Anyway - as I'm now active on the new platform, I'm probably not going to be responding further here. Thanks for your comments and hopefully speak later. — Wayfarer

Understood. I'm sure we will.

But surely, whether and in what sense one is or isn't 'a physical being', is of the utmost import, isn't it? Setting aside religious convictions, it is a philosophical question of the first order. — Wayfarer

Yes, I suppose to. But my first instinct is to ask myself why it is so important? What are the consequences of one view or the other? On one side, we have the howling desert of meaninglessness and loss of ethics (and indeed of any sense of importance)

But the ‘participatory ontology’ of Thomism served that role. See e.g. this reference. This was also the subject of the earlier thread, Idealism in Context — Wayfarer

I'll look at the article. As for Idealism in Context, I did notice it, but was distracted by other things. I read your OP. You won't want to go through all that again, but I read the OP, and just for fun, here are some comments.

His works display sharp reasoning, lucid prose, and a deep insight into the limits of human knowledge. — Wayfarer

He is indeed a brilliant writer. Though I think sometimes he buys his clarity at the cost of distorting the truth. He is also a past master of altering the meaning of words without telling his readers that he is doing so. What he does to "inert" seems positively egregious to me. But I may be being unfair to him.

George Berkeley’s central philosophical claim is that to be is to be perceived (esse est percipi). — Wayfarer

Yes. I can't imagine how he ever got away with such a massive begging of the question. He announces it as if it were obvious to everyone. Yet he is, later on, forced to recognize that he should have said "esse est percipi aut percipere", because it turns out that we cannot perceive our own minds or the minds of others or even God. His emendation doesn't rescue his objection to inferring to hidden entities, since he has to acknowledge that we know of the existence of other minds by "their effects", which is precisely an inference to hidden entities.

Berkeley was keen to stress that he did not deny the reality of the world as such. In his own words: "The only thing whose existence we deny is that which philosophers call ‘matter’ or ‘corporeal substance’." — Wayfarer

The harder he tries to explain what it is that he is denying without lapsing into the nonsense that he is accused of, the less clear it is what he is denying. But this is a common problem with philosophical attempts to deny the existence of this and that. It requires a good deal of delicate juggling. Wittgenstein's private language argument suffers from the same problem - though he handles it better than Berkeley handles his problem.

Paradoxically, a scientific revolution formerly anticipated as the pinnacle of physical realism ends up reviving precisely the kind of metaphysical questions Berkeley posed in the early 18th century! — Wayfarer

Yes. It's a wonderful irony. Nothing is lost in philosophy. Everything is just waiting for another turn in the sunlight of philosophical discourse.

the rising influence of logical positivism, linguistic analysis, and a growing faith in scientific realism. — Wayfarer

The odd thing is that logical positivism is as near to an idealism as makes little difference. The combination with rise in scientific realism seems very odd. Remember that logical positivism was an attempt to make the world safe for quantum physics and relativity. (I think, by the way, that the whole issue also calls into question any kind of pure idealism, because the reality revealed in the experiments contradicted what earlier theories could recognize as possible.)
I think the rise of realism is more like a rise in faith in science and is explained by the sweeping changes introduced in the late 19th century, culminating in the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. See my first comment above.

What is fundamental or basic. That from which phenomena arise. Thought to be physical in the physicalist worldview. — Wayfarer

OK. I understand roughly how those terms work in ordinary contexts. One complication is that identifying what is fundamental or basic (the two are not quite the same, imo) depends on the context. The foundations of a building are not the same sort of thing as the foundations of a school or college. But I have never really understood what they are supposed to mean in the context of philosophy. For example, while it seems reasonable to say that the physical is, in some sense, the foundation of human existence, if is also reasonable to say that human beings are the foundation of what we mean by the physical. But, surely, that's not really a disagreement - it's just a rather bad pun on different meanings of "fundamental".

Also, regarding the status of mathematics: perhaps you could say it is used to track variance and invariance - what changes and what stays the same in the flux of experience. — Wayfarer

That's one way of putting one aspect of mathematics, but I would have thought that it was more like applied mathematics than pure mathematics. Unless you mean something like that the a priori is our beacon or paradigm of stability in all the flux of experience, to the point of limiting, permanently, what we can experience(?)

We do this effortlessly and easily, because it's an intrinsic part of the worldview we're born into. And that is why it has become a blind spot. — Wayfarer

I don't recall that the Scholastics were particularly hot on factoring in the observer to their theories. But perhaps I'm just wrong.

But let's go back to the issue -

I maintain that scientific naturalism wants to 'absolutize' it, as if it enables us to see the universe as it truly would be, without an observer. Then it points to that as having ontological primacy and claims that humans are a product of that. — Wayfarer

But surely, all @ucarr is saying is that the "lived world" of human beings includes meaning and purpose. By implication, he may well believe that they are the foundation of those things. But I can't see that he is committed to saying that we are the product of existence (defined as meaningless) - though I would agree that it is not unlikely that he believes it. Perhaps he will read this and tell us.

Futhermore, for the record, I think that Vogel's paradox of knowledge is a much more interesting problem, even though it has not attracted anything like the same volume of comment. I suspect that this is mainly because it does not have a solution.

This problem was devised by Jonathan Vogel.

1. Someone (call him Al) has parked his car on Avenue A (out of sight now) half an hour ago. Everything is normal, the car is still there, Al has a good memory. Does he know where his car is?

2. Every day, a certain percentage of cars gets stolen. Does Al know, right now, that his car has not been stolen and driven away since he parked it?

3. Meanwhile, in a parallel universe with a similar crime rate, Betty has parked her car on Avenue B half an hour ago. Betty is cognitively very similar to Al (just as good a memory, just as much confidence about the location of her car). Her car, unfortunately, was stolen and driven away. Does Betty, who believes that her car is on Avenue B where she parked it, know that her car is on Avenue B?

I'll dig out some references if you want them.

I've only just discovered this thread, and I don't suppose for a moment that you'll want to revive it. On the other hand, I can't resist making some comments.

Gettier constructs his examples on the basis of the observation that one can be justified in believing something that turns out to be false and that if one is justified in believing P and P implies Q, then one is justified in believing Q. These two claims underlie all the examples. To bar these cases, we need to undermine those claims. No false grounds will do it, but at the cost of requiring that knowledge that is not backed by conclusive evidence is not knowledge. Which seems far too strict for ordinary use.

The requirement for conclusive evidence is also the obvious way to prevent success by luck in many, if not all, real life cases of knowledge. My guess is that a more specific requirement, close to practice safety, is required for this. My requirement would be that the belief is not simply based on evidence but on competence. So a single success is never sufficient to demonstrate knowledge, but a sustained record of success is. Hence, someone who consistently wins their bets will be credited with knowledge, , whether or not they can produce conclusive evidence based arguments. I think of this as a competence clause.

Defeater screening is also very plausible. But if this clause needs to be satisfied before knowledge is attributed, it will be too strict for ordinary use. Part of the point of the concept of defeaters is that it does not merely create a "prejudice" in favour of a belief but creates a warrant for them - a bit like a decree nisi in divorce proceedings. I can attribute knowledge on grounds that are less than conclusive. If I turn out to be wrong, then I must withdraw the claim. If I do not, then my attribution stands.

There's one factor that I don't think you have thought about, and that is the question of propositional ambiguity. "The man who will get the job..." in Gettier's example turns out to be ambiguous. It can be justified either by Smith or Jones. If we interpreted the claim as "The man who will get the job (viz. Jones)..." or "The man who will get the job (viz. Smith)....." there would be two clearly distinct propositions (beliefs) and no Gettier case. Many of these cases can be dismissed on these grounds, but I'm not sure that all of them can.

The second example in Gettier's original article is one such case. It has a different structure. It assigns two independent propositions to a single disjunction. One alternate is justifiably believed to be true, but turns out not to be. It then turns out that the second alternate is true. Again, the example depends on ambiguity about the proposition that is supposed to be known. The indeterminacy of the concept of a proposition is, imo, the source of the trouble. Sadly, I don't think there is a solution for that.

(All this is from memory, so I don't guarantee that it is accurate.)

PS Just to be clear, I really don't mean to be unhelpful. I don't accept Gettier cases, but, like everybody else, I find it very difficult to prevent them. I suspect it may not be possible to prevent all possible cases that anyone might ever come up with.

It's a challenge to explore whether Witt's wisdom really solves philosophical problems. I think he struggled with that question himself. — frank

It's true that he doesn't accept the natural and conventional idea of what solving a philosophical problem is. That's the point of his practice of dissolving, rather than solving, problems. It's also the reason he thinks of philosophy as therapy.
So his not solving philosophical problems is not a failure, but a recognition that a solution is not required and indeed not possible. One might disagree with that, of course.

But the status of the 'as if' is what is at issue. I maintain that scientific naturalism wants to 'absolutize' it, as if it enables us to see the universe as it truly would be, without an observer. — Wayfarer

Well, that's clearly a hopeless project. Like putting a blindfold on someone and then asking them to describe the landscape. It's the word "truly" that does it - presenting a doubt as a possibility and then ruling it out.

(Because even to see the universe as if there were no observers in it, doesn’t see it as it really would be with no observer.) — Wayfarer

We have evidence which, admittedly, does not tell us everything, but does tell us something and is open to criticism. If that's not enough, then what you say amounts to refusing to play the game without offering another one.

Then it points to that as having ontological primacy and claims that humans are a product of that. — Wayfarer

"Ontological primacy" is a bit of a mystery to me. I would only claim, what I think you agree with, that the historical story is that our planet was once without life and now is. I freely admit that our knowledge of the world depends absolutely on our existence. But I don't think that's a particularly startling claim and it is not incompatible with the historical account. What else is left to say?

The snow we experience is (presumably) the same snow that might fall on a planet without life. — ucarr

Yes. The only thing that is different is that there are no human beings to think of it in different ways. Which is a difference in the context the snow falls, not a difference in the snow.

I think you mind has access to mind-independent things that exist, such as your car. It's also real, as distinguished from merely extant, as it would be on a lifeless planet. — ucarr

"Real", for you, means meaningful, which I assume means meaningful to people in general. I can, more or less, distinguish between what the car is qua mind-independent object. But I don't see a radical difference between thinking of it as a crucial part of my way of life, as a financial drain, as a pollution of the atmosphere, as a badge of my social and cultural standing and thinking of it as a mind-independent object. It's just one of the many ways I think about the car. So I'm puzzled about why you want to distinguish between that perspective and all the others. What's so special about it?

Your memory tracks a radical meaning change from before and after the emergency. — ucarr

One of the ways of identifying what it is for the car to be a mind-independent object is that the mind-independence is the same what other different perspectives I might have of it. So I think of car differently before and after. But it's the same car. Whatever perspective I may apply to it, its mind-independence does not change - and, paradoxically, that is how I think about it.

The question is, how do we know which of the innumerable language games we should be using? — RussellA

Well, as you have just demonstrated, we can invent as many language games as we like, and then amalgamate them. So, for sure, they are innumerable because they are uncountable partly because they are not necessarily clearly distinguished from each other. So it is up to you decide what criterion you would like to use.

There is no alternative but to accept “here is one hand" as indubitable by making it a hinge proposition within a language game. — RussellA

That's a bit odd. You seem on one hand to be making language-games up and also claiming that there is no alternative.
I may be mistaken, but I had the impression that Wittgenstein did not actually accept Moore's argument. He seems to allow that, under suitable circumstances, in an appropriate context, "here is a hand" could be called into question. Perhaps a lecturer putting a picture of a hand on a screen and then saying "here is a hand" would count. IMO.

But how does he justify what he sees! — RussellA

Moore does not justify what he sees by justifying each proposition individually, but by demonstrating that he can see things in general. Which he does by his behaviour, verbal and non-verbal.

Show me a philosophical problem that's resolved by Wittgenstein, and I'll show you why it's not resolved after all. — frank

Show me a philosophical problem that been solved by anyone, and .......

This is the reason I'm so adamant in my resistance of restricting "hinge" to scientific hypotheses alone. — Banno

I like the definition of science as organized common sense.

On reflection, perhaps it will help others if I report what happened to me.
And for the avoidance of doubt.
NOT a complaint.
I had to change my "handle" for the forum. The system did not like the space in it.
So the "V" got dropped.
When we move I shall be simply "Ludwig".

Now signed up, no problem.

Thanks.

Not dumb at all. I took the instructions to allow me to login.

Red face.

I'll try signing up. After I've had something to eat.

Thank you

Hi, Jamal,

I just tried to login the new site. It didn't seem to like my password, so I clicked on "skip the password".

The response promised a link "soon". I've been waiting 15 minutes, which is long enough for other sites.

Nothing. What I am doing wrong?

I think this distinction is erroneous, that we cannot see the Universe as if from outside any perspective or as if there were no sentient beings in it. The comparison you're making between existence and reality also demands a perspective - and perspective is something that only an observer can bring to the picture. We can't step outside appearance in the way you are proposing. This is the characteristic error of modernity. We are and must be part of the picture, we can't attain a perspective of ultimate objectivity or separateness. — Wayfarer

I have only two mild disagreements with this.
I agree entirely with the proposition that we cannot see the world from outside any perspective. I would put it more strongly and say that the very idea of seeing without any perspective is meaningless. But I don't see that we cannot see the world as if there were no sentient beings in it. We can make reasonable adjustments based on our ability to distinguish facts from values and what we know of what the world was like before the first sentient life appeared. The status of mathematics in such a scenario is a not clear to me. On the other hand, it is true that a philosophical (or even a scientific) understanding does need to take into account our involvement. (I realize that's a bit muddled - sorry).

Sentient-based reality, nested within existence, houses a sub-set of ontology experienced; i e., irreversible selection going forward, intentions and, most importantly, meaning indexed to life/death. — ucarr

I think I understand what you are getting at. But I can't discern whether you are saying that the things that we experience as meaningful in the way you describe are the same as, or different from, the things that exist independently of such meaning. The snow falls, and exists. I experience the snow falling and feel cold and miserable. Is the first snow (existence) the same stuff as the snow I experience?(meaningful, therefore real). I think it is, but sometimes you seem to be saying it isn't.

I'm saying they're (sc. real, exist, good, bad) part of a reality attached to how your mind (and my mind) represent the world via internal-model-building. — ucarr

I'm not clear whether you are saying that my mind has any access to what exists, as distinct from what is real. I want to be able say that, given that my car exists, it is also real, and may be a good or bad car. It seems to me to be obvious that the car that figures in all those statements is the same car. But I can't see whether you agree or disagree with that.

The focal point here shows that what's not present in mind independent existence is meaning based upon memory of an irreversible past and an unstoppable progression forward towards death. — ucarr

That's right. Presumably, you are saying that fact is represented in my internal model. I don't see how any model could ever represent that.

Sentient-based reality is perhaps an unfamiliar label, but it's applied herein to a structure of neuroscience well known: internal modeling of the world within the mind. — ucarr

Thank you so much for that clarification. Now I understand better what's going on. The label "sentient-based reality" seems harmless enough to me, though I would prefer "lived world/reality" or "phenomenal world/reality. But it does seem to me that it does not mean the same as "reality" in the philosophical use of the term (though I doubt that use of it is really coherent).

Even if not all language games accept hinges, for each language game is there something taken as indubitable, as granted in order for the game to function? — Banno

You put this is a question, I'm sure that any language game will rely on presuppositions at different levels, so there is unlikely to be just one thing that any of them presuppose. On the contrary, I assume that there are many varieties of language game and the variety of presuppositions will match that - they are games, after all. But I doubt if Wittgenstein would be much interested in such general remarks. It may be unfair, to you and others, but I want to insert here a comment on the general conception of language games as they appear (to me, at least) in philosophical discussion.

Two selected quotations.

Philosophy was a method of investigation, for Wittgenstein, but his conception of the method was changing. We can see this in the way he uses the notion of "language games", for instance. He used to introduce them in order to shake off the idea of a necessary form of language. At least that was one use he made of them, and one of the earliest. It is often useful to imagine different language games. At first he would sometimes write "different forms of language"--as though that were the same thing; though he corrected it in later versions, sometimes. In the Blue Book he speaks sometimes of imagining different language games, and sometimes of imagining different notations--as though that were what it amounted to. And it looks as though he had not distinguished clearly between being able to speak and understanding a notation. — BB 1958. Preface p.vi

Language games, it would seem, are not, or not necessarily, actual structures in language. We can, we are expected to, make them up to suit the investigation we are conducting - specifically, to break loose from the forms of language that seem inevitable to us. It seems plausible to suppose that he would not want to replace those with a different inevitable form of language.

. We see that what we call “proposition”, “language”, has not the formal unity that I imagined, but is a family of structures more or less akin to one another. —– But what becomes of logic now? Its rigour seems to be giving way here. But in that case doesn’t logic altogether disappear? For how can logic lose its rigour? Of course not by our bargaining any of its rigour out of it. The preconception of crystalline purity can only be removed by turning our whole inquiry around. (One might say: the inquiry must be turned around, but on the pivot of our real need. — PI 108

Here, it seems clear to me that the hinge (here "pivot") is an entirely pragmatic concept, "rooted in our real needs" at the time, designed to break up the vision of "crystalline purity". "Hinge" is a role, not a classification.

On the annoying variety of expression that Wittgenstein almost invariably uses, which causes so much difficulty for orthodox philosophical discussion, it is a maxim of traditional rhetoric to employ variety of expression. So this tendency is not a mark of intellectual confusion, but of a decision not to follow the precepts of orthodox philosophical analysis. I would love to insert a quotation here from Quintilian or some similar author, but I don't know enough to do that. But I can offer the following from, I think, ChatGPT.

Importance of Rhetorical Variety
Engagement: Different expressions capture attention and keep the audience engaged.
Clarity: Diverse expressions can clarify complex ideas through relatable imagery.
Emotional Appeal: Varying expression techniques can elicit specific emotions, enhancing the impact of the message.
Memorability: Unique and creative language makes messages more memorable.
By employing a variety of rhetorical expressions, communicators can enhance their effectiveness and resonate more deeply with their audience.

In other words, it is not a bug, but a feature.
In addition, I've already remarked that it also helps to evade the pressure to over-specify one's ideas. Orthodox philosophy thinks that this helps clarity, but one might argue that it does not. All it does is set up a target for endless analysis and confusion.

Sorry - fat thumb syndrome.

Of course that domain is not spatially vast, as number is not extended in space. But the domain of mathematics is vast in a different way, as it is something which has been explored and expanded by generations of mathematicians since the ancient of days, and seems to be inexhaustible. — Wayfarer

I agree with you. That's what I was trying to say - with the conclusion, which seems obvious to me, that it follows that it doesn't have a clear meaning to say that one domain is bigger than another.

So - those kinds of 'intelligible objects' - numbers, logical laws, and the like - are real. But they're not existent in the sense that phenomenal objects are. — Wayfarer

There's a complication - but a necessary one. There are different kinds or categories of existence. (one could put the same point in another way and say that there are different kinds of object, rather than different kinds of existence. But I think that's the same point from a different perspective. The most commonly identified are - physical, mental, and abstract (cf. Popper). I would posit many more, but I'm not sure that is relevant right now - and it may just be a question of notation.

My partition of existence and reality moves in the easier direction of arguing that representation and imagination create a socially embedded consensus reality, which is radiant in the presence of sentience, and therefore a small subset of what exists in the universe apart from sentient beings. — ucarr

Your problem here is that the consensus reality recognizes many things, especially physical things, as real and mind-independent even when they are not in the presence of sentience (perceived). If we can recognize things as existing and real when we perceive them, we can acknowledge them as existing independently of us and therefore as existing and real when they are not perceived. Dinosaurs, etc.

Does a system with a sub-system nested within itself make sense to you in terms of a possible structure? This is one of the most important claims I'm putting forward: reality (by my usage) is a sub-system emergent from existence (by my usage). — ucarr

The problem here is that the same things are real when seen in one way, but unreal when seen in a different way. Your system seems to oscillate between seeing existence and reality as consisting of different objects and seeing them as the same objects seen from different perspectives. A forged painting is not a real Rembrandt, but it is a real painting.

Only sentients, probably only humans, talk about things being real. On a world without sentience there’s no talk of things being real. — ucarr

Only sentients talk about things existing. So on a world withing sentients, there's not talk of things existing. To put it another way, it is true of many things that they are real and exist whether or not they are talked about.

Your quoted comments are all rendered through the lens of your internal-model-making mind. — ucarr

That doesn't mean that they are false.

Since existence and reality share the same ontology, math applies to both. Therefore, the structures of both existence and sentient-based reality are constrained by what math language narrates. — ucarr

Everything that exists in existence also exists in reality, but not the reverse. That's why reality is a larger category of existence, but a smaller category of instantiation. — ucarr

Are you really saying that not everything that exists in reality also exists in existence, i.e. that some things exist in reality, but do not exist in existence? That looks like a self-contradiction to me.

Only sentients can experience physics, and that experience is always referenced to sentient perishability, and that, coupled with irreversible commitments selected going forward into a time-limited future makes sentience-mediated reality meaning-bearing, whereas the existence of physics is not meaning-bearing. — ucarr

If sentients can experience physics, does that not make physics part of sentience-mediated reality? If physics is part of sentience-mediate reality, does that not make it meaningful? Perhaps you should be looking to find the meaning in physics, rather than meekly accepting its self-presentation as meaningless.

Existence, being the larger realm, houses reality, the smaller realm. The two realms overlap in terms of the raw physics of existence. — ucarr

I don't think this will stand up. (I'm assuming that "existence" means "everything that exists" and "reality" means "everything that is real". )
What does it mean to say that reality is smaller than existence? Are you saying that there are some things that exist, but are not real? That applies to most things that we say are unreal. A forged painting is still a painting, even if it is not a real Rembrandt; a model car plainly exists, but is not a car. And so on. That mean that you are saying that unreal things exist. Which is fine, except that it means that they are real, as well.
Then there are fictional objects like unicorns and the starship Enterprise. They do not exist, but yet are real characters in stories and exist in that sense.
I think it is a mistake to think of reality as distinct sub-domain of distinct objects. The relationship between them is more complicated than that.

Reality is the transformation of existence space, characterized by computable causation space with its interactions, measurements and results, into meaning space, characterized by the perishability/survivability axis of living organisms. — ucarr

This combines the perfectly respectable philosophical issue with of finding meaning in the meaningless world of physics with your headline topic. But it suggests that existence and reality are coterminous and related to each other - not that they are separate domains of objects.
But you beg the question whether there are different kinds of existence. It is far from obvious that the only things that exist are those things recognized by physics. On the contrary, physics could not exist without mathematics, so surely we cannot say that mathematical objects don't exist. I would stand up for colours and sounds as well.

Anyway, the upshot is that 'what is real' far exceeds 'what exists', if 'what exists' is defined in terms of phenomenal existents, i.e. things we could encounter by sense or instruments. 'What is real' includes the vast domains of mathematics, for example, only a minute fraction of which is understandable, and only a small fraction of that is instantiated in phenomenal reality. — Wayfarer

I wouldn't disagree with you. But I do pause at the idea that the domains of mathematics are vast in any sense comparable to the domain of the phenomenal or the physical. These things exist as separate categories. The core meaning of space only applies to the physical. It can be applied in a metaphorical sense to other categories of existence, but not in the same sense. These things are not comparable in that way.

But it doesn't follow that hinges are only propositions “belonging to scientific investigations.” That’s your restriction, not Witt. OC develops the same structure far beyond science under other labels, what stands fast, framework, world-picture, river-bed, and the contrast between what we test and what makes testing possible; — Sam26

Would it not be fair to point out that Witt often makes the same or similar point(s) several times in different ways. The private language argument comes to mind as an example.

Perhaps in the OC L.W. is making up the rules as he goes along... And isn't this sometimes worth doing? — Banno

I think it is probably the result of his determination not to get trapped in a set doctrine or dogma.

A paradigm is a set of commitments that hold fast so that normal science can proceed. — Sam26

It seems to me that part of the importance of Kuhn's idea is that he includes in the paradigm a social context and the associated technology. A paradigm is more than a set of commitments - it's more like a practice, part of a way of life, therefore not just linguistic or intellectual.

But

Also, sometimes apparent pluralism reflects different levels of description rather than competing claims about the same thing. Two accounts can both be true insofar as they are answering different questions or carving reality at different joints (e.g., thermodynamics vs statistical mechanics). — Esse Quam Videri

That resolves some cases. But not all - cf. the puzzle pictures. What is most important about them is that they high-light the role of gestalt - each element is interpreted, but in a different relationship to the other elements. The process is not atomistic.
But it matters also that there is no answer to the question what is the picture of. If there were. If there is, it would likely resolve the issue. But we cannot know what the picture is a picture of just by scrutinizing the picture itself - it needs a wider context - or an independent story about it. There's still no guarantee that there is a determinate answer to that question.

So the claim I am defending is weaker but (I think) more defensible: interpretation is constrained in a way that makes genuine success and failure possible. In my opinion, that is enough for realism. — Esse Quam Videri

I agree with you. There are many ways to order a shelf of books (see Blue Book).

We’re describing a more basic fact: that being and intelligibility are internally related. — Wayfarer

Do you mean something like "to be is to be structured"?

it’s built into what we mean by “world” in the first place. — Wayfarer

That suggests we could have a concept of an unintelligible world. I think we need to understand that that would be an incoherent concept.

Good luck with the project.

I agree that much of understanding is interpretive, but I think this actually sharpens the realist point rather than weakening it. Interpretation is an attempt to make sense of what is given in a way that can succeed or fail — i.e. in a way that is answerable to the facts, to counterexamples, to coherence with other lines of evidence, and to the possibility of correction. The very idea of interpretation makes sense only in light of such constraints. — Esse Quam Videri

I don't disagree with you. But is there anything in those things that interpretation is answerable to that promises that only one interpretation of them is true? I think there may be something here that I have missed.

So when we say the world is intelligible, we’re not describing a fortuitous correspondence between two independently constituted domains (mind here, structured being there). We’re describing a more basic fact: that being and intelligibility are internally related. The fit isn’t something that needs to be explained after the fact; it’s built into what we mean by “world” in the first place. — Wayfarer

This is where the tedious point that we are inescapably part of the world plays a part. We participate in the general conditions of existence - specifically order, structure, etc.

Error is possible, but it arises within a shared field of meaning, not from a neutral reality battering a theory. — Joshs

The problem arises because we think of meaning as something shared between human beings and define "reality" as "neutral", i.e. meaningless. So we need to think differently about this. First, the "neutral" reality is constructed in order to serve certain of our interests, categorized as "scientific". Second and paradoxically, we need to recognize that neutral reality is a construction that serves some of our interests and values. So there is a point of view sense in which it is not value-free. Let's say, it doesn't assign values to its assertions, but does develop its practices in pursuit of certain values - "truth", in a certain sense.

Likewise, I don't see the categories of understanding as 'imposed', as if 'the world' is one domain, and they another. They are, rather, the inevitable grounds of comprehension. — Wayfarer

I'm a bit uncertain whether you are saying that they are the inevitable grounds of our ability to comprehend (cf. Kant) or whether they are the fundamental facts about the world that enable us to apply our categories to the world.

Why externalize and say that intelligibility is somehow "out there", immanent to things, as opposed to being something we do, or that it is simply possible for humans to understand things? — baker

Good question. I wish I had a straightforward answer for you. One way of putting the question is whether the world as we understand it is really ordered and rationaI or the order and ratonality we understand it is just a matter of the way we think about it. Another way of the issue is the question whether our understanding is something imposed on the world or whether it is something we recognize in the world. (I'm hinting here that it is, I think, at least possible that some is imposed and some is recognized.)
There is another issue, which is that "intelligibility" is a complicated concept. We can recognize it informally, partly because what it means is different in different contexts. If you consider specific questions in specific contexts, you can usually make some progress with it. But this is the general question - typically philosophical and problematic for that reason.

I would want to say something stronger than this: that intelligibility is there to be discovered — that being is the kind of thing that can be understood, and that our knowing is a response to that prior intelligibility, not its source. — Esse Quam Videri

The tricky part of this, I think, is that some understanding seems to be a matter of interpretation of given facts. This kind of understanding has elements of both alternatives.

I'm interested in the idea that the regularities and patterns we see are shaped by the ways we interact with the world, and that our perception and interaction with the world co-create the intelligible structures we study. — Tom Storm

I don't think that "unintelligible structure" makes sense. So it would be better to say "co-create the structures we study". Then doesn't "study" suggests the structures exist independently of us? That's not inapt, so long as we don't forget that we co-create them.

That’s the sense in which I still want to say intelligibility is discovered in response to being, even if “being” is never given outside the conditions of disclosure. — Esse Quam Videri

Wouldn't it be better to say "intelligibility is our response to being"?

But our only access to this world is through our interactions with it. — Joshs

If one says that, doesn't it immediately generate more questions about why the world and we are is set up that way? Could things be any different? I guess the answer is "no", because we are part of the world that we interact with. Which is very confusing.

I wonder what you might make of Lee Braver’s ‘middle way’ which he calls transgressive realism. — Joshs

I have a lot of time for this.

These moments are what allow us to escape the stultifying enclosure within our own ways of thinking that the Anti-Realists set up, where everything takes place on the basis of transcendental anticipation. — Lee Braver

I hope he realizes that "stultifying" is a whole argument on another level. Many people would settle for stultification if it brings the peace that, for example, Wittgenstein longed for. Yet I'm sure he would also recognize that transcendental anticipation itself also generates the next phase of confusion.

Many of these figures do cultivate the irrational in a sense, but for eminently sensible reasons, once the full conceptual context has been laid out. — Lee Braver

Perhaps he should have said that "irrational" is not the right word for what they were trying to do. Surely, it cannot be classified, because they are trying to talk about what comes before and enables rationality. "Arational" would perhaps be better.

I want to suggest that we might do better by accepting that the issue here is set up on a model of "us" and the world. We can also say, and should also say that we are part of the world and our intellectual (and practical) struggles with it are part of how it is. There is no journey, or rather, there is no destination, because the journey is the destination. The Tractatus was right, though perhaps for the wrong reasons. That doesn't mean we can abandon our attempts to speak the ineffable - or should that be "that we will abandon our attempts ...".

In that case, perception and hearing are suspect, just because they work at a distance from their objects.
— Ludwig V
Yes, I think so. But suspect doesn't mean unreliable, I don't think. IT does mean liable to error, though I couldn't tell you what that would consist in particularly. I just find that gap non-worrying. — AmadeusD

Perhaps "suspect" is the wrong word. If you mean that you are not bothered by the fact that we sometimes "see" (and "hear") things wrongly, neither am I. We can notice the mistakes and put them right.
Perhaps it would be better to say that because seeing and hearing work at a distance, there are questions that can be asked (and hopefully answered) that do not apply to the results of introspection. I'm inclined to say that it is being at a distance that creates the room for error - and, in my book, truth.
(Qualification - In one way, smell arguably also works at a distance. But, unlike seeing and hearing, it does not directly give us any information about distance or direction, and is dependent on actual molecules of the substance smelt entering the nose. So I'm treating it as like touch, etc.)

Hence I regard "I am in pain" as not a proposition like "I see an apple"'. I go with Wittgenstein in thinking of it as an expression, not a statement.
— Ludwig V
Yes, i'd say so. I think, and this is "think", I've not delved - that both are expressions of one's current phenomenal experience. Although, this could just be semantic: I often prefer to say "I look at" an object and then discuss what I see as part of my introspective (i guess?) phenomenal experience. — AmadeusD

I wouldn't disagree with the first sentence.
I'm not sure what you mean by the remark that this could be just semantic. Could you explain and especially why being semantic is not relevant.

"Picture" and "apple" are distinct objects.
— Ludwig V
Do you mean concepts? — AmadeusD

This was about the idea that my experience of an apple must contain an apple.

A picture of an apple is not an apple. "Picture" and "apple" are distinct objects. We can say that a picture of an apple contains an image of an apple. That's what the concept of an image is for - to articulate the way in which the picture is a picture of an apple. — Ludwig V

If a picture can be a picture of an apple without containing an apple, then I don't see why an actual apple must be part of the experience of seeing an apple. Of course, that depends on the idea that an experience is a kind of picture. If that's not the case, the argument lapses.

Can you say more about this (sc. apple-appropriate behaviour)? If what you mean is that the experience causes the appropriate behaviour for when one looks toward that object, I have a lot of questions lol. If it just means that teh senses behave apple-appropriate when looking toward one, that makes total sense to me and is a clever wee statement imo. — AmadeusD

Yes. I did mean the first. There is certainly more to be said.

I disagree in a significant, but also probably a bit pedantic sense: that is the required end-point of the story and the only one we knew in advance. — AmadeusD

No, I don't think that is pedantic. People often assume that the output of the system is an image or an experience or something. But that doesn't help at all. We can avoid the metaphysical arguments about what those things are if we stick to the obvious and say that the output of the sensory system is knowledge of the external world. Then we need to explain what effect that knowledge has on us. In combination with our needs and desires it initiates our actions and it guides them when they are under way. It's only a gesture towards a beginning, but it at least tells us something worth knowing.

It is like "I won the race", that is, it is about outcomes, not processes.
— Ludwig V
Is this (and hte prior) suggesting that the model of use of "I see" should simply be when your experience tells you such? — AmadeusD

Roughly, yes.

If so, I have no issue with that but it allows for hallucinations to be caught under the same banner as what the DRist would call direct awareness (or, i think better: veridical perception). That seems a bit of a shot-in-the-foot. — AmadeusD

I've worried a lot about hallucinations. I think my answer is roughly this. (This is the first time I have ever tried to articulate this, so it is provisonal. (My reference for hallucinations is the scene in Shakespeare's play when Macbeth hallucinates a dagger in front of him. It saves thinking.)
There is no dagger, so Macbeth does not see a dagger. But he thinks he sees a dagger. This is a puzzle. I think the answer has to lie in the fact that we can imagine things - not necessarily by conjuring up images in our heads, but sometimes in that way. People seem to vary in this. Some people have very weak visual imaginations (aphantasia) and some people much stronger ones. Often this process is under voluntary control - we decide what we will "see" and we create it (day-dreaming). But this is not always the case, as in night-time dreaming. Hallucinating is a process like dreaming - think of it as partial dreaming, in which an involuntary imagining is superimposed on reality.
So there's no shot-in-the-foot, just a graceful admission that imagining things is part of life. The philosophical argument is not about that. It is about the claim that everything that we see is an imagining. That's false. "Imagining" would lose its meaning if it were true.

For me, it is introspection that is suspect, just because it cannot be wrong and therefore cannot be right
— Ludwig V
Ok, i understand this and i think it has some serious force. Let's see where it goes.. — AmadeusD

There is a complication here, though I don't know how relevant it is. But it might bear on the meaning of "direct" and "indirect". I'm trying to avoid talking about that issue and I'm not sure how relevant people would think it is.
1 If we take introspection as our model of direct perception, we need to be aware that pain and similar sensations are just as dependent on physical machinery as seeing and hearing. We have specialized pain receptors and nerves for pain, heat and cold, body position and so on. So, if introspection is direct perception, it is not because there is no physical machinery involved. The difference between direct and indirect is just the boundaries of the physical body.
2 When I am in pain, that non-truth-functional event becomes a normal truth-functional event when it is recognized by other people. But I can see it in that way too, and so it becomes possible for me to assess right and wrong in the same way that they do. So I can know that my pain is a phantom pain in the same way that everyone else does. Separating these two points of view is very tricky.

I was quite nervous about my post. I'm very glad you thought it worth something.

If I hear someone say “2+2=4”, I know it refers to two objects being alongside another two objects. There is no instruction for me to do anything. — RussellA

So what is going on when the waiter adds up the bill (whether by pushing buttons on a machinie or the old-fashioned way)?

“Unicorn” refers to a mythical creature. — RussellA

So is it false to say that unicorns don't exist?

Russell’s definite descriptions allow us to refer to and discuss non-existent entities because we can reduce expressions, such as “the present king of France is bald”, into constituent truth-apt propositions. — RussellA

That's right. He shows how to talk about non-existent entities without referring to them.

Wittgenstein never said that we had no inner feelings.
PI 257 What would it be like if human beings shewed no outward signs of pain (did not groan, grimace, etc)? — RussellA

No, indeed, he did not. Much depends, however, on what you say next - I mean, how you conceive of inner feelings. One way of expressing this is to ask whether the outward signs of pain are connected to the inner feelings on the basis of an empirical inference - that is, whether there are two events here, one outer and visible, and one inner and invisible to anyone except the patient. If you say yes, I shall ask how you connect the outward signs to the inner feelings if you have no access to them.

There is no "enforcement pressure", not even an implied ought. — Metaphysician Undercover

Any enforcement pressure comes from other people, and our reaction to what they say and do. I also apply pressure to other people. Like jostling in a queue.

Yes, that's the point, it would be two distinct concepts of "football", not one concept. And if we tried to insist that there is one concept of football we'd have to acknowledge internal contradiction within the concept. — Metaphysician Undercover

There's not really anything to argue about here. Of course, there are two different games (concepts). I practice, though, we have chosen to recognize a common element or at least a common origin for these games. That why we call them "Rugby football", "Australian rules", "American", "Association". All of them derive, as I understand the history, from a common (entirely informal) ancestor.

You are not making sense any more Ludwig. Why does understanding something require that the thing which is understood has concepts? — Metaphysician Undercover

I'm sorry if I wasn't clear. I didn't mean to imply that we need to understand the sun in terms of its own concepts. I shouldn't generalize about animals here, because they are very different. But some animals are sufficiently like us that we need to apply some of the concepts to them as we apply to each other. That's all. I have a feeling however, that you would draw the line in a different place from me. We would, I think, agree that bacteria fall outside the scope of this and, most likely, that plants do as well (though some people do contest that). Perhaps most fish. Whales and dolphins?? You get the picture, I'm sure.

Are you arguing that without prescriptive rules for word usage, the concept wouldn't exist? What about the smaller concepts that make up a triangle, like 3 and polygon. Do those also reduce to prescriptive rules? — frank

It seems to me that you are making a case for the fundamental and inescapable importance of ordinary life. It seems to echo Ryle's distinction between technical and untechnical concepts. (That's a good thing, BTW)

Where I’d adjust what you say is the following: philosophy doesn’t assume a single standard of correctness across all registers. Wit’s method is often to stop philosophers from importing the standards of one register into another, like treating everyday “know” as if it must behave like courtroom proof or treating psychological talk as if it's like physics. A lot of philosophical confusion comes from exactly that cross-register mix up. — Sam26

I'm glad we agree on so much. My concern is that Wittgenstein, (and those who write about him) seem very often to think that "going on holiday" or "cross-register confusion" are easy to identify and categorize - and file in the appropriate place. So, I find myself thinking here that sometimes cross-register mixes are appropriate and need to be worked through, not dismissed. (See, for example, my post above about animals.)

I agree that it is sometimes possible to know the cause of a broken window, in that someone may have filmed it, but it is impossible to know the inner cause of someone grimacing. — RussellA

It's difficult to express the point clearly. "the inner cause of someone grimacing" could be taken to refer to the sensation of pain. But the private language argument shows that there's no such thing. So we need to explain that if we are to be quite clear.

For example, the fact that I may not know what “Je veux deux pommes” means does not mean that it is not part of a language. — RussellA

True. But lots of people do know what it means. No-one knows what "slithy" means, because it doesn't mean anything. It is just a noise. Lewis Carroll was having fun writing something that sounded like language but wasn't.

For example, the fact that I may not know what “Je veux deux pommes” means does not mean that it is not part of a language — RussellA

But it is part of a language. So lots of people know what it means.

In the world, there are a total of four things if two things are alongside another two things. — RussellA

Yes but the sign "+" does not refer to that fact. It is, in effect an instruction to do something, so it can't refer to anything.

There are no unicorns, but the word “unicorn” still refers to something. — RussellA

But it does not refer to some thing. Unicorns are mythical creatures, so they do not exist, so "unicorn" cannot refer to them. You could, I suppose say that "unicorn" refers to the myths in which the stories occur, but that is a very different kind of reference from the one you seemed to have in mind.

Betrand Russell distinguished between phrases that refer to non-existent entities and those that refer to actual objects. For instance, "the present King of France" refers to a non-existent entity, while "the present King of England" refers to a specific, existing individual. (Wikipedia) So we can refer to both existent and non-existent things. — RussellA

No, Russell's point, as I understood it that propositions that appear to refer to non-existent entities can be assigned a truth value by interpreting "The present king of France is bald" by analysing it as consisting of two claims - 1) that there is a king of France and 2) that he is bald. A conjunction of two sentences is true iff both conjuncts are true. In this case one of the conjuncts is false, because the reference fails, so the entire sentence is false. No non-existent entities required.

You seem to have a generous soul. Your concept of language is generous. So is your concept of reference.

One of Wittgenstein’s most useful tools is noticing when a word has stepped out of its ordinary work. We're using the word, but it’s no longer doing the job it normally does, and this is when language goes on holiday to Bermuda. — Sam26

Sometimes we stretch meanings or apply them in new ways, but it is not always going on holiday. Sometimes it is putting words to work in new ways. Perhaps I'm being picky, but I think it would be wrong to think that a new use is always, as one might say, the engine idling.

But it’s false if you hear “everyday use” as “the average person’s current opinions or sloppy speech is the standard.” Witt isn’t taking a poll. Use includes the practice’s norms, how words are taught, corrected, and applied. Ordinary use includes skilled and technical language games too, medicine, law, mathematics, because those are also ordinary human practices with standards. — Sam26

There are different registers of language, appropriate to specific kinds of occasion. Informal usage is one thing, formal usage somewhat different. One register for the law courts, another for a late night in the pub, and so on. Yet it is true that our approach in philosophy does assume a common understanding of correctness in language which might not always be appropriate. This was more or less taken for granted until somewhere in the 'sixties. Less so now. It could be very difficult, but seems to work well enough on the whole.

I understand a dictionary definition as principally a post hoc inductive statement. — Metaphysician Undercover

That is not unjustified. The only enforcement pressure for the "rules" of language is not being understood or being misunderstood. But that is seriously undermined by our ability to understand what people mean to say even if they say it in a way that breaks the rules.

If we assume that all "use in practice" involves concepts, then we'll end up saying that all communication, even that done by other animals involves concepts. — Metaphysician Undercover

I don't see why we should not allow that animals have concepts. It would be hard to understand them if we did not.

Therefore I think we need some rules as to what exactly "a concept" is, and we need to adhere to those rules in discussions like this. — Metaphysician Undercover

The trouble is that you and I can recommend, but we have absolutely no power to enforce anything.

if two different teams want to play the same game, "football" and they each have different sets of rules, that's a very real problem. They have to hammer out their differences and decide on one game to play. — Metaphysician Undercover

That's right. But they can decide to play either game, or play one the first week, the other the second and so on. It's only a problem if they try to play both games at the same time.

Apologies for my long silence. I needed to reflect and find some clarity. All quotations are from the message in the "reply to" link.

Then what would experience be of? If the objects you witness aren't part of your experience, and yet there are also no images in your mind that could be part of your experiences, where are you getting them? Here, image can simply mean "the image" of hte apple when you cast your eyes to it; it need not be mediated. I just want some story that doens't require an apple to be in your experience.

So we agree that the apple isn't part of our experience. It's not much, but it is something. Suppose I understand seeing something as relationship between the subject who sees and an object which is seen. Then the demand that the apple be in my eye is a misunderstanding of what "see" means. I think that is down to thinking of introspection as, in some way, a paradigm of how the senses work. In that case, perception and hearing are suspect, just because they work at a distance from their objects. For me, it is introspection that is suspect, just because it cannot be wrong and therefore cannot be right. I think the model of perception (as involving a subject and an object that is distinct from the subject) collapses in introspection. Hence I regard "I am in pain" as not a proposition like "I see an apple"'. I go with Wittgenstein in thinking of it as an expression, not a statement.
A picture of an apple is not an apple. "Picture" and "apple" are distinct objects. We can say that a picture of an apple contains an image of an apple. That's what the concept of an image is for - to articulate the way in which the picture is a picture of an apple. So it is not follow from the fact that I perceive an apple that there is an actual apple in my mind; in the case of perception, of course, there isn't an image of an apple - only apple-appropriate behaviour. But that's sufficient. If the experience is thought of as some sort of copy or model, it is needles reduplication.

I don't even understand how that could be the case. To me, it(the scientific story)'s a full analysis of what actually happens when we cast our eyes about us. I refuse, on grounds of consistency/incoherence, to call it Direct. There's nothing further needed imo. It's just slightly uncomfortable for those of us who require that the apple is in our eye.

Well, there are grounds for calling the scientific story "indirect" and grounds for call it "direct". I think the relationship is more complicated than that. "I see an apple" has what is called "success logic". It is only true I do see an apple. It is like "I won the race", that is, it is about outcomes, not processes. The running of the race stands to the winning of the race in the same logical relationship is the scientific story stands to "I see an apple".
When I said it was partial, I only meant that we do not yet understand the complete process, because our understanding of the brain is as yet, in its infancy. I wasn't suggesting that it would always be partial. But note, the scientific story has no place for the experience of seeing an apple - though it may well find correlates in the way that it has found correlates to the experience of pain.

The 'vulgar' ways of talking are heuristic/pragmatic/easier to parse but that doesn't make them right. They can just be wrong, but helpful.

Just to be clear, I don't think "I see an apple" is anywhere near being any kind of theory. It is where theory might start, but only as the question - no particular answer is implied. See above on success logic. It follows, I think, as @Banno suggests, or at least, as I interpret him as suggestng, "Direct realism" as a theory of perception is coined as a reaction to indirect realism.

So doesn't that indicate to you that there is no concept of game? — Metaphysician Undercover

Yes, no, and maybe.

How could you say that there is a "concept" involved if we each use the word differently? Doesn't the very essence of what it means to be "a concept" indicate that the word must be used in the same way? — Metaphysician Undercover

The difference between us seems to be that I am interested in how we use a word and am content if it is a part of our practice. You are more interested in the formulation of a rule that articulates the use (in the case of words in general use without a formal rule (dictionaries)) or dictates the use (in the case of concepts that are created for specific purposes). Both use in practice and formulation of a rule are aspects of concepts. You emphasize one and I emphasize the other.
Suppose someone said that all games involve winners and losers; so "games" that don't are really games. Suppose someone said that games are always played for fun, so professionals are no long playing a game - they are working. You could say that there are two different, but related, concepts here, or you could say that there are sufficient similarities between the two to justify calling them one. Again, there are several varieties of football - different concepts of it if you like, since there are formal books of rules. It isn't a usually a problem. I don't see the point of arguing about it.
On the other hand, I might ask how the formal rule restricts or guides use of a word. Here, his argument about rule-following kicks in. In the end, the application of a rule comes down to our agreement about how it should be applied. So, in my view, the use of the word in practice is more important that whether an explicitly formulated rule is being followed.
"Agreement" here is not quite the right word. Sometimes we do disagree, but when we do, we can recognize the fact, discuss it, and (perhaps) come to an agreement - even if it is only to disagree.

From a Kuhnian vantage, the continuity you emphasize can’t be understood as neutral continuity. — Joshs

It can't be understood as the continuation of specific elements unchanged, if that's what you mean. I had in mind something more like an overlap, as between different languages or different perspectives (economic, geological, political, etc.) on the same events.

But for Kuhn, what counts as “the same phenomenon” is not theory-neutral. Observation is theory-laden. — Joshs

I would not dream of denying that. However, some cases may be like the Copernican system. There, the data were common to both theories. It was the interpretation (and the physics) that changed. Again, even though the concepts were radically different, we can trace the concept of "heat" from alchemy to molecular theories. Perhaps, it comes down to the shared life and shared practices outside the theoretical perspective. Heat is welcome in the winter, but often unwelcome in the summer. Common humanity.

Kuhn’s incommensurability thesis doesn’t deny all translatability, it denies perfect translation. ..... A new paradigm preserves much of the old paradigm’s puzzle-solving ability, but it may reclassify what counts as a legitimate puzzle. Certain old problems may be dismissed as ill-posed, meaningless, or peripheral. — Joshs

Yes, of course. I found it difficult to describe all those possibilities without getting unduly wordy.

Wittgenstein would likely go even further by questioning the Kuhnian picture of anomalies driving development as though reality were pressing back against theory in a structured way. .... When those rules shift, the “problem” may dissolve rather than be solved. That is not puzzle-solving in Kuhn’s sense; it is conceptual reorientation. — Joshs

Certainly, Wittgenstein would insist, I think, that there could not be a definition of reality that was not part of a language game. But, perhaps, a language (game) is not quite the same thing as a theory.
There are different kinds of anomaly. The rejection of epicycles was not based on data that could not be reconciled, but on the awkwardness and complication of the application of the theory. The Brownian motion was different and did consist of data that could not be explained. But perhaps that was not a case of paradigm shift. After he wrote "paradigm" became over-used and diluted to. imo, a ridiculous extent.
However, I feel a bit awkward about this. One of my reasons for believing that idealism is false is precisely that the phenomena do not always conform to our theories. More generally, experimental methodology assumes that there is a theory independent reality that may or may not conform to our theories. So presumably, this possibility must be built in to any respectable theory - shades of Popper. That doesn't mean it must be built in to any language (game).

But even though what a hammer is as a result of what a hammer does, once the hammer has been created, the hammer exists as it is independently of any use, of what it can do. — RussellA

Yes. One can actually use the hammer in various ways that are not what it was designed for. I just wanted to point out that sometimes what something does is intertwined with our idea of what it is.

That there is a rock lying on the floor is not proof that the rock caused the window to break. It may be evidence, but not conclusive evidence.
That someone grimaces is not proof that they are in pain. It may be evidence, but not conclusive evidence.
These seem quite equivalent. — RussellA

There are important ways in which they are quite different.
You said the rock was hidden, but, assuming that it did break the window, it can be revealed. There is nothing that would count as revealing the hidden pain.
There could be evidence that the rock broke the window and it may be beyond reasonable doubt, even if it is not conclusive.

As you say, the connection is not empirical, as is the connection between rain and rainbows. — RussellA

Applying the word "evidence" glosses over the fact that the evidence for the rock breaking the window is of a different kind from the grimace as evidence of pain. I can show you the splinters of glass and the rock beside each other. I cannot show you the grimace and the pain next to each other. On the contrary, showing you the grimace is showing you the pain. But I grant you that the grimace is defeasible.

The fact that “ouch” is in quotation marks shows that it is part of language. — RussellA

Lewis Carroll wrote "'Twas slithy and the mome raths outgrabe". Does the fact that they are in quotation marks show that they are part of language or does the fact that they are meaningless show that they are not? Even if you think that "ouch" is part of language, the fact that it is in quotation marks shows that it is mentioned, not used.

“2+2=4” refers to 2+2=4 — RussellA

What I actually asked is 'What does "plus" as in "2+2=4" refer to?'

“The present king of France” refers to the present king of France — RussellA

There is no king of France, so it refers to no-one - that is does not refer to anyone.

“Nothing” refers to nothing. — RussellA

Quite. So not all words refer.

This is because they do not have such "concepts" when they learn how to use those words. That is the point Wittgenstein made with "game", we all use the word without having any specific concept of game. I believe he takes this idea further in On Certainty. Knowing how to use a word doesn't indicate that the person using it has a concept of the word. — Metaphysician Undercover

Well, I had the impression that Wittgenstein's point about "game" was that there could not be a single definition (formal rule) that would be the basis of a concept. "Game" is applied to a very wide range of games, but he explains his meaning by means of the metaphor. There is no single thread that runs through the whole of a rope; its strength is made by a number of distinct threads which interweave and overlap. Better known, perhaps, is his metaphor of "family likenesses" which connect member of a family. Similarly, there is no single likeness that connects all games; but there are a number of different likenesses that interweave and overlap to connect them.

I think concepts are logical structures with formal rules. — Metaphysician Undercover

I think we understand that we use the word differently; there doesn't seem to be any point about that. I think, though, that people mostly assume that if you can use a word competently, you can articulate a definition of it - and vice versa. But those are different skills.

Kuhn doesn’t license “my truth” as an all-purpose slogan, but he does show how truth-claims are always embedded in practices, traditions, and shared forms of life. — Joshs

That's fair enough. But I think that there is a little more to be said. Kuhn is not wrong to emphasize paradigm shift and incommensurability in an argument to establish the importance of those concepts. But I think there is an implicit continuity in what he describes.
He identifies anomalies as the prime movers in the shift of paradigms. These are, inevitably, to be described in the "old" context. The point is that, in that context they appear insoluble but that they are perfectly soluble in the new context. So it is critical that the same anomalous phenomena can be recognized across paradigms, in spite of any incommensurability.
Further, it is not sufficient that the anomalies are resolved in the new paradigm. In addition, the new paradigm has to solve (explain) all the phenomena that were solved or explained in the old.
I'm not certain how much Wittgenstein talks about change and development in practices and ways of life. I have the impression that what impressed him most about them was their stability. In making this comment about Kuhn, I'm trying to reconcile the two without overthrowing either.

I have no idea why people are having such a difficult time with this idea. It seems obvious that you would need bedrock certainties in order to have any certainty. Maybe I'm not seeing your point. — Sam26

Perhaps I didn't explain properly. I don't have any difficulty with the idea of hinge propositions. I think it is very useful in understanding some debates where it is not clear what the issue is. I certainly get the idea that something is needed to articulate what proof and certainty are - how they work - in specific contexts. It seems just obvious that they are not always the same, although some people seem to think of them in that way.

they can change, but typically not by the ordinary give and take of reasons inside the system. — Sam26

Yes, I get that point. It seems to follow that when they change, they do not change within the system - though perhaps if they do, the system may change - sometimes in quite radical ways. The idea of causation is, perhaps an example. I was wondering if you had more to say on the changes and how they happen.

The change is more like a reorientation, a shift (the shift isn't with what's bedrock, but what's just above bedrock) in what we take for granted, often driven by new practices, or a new framework. — Sam26

Yes. I notice the idea of layers of bedrock, and was thinking of it in the context of hinges. Can we have layers of hinge? Do we think of this as something like a paradigm change, for example?

The hammer did not become a mass of metal at the end of a handle because it was used to knock nails into wood, the hammer was a mass of metal at the end of a handle before it was used to knock nails into wood. — RussellA

An axe is also a mass of metal at the end of a handle, so is a mace (as used in battle). All these objects were constructed so that they could be used in certain ways. The fact that one could use a spanner or a rock as a hammer does not contradict that. What something is and what it does are intertwined and not usually separable in the way you suggest.

What I think, is that if someone states particular criteria, or rules governing the use of the word, for the purpose of a logical procedure, then we have what is required for a "concept". Notice though, that I am stipulating such rules in this case, proposing a restriction to the way that you use the word "concept". — Metaphysician Undercover

That's clear enough, I think. But I'm a bit bothered by the fact that we often don't bother to state criteria but use a term without such a framework. In those cases, we are relying on skills that we have picked up informally, perhaps by imitation, certainly by participation. If someone can use terms like "tree" or "table" without that formal framwork, it seems a bit odd to deny that they have the relevant concepts. That does not exclude the possiibility of adding the framework later - as in the case, perhaps, of "tree". But then, it might turn out to be a different, even if a clearer, concept.

It is possible to refer to hidden things. For example, if I see a broken window, I can say that something caused it to break. What caused the window to break may be unknown, but I can still refer to this unknown something. — RussellA

Yes, of course you can. But you can then discover the rock that caused the damage, show it to you, lodge it as evidence, as so forth. There is nothing that you can do with pain that is equivalent to that.

I agree that uttering ouch is not part of language, but saying “ouch!” must be part of language. As it is the nature of language that every expression must refer to something, “ouch!” must also refer to something. — RussellA

I see what you are getting at - roughly. Let's suppose someone utters "ouch" and someone asks me what he said; I might reply "ouch". I'm imitating his utterance, but that doesn't make "ouch" a part of language. I don't even agree that every expression ("part of language") must refer to something. What does "plus" as in "2+2=4" refer to? What does "the present king of France" refer to? What does "nothing" refer to?

As the form of grimacing gives clues to the inner feeling of being in pain, the form of the linguistic statement “I am in pain” must also gives clues to the inner feeling of being in pain. — RussellA

I don't see what form vs content has to do with this. Grimacing and "I am in pain" are connected to pain, and provide me with grounds for saying that "S is in pain". I wouldn't say they are clues exactly, because the connection is not empirical - can't be empirical, because we can't demonstrate the connection with pain as we can demonstrate the connection between rain and rainbows.

It may turn out in some cases that the person is faking, but the term 'pain' becomes meaningless if the pain is regarded as a fiction because we can't observe it. — Fooloso4

I agree that we can't observe pain in the way that one can observe a wound. But I would prefer to insist that observing someone who has been wounded writhing and screaming is observing pain.

This also explains why prove it can be misplaced. If someone demands evidence for the hinges themselves, they’re asking for the justification that only makes sense within a system of checking that presupposes those hinges. The result isn’t a refutation, it’s a diagnosis, i.e., the request pulls the words like doubt, know, or evidence out of the language game where they do their work. — Sam26

I am a bit confused by this. Your last sentence suggests that hinge propositions are always true, like a priori propositions. I thought being a hinge proposition was not a class or kind of proposition, but a role that could be played, from time to time, by a wide variety of propositions. Examples of hinge propositions are, I suppose, methodological decisions or heuristic principles. The point about these is that although they are held fast in debates, they can be changed, though not, of course, in the process of debate.
Your remarks that "they aren’t usually the result of inquiry" and "That’s what Witt calls a kind of certainty, but it’s hinge certainty, not epistemic certainty" deepen the mystery for me.

But what I am against is the idea that some interpret Wittgenstein's “meaning is use” as being that 100% of our thinking derives from language and society. — RussellA

Yes, people too often assume that language is about communication and has no other uses. That's not true.

“I am in pain” refers to being in hidden inner pain, whilst “ouch” refers to the behaviour of outward observable grimacing. In this sense, as they refer to different things, they are not synonyms. — RussellA

"Ouch!" isn't part of language, so it can't refer to anything. You should think of it alongside grimacing. Both are, one might say, expressions of pain. "
If "I am in pain" refers to hidden inner pain, then, surely, it is not hidden. "I am in pain" is like "ouch" and grimacing in many ways, which is why Wittgenstein insists that it is an expression of pain. The complication, which, I think he does not deal with because it is not relevant to his focus in that discussion, is that it is also like "S is in pain"; it plays into the standard structures that usually apply when se speak of knowledge.

You are assuming we can directly interact with outer facts. A Direct Realist would agree, but an Indirect Realist would disagree. An Indirect Realist would say that we are directly interacting with an appearance of what we assume to be outer facts. — RussellA

I am not assuming any particular theory about perception or facts. All I am assuming is that there are such things, and that, one way or another, we interact with them. I feel that direct and indirect realism might be regarded as off-topic on this thread.

For example, how can a person know whether it is correct to say “I am in pain” or “I am not in pain” if they don't know whether they are in pain or not? — RussellA

That's true. I shows how language games are not in separate compartments, but interact. Indeed, I'm sometimes inclinced to think that Wittgenstein did not think of language games as actual distinct structures in language, but a thought experiment designed to high-light and focus on specific uses to enable a clearer view.
For example, how can a person know whether it is correct to say “I am in pain". First they must know whether they are in pain or not and then they can correctly say whether “I am in pain” or “I am not in pain”.[/quote]
This is not quite right. It is an important part of language that when we are in pain, we do not - and do not need to - apply the usual processes of deciding on the truth of "I am in pain". As Wittgenstein says, what seems to me to be so, is so. It is only when pain is seen in the public world - that is, in the context of p;ublic language - that we can separate truth from appearance. That's why I think that "I am in pain" is not exactly synonymous with "Ouch!".

He is demonstrating that the recurrence of the inner sensation is not the recurrence of an object which can be named, as we name an external object. In this way he takes "object" out of the picture, but he leaves "the inner" as still central, but consisting of something other than objects. — Metaphysician Undercover

I'm inclined to think that Wittgenstein was not concerned to refute the specific idea that pain is an object. He was concerned with the idea that a (logically) private rule was an incoherent idea. What kind of objects sensations are. His arguments apply whether pain is seen as an event or process or whatever.

I am not arguing that this is the case, only that "sufficient conditions" lack the necessity required to draw certain conclusions. — Metaphysician Undercover

I was impressed by the thought that if language is a system of communication, it is hard to see how it could not presuppose the existence of some sort of social relationship. So, at most, I was suggesting that a social context was a necessary condition for language. It obviously isn't a sufficient condition, since there are societies of non-language using creatures. On the other, people do think of the various communication systems used by those societies as a language, so it is not entirely clear what is going on.

As inner feelings created both language and social life, and there can be feedback between them, inner feelings can be both necessary and sufficient to both language and social life. — RussellA

I don't see how "inner feelings" could create anything unless they interact with outer facts. It seems to me obvious that neither human motivations not society could create language on their own. It's the interaction that makes things happen.

But what I am against is the idea that some interpret Wittgenstein's “meaning is use” as being that 100% of our thinking derives from language and society. — RussellA

Yes, people too often think of language and society as fixed, complete structures. Nothing could be further from the truth. They are elastic, capable of being adapted to new situations and new applications.

We both place the inner feelings as prior, as "what make these language games possible", — Metaphysician Undercover

As our Form of Life would literally not exist without our inner feelings, in this sense, it seems that the ultimate foundation can only be “inner feelings”. — RussellA

I'm not clear what the difference is between a foundation and an ultimate foundation. But I don't see how inner feelings can be the only essential condition for language. They are necessary, perhaps, but not sufficient. If we were not social beings, there would be no language. Our form of life would be unrecognizable without inner feelings, social living, and language.
Are you saying that inner feelings exist independently of language? In an sense, that may well be true, but then social life can also exist independently of language.
But language is not something that is grafted on to our inner feelings or our social lives - an optional extra, available to human beings, but not other similar creatures. On the contrary, language transforms both our social lives and our inner feelings - so much so that I don't think we can really understand what either might be without language. To be sure, we can recognize parts of our form of life in animals and children who have not yet learned language, but how far those similarities go is a moot point.

I've no clear idea of what you are getting at here. — Banno

That's fair. I'll come back to this when I've got some clearer ideas.

Without inner feelings there would be no language game, but you say that the meaning of “I feel pain” is determined by the language game, not inner feelings. — RussellA

The difficulty is that our inner feelings are not simply given, but are conditioned by our environment, including the language games we learn to participate in.
I think you are right, that language is not self-sufficient; it requires a context in which it can develop. But, for Wittgenstein, the ultimate foundation is not "inner feelings", which are a language game in themselves, but "form of life" or "way of life".