the discernibility of entities.

So I think that Wittgenstein has taken two world views which are completely incompatible and attempted to establish compatibility between them with the proposal of hinge-props. In my opinion it fails because the two world views are incompatible, and so the attempt is misguided. — Metaphysician Undercover

You know MU, I read your responses not only in this thread, but your responses to Micheal in another thread, and the only one misguided is you. What you write isn't even coherent at times. You talk about Wittgenstein, but you don't even understand much of what he is saying. So don't give me this crap about being misguided, or that Wittgenstein's proposals fail, because it's clear that you're the one who doesn't understand what you're criticizing. Reading your posts reminds me of reading Ron L. Hubbard, most of it is gibberish.

What kind of existence do the rules have? If they always existed, then they are eternal platonic Forms. If they are not eternal Forms, then we have to allow for them to come into existence. If they come into existence, then they are most likely created by the human beings playing the game. But then the game analogy gets lost because the players really do not have to follow the rules, they use their free will to decide, and create the rules as they go. — Metaphysician Undercover

Consider board games that usually come with a written set of rules. These games are man-made, but this doesn't mean that anyone can use their "free will to decide" what the rules of this game are. You have to follow the rules to play the game, otherwise you aren't playing that game.

If two (or more) players agree to play by a different set of rules then they are no longer playing the same game. In order to play the game named on the box, you can't make up the rules as you go. Even if two or more players agree to play a different game with a different set of rules, one person can't simply decide that those rules don't apply to her (and still be playing the same game).

Sure, and the existence of the tree is dependent on the seed, the sunlight, the rain and the nutrients within the ground in which it is anchored and growing and so on. I don't see the relevance to the point, though, which was concerned with the discernibility of entities. — Janus

The point is, as I stated earlier, that we in general, do not have a good clear idea of what it means to exist. Therefore doubt concerning claims of existence is warranted.

You know MU, I read your responses not only in this thread, but your responses to Micheal in another thread, and the only one misguided is you. What you write isn't even coherent at times. You talk about Wittgenstein, but you don't even understand much of what he is saying. So don't give me this crap about being misguided, or that Wittgenstein's proposals fail, because it's clear that you're the one who doesn't understand what you're criticizing. Reading your posts reminds me of reading Ron L. Hubbard, most of it is gibberish. — Sam26

Thanks for your opinion Sam26, though this post is not at all helpful. Hubbard is an extremely accomplished author so you honour me with this comparison, despite your idiosyncratic designation of "gibberish".

Consider board games that usually come with a written set of rules. These games are man-made, but this doesn't mean that anyone can use their "free will to decide" what the rules of this game are. You have to follow the rules to play the game, otherwise you aren't playing that game. — Luke

Right, I agree with this.

If two (or more) players agree to play by a different set of rules then they are no longer playing the same game. In order to play the game named on the box, you can't make up the rules as you go. Even if two or more players agree to play a different game with a different set of rules, one person can't simply decide that those rules don't apply to her (and still be playing the same game). — Luke

The point I was trying to make is that in the case of language and knowledge, unlike games of chess and such, we actually do make up the rules as we go. This is very evident from history. So that is where the "game" analogy falls short. When we reach the limits of an analogy we ought to drop it and move on, rather than trying to clutch for straws and apply the analogy where it is not suited.

The point I was trying to make is that in the case of language and knowledge, unlike games of chess and such, we actually do make up the rules as we go. This is very evident from history. So that is where the "game" analogy falls short. When we reach the limits of an analogy we ought to drop it and move on, rather than trying to clutch for straws and apply the analogy where it is not suited. — Metaphysician Undercover

That's different to what I responded to before where you said that if the rules of the game are man-made instead of existing in eternal Platonic Forms, then the players don't have to follow the rules and basically anything goes.

Right, if the rules are created by human beings, then human beings do not have to follow any existing rules because they create the rules which they follow, as they go..

But you also agreed with the following..?

Consider board games that usually come with a written set of rules. These games are man-made, but this doesn't mean that anyone can use their "free will to decide" what the rules of this game are. You have to follow the rules to play the game, otherwise you aren't playing that game. — Luke

I don't see your point. I agree that to play such games you must follow the existing rules. My point is that in language and knowledge we do not need to follow existing rules, we make up the rules as we go. Therefore, in this respect, the game analogy fails.

You have probably seen it, but I just have to post this again...

This is the bit that is relevant to our present discussion...

Okay, then I'm confused by you making a distinction between the existence of rules as man-made vs the existence of rules as Platonic Forms. Why make this distinction when games, language and knowledge all have man-made rules?

The point I was trying to make is that in the case of language and knowledge, unlike games of chess and such, we actually do make up the rules as we go. — Metaphysician Undercover

So I set up that game again, in which we do make up the rules as we go.

in the case of language and knowledge, unlike games of chess and such, we actually do make up the rules as we go. — Metaphysician Undercover

Now Meta can't mean this as it stands; because obviously if we are making our language up as we go along, and there are no rules, then language would be unlearnable.

There must be bits of language that we hold reasonably stable, so that others can learn them and use them.

Now, we could name these bits; let's see, they have simple rules to hold them together, like games, so let's call them language games...

Now, in such games, we can hold some bits constant while we are playing; but outside of such games, we could muck around with words as much as we like.

What would then be important would be working out which games we re playing, and which rules we ought be following. Because when we mix the rules of different games, all sorts of weird things might happen. We could invent a sort of therapy that looked carefully at the game we were playing and sorted out what rule goes were, so that we don't get confused... Let's call it "Analytic Philosophy".