The methods used in the PI is more valuable than the theory expounded. — Banno
This makes me wonder whether, on your interpretation, Wittgenstein would count religions or theologies as language games. — Janus
Nobody uses private, untranslatable languages. Witt wasn't attacking a thesis anybody anywhere has ever held.
He was just highlighting that language is a tool for communication between people who are immersed and embedded in a world. — frank
Wittgenstein is saying something new only if the prevailing theory of language holds that each one of us has our own private version of the meaning of the words. — TheMadFool
That's not right. See 2. The Significance of the IssueNobody uses private, untranslatable languages. Witt wasn't attacking a thesis anybody anywhere has ever held....
— @frank
:ok: — TheMadFool
Philosophers are especially tempted to suppose that numbers and sensations are examples of such absolutes, self-identifying objects which themselves force upon us the rules for the use of their names. Wittgenstein discusses numbers in earlier sections on rules (185–242) ... In the case of numbers, one temptation is to confuse the mathematical sense of ‘determine’ in which, say, the formula y = 2x determines the numerical value of y for a given value of x (in contrast with y > 2x, which does not) with a causal sense in which a certain training in mathematics determines that normal people will always write the same value for y given both the first formula and a value for x — in contrast with creatures for which such training might produce a variety of outcomes. This confusion produces the illusion that the result of an actual properly conducted calculation is the inevitable outcome of the mathematical determining, as though the formula’s meaning itself were shaping the course of events.
if language games are ways of seeing how utterances can make sense, then theologies, religions and poetry would all count as language games, unless you wanted to claim that no sense is made in some or all of those disciplines. — Janus
Suppose X and Y are engaged in a conversation about God. X claims God exists. Y is unsure if his understanding of God and existence is the same as X's. So Y demands that X define "God" and "exists". X will naturally comply. Say X says "God is being who's all-good, all-knowing, and all-powerful". Y again faces the same problem. Is his (Y's) understanding of good, knowledge, and power the same as X's? This process reiterates at all levels of clarifications of meaning X attempts.
There must be a point at which Y stops asking for further clarification on the meaning of the words X uses - Y is confident that X and Y are on the same page so to speak. Is this a possibility? :chin: — TheMadFool
words are signs we use for referents, the actual thing that interests us. Words that we use to refer to private experiences (can't be shared with others) are like the word "beetle" e.g. the word "pain"... We're only left, therefore, with the word "beetle" ("pain") and nothing else. — TheMadFool
Pure subjective experiences are exactly the kind that we can't show to other people - they're categorically private. — TheMadFool
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. — Witt (cited by HanaH)
It's far more reasonable [than picturing meaning as a referent] to examine how the token "headache" is entangled with other public behavior (including the use of other tokens.) — hanaH
To me Wittgenstein is more of a destructive than constructive thinker — hanaH
Where does this investigation get its importance from, given that it seems only to destroy everything interesting: that is, all that is great and important? (As it were, all the buildings, leaving behind only bits of stone and rubble.) But what we are destroying are only houses of cards, and we are clearing up the ground of language on which they stood. — Witt, PI #118
What gives the impression that we want to deny anything?... Why should I deny there is a mental process?... [The Interlocutor asks:] Aren't you at bottom really saying that everything except human behavior is a fiction? If I speak of a fiction, then it is of a grammatical fiction. — Witt, PI #305-307
[The dilemma goes away] only if we make a radical break [with the grammar which tries to force itself on us that] ...language always functions in one way, always serves the same purpose. — Witt, PI #304
[Knowing how to use a word properly] would be an inadequate conception inasmuch as it does not include the input derived from having experienced pain. Understanding pain cannot be wholly to do with what you can know about another, because in all cases their behavior could be wholly faked — Janus
Pure subjective experiences are exactly the kind that we can't show to other people - they're categorically private. — TheMadFool
we should all be talking about why LW doesn't think his theory is a theory. — Srap Tasmaner
This makes me wonder whether, on your interpretation, Wittgenstein would count religions or theologies as language games. — Janus
"[With respect to ethics and religion] we cannot express what we want to express and that all we say about the absolute miraculous remains nonsense. ... My whole tendency and I believe the tendency of all men who ever tried to write or talk ethics or religion was to run against the boundaries of language. This running against the walls of our cage is perfectly, absolutely, hopeless. – Ethics, so far as it springs from the desire to say something about the ultimate meaning of life, the absolute good, the absolute valuable can be no science. What it says does not add to our knowledge in any sense. But it is a document of a tendency in the human mind which I personally cannot help respecting deeply and I would not for my life ridicule it".
"Now I am tempted to say that the right expression in language for the miracle of the existence of the world, though it is not any proposition in language, is the existence of language itself. ... For all I have said by shifting the expression of the miraculous from an expression by means of language to the expression by the existence of language"
If I ask what you mean by "God", it's not that I think you have a personal definition. It's that different language communities use it differently — frank
But what is essential about our experience is not that we cannot entirely, completely express our experience or know the other's, but that we are separate. I can continue to express and respond to you regarding my experience (or hide it), and our experience is identical to the extent to which we accept that it is the same. This is the grammar of our experience by which the essence of it (what is essential to it) is expressed. — Antony Nickles
Why does he insist he's not offering a theory? Is he mistaken about that? Is he actually offering a theory about language? If he's mistaken about that, surely that's pretty interesting, and we should all be talking about why LW doesn't think his theory is a theory. — Srap Tasmaner
Postulated images don't give life to the system. Why should they? — hanaH
What about incorrect uses? People use words incorrectly all the time, is their incorrect use driving the meaning of the word?
— Sam26
I love this question. Especially if we substitute "usage" for "meaning". — bongo fury
[1*] What could be other uses for words? — TheMadFool
Crossword puzzles, poetry, magic... — Olivier5
"[With respect to ethics and religion] we cannot express what we want to express and that all we say about the absolute miraculous remains nonsense. ... My whole tendency and I believe the tendency of all men who ever tried to write or talk ethics or religion was to run against the boundaries of language. This running against the walls of our cage is perfectly, absolutely, hopeless. – Ethics, so far as it springs from the desire to say something about the ultimate meaning of life, the absolute good, the absolute valuable can be no science. What it says does not add to our knowledge in any sense. But it is a document of a tendency in the human mind which I personally cannot help respecting deeply and I would not for my life ridicule it".
This doesn't help in any way because a communal, social meaning can't be had unless each inidvidual makes his own private/personal meaning public/social and that's exactly what's problematic. So long as it's possible to have a very personal/private interpretation of words, the problem of private languages extends to communities as well. — TheMadFool
A request actually. — TheMadFool
The magic word was missing. Also I don't understand your request, nor why it was made. — Olivier5
You keep giving orders to folks... Did someone die and named you king of TPF? Otherwise I suggest you learn to ask politely, when you have a request to make.
now — Olivier5
You are rude, not regal. — Olivier5
Did someone die and name you king of TPF? — Olivier5
My claim was that people use words in a variety of activities including solving crossword puzzles, writing poetry, and casting magic spells. What part do you want evidence of? — Olivier5
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