You probably have a point, so I'll just substitute another more exact measuring device to make the point, i.e., the point of the post still stands. I don't know enough about measuring with lasers. Interesting though.

I'm not faulting you. Davidson is slippery, and it's hard not to think this is deliberate. Williamson refers to his "elliptical and somewhat evasive style." He's like the Steven Moffat or J. J. Abrams of philosophy, always hinting at a payoff that's never going to come. What we get instead, what you can actually get your hands on, I always end up finding pretty shallow. He's just not my guy, and I'm less happy every time I try going back to him, which I surely will again. Maybe next time I'll think he's brilliant.

Wittgenstein's logic of use in his later philosophy is much different from his early philosophy. I don't think it's as precisely used. The logic of language in the PI seems to entail something that's not so easy to pin down. Maybe the kind of logic entailed in our ordinary uses hasn't been invented.

Surely there are objects in the world besides words and sentences. That's as much as I meant by "non-linguistic". Your kettle is not identical to the phrase "Banno's kettle" and is not a token of the word "kettle", it's a kettle, a non-linguistic object. No? — Srap Tasmaner

If I were to talk instead, perhaps for @Sam26's sake, in terms of a form of life in which both kettles and "kettles" participate, the one making no sense without the other, would that help? Talk of kettles makes sense only in making tea, lighting fires, pouring water, seeing steam.

But if I say there are no "non-linguistic states of affairs" (your term, not mine) I'm apparently vacillating.

Yet it seems to me that Davidson, in talking about the "unmediated touch with the familiar objects whose antics make our sentences and opinions true or false" is not at all in disagreement with Wittgenstein here.

(And again, that is what @creativesoul misses in his account.)

So there are two questions remaining. Are truth sentences wrong? And if ordinary language were in disagreement with logic, with which would Wittgenstein side?

I don't think it's as precisely used. — Sam26

I don't think it is explicitly used, not as it was in the Tractatus. Elsewise one would be accusing Wittgenstein of imprecision. :gasp:

All this to make the point that logic remained central to Wittgenstein's thinking.

But, one of the points in the PI is that language is not always precise. Sometimes being vague is just what we need. So, he's not always trying to be precise, because ordinary usage doesn't always work that way.

Why not link the linguistic and the pre or non-linguistic, so that we can say it is not language per se that constrains and limits the intelligibility of the world, but each persons’s integrated history of understanding in general that ‘blocks’ some ways of thinking while enabling others? I would argue that the most important superordinate aspects of our ways of understanding the world, those with the greatest potential to limit what is intelligible to us, is often too murky to be linguistically articulated by us, and yet it drives our greatest hopes and fears. I would also add that our discursive schemes are only partially shared, which means that they are contested between us in each usage. Linguistic interchange doesn’t just assume what is at issue, it determines anew what is at issue in the interchange. — Joshs

It seems to me that perception must be conceptually mediated even for animals insofar as it seems that animals are capable of "seeing as". This ties in with Gibson's idea of "affordances"; that the environment provides animals with means of survival that must be recognized. To re-cognize would seem to mean seeing and responding to recurring perceptual patterns. Fully articulated this ability to recognize leads to generalities and categories.

I agree with you that the most basic (pre-linguistic) ways of understanding what is experienced (I won't say "the world") cannot be linguistically articulated, and that discursive schemes are only partially shared: each individual has their own unique set of of associations, images, impressions and feelings which make up their experience, and that these give rise to our primordial hopes and fears, which themselves are impossible to adequately articulate. The partially shared nature of our discursive schemes, what I would refer to as general vagueness and/ or ambiguity ensures that there is room for as much misunderstanding as there is understanding between us...a constant process of renegotiating ideas.

I was thinking of ambiguity, and the fuzziness of our categories. We generally get by, though.

Sure, but there remains a difference between imprecision and contradiction. Again, if ordinary language gave out a contradiction, should we accept the contradiction and move on, or use logic to clarify the language and to untie the knot, to show the way out of the flytrap?

You will take my point: logic remains primary in Wittgenstein.

I don't disagree, but it's just so poorly expressed... which I would put down to your trying to make use of the nonsense of "external reality".

There's nothing in reality that is internal nor external; there's just the stuff we talk about.

a form of life in which both kettles and "kettles" participate — Banno

I'm going to give you a hard time about this, not because I care about you attributing agency to non-persons for purposes of rhetorical grace, but because I want to know what locution you avoided using there.

the one making no sense without the other, — Banno

And now we're back to them being non-persons -- I think. But you could here mean, as you said, that they wouldn't make sense, or you could mean that their behavior wouldn't make sense. The difference matters because one of those things is a word and one of them isn't. If you want to erase the distinction, do that, but do it explicitly.

Talk of kettles makes sense only in making tea, lighting fires, pouring water, seeing steam. — Banno

Okay now a kettle is something we talk about, and it's our talk that may or may not make sense. Above you included both kettles and "kettles" -- or they included themselves -- but here, even as you describe activities that involve kettles, you reach for "talk of kettles." Why? Following all those steps to make tea is not "talk of kettles." But somehow even that seems like "kettles" business to you. What happened to the kettles? Can't how someone uses a kettle also make sense or not? Is that the same kind of sense that talk of kettles makes?

You will take my point: logic remains primary in Wittgenstein. — Banno

No, I will not take your point in the way you seem to be making it. It depends on what Wittgenstein is talking about. You do not see the use of logic in the same way it's used in his early philosophy, where logic is primary. He's much more flexible in his later philosophy, not as dug in, in terms of using logic as a primary tool.

Yeh, a bit an an aside, I'll admit.

Though only a bit. One of the reasons I've adopted my stance on truth is because of stuff like that -- the things we usually take to be exact (sciences) are exact, but only in their own way and with qualifications and all that. Science produces truths -- but those truths are linguistic and embedded within a network of practices and beliefs. (and, given my usual feelings on science, that translates to other fact-invested ways of producing knowledge)

I'm not sure I understand your point. If you're saying there are other ways of gaining knowledge besides science, I definitely agree.

I definitely agree that truth is linguistic, and thus embedded in our forms of life.

Are you carving your initials into a tree or your perception, conception, and/or impressions?

I think the problem lies in the vagaries of language, and trying to fit language into a very precise medium, like mathematical logic. Logic is a guide for our reasoning, but it has it's limits. The two mediums of logic and ordinary language are very different, and it's this difference that may contribute to the problem. — Sam26

I would agree.

We just are never going to get the kind of precision out of language that some philosophers want. It's like an itch that won't go away.

Are you carving your initials into a tree or your perception, conception, and/or impressions? — creativesoul

It is all perception: I perceive trees, carving my initials, climbing and so on.

What's all perception? Are you referring to what we mean by truth? Sorry, I haven't read everything in the last three pages.

There's nothing in reality that is internal nor external; there's just the stuff we talk about. — Banno

What kind of opposition is that?

You could have finished "there's just the stuff that is," or "there's just the stuff we say is inside or outside," but you end up here: x isn't internal or external; x is something we talk about. How is that not just a non sequitur?

What's all perception? Are you referring to what we mean by truth? Sorry, I haven't read everything in the last three pages. — Sam26

Creativesoul asked:

Are you carving your initials into a tree or your perception, conception, and/or impressions? — creativesoul

What I meant is that seeing a tree, feeling its bark and leaves, carving your initials into it, climbing it and so on are all perceptual.

I definitely agree that truth is linguistic, and thus embedded in our forms of life. — Sam26

Cool. I guess my thought at the moment is with respect to this actuality stuff and its relationship to facts. Facts are the stuff of science. But they are created -- rather than lying there for us to discover, we invent a lot to make them useful for ourselves. Actuality doesn't change with the facts -- facts are generated by our interaction with actuality, though.

So it related to my notion that facts just are true sentences -- so maybe not a disagreement on truth, on our part, but maybe on facts? Though I could just be mixing up your and @Luke 's view too.

There's nothing in reality that is internal nor external; there's just the stuff we talk about.
— Banno

What kind of opposition is that? — Srap Tasmaner

I choose not to talk about the stuff we can't talk about...

You may do as you will.

What I meant is that seeing a tree, feeling its bark and leaves, carving your initials into it, climbing it and so on are all perceptual. — Janus

Ya, they're all sensory experiences. You're not saying it's all subjective are you?

I don't disagree, but it's just so poorly expressed... which I would put down to your trying to make use of the nonsense of "external reality". — Banno

I'm glad you knew what I meant!

Facts are the stuff of science. But they are created -- rather than lying there for us to discover, we invent a lot to make them useful for ourselves. Actuality doesn't change with the facts -- facts are generated by our interaction with actuality, though. — Moliere

Your notion of a fact is a bit different from mine. I talked about facts in my summary of truth a few pages back.

Another way to think about truth is in terms of possible worlds.

First, it must be acknowledged that truth is a continuum, it is non-binary (If you doubt this, consider the claim "X has $10000 in their bank account. This is true if X has $10000 or $9990, mostly true if X has $9500, not at all true if X has $50).

Every proposition P proposes not a possible world, but rather a ;large or infinite set of possible worlds. This is the only way language can work, since reality is very fine grained, whereas language is very coarse.

P is true if the actual world is one among that set of possible worlds P means, or if the distance between the actual world and the nearest possible world of P is negligible. The degree of truth declines as the actual world recedes from the cloud of possible worlds meant by P.

The same is true of the interpretation of P. An interpretation is valid if the possible world(s) the interpretation represents is contained by or closely matches the set of possible worlds which P means,, or if the distance is negligible. The correctness of the interpretation of P declines with it's distance from P.

There's nothing in reality that is internal nor external; there's just the stuff we talk about.
— Banno

What kind of opposition is that?
— Srap Tasmaner

I choose not to talk about the stuff we can't talk about... — Banno

Good for you. What does that have to do with whether anything is internal or external?

There's nothing in reality that is internal nor external; there's just the stuff we talk about. — Banno

Are you saying that the terms "internal" and "external" make no sense? How can that be? These are common terms used to refer to things which are inside of, or outside a proposed boundary. Internal/external is actually a very useful distinction, in subjects like systems theory for example.

Suppose we do away with this distinction. to just talk about "stuff". How would we ever understand the physical reality of "stuff", and the forces which act on "stuff", if we had no way of distinguishing between what is within a particular piece of stuff that we are trying to understand, and what is outside of that piece of stuff?

You do not see the use of logic in the same way it's used in his early philosophy, where logic is primary. He's much more flexible in his later philosophy, not as dug in, in terms of using logic as a primary tool. — Sam26

Well, from the PI §90's to §136 he does talk quite explicitly about logic, making one of the points you make - that the crystal clarity of logic is put there by us, not discovered.

We are here comming from this:

Like with Sam26 (I imagine), a theoretical emphasis on pragmatics and a central role for T-sentences in that theory are strange bedfellows. — fdrake

All the T-sentence does is set out the groundwork of propositions, against which we play as we will with them. As setting out that the king only moves on square at a time is part of the groundwork of chess. It's part of the description of all that pragmatics, not in contrast to it.

My guess is that Tarski is basing his theory on false premises. For example, the liars paradox. — Sam26

The liar is like someone saying "but look, I can move the king more than one space!"

What does that have to do with whether anything is internal or external? — Srap Tasmaner

I've no idea - that's your phrasing.


Your asking me to explain your own terminology, a terminology I think doesn't work.