You make it sound like someone is force feeding you, viz., that an argument against your belief is being shoved down your throat. I'm right you're wrong kind of battle, as though it has nothing to do with discovery, but a kind of ego battle.

I had hoped I was suggesting an alternative approach and providing some motivation for it, why one might invest some time in pursuing such an alternative.

Just tinkering, as usual.

I'm always willing to listen to good arguments, and new ways of looking at things.

How do we know if we're even referring to the same thing? — Sam26

Many words have no referent (e.g. 'the', 'of', 'if', 'then' or names of fictional entities) but this doesn't make the use of these terms incorrect.

Many words have no referent (e.g. 'the', 'of', 'if', 'then' or names of fictional entities) but this doesn't make the use of these terms incorrect. — Luke

Hi Luke, I haven't talked to you in a while.

Those of you who have followed my posts over the years, or have followed my recent posts, I hope know and understand that I agree with Luke's point. However, if we're talking about the beetle analogy for e.g., there is no agreement, not only in terms of having a referent, but there is no way to know what rule to follow in terms of correct usage. So while it's true that many words have no referent, there are objective ways to know how to use words like 'the,' 'of,' 'is,' etc, there are rules of grammar for us to examine, or some other objective feature for us to examine, as in the case of pain. So sense isn't necessarily dependent on a referent.

Hi Sam

I'm glad we agree that sense does not require a referent. However, it seems to be the lack of a referent which leads you to assert that the Christian use of the word 'soul' is incorrect. Given a community who share a use of this word in similar ways (you even offered a definition of the word on the previous page yourself), I don't see how it's at all like W's beetle.

I think there's a definite distinction between saying one person is using a word incorrectly and saying an entire community is using a word incorrectly. It seems inappropriate to label the usage 'incorrect' in the latter case.

I'm glad we agree that sense does not require a referent. However, it seems to be the lack of a referent which leads you to assert that the Christian use of the word 'soul' is incorrect. Given a community who share a use of this word in similar ways (you even offered a definition of the word on the previous page yourself), I don't see how it's at all like W's beetle.

I think there's a definite distinction between saying one person is using a word incorrectly and saying an entire community is using a word incorrectly. It seems inappropriate to label the usage 'incorrect' in the latter case. — Luke

Well maybe I wasn't clear in that post. It's not just a lack of a referent, it's lack of any way to be subject to a rule that gives meaning to the word, or any way that we could possibly agree, or not agree, that the thing we are referring to is the same thing. Christians do offer a definition of the thing they are referring too, are you suggesting that because there is a definition that that in itself is enough to give meaning to the word? I don't think so. Suppose the soul was the thing in the box, would saying it was the soul give it sense? We could even imagine saying the beetle is that thing that goes on after I die, the essence of who I am.

We could easily extend Wittgenstein's beetle example into a language-game similar to how Christians use the term soul. We could develop language-games around the use of the word beetle, would that give it sense? We could imagine pulling out our boxes whenever we refer to the word beetle. I think it's exactly like Witt's beetle example. How is it not? I'm open to being wrong, but at the moment I don't see it.

Finally, why would you say that it's inappropriate to say that an entire community is using a word incorrectly? Communities of philosophers and theologians do it all the time. Wittgenstein railed against philosophers for doing this.

The central issue is that language does not work propositionally, even if language can be employed pretty well in that regard.

So these threads seem to get hung up on the idea that language stripped bare would reveal its secret propositional structure. And yet when language is stripped bare - disaster! - that logicist structure appears to evaporate. The logicist is so disappointed that he/she proclaims language to lack any proper objective or intrinsic structure at all. It is all just games of pretend.

But a constraints-based understanding of language gets at the structure it has due to self-organising dynamical principles.

Instead of the atomism of logicism - where meaning must be constructed from the ground up, fixed part connected to fixed part - meaning is holistic.

Anything might have been meant at the beginning. While you wait for a speaker to speak, your own state of understanding is a vague receptacle. No communicative possibility (and a host might be buzzing), has yet been definitely dismissed. There is neither understanding nor misunderstanding. The symmetry is yet to be broken in terms of that logicist disjunct.

Then speaking starts to constrain that open state of mind which is entertaining a plenum of the possible. To some degree, a host of interpretive possibilities get eliminated.

Information theory models this in detail. The 20 questions game illustrates how you can arrive at any word in the dictionary if you just ask a question that divides the field of possibilities in half with each question. You get an exponential elimination of alternatives. Is it real, is it fictional? Is it a form or life or is it not? Language allows the systematic construction of states of constraint. Meaning becomes whatever set of possible interpretations is yet to be positively eliminated.

So words don't carry cargoes of meaning in truth-apt style. They construct socio-cultural boundaries to acts of interpretation. Agreement is "meaning is use". But agreement is also agreement on a deep structure - the structure that is needed to restrict free possibility in that pragmatic fashion.

It's not just catastrophic misunderstandings, but also subtle misunderstandings, so subtle that much of the time they're missed. — Sam26

So the goal of communication is to limit misunderstandings by constructing a shared mental frame of constraints.

Misunderstandings then separate into those that matter and those that don't. Catastrophic misunderstandings would be meaningful. The logicist constraint of either/or - the constraint that is intolerant of ambiguity - would have some pragmatic point to it. Something matters about the misunderstanding that is worth correcting.

But then, from a constraints view, no state of understanding ever bottoms out in concrete atomistic definiteness. The old logicist hope of that kind of foundationalism has long gone. So, in the pragmatist account, the only thing that terminates the possibility of "subtle misunderstanding" is a generalised agreement not to sweat the detail. Pragmatism is self-grounding. Top-down constraint is eventually matched by a principle of indifference. Part of the deal is knowing when either/or choices - binary bits of information - cease to make a material difference to the formal structure of constraints in place.

It is an easy trick to bring up subtle misunderstandings that lurk in any speech act - as if that were a telling blow to language structuralism. But that just reflects reductionist thinking at work. It could only matter if you thought meaning has to be constructed bit by bit, atom by atom, from the ground up.

When speech is understood as a semiotic story of constraints, then the open-ended bottom is part of the point. It means speech has irreducible creativity and spontaneity. The fine-grain possibility of misunderstanding is an important organic part of the deal.

And then a ground is always found as the other part of the deal. In ordinary speech - not so much in philosophical discourse - folk tend to share a common level of indifference. A fine-grain of misunderstanding is not a big issue as it doesn't make a real difference to the communicative intent - the structure of thought or structure of constraint.

So the goal of communication is to limit misunderstandings by constructing a shared mental frame of constraints. — apokrisis

First, no one said that the goal of communication is to limit misunderstandings, at least I didn't. Much of what you're saying is a complete misunderstanding of what's being said.

no state of understanding ever bottoms out in concrete atomistic definiteness. — apokrisis

Where does anyone even hint at this? Maybe if we were discussing Wittgenstein's Tractatus you could make such a criticism, but no one is suggesting that, especially me.

Maybe if we were discussing Wittgenstein's Tractatus — Sam26

The issue is the flip from one extreme to the other extreme.

Recognising that there is no definite atomistic foundation leads to the jump to the other extreme of anti-foundationalism.

I just seek to make it clear that there is a middle path that sees foundations as what in the end get constructed via a collective system of constraints.

So don't take it personally that I quoted you on a particular bone of contention.

Why would you think I'm taking it personally? I just don't see what you're saying as connecting up with much of what was said.

Anti-foundationalism, where do you see that? I'm sorry, but what you saying seems a bit bizarre. Especially since I've constructed a kind of foundationalist view from much of my understanding of Wittgenstein's later philosophy. If anything we might have some agreement here, maybe.

There are public expressions of ecstasy or beatitude, which can be associated with the word 'soul' just as public expressions of suffering due to disease, injury or emotional trauma can be associated with the word 'pain'. Of course an individual will not understand the sense of the words unless they have had private experiences of ecstasy or suffering that they can associate with the public expressions of these private states and the conventional words that refer to them. In other words the lack of sense of 'soul' is merely a lack of sense for you, and you are unjustifiably attributing this lack of sense to others.

I don't have much time to respond, but would you say your criticism regarding the word 'soul' equally applies to words like 'unicorn' or 'if'? Are we all using these words incorrectly? What makes the word 'soul' any different?

No. I thought I already explained what makes the use of the word soul different.

True, but the sense of the word isn't dependent on your private experience anyway. — Sam26

This is where I think you are mistaken; the sense of words which refer to subjective states depend both on public expressions and private experiences of those states.A person who could not feel physical pain could still somewhat understand the word as applied to the physical by "analogy", if they felt emotional pain; they could not understand the word at all if they never felt physical or emotional pain.

Of course an individual will not understand the sense of the words unless they have had private experiences of ecstasy or suffering that they can associate with the public expressions of these private states — Janus

Is that true? It really might be -- I'm not disagreeing -- but there's also a little waystation we get to stop at sometimes of knowing at least what kind of word we don't understand. Oddly, stopping here seems to mean that even though you don't know how to use the word properly yourself, and could not judge whether someone else is, you get to have a partial sense of what someone using the word is saying. ("He's referring to a color I don't know by name." ”She's referring to a feeling I may never have felt.")

ETA: Learning a new word usually means getting to this waystation first, I think.

There are public expressions of ecstasy or beatitude, which can be associated with the word 'soul' just as public expressions of suffering due to disease, injury or emotional trauma can be associated with the word 'pain'. Of course an individual will not understand the sense of the words unless they have had private experiences of ecstasy or suffering that they can associate with the public expressions of these private states. In other words the lack of sense of 'soul' is merely a lack of sense for you, and you are unjustifiably attributing this lack of sense to others. — Janus

Any bodily expression is an expression of the soul, which really is related to what we've meant by soul historically. If you really want to know the meaning of soul, watch a living body, it's the very expression of a soul. Note though, that this is the same as how we arrive at the meaning of pain, expressions of pain are the thing that demonstrate the inner experience, the same is true of soul, at it's root meaning.

However, what is the expression of soul, or the meaning of soul as Christians use it? I'm not saying that all Christians are always using the word soul in a senseless way, but much of the time they do, especially when referring to some inner thing that has no outward expression. It's that thing that lives on after we die, well, what are the manifestations of this thing? I can tell you what the manifestations of pain are, or I can tell you what the traditional manifestations of soul are? But what in the world are Christians talking about? Saying it's that thing that lives on is senseless, and it's not just senseless to me, it is senseless, unless you can tell me how it's not. I'm listening, or reading.

Yes, I think it's always a matter of degree of understanding, when it comes to affective states. Let's say you've never experienced murderous intent motivated by hatred, you can still understand it up to a point if you've ever merely disliked anyone, and intended to punish anyone in any minor way, or morely generally intended or desired to do anything at all. But still you could not fully understand what 'murderous intent' means unless you had experienced it yourself.

Right, so you do agree that 'soul' has sense, but not that 'immortal soul' does. But again, I must disagree with you, because we understand the sense of 'immortal' by its negation of the sense of 'mortal', and to make sense of 'immortal soul' is just to apply that notion of living forever or never dying to what we already understand to be the living soul. Of course, in accordance with my answer to Srap, I acknowledge that we cannot fully understand the sense of 'immortal soul', in its specific application as 'life after death', unless we have experienced life after death, but that just reinforces my argument that personal experience is required as much as public expression of such experiences is..

But still you could not fully understand what 'murderous intent' means unless you had experienced it yourself. — Janus

I just don't see this as being true. Do I have to have the exact experience as you in order to understand certain kinds of pain? I've never had my arm hacked off, so does that mean I don't understand something about the meaning of pain? You might respond, yes, unless you've had that experience you really don't understand that kind of pain. But you might say this about any experience, i.e., how would anyone one know what any pain feels like, because none of us have access to another's inner experiences? How could you possibly know what someone else experiences when they get a dental needle in their front gum, even if you have had the experience? This again links meaning or understanding back to the inner experience, which, I believe is incorrect.

Right, so you do agree that 'soul' has sense, but not that 'immortal soul' does. But again, I must disagree with you, because we understand the sense of 'immortal' by its negation of the sense of 'mortal', and to make sense of 'immortal soul' is just to apply that notion of living forever or never dying to what we already understand to be the living soul. Of course, in accordance with my answer to Srap, I acknowledge that we cannot fully understand the sense of 'immortal soul', in its specific application as 'life after death', unless we have experienced it. — Janus

There is no relationship between the use of the word soul as it has been historically used apart from religion, at least some religions, and how Christians use the word soul, they mean two different things. To say that we have a soul that is recognized as bodily movement among other things, doesn't mean that there is an invisible thing that lives forever. There's nothing invisible about the correct use of the word, it's completely visible, and makes sense because it's visible. But this other idea of soul is devoid of sense. As I said before it's like Witt's beetle example.

The last part of your paragraph I dealt with above.

I think you're thinking too much in terms of 'either/or'; that we either understand affective states, and by extension the sense of the terms that refer to them, or we don't, and that the sense of words referring to affective states is linked to either the private experiences or the public expressions, but not both. I'm saying there are degree of understanding of the sense of terms that refer to affective states, that depend on the degree of experience of both public expressions and private experiences, as well as 'analogies' with other affective states and the degree of experience, both private and public, of those.

A person, for example, who never felt anything at all, physical or emotional, could have no sense of the word 'feeling' at all, no matter how many public expressions of it they had witnessed. Of course most likely no such person has ever existed.

This is not true; Christian thinkers appropriated and extended Aristotle's conception of the soul.

The last part of your paragraph I dealt with above. — Sam26

I don't see where you've dealt with that.

Well maybe I wasn't clear in that post. It's not just a lack of a referent, it's lack of any way to be subject to a rule that gives meaning to the word, or any way that we could possibly agree, or not agree, that the thing we are referring to is the same thing. — Sam26

If your concern is that we, as a community, have no way of determining that “the thing we are referring to is the same thing”, then it sounds a lot like it is just a lack of referent. You appear to be saying that a lack of referent is the reason for why we can’t be sure, or can’t find a way to agree, that we are referring to the same thing. But I thought we had already agreed that sense does not require a referent?

Christians do offer a definition of the thing they are referring too, are you suggesting that because there is a definition that that in itself is enough to give meaning to the word? — Sam26

Probably, in most cases. A definition at least offers some direction as to how a word might be used.

We could easily extend Wittgenstein's beetle example into a language-game similar to how Christians use the term soul. We could develop language-games around the use of the word beetle, would that give it sense? — Sam26

Assuming the language games are public, then of course. Meaning is use, right?
 

I think it's exactly like Witt's beetle example. How is it not? — Sam26

Because the word ‘soul’ has a very public use. The beetle example, as part of the private language argument, is designed to show that the meaning of ‘pain’ is not derived from one person’s subjective (private) sensations, but from its public use in the language game. Per Wittgenstein, “if we construe the grammar of the expression of sensation on the model of 'object and designation,’ the object drops out of consideration as irrelevant."

Finally, why would you say that it's inappropriate to say that an entire community is using a word incorrectly? Communities of philosophers and theologians do it all the time. Wittgenstein railed against philosophers for doing this. — Sam26

Which word(s) did Wittgenstein rail against philosophers for using incorrectly?

Even for obsolete scientific terms like ‘ether’ or ‘phlogiston’, I don’t think you would call the users of those words incorrect in their use of those terms, despite the fact that later science found that those words did not actually refer to what it was presumed they did. The obsolete terms had those meanings to those scientists and were used accordingly (and correctly at the time). Even now people (e.g. students) can use those words correctly or incorrectly.

If you trace the use of the word soul, and the way it's been used historically (outside of religion), it refers to the animation of the living body; and the animation of a body doesn't necessarily mean that there's something that survives the death of the body.

Am I saying there is nothing that survives death, no, I'm just saying that the use of the word soul in the Christian context has no sense. — Sam26

I can only see a contradiction in you saying that the word has no sense, and that it refers to the animation of the living body. You appear to be saying that the word both has and does not have a meaning.

The animation of a body might not “necessarily mean that there's something that survives the death of the body,” but that doesn’t necessarily mean that Christians are using the word ‘soul’ incorrectly. You may not believe that the soul survives the body, but this personal view is irrelevant to the meaning of the word or its use by Christians.

language is used to articulate an interpretation of an understanding rooted in the intelligibility of the world. As such, I suspect that any universal commonality, if any there be, is going to come somewhere between intelligibility and language.

If your concern is that we, as a community, have no way of determining that “the thing we are referring to is the same thing”, then it sounds a lot like it is just a lack of referent. You appear to be saying that a lack of referent is the reason for why we can’t be sure, or can’t find a way to agree, that we are referring to the same thing. But I thought we had already agreed that sense does not require a referent? — Luke

It depends I guess on what you mean by referent. So I can point to a specific referent when referring to the Earth, or I can talk about many referents when speaking about cars, cups, or trees, depending on context. These things of course have nothing to do with my internal private experiences, at least in the sense that we are talking about. When we observe how these words are used we can clearly see, in most cases, if you're using the word correctly. If you point to a car, and say tree, we would naturally think something was amiss, and rightly so. We learn these kinds of words through ostensive definition.

Similarly when referring to pains, although, I'm not sure if one wants to call a particular pain a referent, but there is something (call it a referent if you prefer) associated with the pain that let's language and the public connect up with the inner experience. The way we learn to use the word pain, is not by pointing to some unknown inner experience, but by observing the public thing that becomes manifest. So the inner experience must have a public side to it in order for us to agree in terms of meaning. We say this because if the inner experience has nothing that can manifest itself publicly, then how are we able to make sense of the thing. That public thing, by the way, must be more than simply writing down what we think is the meaning of the word.

Definitions are more like guides, they're not what give words meaning, use (although this isn't absolute) has more to do with meaning than anything else. They sure didn't have dictionaries thousands of years ago, but they could observe how someone was using a word within the public domain of rule-following.

Now it doesn't follow from this that we can't talk about our inner experiences unless their is a publicly driven something that's available for us to observe. This may sound contradictory when comparing it to what I just said above. However, we must take into account that once we learn a language within a social setting, then it can be reasonably assumed that you know what you're talking about when you refer to an inner experience. The point being that if you have already demonstrated that you know how to use the word pain, anxiety, happy, etc, correctly, then generally you don't need a public referent to express the inner experience. However, learning what the inner experience is, must take place publicly, and within a linguistic environment. So the inner experience is linked to certain behavior expressions.

As you pointed out there are no behaviors or objects associated with other kinds of words, i.e., no referents if you prefer. It therefore follows from this that not all words need a referent, and this is true, so I follow your point. So how do we learn words without referents? There are arbitrary rules of use associated with the marks or writings we do on paper, or when we type, and the rules associated with these various markings can be checked for proper use. We do this with mathematics too. Note that even though these kinds of words need no referent as you say, they still need some way of checking them publicly, and this is important. It's important because any word that has a meaning, must be checked in a way that makes sense of rule-following, which is why a private language is impossible. Rules and rule-following is not a private thing. However, don't confuse this with not being able to use what we've learned privately. Thus, it doesn't follow from what I just said, that I can't do mathematics privately, or that I can't refer to some inner experience privately. It only means that meaning, viz., making sense, first has to be established openly or publicly, before I can do the private thing.

If all of this is true, then it follows that Wittgenstein's beetle example demonstrates that if we talk about something that is totally private, i.e., it not only has no referent, but there is no way for us to establish a rule of use that can be publicly said to be correct or incorrect. This is why it doesn't make sense for me to make a knowledge claim without some way of verifying that one does indeed have knowledge. It would be weird if your high school teacher asked you if you know algebra, and you replied, "Yes," and that was all there was to it. No, we want to observe that you indeed do know algebra, do some algebra problems (publicly).

Now let's move on to the word soul, and here I'm referring to that thing that is said to be in us that lives on after we die. This is the use I'm referring too, not the use that refers to the behavior acts of a body, viz., he has soul, or your expressions are soulful. These two uses have a public domain, and more importantly they have clear cut (in most cases) uses that can be seen publicly to be correct or incorrect.

The use of the word soul that I'm critiquing, is the use that has no outward behavior act associated with it, i.e., it's referring to the thing in the box, the thing we call beetle (the soul). You can't see it, smell it, and there is no outward expression of it, like there is with the learning of the word pain. But you say it's like learning the use of the word the, of, or about, we learn them by applying these words correctly in certain contexts. However, we learn these words in a much different way, and in completely different contexts; learning them requires learning grammatical rules, like learning mathematics has to do with learning particular rules associated with the marks we make on paper. There are clear guidelines to follow, where errors can be ascertained publicly.

I say the word soul as used by many religious people, has no clear cut meaning that can be said to be correct or incorrect. Moreover, they're saying that there is a something attached to the meaning of the word, viz., the thing that lives on after the body dies, so they're saying it has a referent. Furthermore, they're claiming that that is what gives it meaning or sense (even though it doesn't matter if you associate a referent to it or not, the word is still senseless). Isn't this exactly what people are doing when they refer to the beetle in the box, it's the thing in their box that gives meaning (they think) to the word. How do we know what that thing is? Note that even if I apply the same meaning to the beetle in the box (it's the thing that lives on after we die) that they do when referring to soul, this still does nothing to give the word sense, the problem still persists. Let's suppose that people claim to have religious experiences around their beetle, does that give it sense? Even if they create language-games around the beetle, does that give it sense? How do we know that the thing associated with the word, is a thing at all? That would be like me saying I have a pain, and it causes certain feeling inside of me, but if there were not outward observational things for the word to latch onto, how is saying I'm in pain have any sense.

How is the word soul the same as other inner things that have outward expressions? There are no outward expressions of this thing. All there is, is a definition, but that's not enough to give it sense. No more than giving a definition to the beetle would give it sense.

By the way, meaning isn't always use, that's not what Wittgenstein proposed, there is much more to it than that. If that was the case, then any group could arbitrarily change all meaning simply by using a word how they wish. How we use a word is very important, and use tells us much about meaning, but use is not an absolute method of determining meaning, no more than context is. If I use the word car to describe a headache in a particular context, will that drive the meaning of the word car?

Sorry, but I couldn't get to everything you wrote. I was trying to clear up any misunderstandings. I'm not sure this will even do it, probably not. :razz:

I say the word soul as used by many religious people, has no clear cut meaning that can be said to be correct or incorrect. — Sam26

This is different to your earlier claim, where you said that "Christians generally use the word soul incorrectly". Now you are saying that their use of the word is neither correct nor incorrect. Please clarify your position.

If all of this is true, then it follows that Wittgenstein's beetle example demonstrates that if we talk about something that is totally private, i.e., it not only has no referent, but there is no way for us to establish a rule of use that can be publicly said to be correct or incorrect. — Sam26

Wittgenstein's example has nothing to do with what "we" talk about as a community; it refers to the (mistaken) philosophical assumption that an individual can create sensation terms (or other language) solely via their own sensations. Clearly, the word 'soul' has an established communal usage by more than one person, so it is completely unlike Wittgenstein's beetle.

According to your argument, neither could we establish rules of use for the word 'private'. And you have offered no clear explanation for how we are able to agree on rules of use for the word 'unicorn'.

Moreover, they're saying that there is a something attached to the meaning of the word, viz., the thing that lives on after the body dies, so they're saying it has a referent. [...] How do we know that the thing associated with the word, is a thing at all? — Sam26

Who cares? It doesn't matter. It's only the use of the word that matters. Whether or not there is such a thing, let's agree to use the word 'soul' to mean "the thing that lives on after the body dies", okay? Oh wait, you already were. And now we can use this word correctly or incorrectly.

How is the word soul the same as other inner things that have outward expressions? There are no outward expressions of this thing. All there is, is a definition, but that's not enough to give it sense. No more than giving a definition to the beetle would give it sense. — Sam26

What is enough to give it sense is a public usage, which is precisely what Wittgenstein's beetle does/can not have, in principle.

ETA: Having re-read §293, I may have confused my last response above relating to Wittgenstein's beetle with some other section of the private language argument. The main point as I mentioned earlier and throughout the current post, is that the "thing" or actual referent to which words such as "soul" or "pain" refer, is irrelevant to the language game.

"The thing in the box has no place in the language-game at all; not even as a something: for the box might even be empty.—No, one can 'divide through' by the thing in the box; it cancels out, whatever it is." [PI §293]

It looks to me that the dog knows when the cat is angry sans a common language. And I think the dog knows the same kind of thing that the 'primitive' knows when he says that the volcano is angry, also without a common language.

And I think it is readily understandable to most if I say that my computer does not seem to get angry, but sometimes sulks. Or, old-fashionedly that water seeks its own level.

Which is to point out that it is a sophistication to de-animate the world, rather than a struggle to animate others. Knowing when, or how to stop in this depopulation of the world is the problem of sophisticates already living in language. That my computer sulks conveys perfectly meaningful sensible information in animated language - that the wretched thing is unresponsive and uncooperative. Have I said anything about its inner awareness or experience? I don't think so.

Furthermore, I mean the same thing when I say that Mrs Un is sulking - that she is being unresponsive and uncooperative.

And sometimes I sulk.

it is a sophistication to de-animate the world, rather than a struggle to animate others — unenlightened

This is straight-up brilliant.

((Hey @frank -- remember that thread about whether we do in some sense "talk" to the world, ask it questions and listen for an answer, etc.))

This is different to your earlier claim, where you said that "Christians generally use the word soul incorrectly". Now you are saying that their use of the word is neither correct nor incorrect. Please clarify your position. — Luke

Ya, you miss understood my point. I did say earlier that there is a correct use of the word soul, also that there is an incorrect use of the word soul, the latter being that thing that lives on after we die. However, that's different from the point I was making in that quote. One of the reasons it's incorrect is that there is no way to demonstrate that it's incorrect or not. That's also part of the reason the beetle example is also senseless, because there is no way for us to establish a correct or incorrect use of the word beetle. Think of it in terms of how we learn to use the word pain, we learn based on the rules of use that happen socially, but these rules are rules that have a correction built into them (like mathematics), and it's observable. I can observe if you call someone's joyful acts, painful, that that is incorrect. Let's say that there were no outward signs of pain, would you think it had sense? Would you think it had sense if we attached a definition to it?

Wittgenstein's example has nothing to do with what "we" talk about as a community; it refers to the (mistaken) philosophical assumption that an individual can create sensation terms (or other language) solely via their own sensations. Clearly, the word 'soul' has an established communal usage by more than one person, so it is completely unlike Wittgenstein's beetle. — Luke

Yes, you're right, he's talking about this in reference to a private language. My point is that there would have to be a rule based social component to give it meaning. Also, I'm connecting what Wittgenstein said in these passages, with his ideas in other passages. The problem is that we have to look at Wittgenstein's total picture. I do more of this in my commentary on Wittgenstein. This is why I often argue with the idea that Wittgenstein is giving some absolute picture of meaning as use. His writings are much more nuanced and complicated. Use alone doesn't drive meaning, even if it's done with others. If that's what Wittgenstein is saying, then I just vehemently disagree, but I don't think it's that simple, and I think it involves some of the things I mentioned above.

Note also that Wittgenstein's beetle example involves a group of people, each having their own beetle in a box; so it's not that an individual can't create meaning via their own private sensations, even though that's true, it's that no person or persons can do it. According to your idea, if a group of people started calling pain something quite different than what we normally mean, then it would have sense, even if there were no outward signs of pain. Language always involves rules, but, and here's the important part, those rules necessarily have a social corrective mechanism. Ask yourself, what would it mean to be incorrect in this particular use of the word soul, it's a kind of self-sealing use of the word.

By the way I'm very familiar with those passages. All I do is read Wittgenstein. Of course that doesn't mean I'm always right, but I am very familiar with those passages. In fact, I've just recently gone all the way through the PI.