Again, because we are playing language-games. Constraints in nature, cause there to be patterns. If we want to call it n-rule instead of strictly "rule" because it is not a human-created, top-down creation, then that is fine. We are just debating the meaning of how a term can be used then. — schopenhauer1

Constraints do not necessarily cause patterns. The constraints must be designed, or systematic to cause patterns. So you are overlooking the real cause of the patterns, which would be the design of the system of constraints, and you are assigning the cause of the patterns to the constraints themselves. So we are not just debating how a specific term, "rule", may be used, we are discussing how it is that a pattern may come to exist. Constraints may be completely random, there is no necessity in the concept of "constraint" which would require that constraints are ordered. So if it comes to be, that constraints are arranged in such a way as to create a pattern, we need to account for the reason why this has occurred. It doesn't suffice to say that the constraints are following a rule.

This makes no sense to me. The system is shaped by the constraints. This shaping by the constraints, is "following laws". This version of "following laws" does not need intentionality, simply actions that are constrained to create certain probable outcomes and patterns. — schopenhauer1

See, here you are talking about "shaping by the constraints". But the constraints can only cause the existence of a pattern if the constraints are themselves arranged in a particular way. It doesn't make sense to say that the constraints are "following laws" or that they arrange themselves in such a way so as to create a pattern.

So what if I am using it in a way that Wittgenstein is not? This is a different language game. What I am doing is explaining/describing how our pattern-recognition powers, like inferencing powers, were created by pattern-generating phenomena from constraints, that allowed us to see those very patterns that created the us. We perhaps could not help but be a creature that recognizes patterns. The other option of nature would be to strictly follow those patterns of behavior unreflectively, or non-recursively rather, which is more-or-less the instinctual abilities that other animals have rather than the inferencing/social learning/pattern-recognition pattern abilities that our species has, which very much can recognize patterns for use in a community. It just so happens that mathematically-derived empricism has refined our pattern-recognition and inferencing onto the world itself instead of a particular subset of other use-contexts and has given us results we would not have initially expected, through falsification and applications of prior maths/logic to new phenomena as far as explanatory and technical results. — schopenhauer1

It seems like I need to emphasize the fact that a constraint is not a law, or a rule. A constraint is a particular physical thing an obstacle or an object of restriction. In order that constraints might produce a pattern they must be arranged in such a way so as to do that. Recognizing that there are patterns, and that the patterns come about through constraints, and even describing the existence of those constraints in terms of laws or rules, does not address the reason why the constraints exist in such a way that allows them to be described by rules. The fact that the arrangement of constraints required to produce a pattern may be described by rules, does not mean that the arrangement of constraints required to produce that pattern is caused by rules.

In your quotes from 2019, you missed the conclusion. The necessity of logic, logical necessity is not rule based, it is language based, and "Importantly this involves construing the notion of language use more broadly than as rule-governed use...".

The problem with your interpretation is that you fail to respect the fact that the necessity of language is "necessity" in the sense of "needed for the purpose of...". And so the necessity of logic, being language based is a form of "needed for the purpose of" something. Now when we turn to the natural world, to observe the order and patterns which exist there, we cannot assume that they were created with intention, "for the purpose of" something.

So language, having a necessity in the sense of "for the purpose of..." is artificial, and logic obtains its necessity (logical necessity) from this (needed for a purpose). But this excludes the possibility of "natural languages" and renders Kuusela's interpretation a little off track. And despite the fact that Wittgenstein bases logical necessity in the necessity of language, "needed for the purpose of...", he makes no attempt to describe "needed for the purpose of" as a logical necessity. And so Kuusela's description which sees Wittgenstein as extending logical necessity downward into the necessity of language (needed for the purpose of) is misguided, mistaken.

One is on the very brink of a misunderstand if he thinks that what we were talking about in logic were an ideal language. Our logic, that is, the logic of language, is not logic in a vacuum. It does not exist on its own. It is not independent of the language-game and thus not some one, universal, invariant thing. — Fooloso4

Right, logical necessity does not exist in a vacuum. It is grounded in the necessity of language-games, "needed for the purpose of...". The misunderstanding which we are on the brink of, is the danger of turning things around such that the necessity of common language might become grounded in the necessity of logic.

The perfect order Wittgenstein refers to in §98 cannot be an illogical order. — Fooloso4

Of course this perfect order is not illogical, but neither is it logical, it is alogical, completely outside the realm of logic, just like "becoming" is outside the logical principles of "being and not being". The necessity of logic is derived from the necessity of language, "needed for the purpose of...". The "necessity" of "needed for the purpose of..." extends much further than the logical "necessity", it is a "necessity" having a much wider application, and broader meaning than logical "necessity", such that it includes things which cannot be said to be logical. Therefore the fundamental order which is found at the basis of "needed for the purpose of...", cannot be a logical order.

I've read 2019's post twice fully, and some parts three or four times now, and I've looked very carefully at what Wittgenstein says about logic. I've found nothing to support your claim that there is such a thing as "the logic of language". So there is actually much for you to say (despite your claim that there is nothing for you to say). You could attempt to justify that claim, or admit that you are mistaken, and proceed toward changing your opinion. If you read closely PI 81 and 98, you'll see that Wittgenstein believes that there is an order of perfection, which underlies all language use, but we cannot say that this order is a logical order because logic is based in an ideal, and this order is based in a perfection which is other than an ideal.

There are two distinct ways of "understanding" outlined in this section (138-142). If understanding a word is to associate something (like a picture) with the word, then we can either do this "in a flash", or we can go through a "process" whereby we would consciously choose which thing would be associated with which word. The former is said to be the normal case, and the latter is the abnormal (142). The abnormal case contains varying degrees of doubt, and if this doubt were normal, it would undermine the capacity of the language-games because in the abnormal case there is a higher probability of error.

Notice that in this section he conflates "understanding" in the sense of hearing a spoken word with "understanding" in the sense which is required for choosing a word to say. He talks about understanding a spoken word, yet deciding whether a word "fits" a particular situation is a matter of choosing the appropriate word to use in that situation. So the distinctions which he makes here are quite confused and difficult to understand because understanding a spoken word, and choosing the appropriate word to say, are very different, yet he places them together.

"But we understand the meaning of a word when we hear or say it, we grasp it in a flash, and what we grasp in this way is surely something different from the 'use' which is extended in time!"

The "use" of a word must include both the hearing and saying of the word. But these are very distinct and cannot be classed together under the same name of "understanding" without equivocation. The "grasp in a flash", which may be appropriate for the hearing of a word, is not so appropriate for the decision as to whether the word is the right word to say in the situation, whether it "fits". Now Wittgenstein's distinction between the normal and the abnormal will get very confused. What he seems to be missing is that in hearing it is normal to understand in a flash, and these instances with little doubt are less likely to produce mistake, compared to instances with much doubt. But the converse is the case in speaking. In choosing our words to say, the normal case is to use a process of selection, and if the words to say come to our minds in a flash, this is abnormal, and much more likely to produce error.

Then I suggest you read it again, carefully , without your assumptions about what logic must be. — Fooloso4

My assumptions of what logic is, are derived from Wittgenstein's descriptions. So I see no point in dismissing these assumptions for your assumptions of what logic is, when yours are inconsistent with Wittgenstein, because the thread concerns what Wittgenstein thought. If we weren't discussing Wittgenstein's position in this thread, I might take you up on your suggestions of what logic consists of.

By rules, I mean a kind of set of patterns based on constraints. That is how I am intending to use it. Evolution, like all other phenomena, has constraints on its system and its elements. You have the constraints of time and place, the constraints of how DNA, genetics, and cellular biology works, constraints on behavior, constraints on survival in general. All these constraints prove to produce similar patterns of morphology, behavior, and survival-mechanisms in animals repeatedly over and over. — schopenhauer1

I really do not see how a constraint is a rule. That makes no sense to me. I agree with what you say about constraints, time and place are constraints, and all the physical features of genetics, DNA, etc. are constraints. These may all be classed as the particulars of the circumstances. But how do you construe the particulars of the circumstances as rules?

So I meant a kind of structuring logic based on the constraints of the system. — schopenhauer1

We can analyze the system using logic, and produce some laws which describe the actions of the system, but these laws are descriptive. They do not actually structure the system, so it's inappropriate to say that the system "follows" these laws. The laws describe the system, the system is not following the laws.

Oh c'mon, this rather uncharitable interpretation. Evolution mainly works through differential survival rates. And as explained above, these do indeed create a kind of structuring system- an informal logic of its own, if you will. Systems can produce patterns of action. These are language games again. I am not using logic in the "formal logic" sense nor even in the "general inferencing" sense, but more of the arrangement and structure of a system sense. The "logic" of how a human heart works, or the "logic" of evolutionary mechanism clearly means something different than, "he is practicing logic". — schopenhauer1

I can see how a system might produce patterns of action, and that we might understand these patterns through logic, but I do not see how you can say that there is any "informal logic" within the system, governing the actions of the system. To say that the system has "an informal logic of its own" which is creating the patterns of action, is to say that the system has a mind of its own, because only minds use logic to govern actions.

You might do as Fooloso4 appears inclined to do, and define "logic" in a way which is completely inconsistent with the way that Wittgenstein uses it, but in the context of this thread, what's the point in that?

Do you recognize the difference between something following rules, and rules being used to describe a thing? In the former case, the rules pre-exist the thing, and the thing "follows" the rules. In the latter case, the rules are produced to describe the thing, and therefore "follow" the thing. In the case of evolutionary theory, the rules describe the processes and therefore the rules follow the thing. The evolutionary processes are not following rules.

Your basic misunderstanding in this post is based on your conflating the logic of language with formal logic and reason. If you can get that straightened out then you should be able to see how misguided your post is. — Fooloso4

No, the issue is that if we assume that an animal must use logic, or reason, to do something like communicate, then we'll find that logic must pre-exist communication. And if we analyze why it is that we believe logic is required for such an activity, we'll find that logic is required for, and therefore must pre-exist the activities of all living beings. Then we'll need to believe in pan-psychism because it will appear like life comes about from matter using logic in its actions' .

If, as usual, you are convinced you are right, that Wittgenstein is mistaken rather than you being mistaken about what Wittgenstein is saying, then so be it. I am not going to try to convince you otherwise — Fooloso4

There is no such thing as "the logic of language". And Wittgenstein does not refer to any such thing, you are making this up, to support your misunderstanding. Did you read 2019's post, which is what I was replying to? Logic is an idealized use of language, it is a type of use, the use of language for a particular purpose, "...rule-governed use is merely one of several related notions of the use of language that Wittgenstein employs...". if you make "logic" refer to something which underlies all language use, then you are not maintaining consistency with Wittgenstein. You are using "logic" in a way which is outside of the boundaries which Wittgenstein has drawn for it.

Evolution also plays by certain rules, dictated by the necessity of survival for biological organisms. — schopenhauer1

I don't think so. Evolution does not follow any rules.

Presumably, he is not talking about logic in the formal sense, but a structuring that takes place in the development of language. — schopenhauer1

What are you saying, that evolutionary processes follow some sort of informal logic? Who would have been carrying out this logical thinking which took place in the early development of language?

Grammar is a logical order. It is not derived from language, it is integral to it. There can be no language that is not a logical language. — Fooloso4

I think we already went through this in the other thread and I demonstrated that this is a mistaken view. Logic requires language, but language does not require logic. Watch a baby learn to talk, that child is not using logic. The child learns to talk before the child learns to be logical. We reason with language, so language is required for reasoning. And we cannot reason without language. Language has given us the tool required for reasoning. How could that language which came into existence prior to reasoning be a logical language?

How can there be a language-game that is not logical? How would anyone know what anything means? All language-games are logical. It is not a question of which came first. Even the builder's language is logical. — Fooloso4

Why must one know logic to communicate? Many animals communicate without using logic. It's not a question of knowing what something means, because meaning is use in the Wittgensteinian context, so there is no necessity for "what" something means. It's a question of being able to communicate. Your assumption that a language game must be logical is unfounded, just like you assumption that to use language requires that we know "what" is meant. Knowing-how does not require knowing-what.

The structure or order is logical. What would an illogical order be if not disorder? — Fooloso4

Logic is a process carried out by human minds. There could, for example, be an order which the human mind, due to its limited capacity, could not understand. This order would not be logical, nor would it be disorder. The infinite order escapes the grasp of the human mind with its finite logic. Logic is based in definition, and therefore relies on definiteness, whereas order goes far beyond, to the indefinite, the infinite. So it is necessary to conclude that there is order which is not logical order.

Language has no single purpose, but it could not serve many of its purposes if it did not have a logical structure, that is, if what is said does not make sense. There is something arbitrary about language and something non-arbitrary about the grammar or logic of language. This does not mean that there is a fixed logical structure underlying language, but that all language-games have a structure. This is not an empirical claim but a logical one. — Fooloso4

This says nothing more than "if there is order in the universe, it must be a logical order". But this is the "classical account" that 2019 refers to, which Wittgenstein turns on its head. It must be turned on its head because it puts the horse before the cart. Clearly, logic is derived from, or comes from language. Therefore there is no such thing as logic prior to language, nor was there logic when the first language-games started to exist.. Furthermore, the structure or order which underlies natural language games, just like the structure and order which underlies the entire universe, cannot be attributed the property of "logical", because there was no such thing as logic when these things came into existence..

Natural languages are not as simple as ideal languages, nor are they governed by such fixed and precise rules.

...

Rather, the notion of rule-governed use is merely one of several related notions of the use of language that Wittgenstein employs"

...

The gain here is that it manages to clarify language without having to postulate abstract entities (e.g. ideal languages) to which our natural language must conform to get it right. Wittgenstein turns the classical account on its head. The classical account just ignored the way language is actually used and sought to find the ideal which would dictate proper usage. Wittgenstein takes into account the way we talk in order to show the logic behind it, its grammar, by comparing language with calculi or games according to fixed and exact rules.

..

Rather, clarification by means of ideal languages constitutes a particular method for resolving philosophical problems" — 2019

Schopenhauer1 appears to be trying to draw some sort of ontological conclusions from this Wittgensteinian perspective. If natural languages are not rule-based, and rules only emerge in our attempts to produce ideal languages, then where do the patterns (which Shop refers to), and order, which is found in natural languages, and in nature in general, come from? Can we conclude that the patterns and order which we observe as existing in the natural world, are not rule-based?

I am not asking for justification or certainty, but to look at the idea that there are facts that we derived from experience, that we can perceive of the world, but also indicates something characteristic about the world and not the mind's interpretation of it perhaps. In other words, ontology. — schopenhauer1

This is otherwise known as the tinted glass analogy. If the glass through which I look at the world is tinted, it will affect the way the world appears to me. Since all human beings have a similar composition we cannot avoid the problem by comparing with one another. Comparison actually shows significant difference, and confirms that the glass is tinted. The resolution is to just forget about understanding "the world", "ontology" and such, and focus directly on the glass itself. Until we completely understand the lens through which we view "the world" (and this for Wittgenstein is language), it is pointless to speculate about "the world", because we have no way of knowing what the lens adds, or takes away from 'the world".

Wittgenstein brings up a good point about the fact that we already assume a position by using certain tools and language-games. We have certain tendencies of human nature that can't really be disputed without going outside of common sense. Beyond this framework, there are the mutable language-games transforming our foundational common sense notions into the stuff of our projects and ways of life. Science is just one of these, used for a purpose in a community. Things in-themselves, can never exist then, so we can never make a statement about ontology, just human nature. — schopenhauer1

You need to respect the dual purpose of language which I described above. Language may be used for describing things and understanding "the world", but it is also used for communion. These two are distinct and not necessarily compatible. If the prior, principal, or fundamental use of language is communion, then the evolutionary forces which have shaped language to be useful for this purpose, may have rendered it not so useful for that other purpose. This very aspect of language, that it may be shaped by competing purposes, makes it extremely difficult to understand. For instance, it has the capacity to express any purpose, so that I can tell you my purpose, and you can tell me yours, thus communication is enabled, but also it may be shaped towards one particular purpose (describing 'the world' for example). Notice though, that under this description, shaping language for a particular purpose is unnatural in the sense of creating an artificial language.

It will still be the case, that the species shaped by evolution may have echoes of what is the case in reality. Perhaps it was the necessary qualities of human epistemology that lead to and are connected with understanding the necessary qualities of ontology that shaped it. — schopenhauer1

You display a huge problem here. You jump from "may have echoes of what is really the case", to 'the necessary qualities of ontology that shaped it". Do you recognize a problem with concluding necessity from a premise of probability? Suppose that the lens through which we apprehend "the world" consistently provides us with probabilities, and never provides us with necessities. Why would you start with an ontological premise of necessity, such as, there is necessarily something which shaped the lens? Since we cannot get beyond probability we must consider the possibility that the lens shaped itself. And until this is answered, there is the possibility that something extra-worldly shaped the lens, and so we have all sorts of possible ontologies like many-worlds and computer simulations etc.. We'd better just focus on the lens itself and not speculate about "the world" which you believe we are looking at through the lens.

the weirdness of your difficulty is becoming unsettling... — unenlightened

Are you starting to see why you shouldn't have been so quick to trust me? And I've been subjected to many institutions of enforcement.

The way to the station is one thing, but I do not ask a random stranger to operate on my hernia, or govern the country. the weirdness of your difficulty is becoming unsettling... — unenlightened

I just don't see how years of training at medical school makes a person trustworthy. I really don't think you are even talking about trust here. You are judging whether a particular person is fit for a specific job (has the adequate training), not whether the person is trustworthy. The problem is that the person you judge to be fit for the job might still be untrustworthy. Judging whether a person has been subjected to the appropriate institutions of enforcement required to learn how to carry out a specific job is not the same judgement as judging whether the person is trustworthy, because those institutions are incapable of enforcing trustworthiness. The dishonest are capable of hiding their dishonesty, and that's how they deceive us.

But is it just a difference in matters? Why do scientific facts obtain so well? You can say that it is similar to how a carpenter creates a masterpiece furniture, but is that the same? A man-made object created by someone, or a social convention, can be arbitrarily changed, and is contingent, varied. Any decision on it would be the freedom of the carpenter, or the architect. Perhaps the language of the woordworker is real in that community, but they are contingent conventions. This is not so with the science language game. There are constraints that nature is imposing, making the findings a necessity. It is nature forcing our hand. It moves away from contingency and hits on necessity. Wittgenstein's "forms of life" and "use" may not fit this scenario of science. You, in a really superficial way, can make an argument that humans are interested in pursuing scientific ideas, so in that sense is "for us", but the evidence gets more refined over time, more precise, more accurate, and leads to powerful results. — schopenhauer1

I don't see how you can say "use" does not fit scientific language games. The reality of the world is inherent within "use", as what is used. So "for us" implies two things, the "for" implies purpose, usefulness, and therefore the reality of use, and the "us" implies a communion of people. These are the two underlying features of language games, the communion of people, and the purposes of those people making use of the reality of the world.

The "real" universe is simply taken for granted, as is often the case in philosophy, but it's a reality of use. Perhaps even the Kantian position that we have no access toward understanding the noumenal world is also taken for granted. What is available to us for study and description, is the way that we use the world. And this is most evident in language. But language is complex, because not only is it comprised of the reality of people using the world, it is also comprised of the reality of the communion of people. These are distinct "realities" understood by distinct principles, and it would be extremely difficult to analyze language in such a way as to separate the manifestations of each, within language. They are well intertwined.

Right, but Wittgenstein does investigate what "how things are for us" means, because "us" implies a communion which is closely related to communication, and this is one of his principal interests.

As I said already, either there is a "how things are for us" which is prior to language and necessary for the existence of language, or "how things are for us" is something which emerges from language. Which position do you think Wittgenstein supports?

No, the opposite; no one is entitled to anyone's trust. — unenlightened

I still don't understand. You are willing to trust anyone, yet no one is entitled to that trust. On what basis do you give your trust? If trust is some thing that you just randomly give to anyone at anytime, for no apparent reason, how is it of any value?

Yes, in so far as one trusts, which may be as far as one can throw or some other extent, there can be no conditions. If I set a condition: - 'I'll trust you to respond thoughtfully, but if you don't, I'll kill you', then I don't trust you to respond thoughtfully, do I? — unenlightened

Isn't this exactly what enforcement says? It says that I do not trust that others will be trustworthy, so I want to enact measure to ensure that they will be. Isn't the desire for enforcement, and institutions to create trust just a manifestation of distrust?

But can some empirical facts be different in regards to being part of the language game? Is there something science is showing us? Certainly we recognize patterns of nature. We contingently hit upon the Westernized formal science we have now. But is that just a language game we hit upon or something else? What are facts to Wittgenstein? Are there social facts vs. scientific facts, or is it all the same kind of conventionalism all the way down? — schopenhauer1

Have you read "On Certainty"? We can say "it is certain" about some things, and I suppose that this is as close as Wittgenstein gets to saying what a fact is. These are things which it would be unreasonable to doubt.

The point I was addressing is the noumenal-phenomenal distinction, the distinction between things as they are in themselves and things as they are for us. According to Kant, the categories of the understanding are universal. Whatever distinction you are making between things as they appear to you and how they are for us is another issue. — Fooloso4

OK, now suppose we take this Kantian position, and attempt to justify this notion you put forward about "how things are for us". This would require that something would have to appear the same to you, me, and everyone else included in "us". Then we could say that there is such a thing as how this thing appears to "us". So why is it that different people use different words to describe the very same situation? Or is it the case that since my perspective is different from yours, it really isn't the very same situation? There is no such thing as "how things are for us", and Wittgenstein points to this with his description of language-games.

I do not have any idea how you got from anything I said that he takes for us for granted. The relationship between us and language is that language is our language. It does not exist independently of us. — Fooloso4

The issue is, as I described to Schop, how one gets from how things appear to me, to how things are "for us". This is a metaphysical issue, so being concerned with how things are "for us", is metaphysics. And Wittgenstein makes no attempt to skip the metaphysics to make it an epistemological issue.

Can you explain what you mean by "directed by purpose" vs. the "for us"? — schopenhauer1

We all act for purposes, this is will and intention. My acts are not your acts, nor are my intentions your intentions. To say that there is something "for us" implies a common intention between us. Where does this notion of a common purpose come from?

I did not say anything about a principle. I do not recall anywhere where he discusses the distinction. If you can cite where he does then perhaps we can discuss it. — Fooloso4

You imply that Wittgenstein takes "for us" for granted. He does not, he recognizes a relationship between the existence of "for us" and the existence of language, and investigates this. Though it may not be classical metaphysics, this is metaphysics.

So yes, Wittgenstein, does seem to have a metaphysical stance of the "for us". But what happens when the "for us" bumps against patterns of nature that seem indicate the "not for us"? — schopenhauer1

Well, there is the bigger issue of how is the "for us" even a real perspective, when everything I apprehend is "for me". Language-games appear to me, to create the "for us". But maybe it's the case that there must already be such a thing as "for-us" in order for a language-game to even come into existence. If it's the former which is the case, then language-games are completely directed by purpose. If it's the latter which is the case, then the underlying "for us" is what directs the language-games rather than the "for me" (purpose).

But isn't the principle of "as they are for us" rather than "as they are for me" for example, a metaphysical principle?

Many believe that wanton killing is not a good thing. Killing is a serious action which needs to be only carried out for a good reason, and this needs to be respected. The good reason might be to eat the thing which has been killed. So when you feel the urge to kill your enemies you might need to justify this activity. That they are your enemies does not justify killing them, but eating them might.

How unusual, a contributor to TPF who hides behind terms as if they were a costume.

Is this an ontology? Yes and no. Grammar does not reveal the being of things as they are, but as they are for us, that is, how we regard them, what they mean for us. This is not the noumenal-phenomenal distinction. It is not metaphysical. Wittgenstein is not concerned with the question of how things are in themselves, but rather with what we say and do. The essence of something, what it is to be what is it, means it's place in our form of life. It is in that sense not fixed and unchanging. — Fooloso4

Why do you say that this is "not metaphysical"? To make a distinction between "things as they are", and "as they are for us", is to make a metaphysical assumption. If the point of interest is "as they are for us", this makes the assumption no less metaphysical.

I don't think "paranoid" is a designator at all, because it refers to a property rather than an object.

No. I'm saying that trust cannot be earned. I trust you already. It's not something you are entitled to because you are righteous. — unenlightened

I assume then, that "trust" is an attitude which you have toward me, and others as well. Would you say that you are born to be trusting, so it is instinctual that you tend to trust people, and you might learn at a young age that if a person failed your trust, you might revoke it? If so, do you think it is possible that someone else, someone like me might have been born with the instinct to be untrusting, and with that attitude I would learn at a young age that people would have to pass my tests of trustworthiness before I would trust them?

What if it's not an instinct at all, but something we learn at a very young age? Do you think it is possible that the experiences we gain at an extremely young age would shape our attitudes of trust? Suppose we're born with a sort of blank slate in respect to trust, and our young experiences form an attitude which makes us either naturally trust people, or naturally mistrust people. But these would be the extremes, the attitude to trust everyone, like yours, and the attitude to distrust everyone, like mine. In reality, I think most of us would actually fall in between somewhere.

So when we meet someone, on first impression one might either trust or not trust that person, due to the combination of some features of the person having been noticed, and the early age conditioning. In this case, we would not tend to naturally trust everyone, nor naturally distrust everyone, there would be features about the person which would trigger a natural trust or distrust toward the person, depending on the early age experiences.

It's not something you are entitled to because you are righteous. — unenlightened

I'm really having difficulty understanding this attitude. Are you saying that all people are entitled to your trust whether or not they are righteous? Are you saying that you place no conditions on your trust? I can see how trust itself might be construed as being unconditional, like love is sometimes supposed to be, but I cannot see how you could just naturally give anyone you meet unconditional trust. So you could give some people unconditional trust, like you could give some people unconditional love, if this is what trust is meant to be, without conditions, but how could you give this to anyone, or everyone you meet?

Then we could work to make politicians great again.

Wittgenstein seems to be fascinated by mathematics and numbers. It appears like he sees that numbers work, but he doesn't understand how numbers work, so he's trying to get to the bottom of this. His approach to understanding numbers is to assume that they are a form of language, and address them as such.

He has exposed a gap between common, every day concepts like "game", which are vague and essentially without boundary, and the more precise logical concepts of logic and mathematics. So at 81 the question of what it means to be "operating a calculus according to definite rules" is posed. But this question puts us on the brink of misunderstanding, that is if we proceed with the wrong answer we fall into misunderstanding. After some background information is laid out the "difficulty" with mathematics is broached again at 125:

125. It is the business of philosophy, not to resolve a contradiction
by means of a mathematical or logico-mathematical discovery, but
to make it possible for us to get a clear view of the state of mathematics
that troubles us: the state of affairs before the contradiction is resolved.
(And this does not mean that one is sidestepping a difficulty.)...

Now we can see clearly, at 135, that the meaning of a proposition is being compared to the meaning of numbers, a mathematical statement or equation for example. In the section which follows, we will see that Wittgenstein extends the vague, boundlessness of common language, through logical propositions, right into mathematics. This is expressed in the possibility of following the rule in a different way. There is an analogy of a machine. It always operates in the same way, just like people following the rules of mathematics, but the possibility is still there, that something could break or go wrong (a person could follow the rule in a different way).

The misunderstanding, mentioned at 81, which we were on the brink of, and must be avoided is if we proceed to understand rule following in the opposite way. This would be an attempt to extend the "definite rules" which appear to underlie mathematics, into logical propositions, and language use in general, to conclude that language use must consist of following definite rules. The underlying thing in language is the vague boundlessness, and this must be understood from its existence in common language, to underlie logical propositions, and even mathematics itself, which appears to consist only of definite rules. To proceed the other way, to understand the definite rules which mathematics appears to be composed of, as underlying all language use, is to misunderstand. The rules come into existence only for specific purposes.

Well, how do you make an abstract descriptor as "paranoia" into a, in a sense, a vivid designator for all Ralphs that posses the attribute of being "paranoid" manifest in his de re statement that his neighbor is a spy? — Wallows

But paranoia is a property of a thing (person)), it's not a name of the thing. How is Ralph's statement "my neighbour is a spy" evidence that he is paranoid?

It appears like you are trying to make the attribute "paranoia" necessary, as if it were the thing's name, and then treat it as if it were a non-essential attribute of the thing, in your counterfactuals. You can't have both. Either the thing is designated as "paranoid" and we seek the properties of "paranoid", or the thing is designated as "Ralph", and we seek the properties of Ralph (one might be paranoia).

I think I get it. "The drum is empty of liquid", and "the drum is full of vapour", are two distinct focal concepts, referring to the same thing. I think my point was that before we can proceed in an ontological discussion we need to establish our starting point. What are we talking about, liquid or gas? From one perspective the drum is empty, and from the other it is full. I think AJJ was tying to mix them up, is and ought.

Yes, but, doesn't that make it a de facto a de re attitude? — Wallows

Now how do you make it into a counterfactual de re attitude?

As I explained, Ralph cannot validly conclude that his neighbour is a spy, whether he suffers delusions or not is irrelevant. Logic doesn't work that way, it's backward. He must start with the designation, the neighbour is a spy, and proceed logically from there. But that proposition is supported by evidence, not a logical conclusion, and Ralph's mental state is relevant in his judgement of evidence.

No. Trust cannot be earned. You may have turned down 40 pieces of silver to betray me, but what about 60? — unenlightened

I don't understand this attitude. Are you saying that if I was close to you for years, a good friend for many years, and I never did anything to incline you to distrust me, I would never earn your trust? Are you paranoid or what?

But to enforce a standard is not to create trust at all, it is to declare whatought to be trustworthy. It's like having a law against shop-lifting; it doesn't make every customer trustworthy, but sets out what being a trustworthy customer consists of. — unenlightened

OK, I see that such a standard is set to demonstrate what being trustworthy consists of. We might model ourselves to the standard to become trustworthy people, or judge people in reference to the standard in order to determine whether or not they are trustworthy. Where is the need for enforcement? It appears to me like enforcement would have a negative affect. It would force the untrustworthy to behave according to the standard against their will, making them appear to be trustworthy, so that we might judge them as trustworthy, when they really are not. Then they would take advantage of us in other ways where the enforcement didn't reach. Dishonest people may obey the laws, but find the loopholes.

Similarly, t.here is a rule that you cannot print your own money. And that establishes legal tender as something that ought to be trustworthy, and obligates governments to act to maintain it so. That there may be forgers as that there may be shoplifters and dishonest politicians is not in question, we need it to be the case that there ought not be. — unenlightened

It is not the rule which establishes what ought to be, we determine what we believe ought to be, and then we make the rule to represent this. So it was determined that legal tender ought to be trustworthy and then the rule, that you cannot print your own, was produced to support this. The rule follows what we believe ought to be, not vise versa.

Either it is the case, or it is not the case that there ought not be forgers, shoplifters, or dishonest politicians, but making laws to represent one's opinion concerning this, will not change the truth concerning it. Neither will enforcing the laws change whether there ought or ought not be forgers shoplifters, or dishonest politicians.

What I think you are talking about is changing people's opinions about what ought to be. You want people to believe that politicians ought to be trustworthy for example. To do this, I think you need to get people to look at facts, not to make laws for enforcement.

Suppose Ralph believes there is a spy, but has not determined the person who is a spy, so he says "there is a spy", this is de dicto. If Ralph believes his neighbour is a spy, and says "John is a spy", this is de re. The two are not incompatible, the neighbour may be a spy, and the de dcito instance may be true even if Ralph suffers from paranoid schizophrenia.

Now, this all seems to imply in my mind, that it boils down to essentialism, such that de re: "Because Ralph is a schizophrenic because he believes his neighbor is a spy." Whereas de dicto: "Nobody is a spy because Ralph falsely believes his neighbor is a spy due to his (essentialist?) quality of being a schizophrenic." — Wallows

I think you misunderstand the nature of de dicto. Ralph thinks there is an object which fulfills the conditions of being " a spy", and therefore is a spy. Perhaps what is confusing you is the fact that you cannot proceed logically from the de dicto to confirm the de re. The "therefore is a spy" does not follow. In other words, Ralph may produce an endless list of the properties of "a spy", and the object (the neighbour) may match every property, but this cannot produce the logical conclusion that the neighbour is a spy, because Ralph needs a further premise which says that every object with such and such properties is a spy. But Ralph's list of properties of a spy does not necessitate that any object with those properties is a spy. So despite the de dicto (Ralph believes there is a spy), and the fact that the neighbour fulfills all Ralph's criteria of "a spy", Ralph cannot validly produce the de re conclusion that the neighbour is a spy. That's the nature of human judgement, it's fallible.

The substantive issue to me is that no metaphysical debate can rely on classical (binary) logic, because set membership (properties) of 'focal concepts' is contextually transient. — fresco

I haven't been able to figure out what you mean by "focal concept". Care to explain?

The difference is that there is no enforcement of any standard. In the UK it used to be managed by peer pressure — unenlightened

Trust is earned, it cannot be enforced. When it is lost, we suffer the consequences. But trust will not be regained through enforcement. That ship has sailed. This thread is depressing.

My point was language-games have a base in "real" causes (patterns of evolutionary necessity) and in turn, lead to language-games like math-informed empirical investigation in general, which, though contingently constructed, has "hit upon" an understanding of the very patterns of nature, which has constructed the human (amongst other patterns of nature, ones harnessed for complex technologies and predictive accuracy of investigation into natural phenomena). — schopenhauer1

The problem here being that, as I described in my other post, we have no principle whereby we can say that a language-game is a "real" object. Remember the question of 65 what is a language-game, and the following inability to say what exactly what a game is. Then we enter the paradox of trying to describe language with language. This is what is causing him the philosophical problems. In the Tractatus he found reality in representation, but he later noticed this was incorrect. Here he searches into concepts, ideas, but rejects Platonism and finds that language-games are based in human purpose.

Now language-games may be described in terms of learning social conventions, and the natural tendencies required to learn these conventions, but if we want to name "the real cause", we cannot get beyond purpose. Purpose is what holds the various features together into some kind of unity, which Wittgenstein calls a game. But here we reach the paradox I refer to earlier, with trying to describe language using language itself. To produce a true bounded object, a game with clear and consistent rules, we must specify the purpose. And as soon as we specify a particular purpose, we make an error in our description of language, because language is not bounded to be directed toward one particular purpose, it is unbounded so as to be adaptable to any purpose.

Language-games are 'real' through and through... — StreetlightX

I don't think we can say that a language-game is real. Remember the section starting at 65, where he asks what is a language-game, and consequently what is a game. We go into an unbounded, vague, conceptual realm where it would be impossible to separate one language game from another, to give one or another real separate existence, as they are dependent on a specific purpose, and purposes are general, vague and overlapping. And now, he has implied that there is no such thing as language as a whole, as a unity of all language-games in the language-game. So I really don't think we can say that a language-game is something real.

Wittgenstein reduces logical necessity to a form of "needed for a particular purpose". This is the pragmatist standard, conception is based in purpose. The problem is that Wittgenstein does take this position happily, or even willingly, it's a philosophical problem which worries him. He seems to have an underlying disposition to reject this pragmatism as deficient. So he attempts to get to the bottom of it, and find something real which supports it. From the days of the Tractatus, to now in the Investigations, he seeks a way out of the pragmatist mess. He seems to believe that there must be some underlying reality, which would give a necessity to logic, a necessity other than purpose. In the Tractattus he considered fundamental elements (materialism), and in this book he considers fundamental Ideas (Platonic realism), but neither of these is acceptable. So he is stuck in this pragmatist base where "logically necessary" simply means necessary for the purpose of this particular logic.

At this point there is nothing here to indicate that he is nominalist. He has found no basis for the assumption that social conventions are based in anything "real". They are part of the language-games. The only thing we might assume as a basis for convention is a commonality of purpose but we haven't gotten an indication of this yet.

185. Let us return to our example (143). Now—judged by the
usual criteria—the pupil has mastered the series of natural numbers.
Next we teach him to write down other series of cardinal numbers and
get him to the point of writing down series of the form down the series of natural numbers. — Let us suppose we have done exercises and given him tests up to 1000.

Now we get the pupil to continue a series (say +2) beyond 1000 —
and he writes 1000, 1004, 1008, 1012. We say to him: "Look what you've done!" — He doesn't understand.

We say: "You were meant to add tn>o\ look how you began the series!"
— He answers: "Yes, isn't it right? I thought that was how I was
meant to do it." —— Or suppose he pointed to the series and said:
"But I went on in the same way." — It would now be no use to say:
"But can't you see . . . . ?" — and repeat the old examples and explanations.
— In such a case we might say, perhaps: It comes natural to this
person to understand our order with our explanations as we should
understand the order: "Add 2 up to 1000, 4 up to 2000, 6 up to 3000
and so on."

Such a case would present similarities with one in which a person
naturally reacted to the gesture of pointing with the hand by looking
in the direction of the line from finger-tip to wrist, not from wrist to
finger-tip. — Philosophical investigations

The point here being that in order to carry out the rule of the social convention, one must be able to understand that rule. To understand the rule requires that the person sees things (with the mind) in the same way as the others. This seeing things in the same way is instinctual, it's what "comes natural" to the person. So now we have this underlying instinct, or intuition, which is necessary for, and underpins the social conventions.

Perhaps these complexities, or what I call "patterns", are part of a bigger picture of explanation. Language-games may be true (pace Wittgenstein), but some language-games are based in a realism of necessary pattern-recognition that is necessary by way of evolutionary necessity. Animals that do not recognize patterns, would not survive. Thus there is a realism underlying the conventionalism or nominalism of Wttgenstein's project — schopenhauer1

Necessary, in the sense of required for the purpose of (in this case survival), is associated with usefulness. And usefulness is the supporting principle of pragmatist metaphysics. I see no way to make any form of pragmatism consistent with any form of realism, due to the gap between them, commonly cited as the is/ought gap. You are clearly jumping this gap, when you claim that the existence of things which exist for various purposes (language-games), support some sort of realism. Until the purpose itself is shown to have real existence, the things which exist for that purpose cannot be said to have real existence.

Therefore, in Wittgenstein's thought exercise of understanding language-games as objects to be compared, we are not dealing with real objects according to any form of realism. Language-games are activities, so Wittgenstein has taken a "process" premise, and he hasn't given any principles whereby objects have real existence.

Where are the objective facts which indicate to me that I ought to stop writing?

He's practically destroying the office in plain sight. — Wayfarer

He has destroyed it, or at least caused irreparable damage. It was the will of the people - so it seems.

It's a shame that it's not just funny. But it isn't. — Wayfarer

Remember, Trump's run for presidency started out as a big joke, pure entertainment. But the American people value bad entertainment far higher than good governance. There's a slow, slow train coming, up around the bend.