You can use Wittgenstein's ideas as a line in the sand between philosophical and non-philosophical use of thought - what counts as bewitched and right thinking. — fdrake
(Philosophy of Psychology - A Fragment. [aka Part II of Philosophical Investigations] 251)We find certain things about seeing puzzling, because we do not find the whole business of seeing puzzling enough.
(254)The concept of an aspect is related to the concept of imagination.
In other words, the concept ‘Now I see it as . . .’ is related to ‘Now I am imagining that’.
Doesn’t it take imagination to hear something as a variation on a
particular theme? And yet one does perceive something in so hearing it.
(256)Seeing an aspect and imagining are subject to the will. There is
such an order as “Imagine this!”, and also, “Now see the figure like
this!”; but not “Now see this leaf green!”.
(257)The question now arises: Could there be human beings lacking the ability to see something as something a and what would that be like?
What sort of consequences would it have? —– Would this defect be comparable to colour-blindness, or to not having absolute pitch? a We will call it “aspect-blindness” a and will now consider what might be meant by this. (A conceptual investigation.)
260)Aspect-blindness will be akin to the lack of a ‘musical ear’.
(261)The importance of this concept lies in the connection between the concepts of seeing an aspect and of experiencing the meaning of a word. For we want to ask, “What would someone be missing if he did not experience the meaning of a word?
Well, even the expanded metaphor makes a good point. Foundations need to be in a different category from what is founded. More logic doesn't give you the foundations of logic and so forth. However, I do agree that the "bedrock" metaphor doesn't challenge foundationalism itself, and that's always puzzled me. The radical issue is whether foundations are always necessary. After all, it turned out that there are no foundations of the planet.In his own metaphorical terms, I think when Wittgenstein says that his spade is turned when he hits the bedrock of "forms of life," many would simply suggest that he buy himself a shovel or a pick axe. — Count Timothy von Icarus
But even that accepts that we are the product of our environment as well as our genes, and so undermines one form of essentialism. However, if I embed myself in second culture, that will affect what got embedded with my first culture and change that. The brain continues to change and develop throughout life.If our culture and language impact brain development in early childhood, there is not just an abstract difference between individuals of different cultures, but a physical one. — Lionino
Does Wittgenstein appeal to common sense? He certainly relies on our intuitions, since we are expected to think things our for ourselves, but that's not the same thing, is it?Wittgensteinians often make claims that are the opposite of "common sense." For example, the claim that a man who washes ashore on desert Island loses his ability to make and follow rules, but then regains this capacity when a second person washes ashore later. Obviously, a great many Wittgensteinians (as well as people generally) find this to be somewhat absurd. — Count Timothy von Icarus
That's not wrong. But it is likely that after enough time, his rescuers will find deviations and adaptations in his way of life.That's one way of framing it in the "Tarzan Versus Crusoe," discussion at least, but there is also the idea that Crusoe cannot make new rules so long as he is alone, and any continued rule following can only be judged by an absent community. — Count Timothy von Icarus
There's a lot of scary rhetoric about relativism. But it seems to me the greatest danger is precisely believing that one is in possession of the absolute truth and therefore does not need to compromise. That has serious real-world consequences.Unless some "tribe" (a favorite thought example of Wittgenstein) is in possession of the truth itself and the rest itself, we are dealing with opinions and beliefs held at that time and place to be true. The truth is, we are not in possession of the whole of the immutable truth. Throughout history human beings have held things to be true that turn out not to be. This is not something to be solves by attacks on the truth of relativism so understood. — Fooloso4
You're not wrong. I would rather say "discrete language-games" or, in the case of religion and science "discrete practices". But there's always the common ground of human life to appeal to. After all, if we can agree that we disagree, we must have something in common. Mapping that is always a useful first step.all of Wittgenstein's complaints about "philosophers using language wrong," can be waved away by simply claiming that Wittgenstein is not privy to the language game used by these philosophers. Perhaps being a metaphysician, a Thomist, etc. are all discrete "forms of life?" — Count Timothy von Icarus
Quite so. In fact, if you want to engage in debate, you need to meet on common ground, and starting from a Wittgensteinian position is unlikely to do that.Nevertheless when people use Wittgenstein's ideas, they have to interface with other arguments. Perhaps you can do that solely in his terms, but honestly trying to do it equitably makes it very difficult for Wittgenstein. Which is a weakness of his, rather than of philosophy. — fdrake
I agree with that. I prefer to think of those notions as ways of approaching problems, needing to be adapted to apply to specific situations, rather than doctrines or protocols.Despite the theories about forms of life, I do not think it is vague unless one treats it as a theory. He has no theory about forms of life, he is simply pointing beyond language as something existing in and of itself to our being in the world and all that entails conceptually and practically. The boundaries between one way of life and another or one practice and another are not fixed and immutable. — Fooloso4
More broadly, I think the emphasis on language can lead us to overlook something fundamental to Wittgenstein, namely, the distinction and connection between saying and showing or seeing, which remains throughout his writings, as can be seen it his discussions of such things as seeing aspects, aspect blindness, seeing-as, and seeing connections. — Fooloso4
there is also the idea that Crusoe cannot make new rules so long as he is alone, and any continued rule following can only be judged by an absent community. — Count Timothy von Icarus
However, I do agree that the "bedrock" metaphor doesn't challenge foundationalism itself, and that's always puzzled me. The radical issue is whether foundations are always necessary. After all, it turned out that there are no foundations of the planet. — Ludwig V
96. It might be imagined that some propositions, of the form of empirical propositions, were hardened and functioned as channels for such empirical propositions as were not hardened but fluid; and that this relation altered with time, in that fluid propositions hardened, and hard ones became fluid.
97. The mythology may change back into a state of flux, the river-bed of thoughts may shift. But I distinguish between the movement of the waters on the river-bed and the shift of the bed itself; though there is not a sharp division of the one from the other.
I interpret this to mean that bedrock assumptions are like the river bank. They change along with the river itself, but more slowly. — Joshs
They're discussed in terms of speech acts and gesturing towards new ways of seeing though, right? There's little psychology in it. Or to put it better, the only things he seems interested in are those elements of perception which are mediated by not just involving acts of speech. The eye under the aspect of language. — fdrake
(PI 90)… our investigation is directed not towards phenomena, but rather, as one might say, towards the ‘possibilities’ of phenomena.
(PI 126)The name “philosophy” might also be given to what is possible before all new discoveries and inventions.
(129)The aspects of things that are most important for us are hidden because of their simplicity and familiarity. (One is unable to notice something a because it is always before one’s eyes.) The real foundations of their inquiry do not strike people at all. Unless that fact has at some time struck them. And this means: we fail to be struck by what, once seen, is most striking and most powerful.
As it happens, I'm in the middle of reading this. However, I was hoping to find something that questioned the need for bedrock assumptions. I was also commenting on this metaphor. Wittgenstein seldom relies on just one metaphor. I like the river-bed much better. Nonetheless, if I ask myself what the river-bed is founded on, I find myself confronted with the planet earth. No bedrock there.I think it does challenge foundationalism, which is why Lee Braver named his book on Wittgenstein and Heidegger ‘Groundless Grounds’. — Joshs
I think he presents the hinge metaphor in the context of analysing a debate - elaborating the idea that the debate turns on a fixed point. I would assume that this only applies to the context of the debate, and that what was a hinge may become a bone of contention in another context.That's how I understand them: "hinges" are almost too mechanical for foundations: and in a way hinges can only be placed upon structures build on foundations... hrm. The up-down metaphor — Moliere
I think he presents the hinge metaphor in the context of analysing a debate - elaborating the idea that the debate turns on a fixed point. I would assume that this only applies to the context of the debate, and that what was a hinge may become a bone of contention in another context. — Ludwig V
I agree that there must be some commonality that allows us to move between games. Obviously people can become fluent in new languages and cultures.
This is why I considered the idea of overlapping, and perhaps somewhat hierarchical "forms of life." Pace Wittgenstein, I think we can often understand Chinese gestures quite well. Hell, we can understand when a dog, lion, or badger is upset because mammals signal aggression in similar ways. The reason "reptilian" and "insect-like," have the negative connotations they do is because these animals don't signal their "emotions" to us in the same way, leading to them seeming unpredictable and alien.
I imagine coming to understand extraterrestrial or synthetic lifeforms capable of language would end up being a good deal more difficult than learning a new human language, although perhaps not impossible. — Count Timothy von Icarus
think he presents the hinge metaphor in the context of analysing a debate - elaborating the idea that the debate turns on a fixed point. I would assume that this only applies to the context of the debate, and that what was a hinge may become a bone of contention in another context. — Ludwig V
‘internal’ cognitive system receiving inputs from, computationally representing and spitting out outputs to an ‘external’ world. — Joshs
In the case of my talking to my self, my present and past selves affect each other to produce new senses of meaning of the words and the criteria of rules I invoke. — Joshs
On some views, the relevant "form of life," is something common to all humanity. It is something like "what we all share by virtue of being human and of living in the same world." Advocates of this perspective often pay a lot of attention to Wittgenstein's comments on pain. When it comes to pain, it seems to be our natural expressiveness, something we share with other mammals, that is the scaffolding on which language about pain is built. — Count Timothy von Icarus
I'm afraid few decent philosophical arguments can easily be refuted by counter-example. Someone else can read the note, so it doesn't count as private language - even if it's in cipher.Yes, I have thought before that a.nice counterexample to Wittgenstein's private language argument is someone writing a note to themself to remind them to do something in the future, a scenario that requires someone to enforce some relationship between words and things in the world for the sake of reminding themselves. — Apustimelogist
There's a lot that makes him look like a behaviourist, because his target is what we might now call qualia. But what form of behaviourism does he sign up to? He doesn't use any of the appropriate language - stimulus/response, for example. (Even though the example of pain is wide open to that kind of model.) If he was a verificationist, it would not be unreasonable to read behaviourism into what he says. But he is equivocal.Obviously, Wittgenstein was not a cognitivist (there are hints at it, yes); but, rather an early behaviorist at the time, influenced by Russell's own thoughts about psychology. — Shawn
A contribution, not an answer.Asking whether and how a proposition can be verified is only a special form of the question “How do you mean?” The answer is a contribution to the grammar of the proposition — Phil. Inv. 353
I guess the first problem is how we might come to understand that an extra-terrestrial or synthetic form was alive. We would have to apply the idea of a common humanity in a new context. We can do that, but I don't think we can work out the answer in advance.I imagine coming to understand extraterrestrial or synthetic lifeforms capable of language would end up being a good deal more difficult than learning a new human language, although perhaps not impossible. — Count Timothy von Icarus
Yes, that's true. But both have their uses in a building. Whether the same proposition can be a hinge and a foundation is hard to say. We could perhaps say that the same proposition might be used as a hinge in one context and a foundation in another. But not, I think, at the same time. Case studies would be interesting.In the context of him analyzing a debate: debates turn on fixed points, and foundations are below those fixed points: a hinge can be replaced, but the foundations take time to change. — Moliere
Even among those who accept that there is a reasonably self-contained and straightforward private language argument to be discussed, there has been fundamental and widespread disagreement over its details, its significance and even its intended conclusion, let alone over its soundness. The result is that every reading of the argument (including that which follows) is controversial. Some of this disagreement has arisen because of the notorious difficulty and occasional elusiveness of Wittgenstein’s own text (sometimes augmented by problems of translation).But much derives from the tendency of philosophers to read into the text their own preconceptions without making them explicit and asking themselves whether its author shared them. Some commentators, for instance, supposing it obvious that sensations are private, have interpreted the argument as intended to show they cannot be talked about; some, supposing the argument to be an obvious but unsustainable attempt to wrest special advantage from scepticism about memory, have maintained it to be unsound because it self-defeatingly implies the impossibility of public discourse as well as private; some have assumed it to be a direct attack on the problem of other minds; some have claimed it to commit Wittgenstein to behaviourism or verificationism; some have thought it to imply that language is, of necessity, not merely potentially but actually social (this has come to be called the ‘community view’ of the argument).
I'm afraid few decent philosophical arguments can easily be refuted by counter-example. Someone else can read the note, so it doesn't count as private language - even if it's in cipher.
Quite so. Nature and nurture are so intertwined that we should be very cautious about what distinctions we want to make.High level functions, like language processing and production, reach down into lower level functions and color them, and everything ends up very interconnected. — Count Timothy von Icarus
I agree with that - whole-heartedly. But, coming back to philosophy after a long break, it seems clear to me that the philosophical context has changed.I would take the private language to be at its strongest when it is a straightforward rejection of Cartesian absolute privacy. There are always outward signs of any "inner" experience. — Count Timothy von Icarus
Yes. I'll sign up to that.This jives with a broadly enactivist view. — Count Timothy von Icarus
That's not quite how I take it, though I admit that W says much that looks as if that's what it's about. I would argue that the real point is that there is nothing that would count as error. There's no distinction between right and wrong, which means that "right" and "wrong" have no application to a private rule. Which makes it difficult to explain what the force of the rule is.If a stronger formulation is taken, e.g. that private rule following is impossible because of the possibility of unknown error — Count Timothy von Icarus
Well, I would accept that if there is social agreement on how a rule applies in a new situation, that's how it applies. Rules of etiquette, for example. Linguistic rules.this seems to actually follow on for social rule following too, — Count Timothy von Icarus
Quite so. The lion is, perhaps, not a typical example. Our interaction with lions is, perhaps, a bit limited. I'm sure you know that there are many other cases where we can already distinguish what many in the field are happy to call linguistic behaviour - even in bees.So, with the lion, it seems clear we should know what "please bring more zebra steaks sir," means if the lion says it. However, there also seems to be a sense in which the lion's inner experience, which corresponds to outward signs, is more hidden from us because we do not share the same "form of life." Yet per the topic of this thread, I do think mammals might be said to share some sort of "form of life;" we can recognize each other's emotional states decently after all. — Count Timothy von Icarus
I wouldn't disagree with that.And this seems true for any thought to me. — Count Timothy von Icarus
There's no doubt that looking at it more closely shows a much closer relationship between body and mind than traditional dualism would want to recognize.In theory, it seems possible that given enough observations we might be able to determine to some degree "what a person is thinking about." But then the person's body is itself a sign of inner changes, which of course Wittgenstein seems to suggest. The body is just an imperfect sign in this respect, in part because we have a useful capacity for deception. — Count Timothy von Icarus
I'm not sure that I understand this. But if you are saying that the Augustinian view that W seems to posit as his target has a bit more to be said for it than is usually recognized, I'll agree with you. It must be right that we learn language by observing and imitating the people around us. It's the focus on names that's the big issue.This is in line with Augustinian semiotics. The body is sacramental, an outward sign of inner/higher realities. — Count Timothy von Icarus
We can understand the meaning of a word, say the German word for "village" and have not the first clue how to use it in a sentence. — Count Timothy von Icarus
Yet we can also know how to use words without knowing what they mean. For example, plenty of people use "e.g." "QED," "i.e.," or "amen," correctly without knowing what they mean. — Count Timothy von Icarus
Bats, Mary's room, philosophical zombies. — Ludwig V
would probably be that analytics cut themselves off from most pre-analytic philosophy, did everything "in-house" which entailed a lot of reinventing of the wheel in ways that look horribly philistine and only appeal to a very specific niche of people who like goofy decontextualized thought experiments, [...] — Lionino
Well, I would accept that if there is social agreement on how a rule applies in a new situation, that's how it applies. Rules of etiquette, for example. Linguistic rules.
5.1361 The events of the future cannot be inferred from those of the present. Superstition is the belief in the causal nexus.
Per Wittgenstein, they can't be sure that they ever understand a rule. — Count Timothy von Icarus
5.1361 The events of the future cannot be inferred from those of the present. Superstition is the belief in the causal nexus.
Hence he could never really pin down rules outside of "custom," which in turn leaves them floating free from the world in an infinite sea of "possible rules." — Count Timothy von Icarus
How does any individual ever know that they are properly chastising someone for following a rule wrong? Per Wittgenstein, they can't be sure that they ever understand a rule — Count Timothy von Icarus
Take the example of telling someone to follow a rule, say, repeatedly adding two. It isn’t that when we teach this procedure to her we don’t know what we want her to do, but that this knowledge shouldn’t be modeled on the picture of a mind encompassing the range of the function “Add two” in its gaze, even though our reflexive correction of a wrong answer makes it appear as if we were comparing the series coming out of her mouth
with a written list.
“When I teach someone the formation of the series . . . I surely mean him to write . . . at the hundredth place.”—Quite right; you mean it. And evidently without necessarily even thinking of it. This shews you how different the grammar of the verb “to mean” is from that of “to think.” And nothing is more wrong-headed than calling
meaning a mental activity! The interlocutor here argues that since we know that 1,002 should follow 1,000 when we issue the order “Add two,” a sequence not explicitly considered at the time the order was issued, something queer must be plugging us into the entire series. Wittgenstein reverses the polarity of the argument.
We know what should follow 1,000 and the humble cogitative actions we find do not consciously anticipate every step—so understanding the rule must enable us to correct immediately without explicit thoughts. The mirage of the meaning-object’s containment of all future applications shimmers into existence here to supplement the woefully underpowered act of comprehension.
The standard view has the PLA resting on verificationism: the objection is that the private linguist cannot reliably verify the recurrence of the same sensation, since all he has to go on is his feeling that the present instance is of the same type as the previous one. Without an external check on my reidentification of the Gorignak, I cannot satisfactorily determine whether I have applied the term correctly or not, that is, whether this entity here now is a token of the same type as the one previously so baptized. My attempts to evaluate the consistency of my own applications cannot suffice because, being at the same level as the acts of identification themselves, they provide
no justification of these acts; on my own, I’m just buying multiple copies of a given newspaper to check the headlines of the first. Without such an external check, then, the difference between merely believing I am following a rule correctly and actually doing so collapses, taking the very notion of a rule, and that of language in general, with it.
Some commentators have denied that this argument appears in Wittgenstein’s discussion of PLA at all, but I find it expressed too clearly in too many texts to dismiss it entirely. However, as has been pointed out, this kind of verificationism clashes with many of his other ideas, in particular his frequent claims that we neither have nor need justification to carry out many rule-governed activities perfectly well, a claim that, in fact, often appears within his discussions of private language. For example: “‘but when I in my own case distinguish between, say, pretending that I have pain and really having pain, surely I must make this distinction on some grounds!’
Oddly enough—no!—I do distinguish but not on any grounds.” Wittgenstein believes that every interpretation must bottom out in some unjustifiable immediate reaction in order to escape the infinite regress of interpretive rule-following, so demanding an overt justification for the correct recognition of sensations even to be conceivable seems odd. I believe that Wittgenstein uses verification to indicate the purposelessness rather than the intrinsic incoherence of private language games, as clearly stated here: “you have to remind yourself of the use to get
out of the rut in which all these expressions tend to keep you. The whole point of investigating the ‘verification,’ e.g., is to stress the importance of the use as opposed to that of the picture.”
I personally think Wittgenstein never fully got away from Russell and Hume's influence re causation. That is, the influence that made him write:
5.1361 The events of the future cannot be inferred from those of the present. Superstition is the belief in the causal nexus.
Part of what helps cement rules though is causal consequence. Bad applied math results in bad consequences regardless of what the majority thinks for instance — Count Timothy von Icarus
Metaphysics attempts to escape one’s worldview or form of life in order to latch onto something that transcends all perspectives, something that can rule on and rule over all individual views; but the entities posited as
transcending all systems, such as Truth or Reality in-itself or God are, like Hegel’s thing-in-itself-for-us, posited by and only function within systems. These systems or games can be incommensurable, with no possibility of common measurement or neutral judge, a Great Umpire in the Sky. “Somebody may reply like a rational person and yet not be playing our game.”
We should say no more than that their behavior is just not what makes sense to us: “there’s only one thing that can be wrong with the meaning of a word, and that is that it is unnatural . . . unnatural for us. . . . We just don’t go on in that way.”182 While we cannot take up a wholly external point of view, we can inhabit ours critically, without the illusions of metaphysical grounding.
This incommensurability also means that we cannot get the players of strange language-games to start acting normally (that is, as we do) simply by reasoning with them, since the very thing we’re trying to teach them is
our way of reasoning. Just as a child isn’t rationalized through arguments— were she susceptible to arguments, she would already be rational—but through training, so bringing others to think as we do happens through
nonrational means. Supposing we met people who did not regard [the propositions of physics] as a telling reason. Now, how do we imagine this? Instead of the physicist, they consult an oracle. (And for that we consider them primitive.) Is it wrong for them to consult an oracle and be guided by it?—If we call this “wrong” aren’t we using our language game as a base from which to combat theirs? (Lee Braver)
I do not think he is a skeptic with regard to rule following. There is, for example, a right way of following the rules of addition. If someone does not add correctly they are corrected. If someone makes a move in chess that violates the rules they are corrected. It does not matter what they might or might not understand as long as what they do follows the established rules. But it would be quite odd if someone did not understand the rules and yet consistently acted in accordance with them.
There is a difference between human beings acting in compliance with established rules and the question of whether nature obeys rules. It makes sense to say that if someone does not follow the rules of a game she may be playing a different game, but does it make sense to say that if the sun does not rise tomorrow it is playing a different game?
Are you claiming that there are transcendent, fixed, eternal laws that human beings should follow that Wittgenstein fails to account for?
Wittgenstein believes that every interpretation must bottom out in some unjustifiable immediate reaction in order to escape the infinite regress of interpretive rule-following, so demanding an overt justification for the correct recognition of sensations even to be conceivable seems odd.
The problem as I see it is that his arguments (if they can be called that) for rejecting private rule following don't seem to limit the problem to private rule following. They apply equally to public rule following. — Count Timothy von Icarus
"from whence rules? — Count Timothy von Icarus
Presumably, if nature "follows rules" it is in a way that is at best analogous to how we follow them. — Count Timothy von Icarus
Why do disparate cultures that developed in relative isolation often develop similar rules? — Count Timothy von Icarus
I think the answer is one that you seem to reject - convention. Given our species nature the rules from one group to another will have much in common based on our needs and characteristics as a species.
Get involved in philosophical discussions about knowledge, truth, language, consciousness, science, politics, religion, logic and mathematics, art, history, and lots more. No ads, no clutter, and very little agreement — just fascinating conversations.