There must be private experiences?
— TheMadFool

The fear of being empty, not unique, creates the idea there must be some "thing" beyond language which is mine, that I can know. Now it's not that there is nothing there, it's just that experience isn't known, it is expressed or denied (by me)' it's accepted or rejected by you. So to say "It was amazing" is to express our ineffable experience (however poorly). So there are personal experiences but they don't work the way Witt tried to imagine (as the skeptic would like them to). — Antony Nickles

Possible but not necessary.

Just because "a community of Wittgenstein interpreters" disagree with what it means for traditional answers to skepticism, doesn't mean they can say that Witt, or Cavell, are outside the analytical tradition and not using "philosophical argument" or that their work is merely "performative". — Antony Nickles

Would you agree that in their hands [calling this work "therapy"] is not meant as condescending and dismissive?
— Joshs

It's bald-face condescension, attempting to pigeon-hole and minimize the impact of the PI (it's not "linguistic" either; it's revolutionary). I think the desire to misinterpret this work comes from a modern (and old) philosophical desire that it is better if philosophy doesn't involve humans at all; that it is supposed to work out like math or science, were it doesn't matter who is doing it. — Antony Nickles

Is your critique based on a thoroughgoing knowledge of the work of the ‘Néw Wittgensteinian’ authors or is this a knee-jerk reaction to the blurb I quoted?

James Conant is one of those ‘therapeutic’ Wittgensteinians. Do you know about his background? He started out in that milieu in Boston where he was able to shape his view of Witt through interactions with Putnam, Kuhn and Cavell. Later he moved to Pittsburgh and furthe refined his thinking through study with McDowell. I think at least his work on Witt deserves more nuanced treatment than you have given. My guess Cavell would be horrified by your response to Conant, Diamond et al. But then they are academics who respect each others’ work and appreciate the original insights each brings to their reading of Witt.

You’re going to have to help me out here. I’m trying to figure out who to turn to ( other than Cavell) for a reliable and faithful interpretation of the later Wittgenstein. I am convinced that Peter Hacker and Ryle are not good candidates. I am impressed with Phil Hutchinson , but have not read any of the ‘New Wittgensteinians ’ (Diamond, Cray, Conant). So tell me, who is on your list of best Wittgenstein interpreters , other than yourself and Cavell. You’re put yourself a bit out on the limb if it’s just you, Austin, Witt and Cavell , but that can be a positive. Maybe your reading really is better than every other living interpreter. But we won’t k ow that without engaging in more detail with those secondary sources.

BTW, I would think you would consider it a sign of philosophical enlightenment to be outside the analytic tradition. What exactly do you consider worth preserving within the analytic tradition? Maybe you could throw in a few names from analytic philosophy who you admire ( other than Austin. I suppose there’s McDowell and Putnam too ). Conant certainly respects these figures.

I don't recall ever expressing a fear of being empty. I don't think I ever have. According to you, if I don't express this fear, I don't have this fear. — frank

No, what Witt is saying is that the way sensations/emotions/experience work, their grammar, is that they are not known, they are expressed, or not (suppressed, repressed, kept secret), as much to ourselves as anyone else.

Maybe it's just that I do have experiences that I tell no one about. I do, actually. Sometimes I do tell people about what I've experienced, so it's not private in the sense Witt uses in the PLA. — frank

Yes you do have experiences; sometimes you tell no one about them, sometimes you do; sometimes you can't even tell yourself.

Possible but not necessary. — TheMadFool

Of course I don't know to what you are referring that you think is not necessary, but the way I read Witt he is necessarily, grammatically, claiming that the way sensation works is that it is expressed, not known--that is its structure. Where concepts have certain possibilities (uses), and categorical conditions, that pain is expressed (or repressed) is a fundamental ingredient of our lives that differentiates sensations from knowing how gravity works or knowing the structural makeup of the brain's effect on our emotions.

When I have a headache, I know I have a headache.

When I have a headache, I know I have a headache. — TheMadFool

In what context would we say "I know I have a headache."? Maybe when you've made it aware to me that you have a headache, then, when I see you a little while later and you have an ice pack on your knee, and I point to your head and shrug, saying "Don't you have a headache?", you might look at me (like I'm an idiot) and say "I know I have a headache." -- but this is in the sense of "Duh, I know", as in the use (grammatical category) of: I am aware. The reason we have to twist ourselves in knots to even get that, as Witt would say, is that I do not "know" pain; I have it. This is the meaning of pain (it is meaningful because it is mine). I am the one that owns it, even when we do not know it--which is also in the sense of: are not aware of it, just, to myself---say when we have a headache but we forget (which is a refutation if the above was a claim to a proposed statement about the way pain works). But there is also the fact that sometimes I can not hide my pain; I am expressed outside the control of the conveying (or secreting) of knowledge. There is no place for knowledge in the occurrence to us of pain (say, different than the knowledge of watching an opportunity slip away). "How can I even attempt to interpose language between the expression of pain and the pain?" Witt PI, #245. Between the event of the expression of pain and the meaningfulness of my having it.

There are other uses of "I know" (I acknowledge your pain; I know my way around; I know something is a lie (for I know the truth!)). But there is a sense in which philosophers would like to know sensations, but the criteria of continuous, exacting, certain, and immediate, do not apply to how, say, pain works. Philosophy imposes those as the requirement for knowledge from its other uses in science and, to say it again, in the picture of an object, a referent; as if the physiology of pain is the structure of how we relate to pain.

But the kind of knowledge philosophy has typically wanted from sensation and experience is not how pain works. And the best way to try to show that is to give the example that our pain is expressed, not "known" (expression is the mechanics of it). I can talk about what I know about my pain: I can give a description (even poorly), I can isolate it (even x-ray it, sorta), but that, fundamentally, it is ours to express--to cry out about (or not) #244--to clarify or hide; to relive, or try to forget. This structure is the essence of our experience and sensations, the most important part about them, as opposed to what is essential to making excuses, or doing physical science.

No, what Witt is saying is that the way sensations/emotions/experience work, their grammar, is that they are not they are expressed, or not (suppressed, repressed, kept secret), as much to ourselves as anyone else. — Antony Nickles

I don't think he was saying you don't know what you're feeling.

When I have a headache, I know I have a headache.
— TheMadFool

In what context would we say "I know I have a headache."? — Antony Nickles

Err... TPF? (considering @TheMadFool just said "I know I have a headache" right here...)

Put it this way: can you not know you have a headache? And if not, then what is 'know' doing when you affirm that you do know it? What does 'I know I have a headache' do that 'I have a headache' does not? After all the usual grammar of 'knowing' implies that we can in principle not know a thing (or maybe know it only vaguely). And when we model 'knowing' on 'I know I have a headache', are we mistaking a dummy expression (like the 'it' in 'it is raining') for legitimate instance of knowing? (like the person, who, without a grasp of grammar asks: "but what is 'it'?"). Wittgenstein would suggest yes. You can of course say, "I know I have a headache" - but are you saying something about knowing? Wittgenstein would suggest not (it might be a rebuke: "I know I have a headache! You don't need to remind me!" - but this speaks to one's, call it, annoyed comportment with respect to someone else at that point in time, who probably said something to provoke it - and it probably wasn't "are you sure you have a headache?"; that's the point of the rebuke; it's not an affirmation of my cognitive understanding of my state of being).

On Certainty, §467: "I am sitting with a philosopher in the garden; he says again and again "I know that tree", pointing to a tree that is near us. Someone else arrives and hears this; and I tell him: 'This fellow isn't insane. We are only doing philosophy.'"

Is your critique based on a thoroughgoing knowledge of the work of the ‘New Wittgensteinian’ authors or is this a knee-jerk reaction to the blurb I quoted? — Joshs

I found that language; that's an intro Crary did for a book of essays I have that is just new authors saying different stuff--I'm not sure that wiki-author read more than the intro (what?!). I think what Crary, at least, is referring to is that Witt is pointing out how philosophy goes wrong, including his, and he is trying to show how philosophy can get back on track (in each of the different examples--as Austin did with Ayer) and what we learned from that. The people minimizing the impact just don't feel taken on directly, but that's because those philosophies were not so much "wrong" as entirely misguided (by themselves, it turns out), lacking awareness, failing to see that their want for a certain answer pushes them into errors in their thinking. We used to say: how can we win, they're not even playing hockey. They're so fundamentally wrong Witt (apart from Austin) goes back to: how and why do you think that? and there is something to learn in that; something substantive, corrective, but also game-changing, and so not just "therapeutic" as in dispelling an illusion or crazy thoughts or how ta talk good.

"I’m trying to figure out who to turn to (other than Cavell) for a reliable and faithful interpretation of the later Wittgenstein."

Well to me its more the method, so the people I like aren't necessarily writing on Witt as, from him into their own interests. But I liked some Malcolm, Wisdom, Mulhall is at least interesting; you might like Conant (Methods) from the little I've read, he seems concerned to address other readings of Witt. But I was trained in Ordinary Language Philosophy, and, apart from Witt and Austin, Cavell is the best at that and so at explaining Witt's methodology (The Availability of Later Witt). But I'm not sure it's a good idea to read commentators until you just find one you like. I'd slug it out on your own; this book, more than most, is important to work through than be told about.

What exactly do you consider worth preserving within the analytic tradition? — Joshs

Well I see the good even in the partly broken, plus I don't quite buy the term itself, because if we're looking at what we say, we're looking at the world (just maybe not like Arendt, Foucault, Machiavelli, a lot of Aristotle). I'd start the ark with Plato, Marx, Locke, Hegel (to a point), Kant, Hume, Descartes, Emerson, Nietzsche, later Heidegger[/quote]

No, what Witt is saying is that the way sensations/emotions/experience work, their grammar, is that they are not they are expressed, or not (suppressed, repressed, kept secret), as much to ourselves as anyone else.
— Antony Nickles

I don't think he was saying you don't know what you're feeling. — frank

Good catch; that was a test to see if anyone was actually still reading--I only meant that in the sense of the recognition of pain; although Witt does touch on the grammar of our emotions, like sadness (p. 209), and he has a lot to say about feeling as a kind of implicit interpretation or impression.

Good catch; that was a test to see if anyone was actually still reading--I only meant that in the sense of the recognition of pain; although Witt does touch on the grammar of our emotions, like sadness (p. 209), and he has a lot to say about feeling as a kind of implicit interpretation or impression — Antony Nickles

I'm reading! :grin: I see what you're saying.

I'm surprised no one commented on your comment, which is very important in terms of the use of the word know. Moreover, the negation of, "I know I have a headache" - is an important juxtaposition that points to something important about how we go about affirming that we DO know.

When I have a headache, I know I have a headache.
— TheMadFool

In what context would we say "I know I have a headache."?
— Antony Nickles

Err... TPF? (considering TheMadFool just said "I know I have a headache" right here — Olivier5

Well if that's not just facetious, it demonstrates Witt's point that we want to strip away any context and take a sentence in isolation to have met the standard we want for knowledge. Context is not simply the location where something is said; it is what is relevant to a sentence being one sense or another (or both). Basically, as flippantly, saying that, here--assuming it's trying to make a philosophical claim about knowledge and headaches--is wrong; it's applying the wrong sense of "know". Maybe it's better to ask what context would help us understand what sense of know this is?

it's applying the wrong sense of "know". — Antony Nickles

Mostly, it's giving the concept know, no sense, as opposed to the wrong sense. What I mean is, it has no epistemological sense to say, "I know I have a headache."

Well if that's not just facetious, it demonstrates Witt's point that we want to strip away any context and take a sentence in isolation to have met the standard we want for knowledge. — Antony Nickles

My point was that the sentence was expressed in a certain context: that of a philosophical discussion on TPF. There is no need to look for another context in which it could possibly be said. It arose here and this is the context where it may be meaningful. Look at the post it was replying to. That should be context enough.

Mostly, it's giving the concept know, no sense, as opposed to the wrong sense. What I mean is, it has no epistemological sense to say, "I know I have a headache." — Sam26

However the whole point of PI is to show how different things matter to us in different ways, leading to the various ways they work. What matters to us about pain is the fact of its being mine (having it) thus my announcement of it (and your acceptance or rejection of it) are its conditions, and not the conditions of knowledge.

Basically, epistimology is not the only way things make sense: are meaningful, have conditions, are judged by criteria, have identity, etc. The PI is showing that our relation to the world is not always epistemological (you're missing the third act where all the fun happens).

Basically, epistimology is not the only way things make sense: are meaningful, have conditions, are judged by criteria, have identity, etc. The PI is showing that our relation to the world is not always epistemological (you're missing the third act where all the fun happens). — Antony Nickles

Of course "...epistemology is not the only way things make sense: are meaningful, [etc]," and I would never imply this. The point was, you don't know you're in pain in an epistemological sense, with emphasis on knowing. You might use know in a way that's not epistemological, as @StreetlightX pointed out above. So, when I say it has no sense, one can see this by pointing out the negation of the sentence, "I know I'm in pain," which must be seen juxtaposed against the statement "I don't know I'm in pain." Now if you want to say it has sense in other non-epistemological ways, that's fine, but that's not my point. Hope this clears up my point.

My point was that the sentence was expressed in a certain context: that of a philosophical discussion on TPF. There is no need to look for another context in which it could possibly be said. It arose here and this is the context where it may be meaningful. Look at the post it was replying to. That should be context enough. — Olivier5

But it's a little more complicated than that. Was it said as a philosophical conclusion, or as an example of the sort of thing someone might say, when not doing philosophy, that seems to make perfect sense? (Roughly, was it theory or data?) If it's a bit of philosophy, are any of the words there used in a special technical sense that it is not what people ordinarily have in mind when they use those words? And if that's the case, how to connect that usage to ordinary usage, so that our philosophical discussion is relevant?

I don't think any of that has anything to do with Wittgenstein, but with philosophical discussion being unavoidably embedded in ordinary discussion, in the life of a language that philosophy relies on but did not invent.

The point was, you don't know you're in pain in an epistemological sense, with emphasis on knowing. You might use know in a way that's not epistemological, as StreetlightX pointed out above. — Sam26

Why do we need the term ‘epistemology’ at all
after Wittgenstein? What is it supposed to do? What is an ‘epistemological sense’? Maybe you could
clarify. Most of the philosophy I read unravels
the presuppositions behind it.

Take Rorty , for instance:

“Epistemology, in Rorty’s account, is wedded to a picture of mind’s structure working on empirical content to produce in itself items – thoughts, representations – which, when things go well, correctly mirror reality. To loosen the grip of this picture on our thinking is to challenge the idea that epistemology – whether traditional Cartesian or 20th century linguistic – is the essence of philosophy.”( Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

“Explaining rationality and epistemic authority by reference to what society lets us say, rather than the latter by the former, is the essence of what I shall call ‘epistemological behaviorism,’ an attitude common to Dewey and Wittgenstein” (PMN, 174).

“In short, my strategy for escaping the self-referential difficulties into which “the Relativist” keeps getting himself is to move everything over from epistemology and metaphysics into cultural politics, from claims to knowledge and appeals to self-evidence to suggestions about what we should try (TP, 57).“

Why do we need the term ‘epistemology’ at all after Wittgenstein? — Joshs

Or before! John Cook Wilson said, back in the previous twenties, that to him the phrase "theory of knowledge" looked like a fallacy.

Now I’m going to have to look up John Cook Wilson.

can you not know you have a headache?

You can not know in knowing's sense of not being aware, forget about it while doing something else.
— StreetlightX

And if not, then what is 'know' doing when you affirm that you do know it? — StreetlightX

Confirming for someone else questioning why it seems you're not aware you have a headache (your example basically).

You can of course say, "I know I have a headache" - but are you saying something about knowing? — StreetlightX

That pain works differently than emperical knowledge; it is the sense of know as acknowledge--to myself, by others, etc.

The point was, you don't know you're in pain in an epistemological sense... Now if you want to say it has sense in other non-epistemological ways, that's fine, but that's not my point. — Sam26

Of course. All I was adding is that is only half the battle; Witt goes on to show a legitimate logic of pain in the alternative; in what sense I know my pain (in acknowledging it, or rejecting it--and yours). That the story does not end in the rubble but with remembering our ordinary criteria for judging pain (awareness, attention, isolation, etc.)--the essence of sensation.

Was it said as a philosophical conclusion, or as an example of the sort of thing someone might say, when not doing philosophy, that seems to make perfect sense? (Roughly, was it theory or data?) If it's a bit of philosophy, are any of the words there used in a special technical sense that it is not what people ordinarily have in mind when they use those words? And if that's the case, how to connect that usage to ordinary usage, so that our philosophical discussion is relevant? — Srap Tasmaner

It was data. TMF was only stating the obvious. "Having a headache" means "feeling pain in one's head". You cannot feel something like pain in your head and not know that you feel it.

He said so in a certain context, in response to a post pretending (absurdly) that "sensation is expressed, not known". And it made perfect sense in this context to retort: "when I have a headache, I know I have it".

To ask in response: "in what context would you say that?" appeared to me a disingenuous attempt to change the conversation, to escape the actual context of the sentence, to avoid having to face the sentence itself, because it is obviously true.

You can not know in knowing's sense of not being aware, forget about it while doing something else. — StreetlightX

'Forgetting a headache' sounds an awful lot like not having a headache. How do you forget a headache? Is it the same as forgetting where I put the cup yesterday? I can imagine: "my headache was alot less intense just now", or the use of "I forgot I have a headache" to approximate the former. The grammar of 'forgetting' is not quite right.

Questioning why it seems you're not aware you have a headache (your example basically). — Antony Nickles

That is not my example. There is no one that would question 'why it seems you're not aware you have a headache' - as if they knew better than you. At best, they might say, 'Don't you have a headache? Why are you exerting yourself like that?", or something similar.

--

Cavell: "There is nothing we cannot say. That doesn't mean that we can say everything; there is no "everything" to be said. There is nothing we cannot know. That does not mean we can know everything; there is no everything, no totality of facts or things, to be known. ... If we say the philosopher has been "misled by grammar'', we must not suppose that this means he has been led to say the wrong thing - as though there was a right thing all prepared for him which he missed".

To ask in response: "in what context would you say that?" appeared to me a disingenuous attempt to change the conversation, to escape the actual context of the sentence, to avoid having to face the sentence itself, because it is obviously true. — Olivier5

I get that. To you it's like answering "Why didn't you do the dishes?" with "Why are you trying to make me feel bad?" You see it as a rhetorical move to avoid engaging with the literal meaning of the sentence and either agreeing or disagreeing that it is true.

That concern is not irrelevant to the discussion, but it kinda leads everywhere. We are right on top of issues surrounding the slogan "meaning is use", so I'm not going to try to -- that is, I'm not posting any of the lengthy responses I've written where I try to -- wrap it all up definitively.

It's a valid question, and it is presumably close to why @TheMadFool started this discussion.

'Forgetting a headache' sounds an awful lot like not having a headache. How do you forget a headache?...The grammar of 'forgetting' is not quite right. — StreetlightX

I agree that the sense of forgetting associated with awareness is maybe not the first sense one would think of (that I should have thought of a better word), and that it is complicated with more possibilities to sort out than needed; a simpler way to put it would have been I got lost in doing something else and wasn't paying attention to my pain for a bit (I would say that is a sense of forgetting though). Also, the example of pain is used for the best-case scenario of sensation so that Witt could understand: "if we can't know our !pain!, than what sensation can we know [be certain about]?"; so we might more easily imagine my not being aware for a while of the sensation of the weight on my leg of someone resting against it on a couch while we watch TV, until it even falls asleep, at which point I can't feel it.

Bad example aside, the point is what is meaningful about pain, what is its important grammar (its essence @TheMadFool) is that the sensation is mine. Not in that only I can know it, but that it is me who owns it. That you do not "know" my pain (in the true/false/referent; of the empirical sense--though that is possible, it does not apply here), that the expression of my pain, my sensation, my experience, makes a claim on you--I am accepted in your acknowledgement of them; if my expressions are ignored, I am rejected, alone with the lack of expression to others. That my "knowledge" of my pain is just in knowledge's sense of my awareness of it, consciousness of it, in not repressing it, as a trauma.

"Questioning why it seems you're not aware you have a headache (your example basically)."
— Antony Nickles

That is not my example.[/quote]

It appears I edited after posting it. It did occur to me that there might be something different that you were pointing out, and I was going to say "similar" but then I got lazy as I would have to say how, and how dissimilar, and I passed it off that you'd get what way I meant, but let's see if there is a distinction that helps.

What I probably should have ended up with was this: "[My] confirming for someone else [who is] questioning [me as to] why it seems I [am] not aware have a headache".

Of course maybe this is not even an accurate summary of my original full example, which was:

In what context would we say "I know I have a headache."? Maybe when you've made it aware to me that you have a headache, then, when I see you a little while later and you have an ice pack on your knee, and I point to your head and shrug, saying "Don't you have a headache?", you might look at me (like I'm an idiot) and say "I know I have a headache." -- but this is in the sense of "Duh, I know", as in the use (grammatical category) of: I am aware — Antony Nickles

There is no one that would question 'why it seems you're not aware you have a headache' - as if they knew better than you. At best, they might say, 'Don't you have a headache? Why are you exerting yourself like that?", or something similar. — StreetlightX

Gotten to this point I think I would claim that the use of your: "Don't you have a headache? Why are you exerting yourself like that?" is actually the same as my: "Don't you have a headache?" [Why do you have the icepack on your knee?"] And by "same" I'm saying in the same parts that matter--essentially the identical use, as your pain and my pain identically (essentially--in their essence), if we accept they are.

And if not, then what is 'know' doing when you affirm that you do know it? — StreetlightX

And maybe this was before my post about that.

TMF was only stating the obvious. — Olivier5

He said so... to a post pretending (absurdly)... and it made perfect sense. — Olivier5

.

TMF: "Obvious", "perfect sense".

Mine: "pretending", "absurd", "disingenuous"

Succinct. TMF's statement does not need a context--that's been the point (above). Every word has a meaning, so no context is needed and any usual criteria and conditions (as that pain is expressed, accepted) can be ignored and a requirement of certainty be imposed, which creates a thing to know, out of our fear and desire of our part in the risk of expression and yet the fear of being known. This is for you to either see for yourself--which you could/might if you try--or you need a legitimate alternate explanation of how this is not the case that takes into consideration the evidence I have presented and the claim I have made. And also what would be considered a "context" for his statement. The game is the game.

@Olivier5 @Srap Tasmaner

Witt would say, is that I do not "know" pain; I have it. — Antony Nickles

1. I'm experiencing this particularly unpleasant throbbing sensation in my head, H.

2. H is, from my interaction with others, an ache.

Ergo,

3. I have a headache.

Statement 3 is a proposition, which in this case, is justfiably true. Therefore, I know I have a headache.

To the three of you addressed above

Tylenol? Aspirin? Pain medication. They seem to work for everybody as if everybody's pain is the same. The beetle, in this case at least, each of us has in our private box is identical...or not?