Imagine that you're a character in a novel. All of a sudden you start commenting on the nature of the novel you're in, and how wonderful the author is. You're breaking the fourth wall and in a way it makes sense, but mostly it doesn't. You're using language that's relevant to the world you know, but you're talking about a world you can't know. It's like that.

You learn ways of thinking about the world by learning to use words. Sometimes the ways you learn think stop you from questioning things you should question, or make you question things you shouldn't. They might stop you from being able to think about some things entirely, at least without a lot of effort.

A philosopher is paradigmatically someone who sits in an armchair and thinks about the world, analysing its concepts, seeing how they relate, and criticising them. Sometimes they come up with new concepts too. Philosophers often get confused by language because their thoughts reflect upon the ways the world is normally interpreted - which is using something full of holes and prejudices to analyse something full of holes and prejudices.

People who are not philosophers are also bewitched by language, they just don't need to care, because few of the inconsistencies in our norms of interpretation matter. And it marks you as unusual, and perhaps rude or stupid, to care about those inconsistencies and point them out.

I'd stipulate that there are two common bewitching errors, errors of generalisation and errors of presupposition. Errors of generalisation arise when attempting to form cohesive interpretations of concepts across similar contexts in which you might encounter them. The errors take the form of greedy generalisations bordering on equivocations. Whereas errors of presupposition arise when a person's way of thinking is so tied to a use case, or nascent context, that it stops that person from understanding what they intend.

An example of an error of generalisation: Like the word "right" used in the expression "that's not right", if you analogised all uses of that expression you'd end up with a sense of right that spanned moral, legal, epistemic, social and political categories. Because the phrase itself could serve as an admonishment to a conman or as part of disagreement about business strategies.

An example of an error of presupposition: believing that everything which exists exists in an articulable context to humans, or everything that humans do is articulable in everyday speech... Or that British people love hotdogs. When in fact British people love sausages, and the person thinking that highly offensive thought about hotdogs had only ever seen bratwurst.

If you're trying to stop making both errors - you probably can't. You can just try to make them less. I don't have much good advice there unfortunately.

Regarding the statement about philosophy being the bewitchment of our intelligence by the means of language, then why is that so? I mean to say, why does language behave this way or what makes this true that language going on holiday is all that some philosophy amounts to? — Shawn

It’s not language that behaves this way of its own accord. It is the ways we construct grammars out of it that lead to bewitchment. A prime illustration of this is the subject-predicate structure common to most languages. It predisposes us to organize the world in terms of subjects and objects, as if reality is composed this way. If I say ‘the floor is hard’ , we are less likely to read this sentence as an invitation to construe matters in terms of subjects and objects than we are to take for granted that the sentence is describing what is the case. We may go on to question whether the floor really is hard, but not whether there are not alternatives to the subject-object construction.

People who are not philosophers are also bewitched by language, they just don't need to care, because few of the inconsistencies in our norms of interpretation matter. And it marks you as unusual, and perhaps rude or stupid, to care about those inconsistencies and point them out — fdrake

There is one aspect of our norms of interpretation that matters a great deal, and that is our failure to distinguish disagreement over facts from differences in linguistic norms. This is the most importance source of bewitchment for Wittgenstein. Most of our breakdowns in communication, our battles over politics, religion and even fights over trivial matters like who ate the last piece of pie, come from confusing what objectively is the case within a shared linguistic normativity and differences in the sense of HOW something is the case.

Yes, what makes being able to hold those norms in suspense IRL useful is also what makes it rude to do so in most circumstances. You challenge how things, and others, are.

Regarding the statement about philosophy being the bewitchment of our intelligence by the means of language, then why is that so? I mean to say, why does language behave this way or what makes this true that language going on holiday is all that some philosophy amounts to? — Shawn

I think that most of the conflict I've seen in my somewhat limited understanding of philosophy, and this forum in particular, result from these kinds of issues. The problem isn't our presuppositions, i.e. foundational assumptions, it's that we don't recognize them as such.

Philosophers often get confused by language because their thoughts reflect upon the ways the world is normally interpreted - which is using something full of holes and prejudices to analyse something full of holes and prejudices. — fdrake

This is a good way of looking at it.

People who are not philosophers are also bewitched by language, they just don't need to care, because few of the inconsistencies in our norms of interpretation matter. — fdrake

I'm not sure if I think this is true. I'll have to think more about it.

errors of presupposition arise when a person's way of thinking is so tied to a use case, or nascent context, that it stops that person from understanding what they intend. — fdrake

As I noted in my response to @Shawn, I think the primary error associated with presuppositions is caused by the fact we don't recognize them as such and try to establish their truth by empirical means.

If you're trying to stop making both errors - you probably can't. You can just try to make them less. I don't have much good advice there unfortunately. — fdrake

David Wiggins makes good use in his metaphysics and practical philosophy of a distinction of distinctions that he borrowed from Richard Hare (who himself made use of it in the philosophy of law). The meta-distinction at issue is the distinction between the singular/universal distinction and the specific/general distinction. The core insight is that, as is the case for jurisprudence, broadening the scope (i.e. aiming at universality) of a law, concept or principle isn't a matter of making it more general but rather a matter of attending more precisely to the specific ways it is being properly brought to bear to specific circumstances. Hence also in practical deliberation, as Aristotle suggested, one moves from the general to the specific in order to arrive to at a good action (or actionable advice). This contrasts with the advocacy of "universal" principles and the the denunciation of parochialism by folks like David Deutsch who follow Popper in aiming at universalism through building a picture that purportedly approximates reality ever more closely. Getting closer to reality, both in theoretical and practical thinking, rather consists in learning to better espouse its variegated contours, and achieving a greater universality in the scope of our judgements through developing greater sensitivity to their specificity.

This contrasts with the advocacy of "universal" principles and the the denunciation of parochialism by folks like David Deutsch who follow Popper in aiming at universalism through building a picture that purportedly approximates reality ever more closely. — Pierre-Normand

That makes sense. The type of bias involved reminds me of founder effects. In which a diversity of initial properties in one contexts transforms into several stratified contexts devoted to relatively few of them.

Getting closer to reality, both in theoretical and practical thinking, rather consists in learning to better espouse its variegated contours, and achieving a greater universality in the scope of our judgements through developing greater sensitivity to their specificity. — Pierre-Normand

Also related to the heightening specialism of knowledge over time? And the propagation of arbitrarily specific caveats.

Regarding the statement about philosophy being the bewitchment of our intelligence by the means of language, then why is that so? I mean to say, why does language behave this way or what makes this true that language going on holiday is all that some philosophy amounts to? — Shawn

Because people mistakenly think that language represents reality. When the real key is we have to prove our language represents reality. That's a lot harder to do, and its much easier to come up with a solution using language alone then testing. This is of course necessary to discovery, but people who get befuddled by language tend to forget that such craft is a hypothesis of reality, not an actual discovery of it.

Language is the shadow cast by the mind into the world. People often mistaken the shadows for the light or simply think the shadows can tell them more about the light than the light itself.

Language is the shadow cast by the mind into the world. People often mistaken the shadows for the light or simply think the shadows can tell them more about the light than the light itself. — I like sushi

:up:

Also related to the heightening specialism of knowledge over time? And the propagation of arbitrarily specific caveats. — fdrake

Yes, although Wiggins stresses rather more the necessary establishment of non-arbitrary caveats.

When a scientist (or lawyer, or philosopher or engineer) specialises in some domain, they seek principles that universally apply to all cases in this domain. This is something that Wiggins celebrates. For this purpose, the necessary caveats get built into their predicates and become part of the meaning of those predicates. This is the function, for instance, of jurisprudence and the establishment of precedents in common law. A law stipulates in universal terms what are the cases it applies to (since nobody is above the law). But when someone purportedly broke the law, it may be unclear whether or not it applies in specific sorts of cases that the written law doesn't explicitly addresses (and/or that the legislator didn't foresee). Precedents stem from reasoned (and contextually sensitive) judgements by an appellate court the result of which is to make the law more discriminative within its domain of jurisdiction. Hence, the growth of a body of jurisprudence over time jointly manifests a movement from the particular to the universal (aiming at fairness in all of its applications to all citizens) and a movement from the general to the specific (aiming at contextual sensitivity, accounting for justifiable exceptions, extenuating circumstances, etc.)

Getting back to a theoretical (rather than practical) domain, Steven Weinberg has advocated for the virtue of scientific reductionism in one chapter of his book Dreams of a Final Theory. There, he introduces the context of an arrow-of-explanation, which is typically an explanatory link between two domains (from chemistry to physics, say) meant to answer a "why?" question regarding the occurrence of a phenomenon or the manifestation of a high-level law. Weinberg argued that sequences of "why?" questions always lead down to particle physics (and general relativity) and, prospectively, to some grand Theory of Everything. What Weinberg had seemed to be focused on only are "why?" questions that provide explanations of phenomena while solely attending to their intrinsic material condition of existence, abstracting away from anything that makes a phenomenon the sorts of phenomenon that it is (such as the inflationary monetary consequences of a public policy or the healing effects of a medication) in virtue of its specific context of occurrence. Owing to this negligence, Weinberg failed to see that fundamental physics thereby achieves universality within its domain (the physical/material "Universe") to the cost of a specialisation that excludes the predicates of all of the other special sciences, domains of intellectual inquiry, ethics, the arts, etc. Weinberg didn't attend to the distinction between universal and general. The universal laws of physics are very specific in their domain of applications (which isn't a fault at all, but something one must attend to in order not to fall into a naïve reductionism, in this case.)

Weinberg argued that sequences of "why?" questions always lead down to particle physics (and general relativity) and, prospectively, to some grand Theory of Everything. — Pierre-Normand

Hence his well-known quotation 'the more the universe seems comprehensible, the more it also seems pointless.' Physics is constructed to as to exclude meaning, context, etc - as you point out.

Hence his well-known quotation 'the more the universe seems comprehensible, the more it also seems pointless.' Physics is constructed to as to exclude meaning, context, etc - as you point out. — Wayfarer

Quite! Although some physicists and physicist-philosophers like Michel Bitbol and Carlo Rovelli show that digging deeply enough into the foundations of physics forces meaningfulness to enter back into the picture from the back door as it were.

But philosophers have been regularly thinking outside the box for millennia. That's not what Wittgenstein was talking about, is it? Wasn't he talking about speculating where nothing can be known?

But philosophers have been regularly thinking outside the box for millennia. That's not what Wittgenstein was talking about, is it? Wasn't he talking about speculating where nothing can be known? — frank

Indeed, but the reason I'm bringing up Bitbol and Rovelli is because they aren't really trying to think outside of the box and come up with fancy theories or new philosophical ideas. Instead, they are digging deeper inside of the box, as it were, pursuing the very same projects of making sense of specifically physical theories — such as quantum mechanics (and its Relational Interpretation advocated by both of them), general relativity, and Loop Quantum Gravity (i.e. one specific attempt to reconcile general relativity with quantum mechanics) in Rovelli's case — that other physicists are pursuing.
They are reflecting on the foundations of physics in rather the same way reductionist physicists like Weinberg (and sometimes Deutsch) are but they found themselves obligated to move outside of the box in order to account for what's happening inside. This is a instance of the cases highlighted by Wiggins where aiming at universality (through seeking foundational principles of physical theory) not only finds no impediment in accounting for the parochial situation of the observer or inquirer but, quite the opposite, requires that one accounts for the specificity of our predicament as finite, embodied living rational animals with specific needs and interests in order to so much as make sense of quantum phenomena.

By acknowledging the indispensability of the observer. Bitbol (whom you introduced me to, by the way) is a very different kind of thinker to Weinberg.

Bitbol (whom you introduced me to, by the way) is a very different kind of thinker to Weinberg. — Wayfarer

No doubt. Weinberg was a much more accomplished physicist ;-) All kiddings aside, my point just is that unlike Weinberg, Bitbol didn't confuse the correct impetus to seek to broaden the scope of our physical theories (to solve residual puzzles and explain away anomalous phenomena) with a requirement to reduce the explanations of all phenomena to physical explanations. And the reason why he came to this realization stems, interestingly enough, from digging into the foundations of physical theory (and likewise for Rovelli) and finding the parochial situation of the embodied rational agent to be ineliminable from it.

So the human mind finally gets a part to play in the speculations? That is pretty exciting.

Weinberg was a much more accomplished physicist — Pierre-Normand

But Michel Bitbol the more perceptive philosopher. As far as philosophy goes, Weinberg was a walking talking illustration of the 'Cartesian Divide'.

Michel Bitbol is definitely worth knowing about. One of the best discoveries I've made via this forum. He has many talks on YouTube.

Fwiw, from one fly looking for my way out of this fly-bottle to another ...

Regarding the statement about philosophy being the bewitchment of our intelligence by the means of language, then why is that so? — Shawn

This "bewitchment" happens often when philosophy is meta-discursive, or uses language to talk about language itself. Instead, at minimum, philosophers should make explicit such (usually) implicitly self-referential failures to makes sense as reminders to avoid (or minimize) bewitching themselves further (e.g. with disembodied entities, 'transcendental illusions' & woo-woo) :sparkle:

I mean to say, why does language behave this way or what makes this true that language going on holiday is all that some philosophy amounts to?

Language does not "behave this way" or "behave" at all – an example of going on holiday (i.e. nonsense via meta-discourse). This happens whenever a philosopher "behaves this way" (e.g.) attempts to say what is true about 'saying what is true'.

Science, like philosophy, proceeds only from recognizing its limits: what we do not know in order for us to learn about nature and what we must remain silent about in order to reduce talking nonsense (especially about ourselves), respectively. In this sense, philosophy is prophylactic with respect to language. :mask:

Michel Bitbol is definitely worth knowing about. — Wayfarer

Perhaps, but I reserve judgment on Monsieur Bitbol's apparent quantum quackery until an English translation is available of his book Maintenant la finitude. Peut-on penser l'absolu? which is allegedly a critical reply to 'speculative materialist' Q. Meillassoux's brilliant Against Finitude.

:up:

Regarding the statement about philosophy being the bewitchment of our intelligence by the means of language, then why is that so? I mean to say, why does language behave this way or what makes this true that language going on holiday is all that some philosophy amounts to? — Shawn

It's when we forget that language is used to communicate something factual about reality to others that we become bewitched. Just because some sentence follows some rules of some language does not make the sentence true or false. It is true or false when it refers to some aspect of reality or it doesn't. Not only do sentences need to be logically consistent, they have to be consistent with observations as well.

Perhaps, but I reserve judgment on Monsieur Bitbol's apparent quantum quackery until an English translation is available of his book Maintenant la finitude. Peut-on penser l'absolu? which is allegedly a critical reply to 'speculative materialist' Q. Meillassoux's brilliant Against Finitude. — 180 Proof

I've read several papers by Bitbol on quantum mechanics and didn't find anything remotely quacky about them.

Thank you for drawing my attention to Maintenant la finitude. I placed it high on my reading list. I haven't read Meillassoux but, nine years ago (how time passes!) we had a discussion about a paper by Ray Brassier who was taking issue with Meillasoux for ceding too much ground to correlationists. I myself couldn't make sense of Brassier's anti-correlationist argument regarding the planet Saturn. Apparently, Bitbol engaged in some discussions with Meillasoux before writing his book and it seems to me that he may have found more common ground with him (at least regarding the issue of the ontology of ordinary objects like rocks and planets) than with Brassier in spite of residual disagreements.

I've read several papers by Bitbol on quantum mechanics and didn't find anything remotely quacky about them. — Pierre-Normand

Ok, then I'll look more deeply into his work and ignore what's on YouTube. However, imho, his seemingly Kantian version of QBism (with its personalist/subjectivist conception of probability) is quackery to me. Thus, I focus on his engagement with Meillassoux (since I'm not a physicist) in assessing Bitbol's philosophy.

So, given that philosophers have been very in tune with logic, as was the guy who I pretty much quoted in the OP, then do others think that through the study of logic, can one make less of the issues raised in the OP?

Logical is a mathematical field primarily. There are no pure mathematically logical truths in language.

So, no. It helps to know where the limits of pure mathematical logic are and their associative use when applied to 'language' ... which is a nebulous term as is practically every term in ... er ... In short, words have limits and we have no idea what they are nor how to 'measure' them. Sentences usually float above this problem and create senses of meaning that are of practical use and more applicable to vaguely logical forms.

It is perfectly fine to say an orange is a happier fruit than a lemon. It is not at all clear what is meant by this or whether or not there is a correct way to interpret this in some given context, because 'context' itself squirms under scrutiny ... I could go on but hopefully you do not get the idea; which is precisely the point!

Sentences usually float above this problem and create senses of meaning that are of practical use and more applicable to vaguely logical forms. — I like sushi

What are logical forms?

Mathematical