Haha, I think we're making progress, methinks.

That was "I" because I didn't want to speak for anyone else!

Plus I'm choosing to take Pseudo's comment in sensu diviso -- more or less against his express wishes -- and thus as a claim that I am mired in uncertainty, which I ain't.

There's a small conundrum there. How can progress obtain for a singular "I". It doesn't.

How can progress obtain for a singular "I". It doesn't. — Posty McPostface

?

I'm just saying that it's moot to assume that one derives their conception of philosophy as entirely individualistic, if we assume things progress in a dialectical manner or in as a web of beliefs.

Since philosophy seems to be most intrinsically an exercise in aesthetic judgement, the same inevitable assumption of universality without the possibility of empirical evidence would appear to be inevitably operating there. — Janus

Indeed, I don't think this is far from Peirce's equation of logic with ethics and aesthetics in that all are normative descriptions, not universal truths.

Oy! I think I'm making progress! And the work is good for me. — Srap Tasmaner

Sorry, couldn't resist the temptation. The apposite Ramsey quote (yes, I have a collection of Ramsey quotes on my computer...)

“The chief danger to our philosophy, apart from laziness and woolliness, is scholasticism, . . . which is treating what is vague as if it were precise....”

But yes, of course you are making progress and that is all to the good I didn't mean to disparage that in the least. The mistake that I'm trying to discuss here would be thinking that, as a consequence, we were making progress.

This would be confusing one's own understanding with a sense that one has now somehow 'got it right'. No, one has merely filed away what Wittgenstein has written in a system which makes subjective sense, like a librarian in a very complex library. This is real genuine progress because now one can retrieve what Wittgenstein has written and apply it to problems one needs to resolve. But it remains your library, and your filing system, not that of the world at large.

Oh, and whilst trawling through my favourite Ramseyisms I found this which I thought might amuse you in your current quest to understand Wittgenstein. It's from a letter Ramsey wrote about his time in Austria with Wittgenstein, talking of reading through Wittgenstein's writing...

"...he says 'Is that clear?' and I say 'No' and he says 'Damn, it's horrid to go through all that again'.

But it remains your library, and your filing system, not that of the world at large. — Pseudonym

Is the library of the world at large your library?

Sorry, I don't completely understand your meaning here. Are you implying that there might not be a "library of the world at large", or suggesting a solipsistic understanding that your library is the only library there is?

I'm asking if the "library of the world at large" is separate from your own library.

Yes, I think it's evident that it is (if it exists at all). It seem plain to me that "the way the world actually is" and "the way i think the world actually is" can only be the same thing by coincidence. I clearly have no means at my disposal of ensuring that they are the same thing by deliberate action, because if I did, I would have to either be a unique genius, or in some other way explain why thousands of people of equal intellect and knowledge to me think that the world is some other way, and no such explanation seems to be forthcoming.

Good so far. So why are you arguing anything?

I think the process of arguing something helps one to get the proposition in a useful place in one's own library, rather than just shoved in a room full of propositions. I think the only way to get a proposition clear in one's own mind is to interrogate it.

Am interesting connection; I think I'll follow that one up. :smile:

My initial response was in response to the "universal library", or whatever it was. Is one's own library more important? The initial comment of yours that I responded to seemed to suggest a "universal library" of importance, but now you seem to say otherwise. This was the point I was commenting on.

I see. Well, the way the world actually is (which is what I'm metaphorically referring to as the library of the world at large) is important in that if our personal understanding of the way the world actually is is massively at odds with it, then the utility of our models will, it seems to me, be much lower. The problem seems to be that beyond a certain level of correspondence we seem to have no way of improving on that correlation, and so I suppose at that level it loses its importance.

To paraphrase Wittgenstein, people do not seem to need to be taught how to think in order to construct useful models. Many people seem to contribute much to society in terms of science or culture and be perfectly happy, without being specifically taught philosophical propositions which are considered by many to be "closer to the way the world actually is". Either these people are wrong about their claim, or proximity to the way the world actually is does not seem to be in the least bit important, at this level. I favour the former, but I'm open to the latter too.

I see. Well, the way the world actually is (which is what I'm metaphorically referring to as the library of the world at large) is important in that if our personal understanding of the way the world actually is is massively at odds with it, then the utility of our models will, it seems to me, be much lower. — Pseudonym

So how do you know that the way you, Psuedonym, see the world is in line with "the way the world actually is"?

At the level of basic correspondence, I presume it is on the basis of the utility of my interactions with the world (which are based on my model of it), but this covers mainly the sort of modelling done by science, a little bit of speculative psychology and normative ethics.

At the more specific level, the level were I have no way of knowing which, out of two equally possible theories, is actually the way the world is, then I simply accept that I can't know. I go with the theory I like best.