Comments

  • on the matter of epistemology and ontology
    Further, isn't it the case that the cows can be over there even if it is not the case that you, I or anyone else knows that they are over there, or has justification for claiming that they are over there.Banno

    Who would determine that the situation meets the criteria for being described with those words, if no one knows that the cows are over there? Are you arguing that the words automatically correspond with the scenario, without the requirement of having to be judged as corresponding? Isn't that hard core Platonism? Aren't you assuming that there is an independent idea signified by "the cows are over there", which the situation corresponds with in order for you to avoid the requirement of judgement?

    If you are not assuming Platonism, how else do you conclude that such a statement could be true without a mind of some sort to determine the meaning of the words? Isn't it a requirement for "truth", that the words have a specific meaning which corresponds with the situation? If the requirement is simply words, and a situation, then any words could be true of any situation. So how could those specific words be true of that particular situation unless there is a meaning for the words? And if the meaning is not within a human mind who knows, or existing as an independent Platonic meaning, where is that meaning?
  • Nothing to something is logically impossible
    The point is duration t3 can have an effect on t1.Mark Nyquist

    How, unless the boxes overlap?
  • Nothing to something is logically impossible
    If you think of a time line with a duration of time (instead of an instant) moving with the arrow of time then the backward propagation only exists in the duration....moving backward.Mark Nyquist

    Ok, this makes more sense. That is known as two dimensional time, I call it the breadth of the present. There is no need to call it a backward flow though, only a requirement to understand that somethings move from future into past before other things. "Before" here is determined by the traditional timeline. Activity occurs at the present which divides future from past. Some aspects of reality would cross the divide, therefore be active, prior to others, and would have a special form of causal power because of this.

    Try this,

    Take a sheet of lined paper and write t1 to t10 down the left side.

    Draw a box next to t1. It represents a duration of physical matter during the T1 duration

    Draw a box next to t2 shifted to the right by say a third the duration of t1. Same size.

    And so on down the page.

    Think of the boxes as matter progressing through time in 3D.
    Mark Nyquist

    Do you men to place the boxes as overlapping?
  • Nothing to something is logically impossible
    I've learned that the concept of relativistic mass is deemed troublesome and dubious by some. Can you elaborate how it falsifies E=mc2

    =


    2
    ?
    ucarr


    I'll give you something simple, but a highfalutin physics know it all type is likely to tell you how wrong I am.

    I believe the formula applies to a body at rest, so it assumes a rest frame for the mass. But in relativity theory bodies are not at rest, they are moving relative to other bodies. So an adjustment needs to be made to account for the movement of the body with mass.

    There is a solution to this in the form of back propagation of energy.Mark Nyquist

    What's back propagation?
  • Nothing to something is logically impossible
    If time doesn't inhabit the material-physicality of our phenomenal universe, then e=mc2

    =


    2
    is false?
    ucarr

    "e=mc2

    =


    2"
    is false. This fact is demonstrated by the need for what is called "relativistic mass".
  • Feature requests

    That would be tough, to set the rule as to what qualifies as a punishable offence. What it I told you your mother wears army boots? Or what if I told you your interpretation of Aristotle is pure shit? Would one or both of these be subject to the rule?
  • Consciousness is a Precondition of Being
    he unity, and hence the identity and the being, of a non-living thing is little more than the contiguity of its parts. If a rock, for example, is divided, we simply have two smaller rocks. In a living thing, on the other hand, the members of its body constitute an organic whole, such that each part both conditions and is conditioned by the other parts and the whole. A living thing is thus one being to a far greater extent than a non-living thing. — Eric D Perl Thinking Being - Introduction to Metaphysics in the Classical Tradition

    I don't think Perl portrays this very well, and he seems to oversimplify a very complex issue. The temporal continuity of material substance, which is what we tend to associate with the existence of an object with mass, is not well understood by human beings in general. The unity of a rock is far more complicated than simply an existence of smaller parts, with all the characteristics of the larger rock, consisting in a contiguous manner. That description could be called an ignorance.

    Scientists have found multiple levels of unifying principles which dictate the possibilities of dividing a whole body with mass. These levels include molecular binding, chemical bonding, and the strong force of the atomic nucleus. Since the strong force is responsible for the existence of mass, in general, and it is not at all understood, statements like Perl's are not well founded.

    Having said that, I do agree that the unity which constitutes a living being is quite different from the unity which constitutes an inanimate object, and this difference is mainly attributed by scientists to the organization of the parts. The chemical bonding of organic matter is extremely complex and unstable, and this allows for the capacity for all sorts of activities performed by the living being. However, since we do not understand the strong force which unites the mass of an atom's nucleus, and how this force relates to the forces of chemical bonding, we really have no understanding of the difference between the unity of a living thing and the unity of an inanimate thing.

    It appears to me, that it is very possible, and likely, that the unity of the atomic nucleus which constitutes the existence of temporal mass, extends deeper than the unity which is associated with living beings. This would mean that mass in general is prior in time to life, and that would account for the reason why the activities of living beings is limited by mass, and free will is not unbounded. Accordingly, contrary to Perl's portrayal, the inanimate unity which constitutes the fundamental existence of mass, produces a deeper and more substantial "whole" than the "organic whole". And of course we observe this throughout the universe, whole's like the solar system, the galaxy, etc., which are far more substantial than the organic wholes found on earth.
  • Consciousness is a Precondition of Being

    Aristotle certainly put the active principle above the elements being acted upon. I am not aware of any passage that expresses a ratio of the sort Perl is putting forth.Paine

    In Aristotle form is prior to matter in everything. The "what-it-is", or "whatness" of a thing constitutes the thing's identity. The layering, or levels, referred to, mark the different types, from the most general to the most specific, right down to the particulars of the unique individual. So for instance, the layering of form in a particular individual such as the one identified as "Socrates" would include living being, animal, mammal, man, snub-nose, and all the various accidentals which make up this individual's unique identity.

    What Aristotle argues in his Metaphysics is that the form of the thing (any thing, and every thing) must be prior in time to the material existence of the thing. This is because when a thing comes into being, it must be the thing which it is, and not something else, and that's known as the law of identity. And when it comes into existence, it necessarily has a form, which is an intelligible whatness. If the intelligible whatness, or form, did not predetermine the material existence of the thing, it would not necessarily be the thing which it is, producing a random unintelligible formlessness, or non-thing.

    The "soul" provides a very good example of how the intelligible whatness, the form, precedes the material existence of the thing. A living body is a very special type of body with a very special type of organization. When that special type of body comes into being it must be organized in that special way. Therefore the form which determines this special type of organization must be prior to the material body, to ensure that when the material body comes into existence it has that special type of organization. Without the preceding form, "the soul", the special type of organization would not occur, and there would be no living body.
  • Wittgenstein’s creative sublimation of Kant
    Might be interesting to be informed as to what you think scepticism actually is, and therefrom, where in transcendental philosophy it resides, as a flaw in it.Mww

    What I meant, is that skepticism (best represented by the Socratic and Platonic methods) is itself beneficial. It is good and useful to any philosopher. So a philosophy which excludes skepticism is flawed, for that reason.
  • Wittgenstein’s creative sublimation of Kant
    I think I’ve mentioned the tension several times. It’s important to distinguish between (a) a priori concepts and forms of intuition, and (b) inner/outer experience. Although Kant is obviously stuck in a cognitivist and Cartesian paradigm, he is pushing against it in exactly the way I described. Flipping the priority of inner and outer experience is an important aspect of the CPR, expressed first (in A) in the fourth paralogism, and then (in B) in the “Refutation of idealism”. The latter especially is a paradigmatic case of Kant’s transcendental arguments.Jamal

    I believe the priority is flipped due to a switching from ontology to epistemology. When ontology (metaphysics) is the priority, being and existence, the temporal continuity of sameness in general, is the subject matter. When epistemology is the priority the subject matter turns to activity, change, what things are doing in the world. The necessary condition for an understanding of activity is the external, space to move in, while time is only incidental, as the speed of change in relation to other changes. But the necessary condition for being is time, temporal extension, and in this perspective space becomes incidental. Notice that Kant identified "time" as the internal pure intuition, and "space" as the external pure intuition.

    The so-called flip of priority is a function of which of the two is assigned the overall priority, the epistemological approach to the external (space), or the ontological (metaphysical) approach to the internal (time). The "flip" is due to the switch between one prioritizing time, and the other prioritizing space. You'll notice that in relativistic spacetime mathematical representations, time becomes a sort of inversion of space. This is analogous with the distinction between looking inward, and looking outward, and turning around in general. When you turn around what was on your right becomes on your left, and we can assume a similar inversion between looking inward an looking outward.

    Despite the fact that we see external objects as existing, and displaying a temporal continuity of sameness, we still cannot derive from observation, the principles required to understand this temporal continuity. And, we do not really need to provide these principles, because we can just take the temporal continuity for granted, as the laws of nature. Newton's first law stipulates the continuity we know as inertia. This, taking it for granted, creates an illusion of necessity, which is not a true logical necessity, as Hume argued.

    So when we look inward we see the reality of possibility, through an understanding of freedom of choice, intention, etc., and this effectively annihilates the "necessity" derived from what is taken for granted, as the laws of nature, exposing it as less than a true necessity. This produces a completely different (and what I would call true) understanding of time. In any case the difference is significant. The outward epistemological approach takes temporal continuity as demonstrated to us through sensation, for granted, and this renders what lies beneath that necessity, the substance of it, as something we cannot talk about, it just is, as it is demonstrated to us. To question it would be to deny its necessity. The inward ontological (metaphysical) approach recognizes that to get beyond this wall which is created by the assumed epistemological necessity, we need to employ the principles of possibility which are derived form the internal self.

    Kant, I believe, set up the conditions for the division, (the epistemological/phenomenological divide) by distinguishing the internal intuition from the external intuition. Wittgenstein fixated himself on the incompatibility between the two. So Wittgenstein is extremely difficult to understand because all he is doing is pointing to a multitude of little problems which are arising due to this incompatibility.
  • Wittgenstein’s creative sublimation of Kant
    I returned to this post from a few days ago, because it seems to provide the substance of the thread.

    I take the important and controversial question to be how Wittgenstein’s late philosophy can be transcendental given that it’s significantly anthropological and seemingly empirical, and given that he specifically cautions against the identification of, and the search for, necessity and universality (and by implication, the a priori).Jamal

    Do you agree that the a priori pure intuitions of space and time provide the basis for Kant's transcendental idealism? As the conditions required for the possibility of sense experience, these ideas (if they can even be called ideas) are prior to, and therefore transcend all such experience. This I believe is the essence of transcendental idealism.

    The question which arises, is where do these transcendental intuitions come from, where are they seated. We cannot look at them as concepts or ideas learned through education, because then they would be posterior to the sense experience which constitutes learning. So they must be innate, perhaps a part of, or arising from the physiological nature of the human being. In any case, the transcendent here is the internal, what comes to the individual from an internal source, the a priori.

    On the other hand, I believe Wittgenstein shows the opposing perspective. What transcends the individual, and is the source of all knowledge, is language and the individual's communion with others. Wittgenstein downplays the internal, as mystical, and not a true source of knowledge in any way. So knowledge is a product of the interactions of human beings, and this makes knowledge dependent on language as the means of interaction, such that language is transcendental in the sense of transcending knowledge.

    This can be compared to the traditional realist/nominalist debate. Kant holds the realist perspective, and the pure a priori intuitions transcend internally, like eternal ideas, in the way of Plato's theory of recollection. Wittgenstein takes the nominalist approach, claiming that conceptions and knowledge are a feature of language. The problem Wittgenstein comes up against is that he cannot ever account for the capacity to learn, what precedes the learning process in the human being, as required for learning, because it lies outside his terms for "knowledge", as internal to the human being, and prior to knowledge. This give him all sorts of problems for dealing with skepticism, because the base for knowledge is not itself knowledge. "Certainty" is fundamentally an attitude. So he proposes some sort of bottom, a foundation, bedrock, or something like that, which provides the required attitude, and is supposed to ground certainty. But this cannot quell the skeptic.

    Crucially too, the transcendental is anti-sceptical, and not just as a pleasant side-effect. This is seen at various points in the CPR (the Transcendental Deduction of the categories, the Refutation of Idealism, and the fourth Paralogism in the first edition). Generally what we get is the idea that it doesn't make sense to say that objects as we perceive and know them are such apart from those conditions (there is a sense in which Kant's transcendental idealism is almost a tautology: you cannot experience something except in the way you must experience it). Since I'm more familiar with OC than PI, I wouldn't mind pursuing this angle ("Here we see that the idea of 'agreement with reality' does not have any clear application.").Jamal

    I think there is no real place for skepticism within the transcendental idealism, and I take this to be one of its flaws. If for example, the intuitions of space and time are the required conditions for sense experience, it makes no sense to doubt them. That would require doubting the entire sense experience, leaving one with nothing reliable. All we can do is doubt that idea, that these are the required conditions, but this is to doubt transcendental idealism, forcing us outside it. Again, it's similar to Platonic realism, we cannot doubt any Ideas if we accept them as eternal truths.

    Similar to Wittgenstein (and Davidson's "triangulation"), Kant transcendentally flipped inner and outer experience to give primacy to the latter, i.e., to the experience of the "external world" as opposed to self-knowledge and self-consciousness. Descartes and his followers, both rationalist and empiricist, assumed that...Jamal

    I don't agree with this, because the a priori intuitions are necessarily "inner" as the conditions for the experience of the outer. The concept of a priori pure intuitions gives primacy to the inner, as the conditions required for the possibility of an experience of an outer.
  • Wittgenstein’s creative sublimation of Kant
    But he does not explicitly state that “there are laws of nature”. He says we could say “there are laws of nature” if there were a law of causality. He does not say P; P cannot be said. He says If X then we could say P; but we cannot say P.Jamal

    So what's the point? What does that mean, we can only say it if it's true? That's obviously false, as we make false statements quite often. What I am arguing is that he is using an unstated (false) premise, about what we can and cannot do with language, to come to this conclusion that there are things we cannot say.



    That makes sense, but in this instance we might better portray Wittgenstein as sublimating Hume rather than Kant.

    In any case, your response does not address the issue which is giving me the problem. How does he come to the conclusion that there are things which are inexpressible? I agree with the point made by Wittgenstein in the quote you provide, modern people have replaced God and Fate with "natural laws", such that there exists the modern illusion that natural laws are unassailable, just like God used to be.

    Notice, that this is described as an illusion though, that the natural laws are unassailable is an illusion. Illusions can be broken, so this does not support the claim that there are things which cannot be said hidden behind that illusion.

    There is not, as Wittgenstein puts it, something "unassailable" that we run up against, but something transcendent and without limit, which, in having no limit, must necessarily include the whole, and thus both sides of mind/nature and appearance/reality (and in this, we get something closer to Hegel's solution to the same issues).Count Timothy von Icarus

    So here's the point I mentioned earlier. This "something transcendent" which you mention, is really language itself, as I've been arguing in this thread. This is evidenced by the nature of mathematics, and the fact that the thing "without limit" is numbers, which constitutes our capacity to measure. This is how we measure something, by using the unlimited capacity afforded to us by language, to encompass the whole. Perhaps one could argue that the use of mathematics is not a form of "saying", but some form of "showing". However, I think that would be just a matter of putting unnecessary restrictions on one's definitions.

    From a philosophical point of view I find that the Tractatus is mostly garbage, and that's why I "rant", in Jamal's word. However, within the text Wittgenstein does make some very insightful and interesting remarks concerning the nature of numbers and mathematics in general.

    But eventually there has to be something, some concrete principle or law other than what would be the only other option "randomly changing nonsense" or some sort of Twilight Zone.Outlander

    Isn't "concrete principle" an oxymoron? We make assumptions about "substance", and tend to support substance with matter. But matter is what is supposed to support an object or thing, and here we are talking about the laws concerning what a thing can and cannot do. So the issue is, what is the substance which supports these supposed laws.


    How could you suggest something if you then say it cannot be pinpointed.Outlander

    It's not a matter of "it cannot be pinpointed". It is explicitly expressed by Wittgenstein as "cannot be said". And later he goes on to say "inexpressible", so clearly he is not taking this to be a matter of we cannot say it because it is false.

    With the older and newer expressions placed side by side, Cometti can be seen to be missing the mark when stating:

    In the later Wittgenstein the notion of "forms of life" takes the place of the Tractarian doctrine of the boundary between what can and cannot be said, which determines in turn the "limits of my world". My world takes on the limits of my form of life.
    — Jean-Pierre Cometti, 'Merleau-Ponty, Wittgenstein, and the question of expression'

    Wittgenstein is observing the same limits of 5.557 in both works. The use of "form of life" is not a replacement of a previous schema.
    Paine

    I think this is very good Paine, but you need to go further to capture the inversion I mentioned. "Form of life" is a replacement, for the previous schema, because to understand it requires completing the inversion. The representation presented in the Tractatus, 'the world forces a boundary on what can be said', is fundamentally wrong. Wittgenstein later comes to grips with this mistake, and sees the need to invert the principle. In the Philosophical Investigations he portrays language as fundamentally unrestricted, but it shows itself as restricted by the "forms of life". The important point to grasp, is that the restrictions are self-imposed, for various purposes. I can create a boundary to the concept of "game", for a particular purpose.

    Now the inversion is complete. Language is not a part of the world, it transcends the world as having infinite capacity, limitless possibility. However, we restrict it to conform to the world. That produces the illusion toyed with in the Tractatus, that the world forces a limit on what can be said. So it is not the case that the world forces a boundary on what can be said, that is an illusion. What is the case, is that we, as active living agents, produce those boundaries and enforce them in our attempts to deal with the world.
  • Wittgenstein’s creative sublimation of Kant
    For fuck’s sake. Check what Wittgenstein actually wrote before you go off on one of your rants:

    If there were a law of causality, it might be put in the following way: There are laws of nature.
    But of course that cannot be said: it makes itself manifest.
    Jamal

    I don't see your point. He is exactly saying "that cannot be said: it makes itself manifest", right after he has explicitly said it; "there are laws of nature". If you somehow think that he is not saying what he claims cannot be said (hypocrisy), then please explain yourself.

    As far as I can see, he says if there is a law of causality we would say it as "there are laws of nature". Then he says "of course that cannot be said". I ask you, by what principles does he conclude "that cannot be said", especially since he has just said it. The passage makes absolutely no sense.

    You see it, it must be governed by something, hence its existence, which is the key proposition here, true or not.Outlander

    I don't see how you get from "you see it" to "it must be governed by something". That's a big step which is completely unsupported.

    Simply reporting a fact "that can clearly not be said" may refer to a relative state of affairs and absolute accurate assessment of a given situation not an absolute limitation for all knowledge or context of it.Outlander

    How is this not blatant contradiction to you? How would you be "reporting" something, if you are not saying it?

    The first man who observed fire, for example. It clearly exists, it clearly has laws, but at the time, for whatever reason, also, simply could not be explained. That's one possibility.Outlander

    Why do you assert "it clearly has laws"? Such an assertion requires a definition of what "a law" is, and an explanation of the phenomenon to show that it fits the criteria of "has laws". You are demonstrating exactly the issue I took up with Paine. You have an unstated premise, an understanding or definition of "laws". And you are asserting "fire clearly has laws" according to your personal, subjective understanding of "laws". But this is absolutely meaningless because "laws" could mean whatever you want it to mean. So to support your assertion "fire clearly has laws" you need to say what "law" means, and describe fire in a way so as to fulfill the conditions. Simply asserting "fire clearly has laws" when "laws" is an extremely ambiguous term really provides nothing meaningful.

    Simply reporting a fact "that can clearly not be said" may refer to a relative state of affairs and absolute accurate assessment of a given situation not an absolute limitation for all knowledge or context of it.Outlander

    How is this not blatant contradiction to you? How would you be "reporting" something, if you are not saying it?
  • Wittgenstein’s creative sublimation of Kant
    Nothing in the text suggest that is the case. I am getting the impression that the argument has no existence for you because you have written it off as a fallacy from the beginning.Paine

    Not only does the argument have no existence "for me", but plainly and simply, there is no argument. There is persuasive talk, meant to evoke sympathetic emotions, but no logical argument because the necessary premise required to make the conclusion, is missing. As I said it's simple rhetoric. Nothing you said does anything at all to explain how Wittgenstein arrives at the conclusion that there are things which cannot be said. Recognizing "our condition" does not lead to that conclusion. As I will demonstrate below, a clear understanding of "our condition" will produce the inverse conclusion.

    What I've already explained is that the premise "there are things which I cannot say" does not lead to the general inductive conclusion "there are things which cannot be said". This is because each individual is very clearly different in one's capacity to express oneself, so I have not the necessary "sameness" to draw any inductive conclusion about what others can say, based on what I can say. Therefore, that conclusion, "there are things which cannot be said" requires another premise. Obviously, that premise must be a proposition about what human beings can and cannot do with language, in general. And if such a premise is proposed, we must be very critical to ensure that it is a true representation, demonstrating a true understanding of what human beings actually can and cannot do with language.

    What is the case, is that I've given you a very clear description and explanation of the unstated premise which I believe is indicated by the text, and how I believe that Wittgenstein has come to the conclusion that there are things which cannot be said. On the other hand, all you have done is made some vague, ambiguous remarks concerning a proposed concept of "our condition", as your claim to how he reaches that conclusion.

    Obviously though, the proposed concept of "our condition", is completely unsupported as it is derived from reference to personal experiences which are not shared as "ours". So this proposed concept "our condition" would be an unsound premise if it is meant to support a logical conclusion. Then you claim that your explanation of how Wittgenstein reaches the conclusion he does is better than mine, but all you do to support this claim is to assert that I misunderstand the argument. Well of course I misunderstand "the argument", because there is no argument, just some very strange assertions which are not supported by the premises required to support them if it was an argument. In reality, it is you who misunderstands, because you insist there is "an argument" when all there is is emotional rhetoric.

    Wittgenstein is not trying to prove Hume's principle. Wittgenstein's statement is:

    "There are natural laws.
    But that can clearly not be said: it shows itself."

    This goes to express the recognition that the limits of explanation are not the limit of what can be experienced through the use of a method. To that end, the argument is a deeper acceptance of transcendence than what Kant expressed.
    Paine

    The quoted passage here is completely nonsensical. It makes a statement, "there are natural laws". Then right after saying this he states "that can clearly not be said". How is one to make any sense out of this other than to see it as blatant hypocrisy: "what I just said cannot be said"? It is utterly ridiculous if it is supposed to be presenting something serious, because it shows itself as false, by itself.

    Because you are deceived by this hypocrisy, which is a false premise, your interpretation completely reverses the reality of the situation. In reality, language transcends each and every experience of any individual, as not being tied to the material here and now of the individual's condition, one's physical composition and one's circumstances of being. But you are claiming that what is experienced by the individual, as one's material here and now, in one's circumstances of being, transcends the limits of explanation (what can be said).

    Clearly what you are arguing is not the reality of the situation, as language is known to have existed and evolved for thousands of years, transcending the experiences of millions of people. What you are arguing is nothing but an unsound conclusion produced from faulty premises concerning the nature of language. This concept (misconception) "the limits of explanation", is the product of a false understanding of the nature of language, created by imposing artificial boundaries on the concept "language", what can and cannot be said. But these proposed boundaries are not consistent with language in its natural use, therefore as a premise, the proposition is false.
  • Wittgenstein’s creative sublimation of Kant
    Your use of "fact" and its place (or absence of place) in the world has nothing to do with Wittgenstein's argument. What cannot be said is found through recognizing our condition:

    6.4312 The temporal immortality of the soul of man, that is to say, its eternal survival also after death, is not only in no way guaranteed, but this assumption in the first place will not do for us what we always tried to make it do. Is a riddle solved by the fact that I survive for ever? Is this eternal life not as enigmatic as our present one? The solution of the riddle of life in space and time lies outside space and time.
    (It is not problems of natural science which have to be solved.)
    Paine

    How do you suppose that this passage says anything whatsoever about what cannot be said? How could "recognizing our condition" produce any conclusions about "what cannot be said"?

    The dimensions of this condition are found through the structure of our representations. The argument of what can be said or not is the description of that structure. That is where the limits of what can and what cannot be done are laid out. The method is the linking of these "cannots."

    2.16 In order to be a picture a fact must have something in common with what it pictures.
    2.161 In the picture and the pictured there must be something identical in order that the one can be a picture of the other at all.
    2.17 What the picture must have in common with reality in order to be able to represent it after its manner rightly or falsely is its form of representation.
    2.171 The picture can represent every reality whose form it has.
    The spatial picture, everything spatial, the coloured, everything coloured, etc.
    2.172 The picture, however, cannot represent its form of representation; it shows it forth.
    2.173 The picture represents its object from without (its standpoint is its form of representation), therefore the picture represents its object rightly or falsely.
    2.174 But the picture cannot place itself outside of its form of representation.

    2.223 In order to discover whether the picture is true or false we must compare it with reality.
    2.224 It cannot be discovered from the picture alone whether it is true or false.
    2.225 There is no picture which is apriori true.
    3 The logical picture of the facts is the thought.

    3.22 In the proposition the name represents the object.
    3.221 Objects I can only name. Signs represent them. I can only speak
    of them. I cannot assert them. A proposition can only say how a thing is, not what it is.
    3.262 What does not get expressed in the sign is shown by its application. What the signs conceal, their application declares.
    Paine

    If you take these "cannots" to be an indication of what can or cannot be said, it simply confirms the point I made. Wittgenstein is operating under the false premise that the only things which can be said are true and false propositions. But that is simply not at all representative of "our condition".

    With these limits established, the arguments can observe differences between logic and the world we talk about:Paine

    Those are limits of what can be "pictured" in Wittgenstein's schema. The problem is that it is very obvious that language provides us with a whole lot more creativity than just a basic capacity to draw some simple pictures. Therefore this provides us with no information concerning what can or cannot be said.

    Notice also that 5.5561 is blatantly false. Empirical reality is not "limited by the totality of objects". There is another completely distinct category of empirical reality which concerns the activities of objects. And a "picture" does not ever capture the activity. This is the fundamental incompatibility between being and becoming which \I referred to earlier. Pictures, statements of fact, provide us with information about what is, and is not, being and not being, but they do not provide for us any real information about the nature of activity, becoming. So there is much more to "the world" than a sum of elements, there is also the function of the elements. But this does not mean that we cannot talk about activity, becoming, or functions in general.

    From this point, what cannot be explained is distinguished from the explanations given through natural science referred to in 6.4312:

    6.36 If there were a law of causality, it might run: There are natural laws.
    But that can clearly not be said: it shows itself.
    6.363 The process of induction is the process of assuming the simplest law that can be made to harmonize with our experience.
    6.3631 This process, however, has no logical foundation but only a psychological one. It is clear that there are no grounds for believing that the simplest course of events will really happen.
    — ibid.
    Paine

    So, we have here, at 6.36, a completely unsound conclusion. The premise which produces "that can clearly not be said" is untrue, as I explain above. And 6.3631 just borrows an unsound principle from Hume. Hume stated this position, the foundation of induction is psychological rather than logical. But Hume's efforts to prove this (inductive) principle logically only serve to demonstrate the falsity of it. If this inductive conclusion of Hume's can be proven through logic, then it proves itself to be false. So the best we can say is that it is an unsound premise.
  • Wittgenstein’s creative sublimation of Kant
    That assertion does not appear in the text.Paine

    That's right, the premise I stated is not stated in the text. But it's implied by the conclusion made at 6.5 - 7. That section is stated as a conclusion, it is not stated as a descriptive observation. And without the premise I stated, the conclusion cannot be made. So the premise is implied by the conclusion, whether or not it is stated.

    In philosophy we often find conclusions drawn from unstated premises. If for example, the author thinks something to be obvious or self-evident it will not be stated, even though it is a requirement for the conclusion made. Most often this appears as a matter of undefined terms. In which case, a term requires a specific definition to make the conclusion presented. This is the case of "inexpressible" in my quote above, and in general the conclusion of the Tractatus, which makes a statement about what we cannot say. That conclusion requires a special, very restrictive definition for 'speaking about', 'saying', or what people do with language in general.

    It is my belief that in some cases the author even recognizes that if the required definition is made, it would obviously be objectionable and would draw attention to the weakness of the argument. Or it's just a matter of habit. In any case, the special definition, which is a requirement as a premise, for the conclusion that is made, is simply not stated, but taken for granted instead. I believe this is commonly known as "rhetoric", when the weaknesses and flaws of what one is arguing are intentionally veiled to make the speech more persuasive. It's actually very common here at TPF, and you can understand it as a sort of inversion of "special pleading". Special pleading argues an exception to a general rule. Invert this, and in the form of rhetoric I am talking about, there is a general rule, a definition which acts as an inductive conclusion, but the general rule doesn't include all the special cases which fall outside, and thereby weaken the inductive conclusion. When the definition, or general rule (inductive conclusion), is very weak, it is nothing more than a presentation of a special case itself, as if the special case made a general rule.
  • Wittgenstein’s creative sublimation of Kant

    I see the issue as sort of two-fold, the premise and the conclusion. The primary premise is at the beginning of the book where language is characterized as picturing the world with propositions. As I explained above, this is a faulty representation of the world. But what is also presented is a faulty representation of language as a sort of secondary premise, derived from the first. It is assumed that since the world consists of facts, then there is nothing else to language but talk about facts. However, since a large part of the real world consists of what is other than fact, language has naturally developed ways of referencing this part of the world, which does not consist of truth-apt propositions.

    What appears to happen in the Tractatus is that Wittgenstein discovers the reality that the primary premise is false, that a large part of the world consists of what is other than fact. But instead of recognizing that language has naturally developed to speak of this other part of the world in ways other than truth-apt propositions, he makes the faulty conclusion that we cannot speak about this part of the world. I think it's around 6.3 where he starts to talk about the problems with the primary premise, acknowledging that the world isn't really limited in the way proposed. Then you'll see from 6.5 onward, where he doesn't adjust the secondary premise accordingly, but instead assumes we cannot speak about this part of the world. "6.522 There is indeed the inexpressible. This shows itself; it is the
    mystical."

    Instead of recognizing that the mystical is referenced in ways other than truth-apt propositions he concludes that we cannot speak about this part of the world. But the idea that language consists of truth-apt propositions was derived from the faulty premise, that the world consists of facts. So when the primary premise is dispelled, the secondary one needs to be rejected as well, as being based on the primary.
  • Wittgenstein’s creative sublimation of Kant
    I recommend reading the introduction written by Bertrand Russell to get a sense of the "world" as a boundary rather than as a "thing."

    I don't agree with Russell's framing of many issues, but he does reflect the distance from the "totality of facts" given in the descriptions:
    Paine

    We need to consider the age old incompatibility between being and becoming. A proper understanding of "the world" needs to include both. "Fact" refers to what is, and is not, and so that part of the world which consists of being might be understood as facts. However, there is still that aspect of the world known as "becoming".

    Aristotle proposed that we allow a violation of the law of excluded middle to accommodate becoming. Others have proposed that becoming violates the law of non-contradiction. In any case, this aspect of "the world" cannot be understood as consisting of facts. But this odes not mean that we cannot speak about, or even understand this aspect. It just means that we need to apply different principles. A good example is the application of statistics and probabilities.

    So that's where the problem lies, in the assumption that this aspect of the world (that which does not consist of facts), since it does not consist of facts, is "incapable of being expressed in language". To represent language as being restricted to the expression of truths and falsities, is a very naive representation of language.
  • Wittgenstein’s creative sublimation of Kant

    The problem is that in the Tractatus Wittgenstein was demonstrating a very strange conception of "the world". For a seasoned philosopher it's very difficult to believe as true, the propositions which compose the conception. You would have to accept them in the way you would accept mathematical axioms, as propositions not meant to express truth, but proposed for some other purpose. The questions to be asked of the book then, is what is that goal, and whether Wittgenstein is successful in that intention.
  • Wittgenstein’s creative sublimation of Kant
    Davidson distinguishes three kinds of knowledge: subjective, intersubjective, and objective, and he doesn’t reduce any of these to any of the others. Intersubjective knowledge is not just a subset of objective knowledge or subjectivity multiplied but is something else: knowledge of other minds. Objective knowledge is knowledge of the world that the subject shares with others (or rather, that the subjects share), which has a bunch of objects in it.Jamal

    I assume that these three kinds of knowledge are the reason for the triangulation. As you might be able to tell from my post, I object to the objective type. I see "an object" as something created by the systems of a subject, or subjects. Whether a subject could create an object, or it requires many subjects, is not answerable. This brings that line of inquiry to a close, without resolution. That we cannot accurately determine whether a subject could create an object, or it requires a number of subjects to create an object, doesn't warrant a third category "objective knowledge", as knowledge of the world. Isn't that what all knowledge is, knowledge of the world? And doesn't all knowledge have objects in it? The third category is perhaps an attempt to get beyond the road block, but it seems to be just a sort of redundancy, which leads backward instead of forward.
  • Wittgenstein’s creative sublimation of Kant
    So instead of subject and object you have an object plus at least two persons who share a language.Jamal

    Well, I don't see the need even for an "object" at this point. We have the subject, and the subject's relations to what is outside, or external, to it. The supposition of "objects" or "an object" appears to be a tool of the learning process, we individuate the outside, distinguishing objects which can be named and spoken about. The individuation is based in the temporal extension, continuity of sameness, which validates an object with an identity.

    But then the question gets much more difficult, when we ask whether it may be the case that this idea of continuity of sameness which justifies the naming of objects, as "objects", is inherent, innate within the subject, validated by one's relations with oneself (phenomenological approach to "being" I suppose) and this would be why language makes sense to the individual subject. In that case, the primary object would be the subject, as proposed by Descartes. Or, is it the case that the naming of objects is validated by one's relations with the external, the temporal persistence of what is sensed, along with the language, the knowledge, and the learning of identifiable objects which goes along with this. There appears to be a coincidence of the two, which makes assigning primacy to one or the other very difficult. So these routes of analysis, which separate object from subject, tend to hit a road block.
  • Wittgenstein’s creative sublimation of Kant
    Both, I guess. The fallacy of composition is to assume that because a certain type/element of thought is linguistic, that all aspects of it must be — e.g., if there are things we like about a piece of music or art that we can't put into words, this je ne sais quoi isn't contained in "thought."Count Timothy von Icarus

    I don't like your use of "we" here. It implies a type of generalization which is not applicable in the context. If there is something about your experience which you cannot put into words, then you ought to say "I cannot put it in words". With a properly formulated generalization, we'd look at someone else having a similar experience (the same type of experience, by that generalization), and we'd find that it is possible that another person might be able to put that experience into words. Therefore the use of "we" here is not justified.

    I believe that this is a very important point when considering the power of language. What is the case for "I", "I cannot put it into words" for example, is not the case for "we". In other words, "I cannot do it" does not equate with "it cannot be done". When we understand this, it gives "possible" and "impossible" a completely different context which is completely separate, independent, from the capacities of the individual.

    From this perspective, we can come to realize the fact that language gives us infinite possibility. I cannot restrict "possible" to "what is possible for me", and at the same time, I cannot determine the limitations of everybody. This means that I must leave possibility open, as unlimited, in its real, independent existence. However, as Aristotle determined (cosmological argument), there must be real restrictions to this apparently limitless possibility. The logic of the cosmological argument demonstrates that in spite of the fact that I cannot determine the restrictions, and by inductive reasoning not any single one of us can determine these restrictions, there must be very real restrictions, which are independent from "us". Since restrictions are formal, therefore fundamentally intelligible, this leaves an aspect of "the intelligible" which is unintelligible to "us", thereby opening the door to theology.

    Similar to Wittgenstein (and Davidson's "triangulation"), Kant flipped inner and outer experience to give primacy to the latter, i.e., to the experience of the "external world" as opposed to self-knowledge and self-consciousness.Jamal

    I like this image. I believe it is important to understand that the learning process, therefore knowledge in general, begins in our relationships with others, mother, father, and other authority figures. This knowledge is developed through the use of words, therefore the "outer experience" gains primacy in our knowledge. We are taught to resist the inner inclinations, emotions, temptations, and feelings, because they tend to incline us away from the conformity of learning, which would make education very difficult.

    The result is that the outer experience is fundamental to knowledge, language, and all the communicative tools. So when we turn to the inner, in the way of Descartes, we employ this knowledge from the outer, and we try to understand the inner by those terms. However, in reality, we need to accept the difference, and not refer to the inner conditions as "knowledge" proper . We need to represent the difference, because the type of thing which the inner is composed of, which appears like a sort of knowledge, the innate, intuition, a priori, is better known as the capacity for, or in Kant, the conditions for the possibility of, the outer experience which composes "knowledge" proper. This gives a completely different perspective on the understanding of "I". Instead of Descartes assertion "I am", we see in the inner, from this mode of understanding, the possibility of "I".
  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)

    No solicitation here at TPF. As a matter of interest, what principles do you think distinguish between honest solicitation and scamming?
  • Numbers start at one, change my mind
    When making arguments it is good to have a leg to stand on, to take a stance, and have a proper and I assume in your case fetching attitude.Fooloso4

    But it might be better to have at least one rock in hand, and the will to demonstrate what an active rock can do.
  • Wittgenstein’s creative sublimation of Kant
    Wittgenstein had an infamous disregard for the history of philosophy. Some might say this was in order to think things through without prejudice; others that it was in order to claim credit for the ideas of others.

    But Kant does not loom large either in Wittgenstein's own accounts of his influences, or in the accounts of contemporaries and sympathisers. The links seem to be relatively recent scholarship.

    So I would urge some caution.
    Banno

    When a philosopher has read material of another philosopher, there must be conscious interpretation of the material. Therefore such influence cannot accurately be called "subliminal". So the question I asked above remains. Why do some authors intentionally obscure their influences? Or is it just the case that they are not trying to obscure their influences at all, and other people who don't see the appropriate correlations, like to represent them as obscuring their influences?
  • Wittgenstein’s creative sublimation of Kant
    Back to Kant and what the individual sees and knows (and can't know).frank

    Is there really such a thing, for Kant, as what the individual can't know? Or is it the case that there is only such a thing as what the individual cannot know empirically?
  • Wittgenstein’s creative sublimation of Kant
    I think in this sense Wittgenstein becomes a guru, who utters infallible truths in the view of his followers, and nobody notices that in effect he is speaking nonsense.god must be atheist

    Above, I call such nonsense "metaphor", language on holiday, idling.

    Davidson argues that thought has content if and only if the thought is related to a social system. That is my perception Davidson's opinion, after reading paragraphs in this thread.god must be atheist

    I think that this totally misses what "thought" is, as @Count Timothy von Icarus demonstrates. Furthermore, it is completely inconsistent with the traditional form/content distinction. It is the "form" of the thought which is related to a social system, not the content of the thought. The content is the material element, the substance, the idea itself, as proper to the individual, and intrinsically related to the wants, needs, and intentions of the individual. I believe this is an important point toward understanding Marxist materialism, and the material reality of the individual, (replete with ideas), within the social context.

    This is the perspective which makes language transcendental. Instead of trying to portray language and communion as something which inheres within thought, as Davidson seems to be doing, we need to accept the reality that communion is something completely different, with completely different organic origins, from thought. In this way, thought is not inherently directed toward communion, it is allowed freedom to roam by the nature of free will. And, despite the fact that language may appear to us as having the sole purpose of enabling communion, through communication, we must also recognize the fact that it is also purposeful for the act of thinking which is not necessarily oriented toward communion. Thinking, and communion have completely different origins, and because each of these has its own use for language, language can be used in ways which are completely non-conducive to communion (deception etc.).

    Dogs cannot set out the rule they are following.Banno

    Our dog sets out rules for every moving creature in the house. When a cat breaks her rule, it hears about it. When I break her rule I hear about it. We call her "the police dog" because of this enforcement policy which allows us to relax on the couch, even when a cat attempts to jump on the table, because we know the enforcer is on patrol. In the same way that it does not require language to learn, and follow a rule, it does not require language to "set out" a rule.
  • Wittgenstein’s creative sublimation of Kant
    This allows him the space to develop a theory where conversation and intersubjectivity are essential to the human experience, and how we come to "say things about things," without getting "stuck in the box of language," or "the cabinet of the mind."Count Timothy von Icarus

    Some of us are stuck on the treadmill of metaphor, otherwise known as idling.
  • Wittgenstein’s creative sublimation of Kant
    Scurrilous accusations.Jamal

    Do you mean spurious accusations? Or do you think of me as a rat or something like that? I've known that proponents of German philosophy tend to defend vigorously the true originality, and authenticity of the German philosophers. So I suppose I was just stirring the pot, looking for an emotional response.

    Novel terminology may be "genuine", but what does that really mean? Let's assume that there truly is novel modes of thinking expressed by people like Heidegger, which actually require new words, and it's not just a pretense, the authors are not just trying to separate themselves from the old, they've actually "discovered" or are endowed with, something new. Due to the role of intent in thinking, wouldn't these two (the pretense of something new, and the actual presence of something new) just be reducible to the very same thing in the end, anyway? Attempting to separate oneself from the old is to do something novel. But making oneself readable requires establishing a relationship with the old, and this turns the separation into a pretense.

    Isn't that sort of what Wittgenstein showed with the idea of private language. A person can make up one's own private language, but it's really not at all useful, even for one's own purposes, unless that person provides relations to the language that one is already immersed in, the language which relates to the person's life full of meaning. Then, if the private language is presented as something completely novel, something outside the public language, the very fact of it being presented to the public language, gives it the appearance of pretense from the perspective of the public language. I mean, the author of the new words, must in some way relate those words to concepts understood in the public domain with words that already have meaning in that domain, in order for the new words to be intelligible. In this process the use of the new words takes on the characteristics of a pretense. It looks like what we would call a pretend language. So the intent to separate oneself, form the common language, with the use of new words, or using old words in a new way, will always have the characteristics of a pretend language.

    The deeper issue of course is the reality of conceptual evolution, language evolution, difference in what what you call "modes of thinking", and genuine novelty. Genuine novelty is real and cannot be dismissed. The issue I see is that "reality" is defined by what is conventional, so the idiosyncratic philosophical perspectives will be judged as unreal, untrue, and pretense, as the pretend language. However, from the doubt of Socrates onward, it has been shown that the idiosyncratic has a real place in knowledge. The problem is to find this place, how it fits in.

    But yes, people do argue that Freud in particular tried to conceal his sources. Turns out he’d probably read more Nietzsche than he admitted. And if he did take sublimation from someone else it was likely Nietzsche, who used the word in Human, All Too Human.Jamal

    Thanks for the information.
  • Wittgenstein’s creative sublimation of Kant

    However, if it is the case, that the described condition which Freud called "sublimation", is really quite similar to Hegelian "sublation", and Freud used the word "sublimation" to intentionally obscure the origin of his conception, then this might be the original form of "Freudian slip". It might be that there is more intention within a true Freudian slip, than was hitherto imagined.

    There is an issue I have found with German philosophers in general, and that is that they tend to have very idiosyncratic word usage. It appears to me like they actually choose unusual words, to intentionally hide the origins of their conceptions. So they'll read and learn prior philosophers and prior concepts, then present them in a new way with different words, hiding their sources, and creating the illusion of originality.

    I cannot understand the need, or reason for this attitude of hiding sources to demonstrate originality. In philosophy it is generally beneficial to show the sources, and the other authors who support your own thesis, and how your thesis is related to those of others, sort of like an appeal to authority. So the German philosophers appear to be kicking themselves in the shins by hiding the sources of their conceptions in this way. I've read about how Wittgenstein may have been influenced by Charles Pierce, and some similarities are quite evident. But Wittgenstein doesn't very much reveal his sources. I suppose that if a philosopher reads a lot, and picks up some ideas here and others there, then synthesizes, the original conceptions would get twisted or reformulated, to mesh with others, so that the work would be original and there would be no need to reveal sources.
  • Wittgenstein’s creative sublimation of Kant
    That said, I see from Googling around that there’s been some talk of sublimation as expressing some of the sense of Hegel’s Aufheben. And I quite like that sense in the context of the OP as well.Jamal

    Interesting. On further reading I see that Freud's "sublimation" has some resemblance to Hegel's "aufheben" which I translate as "sublation" (if I remember to get it right). By Wikipedia it is stated that Freud wanted to indicate with the word, a scientific, sort of chemical process. But Jung was critical, claiming Freud obscured the origins of the word, to make it appear scientific.

    Whatever the case, I think we might agree that I made a Freudian slip.
  • Wittgenstein’s creative sublimation of Kant
    Are you confusing sublimation with Hegel’s sublation?Jamal

    Oh, yes, sorry about that, I never ran into "sublimation" in philosophy, and I guess I just read the word in the title as "sublation".

    So, I guess I don't at all understand what you mean by "sublimation" in the title. That's a word I've only heard in a meteorological context to talk about how snow, the solid form of H2O, evapourates directly to gas, without passing through the intermediary, liquid form, in the process of evapourating. With the use of Google, I see the term is used in psychology, and I assume that is the meaning you are using. If so, I'll read up on that.
  • Wittgenstein’s creative sublimation of Kant
    How is an appeal to "family resemblance" a negation of logical structure? What structure are you referring to?Paine

    I wouldn't use that word "negation", and I don't particularly like the framing of the op, with the term "sublimation". This is because I do not believe that Hegel's dialectics of logic provides a very good description of the process we would call the "becoming" of knowledge.

    Logic is an activity which consists of applying formal rules ("logic" being defined in that way for the purpose of the following argument). Notice that induction is a process which is often called "inductive reasoning" rather than classing it as a form of "logic". This way of classifying allows that reasoning, and thinking in general, is not necessarily "logical". Plato demonstrated the necessity for defining words in this way, because we are known to intentionally break rules. This type of act, where we intentionally do what we know is not-good, becomes very problematic if virtue is knowledge.

    What Wittgenstein shows with the concept of "family resemblance" is that the way that the same word ("game" in his example) is used to refer to very different types of things, does not demonstrate that there is a logical relationship between those different types of things. This indicates that there is not a logical structure which supports the way that language is commonly used.

    You portray this as a negation of the idea of "logical structure", in the mode of Hegelian dialectics, but I don't think that Hegelian "sublimation" adequately captures the real process which creates the structure of "family resemblances"). The issue being that Aristotle already demonstrated that "becoming" is fundamentally incompatible with the logic of being/not-being, and I see Hegel's sublimation as an attempt to understand "becoming" under the logical terms of simple negation. Even within the concept of "sublimation", elements of the two opposing principles, which ought to annihilate each other if they are truly negations, are allowed to coexist, so "negation" is not even a correct term to be used if we are to understand "sublimation" in the way that it is intended by Hegel.

    Notice that when Wittgenstein uses "family resemblance" at 67 of the Philosophical Investigations, he takes a stab directly at the heart of supposedly rigorous logic, with the concept of "number". There is not a logical relation between the different kinds of "number" (cardinal, rational, real, etc.) only an indirect relation between them. The various concepts of "number" are supposedly held together by some form of overlapping, like fibres woven to make a rope, the rope being the concept "number", which supposedly holds them all together. But the strength of that rope is questionable, because the relations which it is composed of are not logical. And in reality the supposed "rope" is just the fact of the same word being used, and some indirect, non-logical relations between those different usages.

    So he goes on to explain how the use of a word is fundamentally unregulated, unbounded, and this is what supports my claim that there is no limit to what can be said. Language is fundamentally, at it's base, unrestricted, and this feature of it allows for infinite capacity, and infinite possibility of expression, just like "number" allows for infinite capacity of quantification.

    The issue now is that infinite possibility provides for nothing actual, no actual understanding. Therefore we have to enact boundaries, which we do for various reasons, or purposes, as Wittgenstein explains. This act of circumscribing is what empowers logic, such that we might define "number" as "natural", or "real", depending on the purpose intended, and logic can proceed within that closed conceptual space. This indicates that logic is not inherent within language, because the nature of language to provide infinite capacity for understanding, does not allow that logic inheres within, because logic proceeds by constraining that capacity.

    A common response to this is: "think" or "think about it" or "think it through". We might also ask for an explanation.Fooloso4

    I don't understand your "common response". In any case, explanation is provided above.

    You are late to the party. This has been part of the discussion since the OP.Fooloso4

    That's me, I like to think of it as "fashionably late". But I'm even late to pick up on the fashions. So by the time I'm starting to get it, and start showing up late because I think it's fashionable, the new fashion is to show up early, and I'm just old-fashioned.
  • Wittgenstein’s creative sublimation of Kant
    Very amusing, MU.Jamal

    Reality is actually very amusing, that's why metaphysicians are generally of a good humour.

    It is the logical structure underlying language and not mind that is a check against illogical thought. I take this to mean that any illogical thought or propositions would evidently involve a contradiction.and would not be accepted.Fooloso4

    The problem with this perspective is that illogical thought is actually quite common, and even illogical speaking cannot be ruled out. So the reality that there is not necessarily a logical structure underlying language must be respected. The lack of an underlying logical structure is the position Wittgenstein moved on toward in the Philosophical Investigations, with "family resemblance", and the idea that boundaries (the prerequisite for logic) are created as required, for the purpose at hand.
  • Wittgenstein’s creative sublimation of Kant
    It is not my representation. It is what Wittgenstein says. I cited it. Unless you are claiming that he means something else by the term 'transcendental.Fooloso4

    I apologize for the misunderstanding, but you really did say "I think...", and you did not mention Wittgenstein in that opening paragraph at all, so I assumed you were stating what you believe. As much as you went on to cite the Tractatus, this is what you said in your opening paragraph:

    I think this misses the mark. It is logic rather than language which is transcendental. Logic is the transcendental condition that makes language possible. Language and the world share a logical structure. Logic underlies not only language but the world. It is the transcendental condition that makes the world possible.Fooloso4
  • Wittgenstein’s creative sublimation of Kant
    One more interesting thing to note is that Kant and Wittgenstein are similar not only in their transcendental perspective on human beings, but also in their use of this perspective to show that most philosophy hitherto has gone astray by asking questions that cannot be asked.Jamal

    This is an interesting statement. With "asking questions that cannot be asked", you seem to imply that philosophy is doing the impossible. And when I wonder, "what do you actually mean by this?", because "doing the impossible" doesn't make any sense, I come up with two completely different possibilities. One would be "asking questions that cannot be answered", and the other would be "trying to ask questions which cannot actually be asked". Since the former is rather boring, implying a sort of unintelligible type of question, I assume you would mean the latter.

    But even "trying to ask questions which cannot be asked" is difficult to understand because of the different senses of "possible" which we use, and the variety in types of limitations which are evident relative to the different types of possibilities. So for instance, we have a relationship between language and logic, which with a formal understanding of "logic", would make logic dependent on language unlike @Fooloso4's representation of "Logic is the transcendental condition that makes language possible." But if we restrict the definition of "logic" in the way that I just proposed, we still need to come up with terms to describe the type of thinking which transcends logic.

    This is not at all difficult, because we have the means to talk about irrational, and unreasonable thought, and the thinking of different animals which is not logical. This is the way language works, it is not limited by the activities which it empowers, and this is why it is extremely powerful. Language transcends logic, it can also transcend knowledge to talk about the unknown, and it further transcends all forms of thinking and thought, to talk about things which cannot even be thought about (we can speak nonsense). That's what the "private language" demonstrates, the transcendent capacity of language. This implies that there is no such thing as "questions which cannot be asked", leaving only "questions which cannot be answered".

    This puts language in a very special, unique place, which seems counterintuitive, and many would argue against it. This is the place of infinite possibility, absolutely limitless, implying that there is nowhere tht language cannot go, nothing which cannot be said. To understand this phenomenal position of language, all one needs to do is take a look at the language of mathematics. The natural numbers are limitless, infinite, and this provides the capacity to count any quantity. This is indicative of the way that language is, in general, it is "designed" so as to give the user the capacity to go beyond any limitations, therefore to speak about anything whatsoever. Now we must rule out the second option "trying to ask questions which cannot actually be asked", because anything can be asked, that is simply the limitless capacity which language is.

    So we're back to the first possibility, "asking what cannot be answered", in our interpretation of "most philosophy hitherto has gone astray by asking questions that cannot be asked". Since language can go anywhere, and it is designed to speak about anything, and therefore ask any question, why would we say that philosophy has gone astray by asking questions which cannot be answered? Isn't this exactly the job of philosophy, to venture into the unknown, and ask what cannot be answered? Didn't Socrates say that philosophy begins in wonder? Putting the transcend nature of language to work, utilizing its limitless capacity, to ask what cannot be answered, is exactly the role of philosophy.
  • Infinity
    The logic is not merely supposed to be rigorous. It is rigorous in these senses: (1) The axioms and rules of inference are recursive, thus, for a purported proof given in full formality, it is mechanical to check whether it is indeed a proof, i.e., merely an application of the inference rules to the axioms. (2) It is proven that the logic is sound, i.e. that a formula is is provable from a given set of formulas only if the formulas is entailed from the set of formulas.TonesInDeepFreeze

    Since soundness requires true premises, and the logic you are talking about proceeds from axioms, which are not truth-apt, instead of from true propositions, how do you propose that it could be "proven that the logic is sound"?

    mathematics, in ordinary context, 'x=y' is true if and only if x and y are the same object, which is to say 'x=y' is true if and only if what 'x' stands for is the same as what 'y' stands for. The claim that there are no such objects is not properly given as an objection to the fact that '=' stands for identity, since we would still have '=' standing for identity if the objects were physical, concrete, fictional, hypothetical, 'as if', abstract, platonic, etc.TonesInDeepFreeze

    The point I made, is that the sense of "identity" you use here, is not consistent with the sense of "identity" used in the law of identity. So it doesn't really matter that you insist that "=" stands for "identity". Anyone can make up one's own personal sense of "identity" and have a symbol for it, state the axiom, and persuade others to use the axiom, and even create a whole "identity theory", but that doesn't make that sense of "identity" consistent with the law of identity.

    * Sets are not determined by an order in which the members happen to be mentioned. If I say, "What are the members of the set of books on your desk", then if you say, the set of books on my desk is all and only the books 'The Maltese Falcon', 'Light In August' and 'The Stranger', then no one could say "No, that's wrong, the set of books on your desk is actually all and only the books 'Light In August', 'The Stranger' and 'The Maltese Falcon'!"TonesInDeepFreeze

    This is an excellent example of why your sense of "identity" is not consistent with the law of identity. By the law of identity, if the identified thing is "the books on your desk", then everything about that thing, including the order of the parts, must be precisely as the books on your desk, to satisfy the criteria of "identity". Stating an order other than what the books on your desk actually have, would not qualify as an identity statement, because that specific aspect, the order of the parts, would not be consistent with the thing's true identity.

    No law of identity is violated there.TonesInDeepFreeze

    I have become fully aware that you are not at all familiar with the law of identity. Therefore your statements about the law of identity, and whether it is violated under specific conditions, I simply take as off-the-cuff remarks of a crackpot.

    Nobody says that the set of items on a desk is different depending on the order you list them.TonesInDeepFreeze

    Anyone with any degree of common sense recognizes that the identity of the specified thing, "the items on a desk" includes the ordering of the mentioned items. If describing those items as a "set" means that the ordering of the mentioned items is no longer relevant, then you are obviously not talking about the "identity" of the specified thing, which is "the items on the desk". You are talking about something other than "identity" as defined by the law of identity.
  • Anxiety - the art of Thinking
    Not quite. Whether the object of fear is known is irrelevant to Heidegger's distinction between fear and anxiety. Instead, the source of the phenomenon (within the world or not within the world) determines whether the phenomenon is fear or anxiety.

    That in the face of which one has fear is always an entity within the world while that in face of which one has anxiety is not an entity within the world. See Being and Time at 230-231, (Macquarrie & Robinson).

    Simply put, "the forest and the trees" is not a good analogy for understanding Heidegger's distinction between fear and anxiety.
    Arne

    I do not think I would agree with this Heideggerian distinction between fear and anxiety. It is not the "entity within the world" which is the source of fear, but what is known about the entity. When the entity is known to be a threat, or even a risk, there may be fear.

    So I agree that I placed "fear" in the wrong category, saying that it concerned the unknown, when really there must be a large degree of "known" involved, to provoke fear. "Anxiety", on the other hand requires "unknown", and it is associated with risk. So I think anxiety is best represented as the other side of the same relation to the same object. You can see "fear" (cowardice), and "confidence" (courage), as the two opposing aspects of the known part of the relation, while "anxiety" and "complacence" are the two opposing aspects of the unknown part of the relation. "Relation" here would indicate the person's attitude toward the specific "entity within the world".

    I would not agree with Heidegger as you describe him, because I do not think we can make a clean break between fear and anxiety, as proposed, such that one would require an object, and the other not. Sometimes fear is directed at an object (rational fear) and sometimes it is not (irrational fear), and likewise with anxiety. The undirected fear, as irrational fear, directed at an imaginary object, is still fear rather than anxiety, but it is directed at an imaginary object. So fear and anxiety are the two sides of the same emotion, the known side, and the unknown side. The irrational aspect is due to faulty knowledge where the imaginary takes precedence, but it must still be classified as the "known" because the subject thinks oneself to know. If there is an object involved, then fear and anxiety are the two relations to that same object, and it makes no sense to say the fear has an object but the anxiety does not.

    Notice also, the other possibilities. If, one has fear, and also complacence, there is no anxiety. And, if instead of fear, one has confidence, there could still be anxiety, or complacence along with the confidence. If we were to make the separation proposed by Heidegger it would leave anxiety as completely unintelligible, and that would render it as completely bad.
  • On Fosse's Nobel lecture: 'A Silent Language'
    I agree. But what makes me wonder about how Fosse wrote the book is whether the silence is a reference to death (his parents and sister passed away and he feels alone) or the inability to say to them that he wants to go back to Norway. In this novel, the silence is a key factor and, most of the time, is confusing because even the protagonist feels scared of why his family remain in silence at the pier.javi2541997

    I wouldn't see "silence" as "death" from what I've read. Silence is the language of the imagination, and imagination is very much alive. In the case of schizophrenia the boundary between what is imaginary and what is real is blurred. That means that the silent language (imagination) becomes a very real language, with actual communicative power. We all share this to some extent, and it's an essential aspect of artistry, our imaginations can communicate something very real to us, and we transform this into artistic expression.

    I believe the fundamental issue here is the way that you relate to "silence". There's two sides to this silence, the silence of the described scene (Fosse's silence), and the silence of the reader. Remember, silence is used by Fosse as a tool, to provoke the imagination of the reader. I believe Fosse would have intentionally left a blank (silence) concerning key aspects of Lars' family relations. From what I understand family relations can play a key role in the development of schizophrenia, and Fosse was probably not in a position to adequately understand those relations, so he would leave that to the imagination of the reader.

    I would say that the family remaining in silence at the pier would be an implication of Lars' inability to communicate directly with them, expressing that much of his communication with them was through his imagination. This would indicate that them being dead is sort of irrelevant because he always communicated with them through his imagination anyway. Perhaps its a demonstration that they never provided for him the words that he needed from them. And this is what allows him to continue to communicate with them at the pier, regardless of them being dead.

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