Section 3B (pp.14-15) Causes vs. Reasons

Yet there is a difference between saying that the action is justified for the following reasons and saying that those reasons were the reasons why one did it. — Ludwig V

Yes but aren’t justifications just one kind of (prepared) reasons, as are principals (beliefs for action), mitigating circumstances, impulses, conformity or “embedded beliefs” and any number of practices for which we express to you (or are told) our interest for having done or said something. But, nevertheless, there are things common to reasoning (here compared to rules or causation or motivation).

In his terms, reasons aren’t prior to an act (a reason is not “for action”, as you word it); our responsibility for answering why we did something (after the fact) is why “actual reasons [have] a beginning” (p.15) Riceour says acts are an event (meaning: in time).

And again, we can have “no reason” (and there can appear none), as the apathetic have none for not acting (perhaps this is ‘privilege’), though we can hold them responsible nevertheless.

As an aside, I note we “are inclined” (p.16) to give an (impersonal) cause when we “come to an end” rather than explain our interests and commitments further, as we are “inclined” to turn the spade (PI #217) on the student rather than keep trying to give justifications for our continuing as we do. The inclination here seems the beginning of the temptation at the heart of the matter, so perhaps our desire for science is tied to our fear of exposing ourselves, relying on ourselves.

“No number of agreeing statements is necessary” because my reasons are my own (or yours given to me). Neither are we hypothesizing as to the mystery of me; we are making a “statement” of what we are standing for.

Also, a note on method. He will often try to get us to see a logical impossibility (thus necessary possibility) by pointing out what can and cannot be the case (usually based on what we say in a given situation). A “grammatical” point shows us the hard edge of a practice, but it is our acceptance of the description that creates the power of the distinction (rather than a logical argument trying to force us to accept it, which is what creates the temptation for an abstract predetermined criteria only to satisfy that goal). The mechanism is self-justification—for a cause to be considered a cause (and not a motive) it must meet its own criteria. (Cavell will draw out this “must” in his essay “Must We Mean what We Say”.)

Section 3 (pp. 10-14) Acting without Rules

As an aside, he finds another logical error, mixing contexts, or thinking we understand a word because we have a definition for it in isolation but that offers up no particular rationale for the specific case. So we do not explain meaning generally; only a particular statement has “neither more, nor less, meaning than your explanation has given it.” (p.10) The idea has temporality to it (which becomes a theme); like we cannot be certain of the meaning of language beforehand, and we may not at first understand after an expression (even knowing the words, and other contexts in which it has sense), so it is not a matter of knowledge but being accustomed to (or learning) how to judge by what is important to us in that case. This is the ability of language to extend into new contexts (discussed in the PI as: continuing a series) because at times how it matters is, as yet, to be determined.

Mid-page 9, once we have finally settled there can be a sense of a “place” for thought in the brain (corresponding activity), he brings up water diviners who “feel” a fact, and those who defy even the logic of a described sense we can acknowledge, which I take as a reassertion that skepticism nevertheless can be endless, and to begin to investigate the individual attempting to retain a standard for his ‘own’ thought, as if my “feelings” fall back onto my ‘perception’ which is a claim of an “object” (sense data) in me that is irrefutable, causal (the feeling we need/want a yellow image to find a yellow ball).

Now we must examine the relation of the process of learning to estimate with the act of estimating. The importance of this examination lies in this, that it applies to the relation between learning the meaning of a word and making use of the word — (p.11)

Yes, he will be externalizing our “feelings” by looking at how we learn to act, but I wanted to focus on the connection between “learning” and “making use of the word” only to point out that this clarifies the meaning of his term “use” in the PI. Many take it that he is pointing out that we “use” words (that we are the cause of their meaning). But I take the term to mean the externalized possibilities (“uses”) of a word (not that we can’t choose our words though)—here he calls it their (rule’s) “application”. If we are learning how a word works (its criteria and grammar) we are learning the different options for the word. So his point is not that we “use” words, it is which use (option) one would make of them (interpret them to be). He interchangeably will say “sense”, so it would be which sense (or “use”) applies in a given situation.

He breaks down learning into cause and rule. I took the “cause” to show the authority that I take, which can be the trust in the teacher’s authority, or, without reason, based on the authority I have for my own acts (example 4 “‘I don’t know, it just looks like a yard’”), which is to externalize some ‘internal’ cause for speech into taking responsibility for what I say (wanting to be certain beforehand vs. continuing to be resolved to what I say afterwards).

When he differentiates between being “in accordance” with a rule or “involving” a rule (p. 13), I take it to be the basis of the PI’s conclusion that meaning/action is not based on rules. “201. This was our paradox: no course of action could be determined by a rule, because every course of action can be made out to accord with the rule.” Here he talks of a rule of squaring but comes short of saying the rule causes the conclusion, but that “What I wrote is in accordance with the general rule of squaring; but it obviously is also in accordance with any number of other rules; and amongst these it is not more in accordance with one than with another. In the sense in which before we talked about a rule being involved in a process, no rule was involved in this.” (Emphasis in original) He points out that the exception is when we actually consciously rely on a rule in taking an action, but, of course, the exception is to prove that rules do not dictate (or are the cause of) our actions—it does not “act at a distance” (p.14). Again, we can follow a rule or we can go “the way one has gone oneself”, even though we were taught by rules, the teaching “drops out of our considerations”. We may or may not explain by rules afterwards (“post hoc”).

Section 2B: 8-10 Analogy

Some of these sections are a little bumpy so I don’t think we should feel compelled to go through all of it, but I do find the term “grammatical analogy” interesting as in the PI it plays the role of the ‘language’ that confuses us and makes something “nonsense”, here specifically (pp.8-9) “you have not yet given this question sense; that is, you have been proceeding by a grammatical analogy, without having worked out the analogy in detail.” So ‘nonsense’ is not a derogatory dismissal, but a unspecific, imposed framework.

Thus:

It is misleading to talk of thinking as of a ‘mental activity’. We may say that thinking is essentially the activity of operating with signs. — (p.6)

So we can “think” “mentally” (to ourselves) with words or numbers (or images). Again, my answer to which “different sense” (p.7) of “agent” we could point, is not to a casual agent, but the sense or use of agent as one who acts on behalf of something, thus, the designated one who is responsible.

Also, another note on method: when he is saying “if we talk about” or “talk of”, he is coming up with the things we might say, the expressions already there we ordinarily use or made up ones, for example, that there are already “senses” (what he also calls “uses”) of “‘locality of thinking’” such that one could be physical location, like on paper. Additionally, those expressions allow us to “examine [our] reasons”, reflect on ourselves in “understand[ing] its working”, or grammar. I also think it’s important to recognize the unintended logical force that compels us to complete a explanatory picture a certain way because of the inertia of thought and the desire to run an analogy “throughout” the explanation, as it were, creating things to fill missing spots (the ‘thing-in-itself’/‘forms’/‘queer mechanisms’).

As we’ve learned (though perhaps not fully accepted), the analogy of an “activity” is wrong because thinking is not a mechanism nor caused (though we can be “observing thought in our brain”, which is simply “corresponding” (p.7)). He also takes apart the analogy that thought is words/sentences while alluding to a yet-to-be-discovered “use” or ‘sense’ of the word thought, not ”criticizing” or judging “inappropriateness”, nor “hold[ing] throughout”. In fact, he appears to be creating an ethical standard for philosophy, or, ‘thought’, to be, at least, “worked out in detail”, not forced, with an individual/particular framework and workings.

Section 2: 5-8 Two Mistakes

a process must be happening organically that makes thinking, speaking, and listening possible but sees his work as something entirely different from investigating that: — Paine

Unraveling what is “different” here, one point is that, yes, there are things happening in the brain. And vision, hearing, imagining, talking to ourselves, all have objects that we experience. But meaning, understanding, and thinking (like problem solving) are not structured around objects. Now, sure, there are things happening in the brain when those things happen, but they are not actual mechanisms of the brain “that we were not yet able to explain” (p. 6). Another way to put this is that science isn’t going to tell us what thought or meaning or understanding are. Thus, “it is misleading to talk of thinking as of a ‘mental activity’.”

The reason these “queer” mechanisms are imagined is because we want to say: instead of just ordinary error (random, unpredictable, but correctable), we create an issue that must have a solution with certainty (thus an object), and so we create a “problem” (p.6). So instead of a regular goof-up, we now imagine a problem of knowledge (a scientific one), to be solved for as an object (causal) in us, by a “certain, definite mechanism”, or being able to explain that mechanism. But what was “queer” was not something scientifically peculiar, it was just a mistake, a “muddle” because “here are things hidden, something we can see from the outside but which we can't look into”. Thus the reason he says trying to find the place of thinking must be rejected “to prevent confusion”. (p.8)

From here he makes a radical statement that only plays out through the rest of the book. “I can give you no agent who thinks.” (p.6) This seems speculative at this point (and needlessly provocative), and I take it to mean so far that if there is no casual scientific mechanism, then it is the (“external”) judgment of thought that matters, not its agent (though this belies responsibility).

Another note on method. In addition to advising we take our ordinary expressions seriously (p.7), in the PI he gives the impression all our problems are caused by what he says here is the “mystifying use of our language” (p.6). But it is clear here that it is not language which fools us, but our temptation to treat words as objects (like “time”), and it is this desire that mystifies us, as, on page 7, he shows how analogy allows us to mistakenly infer there is a place for thought because there is a place for words.

Section 1B pp. 3-5: a “queer” mechanism of the mind

At the bottom of page 3, Witt sketches a picture from what it “seems” like “we ought really to be interested in.” I take this to be the “temptation” for an object-like framework; here, “certain definite mental” processes (perhaps in order to give us something fixed in ourselves). He says we want these mechanisms to associate a word with the world, though he intimates there is something wrong (“queer”, “don’t quite understand”, ”occult”(p.4)) that allows the space for error (to “agree or disagree with reality”), which opens the world to doubt.

Another moment on method as he again discusses transferring an internal mechanism to an analogous external process. This makes the process public, all out in the open, but also not personal, not individual, taking out me (which is also a theme), which feels like a loss I don’t know how to record yet. I take it he is playing off the picture of thought as an “object” and a mechanism that has “properties different from” signs, that makes signs come alive (or be ‘present’ as Derrida might critique it? @Joshs), when he contrasts that to “use”. Here I believe we should not jump to assuming we know what this term means yet, but let it take shape based on the role it plays going forward.

But he says, pulled externally it “ceases to seem to impart any life”, which I take it as less than ‘ceases to live’ but that it does no longer “seem to impart” perhaps the “queer” “association” that “you needed for your purposes”. (P.5) I take this purpose to be the desire for an internal mechanism (as object), and so perhaps the death is of the idea of the self as controlling that mechanism, creating meaning. The looked-for object “co-existing” with the sign was then a special vision of us.

He then flat out claims that what gives life to a sign is not us, but a system of signs. And not just that, but its “part” in that system, its “belong[ing]” in it, which shows the “significance” or meaning. I will also point out that time becomes a factor here—that instead of a mechanism occurring at the same time as the sign, “co-existing” with it, there is a system already, pre-existing.

Section 1 pp. 1-3 Mental objects & Use

Wittgenstein starts with claiming that we are incorrectly structuring ‘sense data’ (feelings, visions, thoughts) after an object, as when he says “a substantive makes us look for a thing that corresponds to it.” (p.1, emphasis added) (“A substantive” is defined as something that has importance to us, is meaningful.) He refers to this desire for correspondence as a “temptation”—which will be a theme—as if we are compelled to turn something that matters, into ‘matter’, compared to insubstantial ‘mind’ or ‘idea’, to avoid it being unstable and ensure its importance to us. (He will draw the skeptical picture of mind and its mechanisms—which have something “queer” about them—at the end of page 3.)

One other point is his discussion of method, which a lot of this book introduces and explains. He says we can be “cured” of the temptation (to need objectivity) by “studying the grammar [ workings ] of the [ an ]expression”. As if, when we saw each things’ different rationality, we would let go of the desire to impose the framework (and standard) of an object.

Now a “verbal” definition sets the terms of our words (“attributing” and “predicating” it, he says (p.2)—where the idea that we ‘agree’ to language comes from), which is why he prefers an “ostensive” definition, which is a demonstration by pointing out examples. (I leave the questions he asks to others; we can’t all be interested in the same things—thus why we may have multiple, non-conflicting readings.)

It would seem he is doing the exact opposite when he says it is the job of the O.D. “to give it a meaning”, but he means giving an expression a context of different relevances (fleshing out the “this-ness” as it were, I will take it, in contrast). “This is a pencil” can be taken, or seen, or said, as: its being “round” in that it is not shaped like a carpenter’s marker; or “wood” in that it is not just charcoal; or “one” in that it is “a pencil” (not two pencils), or “hard” (which ?? maybe you can find the circumstance that fits). A “ostensive definition” here is what in the PI he calls a “description” (PI #496, #665).

These are different possible ‘senses’ of the expression “This is a pencil”; he will also call these the ‘uses’—which is not meant to point out that we ‘use’ words—they reflect our interests, the reason to say it (then), and its possibilities, etc. (what he calls “criterion”) along with the circumstances, and practices, say, of picking out things, like instruments. He calls them here “interpretations”, not meant as ‘perceived’ differently, but taken to apply to a different context, under the associated kinds of facts that matter (to the related criterion) in that circumstance.

The already-established associations (criteria, practices) are the reason why we do not usually make a separate decision (unless and until we do; his example: “interpreting before obeying” (p.3)). The example of getting the red flower is evidence that with “the usual way” we don’t have any reason to deviate from or reflect on our life-long patterns (like searching, and matching colors), as we do in politics, and philosophy.

Thanks for the heads up - but it's at 1am. — Banno

4:00 pm CET is 7:00 am PST where I am but yeah philosophy lecture in the middle of the night is sure-fire sleep aid. I’ll try to summarize if I make it.

Hacker is problematic for me, — Joshs

I would argue there is always something to learn; as, if we dismissed philosophers given any flaw, we would never give them the chance to surprise us.

This was the whole of the invite forwarded to me; no notice necessary. Undoubtedly just listening. These are secrets Whitman would say, but not kept secret.

FYI Sam ( @Banno @Ludwig V )

Lecture by Peter Hacker: “On Certainty Some remarks on the new edition”

The Lecture will take place in ZOOM on November 26 2025, 4–6 pm CET. Please join us at: https://aboakademi.zoom.us/j/68544392354

On Wednesday November 26 the Nordic Wittgenstein Society is happy to host Peter Hacker for the second Nordic Wittgenstein Lecture. His new edition and translation of On Certainty was recently published (2025), and will serve as the background of his talk.

Among the topics he will touch upon are:

Wittgenstein’s limited remarks about the use of ‘to know’ and the contrast between ‘I know’ and ‘He knows’. These are now superseded by Oswald Hanfling’s and Alan White’s analyses.

Wittgenstein’s surprising lack of interest in the relations between being certain and being sure; between the certainty of things and the certainty of people; between making something certain and making certain that something is so.

The relation between knowledge and certainty, between being certain and feeling certain, between making certain and knowing for certain.

Wittgenstein’s powerful criticisms of Moore’s proof of the existence of the external world as well as his analysis of doubt and its limits.

The similarity between propositions of one’s world-picture (noetic framework) and grammatical propositions.

Confusions between kinds of certainty and degrees of certainty, as well as confusions about hinges.

Peter Hacker is Emeritus Fellow at St John’s College, Oxford (UK). He is known as a preeminent Wittgenstein scholar, and the author of numerous publications on Wittgenstein, philosophy, human nature, neuroscience and the human mind (see here for a full list of publications. Besides his own work, he is known for the analytic commentaries on the Philosophical Investigations together with Gordon P. Baker and the 2009 translation of the Philosophical Investigations with Joachim Schulte.

Welcome! – And please feel free to circulate the word.

The event will be hosted and chaired by Camilla Kronqvist.

On behalf of the Board of NWS
Lassi Jakola
Secretary, Nordic Wittgenstein Society
Docent of Philosophy, University of Helsinki

It is, perhaps, a different thing to wonder whether the sceptic may be right and then to try to work out whether that is so. — Ludwig V

I think this is ultimately where he lands (as Cavell will claim) and that he gets into to in the PI.

I tried to post all my notes together and it was 42,000 characters too long, so I’ll leave this as a reading group and post a separate discussion with all my notes so I can have them together. I think a I’ll add a post summarizing my comments on method.

After I give @Ludwig V’ a chance to comment on my response to his latest, I’m going to repost all my commentary in one post, as, by renaming the discussion, no one can search the whole thing anymore to find the sections.

@Ludwig V


Thank you for this. My hope is that I have read the words themselves correctly first and then dug deeper and let it give us everything it can before I jumped to any conclusions or think I’ve got it figured it out ahead of all that, but I’ve maybe made it seem there is only one thing to take away when there is a lot everyone else sees and has rightly brought up not because it conflicts but because different parts catch our interest.

@Paine

Put it this way, seeing these errors as logical makes them seem more appropriate for philosophy. — Ludwig V

I’m interested to hear more. The skeptic’s argument at their word appears to fly in the face of common sense, but yet to make sense to philosophy. I would think we all agree that Witt is not just arguing back with common sense (“The table’s right there!”) and I would hope we could agree that he shows that philosophy has been wrongly restricting what counts as “logic”, and that there is a logic to our different ways of judging each thing. So what are we doing with “appropriate”?

Now I will grant that part of what he is saying is that the skeptic is just doing it wrong; that they are thinking poorly in imposing their standards and creating a picture to have those make sense. And there is an admonishment by examples to do better (philosophically) by realizing the validity of the everyday logic of each thing. I’m happy with that here.

I only worry that in characterizing something as “inappropriate” we fall into thinking we have to guard the gate of what we imagine is logical vs, say, “emotional” (that this is a false dichotomy) when part of what he is doing is trying to make us see we are unnecessarily limiting what is able to be rationally and intelligibly discussed. For example, to bring ethical discussion back from the wilderness that the Tractatus imagined (this is not an argument for emotions).

That is, the temptation is not the temptation of pleasure. It's more like the temptation of taking the first offer for you car because you have better things to do than hang about selling it or putting on yesterday's clothes because that's what you have at hand. — Ludwig V

I agree; he’s not talking about some innate propensity or urge. Witt interchangeably uses the word “inclined”, which I see in the sense that we are set up to think of things a certain way, take a certain position in regard to the other. Partly our next step seems reasonable in the framework forced onto a topic by the analogy of the object (but also queer thus needing philosophy to explain). Thus we see the other as impenetrable if we only approach them as an object of knowledge.

There is also a moral component that something we are inclined to do is not necessarily something we have to do and so perhaps should not do, as, when we reach the bedrock of authority, we can still choose to continue to teach, lead again, listen, discuss why, etc., rather than just bring the hammer of convention down.

But this leaves the place of conviction still on the table. I remembered I had come across this before (bellow), which I took up here, and I see it that when you are inclined or tempted, you are not as yet committed. You have the chance to reflect and realize you are being set up or deluded before you act. And an inclination is not a reason, nor a cause, but we are responsible for our convictions.

‘I cannot know what is going on in with [someone writhing in pain with evident cause]’ is above all a picture. It is the convincing expression of a conviction. It does not give the reasons for the conviction. They are not readily accessible. — Witt, PI (p.223)

So the real question is not what are we tempted by, but what are the reasons for our conviction. Why are they not easy to reach? Is that it takes a lot of the kind of work we’ve done here to see the interests we really have? To get past our self-delusions. Are they withheld?

I'll venture that what W is interested in is not how we actually think, but how we should think - logic justifies its conclusions, psychology merely reports them. — Ludwig V

I agree; for me his work is largely ethical in that sense (like an ethic, a form of conducting yourself). How to think better, deeper, closer, more detail, based on the facts, having a case or example, letting things be what they are, etc. And there is a particular logic that “justifies” conclusions; but of course that is not the only version of logic. And sometimes it’s a matter of showing someone examples of other logics that changes their mind.

from the Tractatus to the PI, the distinction between science and whatever he is doing keeps being reestablished. That difference is often depicted as a limit to what can be explained but he seems hell bent to put it in other ways. — Paine

I agree the comparison with science is key. I don’t think the focus is on the distinction so much as that traditional philosophy wishes it had the same kind of outcomes as science, that matched its completeness, generalizability, predictability, consistency, etc. I take this as what he is talking about that our dissatisfaction with our ordinary criteria (p.59) makes us turn a “muddle” into something that would have an “answer” which is how and why the skeptic becomes “puzzled” (p.58). The restricted standard that the skeptic wants (as in the Tractatus) is what “limits” what they consider “rational” so they don’t recognize that although our ordinary criteria allow for us to get into muddles sometimes, there are also valid, intelligible ways to get out of it (just not ensured to ahead of time).

So, we have discussed previously where W looked at how the desire to be mysterious is recognized as a motive. But there is nothing like a move to make that an explanation for why it always happens. The latter would be an example of a reduction through psychology. — Paine

Sure, I don’t think it is an inherent trait or natural propensity, but it is one intelligible, possible reaction to our human condition of being separate. Another would be to imagine the only fault lies in language.

that we often impose one set of meanings to replace others… does not explain why W does not reduce one set of signs into another. — Paine

I’m not sure what the “set of signs” are, that they would be different (irreducible). The things he has us say are the same. “I can’t feel your pain.” etc. He just shows there are multiples senses of such a phrase which apply different (types of) criteria—allowing us to see the demands of the skeptic. He does say we can “construct new notations, in order to break the spell of those which we are accustomed to” but that is just an exercise to highlight the distinctions we make or could make.

One starting place is to ask why W wants to separate psychology from thinking. — Paine

Well, without a further explanation of what “psychology” means, I’ll assume we are talking about the kind of thing the skeptic pictures as a “thought” in us (as an object), or when they imagine thinking as a mechanism in a “queer kind of medium” that would “explain the action of the mind” (p.6). I take the method here is to show how (and why) the skeptic pictures thinking this way by contrasting it with (and perhaps in this way “separating” it from) the logic and reasons of our ordinary ways of judging what is a thought and what is considered thinking (as I mention above). I would conjecture that other reasons for differentiating these two versions of thought would be to show that our ordinary criteria are more varied, substantial, and illuminating than we had considered (been blind to). But I’m interested to hear what you take thinking to consist of, and why psychology would be a part of it (or thought to be), one that needed to be separated, and for what reason.

I resist the idea that thoughts about "the object" come down merely to a psychological motivation. — Paine

Is this to say you think I’ve made a mistake in reading? or that you disagree with him? And, to try to say this again, I’m not arguing this is the only thing to be learned, but I wouldn’t say it is insignificant (“merely”). And I still don’t understand what a “psychological motivation” is meant to distinguish, and differentiate from what. I mean, does pointing out that they are logical errors as well (generalization, forced analogy, abstracting criteria, etc.) make it seem less… personal, individual… ethical? And not to mince words, but I take him to be investigating why we take a particular framework of how we think about objects and impose it on how to think about thought, meaning, and understanding. I just need a little more, or to understand what I’m supposed to justify/explain if that’s the case.

I mean… it’s not gonna hurt (it is a dense 70 pages though). I hope it would help and be easier to scan through the discussion for the posts labeled Section___ that dig into the text of every 3-5 pages, as the above is a summary of those 20 posts, though those are still only what caught my eye. If there is anything of particular interest, I can point to my notes and the section of text.

Yes, but, importantly (though not in disagreement), not a physical process, or a conceptual process structured on the criteria for an object, but the process of the logic of a practice to judge (afterwards): what qualifies as understanding something; how we have a conversation about what is meaningful about what I said; or the difference between what we determine to be thought compared to just the voice inside your head, slogans, being polite, etc.

@Banno @Sam26 @Paine @Ludwig V @Jamal @Manuel @Astrophel @Joshs @Kurt Keefner @Shawn

Wrap it up!

I don't know who all has an interest in this, but below is my recap of my notes on the Blue Book. I encourage those who followed along to post their own takeaways. All these points are discussed in more detail, and the text cited, in my posts above labeled "Section". I may separately address the topic of method.

I offer that the investigation here leads to the question why the skeptic** wants to turn what is important to us (about thought, meaning, and understanding), into an object, to see it through the framework of a thing. Not just like a rock (that we identify, measure, equate, etc.) but in the classic picture that there is a “real” object, and we get from it an “idea”, which we picture as a corresponding “internal” object (appearance, experience, etc.), that he calls “sense data”.
(**I take it Witt sees himself, and each of us, as what I am labelling “the skeptic”--in that asking “why” is not just us versus them. So I will use ”we” interchangeably (though he does make the distinction of old philosophers and “we” new philosophers). Also, my determination is that getting into why here is left hanging, and is more explicitly taken up in the Philosophical investigations.)

Also the verbs, like “meaning”, are imagined as discrete mechanisms, making a connection every time. In the case of meaning: between language and “our understanding” (as a sense data object ). But philosophy has to account for any disconnect, which gives the mechanism a “queer” sense that seems hidden from us. He says we create a “mysterious” process in order to be able to treat it as a “problem” (p.6) because we have a scientific “preoccupation” with “answers”.

As an aside, there is a key point which allows for asking “why”. He realized that how society ended up with the ways we assess things is not only contingent on our world and our lives (not in “essence” or as “reality”, but in the sense of our history of circumstances and our practices), but he found that each thing has its own different measures, which he calls “criteria”. The epiphany is that criteria are what matters to us (society) about that thing, and so reflect our interests in it. There is the possibility for confusion in the similarity of terms, but the “why” of the skeptic is their interest in having particular criteria (separate from our everyday criteria—thus the reason for showing all the examples for comparison).

The desire for the form of an answer first shows our interest in rules and causality, but he contrasts that by showing how we may or may not follow a rule (at all) and that the timing is that reasons are given afterwards. We mostly say things that have already been said in situations similar enough to ours that it doesn’t need more elaboration, or that we have means to clear things up afterward when your response makes it evident that you do not understand what I was trying to say.

But we picture a complete solution before we act, and so instead of meaning being variations as yet undetermined, we imagine “our meaning” as an “undefinable” fixed object (in us); as if “our understanding” is present in our saying something. We imagine a specific purpose (e.g., no doubt) with particular criteria for judgment (“objectivity”), that is just communicated without clarity, instead of having various criteria to focus on which reveal what is meaningful to us, that would take a conversation back and forth to work out.

We want “consistency”, and the analogy of an object allows us to simplify across cases and generalize, so, for example, we see each other’s pain and our “sense data” of color needing to be “equal”. Evidence is wrongly gathered or attributed because they meet criteria we want or impose (like an “object” being empirical, certain), so ordinary criteria are overlooked and we become confused and create a mysterious process or situation.

The best juxtaposition I noticed was the difference between “…a thing I am thinking about, not 'that [thing] which I am thinking'.” (P.38) In the first, we are perhaps in a discussion (with ourselves even) considering, remarking on, analyzing, etc. a thing/object. Thinking in the second case is just the description of a thing/object which I have, “my thought”, which I take as a fact (as complete and without any need for context), and an internal object.

He says we interpret a practical, logical limitation as a metaphysical difficulty; such as a physical impossibility compared to a logical ”cannot” as "If we did that it would mean we cannot___”, or "When we do that, it's only in a situation where___”, or "We would first need to know___ if we were going to judge whether___”.

For example, we imagine your pain as a “hidden” object, interpreting you as an “insurmountable barrier”. But he says our not knowing another’s pain is not an inability, a “human frailty” (p.54), because knowledge is just not the logic of pain. Pain is not an object I “have” (p.53) like a gold tooth that is just hidden in our closed mouth, like “private” (unique) data (p.55) that we could (scientifically) identify or judge as equal to yours, like comparing two objects, made impossible because we each keep them only to ourselves.

An alternative example of the “experiential” logic (grammar)—taken from human experience, reflected in what we say—is that the “can/cannot” of pain is that it is hidden in the sense it is ours to reveal. Logically, in one usage/sense, we do not point to it (the object), but point it out (to you). For example, we say “I can’t know your pain” because it buffers us from the fact that it can hurt me to think of you as cold, or that “you can’t know my pain” makes me unique, unknowable, constant.

The motivation for an “answer” is a desire for “reliability, and solidity”. To picture “what I mean” as “information” (p.65) is to need it to be in the framework of only knowledge. Our personal experience is pictured as an internal object to be “the very basis of all that we say with any sense about [being a human]” (p. 48). He also says we are “tempted to say that these personal experiences are the material of which reality consists.” (p. 45) The skeptic really wants to be “inhabited” by the exceptional, in a way that “others can’t see”. Thus the creation of the object, that is a 'mind' or 'subject', is to make me inherently important and unique; as if within me would be “that which really lives”.

Taking the framework by analogy from an object forces its criteria on meaning, thinking, and understanding, but he leaves it that the skeptic is compelled by a state of conviction, like a secret they see that we don’t, like they “had discovered… new elements of the structure of the world”.

But what makes them excited is not being trapped in the analogy, but by the possibilities of the criteria for an object, which are generalizable, complete, concrete, verifiable, substantial, etc. They become so compelled because there is nothing in the way of them projecting/imagining what they want: knowledge, an answer, a justification, a foundation, something of which they can be certain.

The use of "philosophy" in this is almost an appeal to a commonly understood matter of fact like the others being used. — Paine

When he asks us to consider the question, the inflection of “Why should what we do here be called ‘philosophy’?” can change either between “I don’t care how you judge what is philosophy; I will do what I want” and “We can make philosophy what we will, so let’s find out what is distinctive, important, and what is the place for what we do here”. We can even simply go with the common understanding.

I do think a concept of self is the concern but deliberately inverted at the same time. — Paine

[Is he] suggesting that the concept of the self is at or near the centre of the network? — Ludwig V

It appears to me, thematically, that every mention of the self is in the same vein as saying there is no object that is the subject. The self is “suitable” under a number of parts of uses in various circumstances. So there does not seem to be much to call ‘the self’ as a fixed thing at all, even as a concept, though there is a sense of the self as conceptual, as in: a (logical) construct, rather than essential. This sense could fit the impermanence of being subject to “circumstances”, along with the reliance on society’s power to “give” or take of its “preservation” as it sees fit, or simply “wishes”. He waives off legitimacy because there is no preset, valid self, so we can be free of conformity (as an heir would not be), to decide what matters (what will be the criteria) for a self, to my self, in the creation and judgment of the self.

Thus, as implied in the last line, I take it that part of what he means is that: what we are going to call “mental” (as what is common among seeing, thinking, and pain) is not modeled after an opposite object from “physical”, in the sense that “I have pain” does not indicate (denote) a pain in a body, it is requesting help; “I have a thought” is not the sign of a referent, but is to get attention for something to add; and “I see a nightingale” does not indicate my point of view, it is to identify the bird.

On the other hand, that's a different question from "Who am I?" Is W trying to persuade us to drop the former question, perhaps in favour of the latter? — Ludwig V

Perhaps, on whose terms will I be judged? Do I have (own) a self?

Why interject the self-reference at all? — Millard J Melnyk

This is our desire that everything be subject to the method and implications of science, which is the basis of its facts. If you follow its method, and I (competently) follow the method, we come to the same answer—it doesn’t matter about the person. We want what we do to not involve the personal (individual) nor the human at all. Knowledge can have this form, but not everything involves knowledge (although still rational, as having intelligible reasons). And “I know” does not only have that sense, as “I know you are in pain” is not to know their pain but to tell you I see your pain. I accept (or reject) you as a person in pain (in response to “I am in pain”).

Most of what we know, we know on authority. Naturally, a good deal then hangs on the warrant for that authority, but it is not a marginal source for our knowledge. Of course, sadly, it is all to easy to misuse authority, once it is conceded, but that doesn't undermine its importance in practice. — Ludwig V

Yes, if a hypothesis were to be judged before being verified, authority (expertise) may put the odds in their favor, but they might not be privy to facts on the ground. But a claim to knowledge can be solely based on authority because it is transferable (in the sense of being aware of the answer). But in deciding what is the right thing to do (say, when we are at a loss), the authority is me, warranted or unwarranted, which does not hang on verification nor justification (it is not a necessity, categorically, but not thus “irrational”, as unintelligible—just a different “logic”). The State has its (supposed) own authority.

Is there a reason why we haven't mentioned Ryle? — Ludwig V

And of course as I am a terrible thinker that can’t imagine other arguments (nod to @Paine), this has blown my mind. The difference between Witt and Austin comes to mind first, in that the farthest that Austin gets in trying to figure out why Ryle is making his argument is logically, and even then he is pitying him either to explain what he believes Ryle is trying to say, or what Ryle wants his argument to do and then why it doesn’t or can’t. Witt alternatively knows that the skeptic is also him (from the Tractatus), but, since he hates that he got sucked into it, he wants to cut himself open and do a living autopsy to figure out how and why.

I do think a look back at “Sense and Sensabilia” (which we read here) would be interesting and helpful. Ryle is purportedly the same as Witt’s skeptic.

@Ludwig V @Paine

The language of the Blue Book pits his view of how "meaning' happens against how others do it. I read that as him seeing himself in an actual conflict over how to understand the world as we experience it. — Paine

I'm going to formally rescind my claim that Witt is not discussing thinking, meaning (understanding, seeing, experiencing, using language, etc.) in and of themselves, because he obviously is, and getting the correct sense of these things is part of what philosophy is about (but sadly where a lot of the conflict comes in). I guess I was only trying to fight the stream of opinion that I have encountered elsewhere that that is primarily what he is doing, or, more of a loss, that that is only what he is doing.

I welcome any discussion of these topics, because his conclusion that these are misunderstood as objects or mechanisms is important and changes the assumptions of philosophy for centuries.

Epistemically, belief and thought are identical. — Millard J Melnyk

Sorry there appears to be so much ancillary concern/interpretation here. I understand where you are coming from. In fact, philosophy is littered with discussion of rational/irrational (or "emotional" as it is sometimes called). There may be some piling on that could be cleared up. Is a more accurate first premise to say: "To the degree that a belief is semantically and epistemically as rational as a thought..."?

It's only that there are at least three senses (versions/options) of “belief”:

One is as you say, interchangeable with a certain sense of thought--though as @Banno points out, there are a few versions of thought as well--but I think we would agree the one you are employing is the same as "I know" to the extent that it is a claim (to be knowledge). This would be the sense that, if you are overly "confident", and it is not "warranted" (it is not true), you will be arrogant (I have no idea what that is like though) or lose credibility (though you may not know it) as @Ludwig V points out.

Another is as a hypothesis, as in a guess. Which may be verified as correct, but does not put me in the same relationship to you—I can guess with no justification because I am not making a claim to you that "I know" anything (true). "Is it raining?" "I believe it is." "Why?" ... and the next thing I say does not have to be verified or verifiable (though that it is raining can). A guess may be silly or crazy, but it is not judged as to whether it is "irrational" because it is not a claim to "truth beyond the limits of its epistemic warrant".

But I believe it is the third version of belief where we get all jumbled together: belief as something I am willing to stand behind (say, on principal), such as “[My belief is that] everyone is created equal” (A moral claim discussed here). Now this is not the same as a justified claim or a verifiable guess but is not without reasons ("irrational"), even if only what I will be responsible for, what I stake or promise my actions to reflect. This is a conviction, which is just not in the same ballpark as what you term "confidence".

Perhaps what we are hoping for is a certain definition of "rational", but I believe the hitch might be that in including the second and excluding the third as being "rational", you thus pile together what is "irrational".

All of that is to say that with a tweak or two to some premises, this is all well and good. Even to the extent, if made explicit, what it is that you feel/think is going on and how that justifies you to “dispense with accepted definitions and categories if they don't fit what's really going on.”

Unfortunately, without those tweaks, the relevance that you draw cannot apply outside a certain bubble, as "cannot" wishes to imply here:

You cannot create captive groups, cliques, cults, companies, “societies”, governments, nations, philosophies, or religions with just “I think”. — Millard J Melnyk

Now we could argue that "I wish you would...", or "You're an idiot to...", but, categorically, you cannot shift between think/belief as a claim or guess, and belief as a thing that creates nations. The leg we stand on is our consent to the social contract (even if implied). We are constituted in and by what we hold to be true--thus why countries don't speak of irrationality, or right or wrong, but treason. Now, if you want to talk political philosophy and about "authority and coercion", that is a timely matter, but, alas for all of us, not epistemological.

he’s diagnosing the impulse to construct “mind-models” as a grammatical temptation. Our very desire to “explain” thought as if it were a causal process is already the problem. Is this your interpretation too? — Joshs

Yes, roughly. I do agree with framing it as a discussion about logic, and thus, yes, grammatical in that sense**, but not to prove the logic of, for example, rule-following, or that the logic of rule-following explains how language is used, and particularly that rule-following takes the place of a "causal process" (foundational/justification). Though I don't take you as necessarily making those points.

I still take all of the discussions as examples primarily for the greater (philosophical) purpose of showing that our practices have entirely different "logic" (internal to them) than the skeptic's, and, most importantly, if we understand how the "why" of those ordinary criteria work--that they reflect our shared interests in our practices--then maybe we can find a way to understand the "why" that the interlocutor/skeptic has.

And I take this "why" as partly being railroaded by the analogy of the object (as a means), but, more to the point, to be them wanting a particular version of logic (generalized, imposed criteria) and that it is their interpreting the matter as an (empirical) "problem" (thus seeing the only response as an "answer") which propels them down their rabbit hole. I take this as similar to your point that "thought" is not something that is to be explained (as a cause), rather than, say, a logical judgment we make about an expression.

**I do think framing it as a "grammatical temptation" runs the risk of implying it only concerns language, thus the mischaracterization as the "linguistic turn", which I take as a confusion of his method of looking at the expressions we (all) say in certain situations as a means to facilitate understanding the logic of our practices, rather than just an explanation of the way language works (thus the misunderstanding of "use") or that it is just a matter that it runs us into trouble (that this is just untwisting the sense of words), although he does a bit of both of those too.

err

You have provided a description of the text as meaning to say X but the singular purpose you assign it is not an argument for it over against any countervailing view. — Paine

Well if I haven’t provided the evidence in the text (or examples) for what I read in it, then I haven’t been doing my job, but I tried to make that my priority (though, as I look back at it, there are a few transposed terms and perspectives from PI). And, as I say, there may be parts of the text that are of separate interest. I actually did even mention other readings that I would either count as too surface—too literal in a sense—(to have it about identifying color or equating pain*) or entire misinterpretations, that would take him to be providing an “answer” to the skeptic’s “problem” (for example, forms of life as justification**).

But I will grant you that I would be a better thinker if I could more easily put myself in the shoes of others, a la Witt himself, or Mill ( though he makes “On Liberty” three times longer than it needs to be fighting windmills). Actually, if Witt were just convincing us of something, it would be 20 pages, but he is trying to investigate to get to the bottom of “why” the skeptic looks at the situation as they do.

With the response here (“it would mean that all the apparent concern with other topics are rhetorical ploys put in place to distract the reader”*), I don’t mean to suppress discussion of color, pain, etc. in themselves, e.g., how feelings (the brain) actually do work. Witt even grants the line of inquiry into the “casual connections” of the brain. “Supposing we tried to construct a mind-model as a result of psychological investigations, a model which, as we should say, would explain the action of the mind…. We may find that such a mind-model would have to be very complicated and intricate in order to explain the observed mental activities….” (p.6)

But he does say that “the method of their solution is that of natural science” and that “this aspect of the mind does not interest us” which is related to one of two aspects of this lecture that I think is the hardest to wrap our heads around. This is just before saying that “For what struck us as being queer about thought and thinking was not at all that it had curious effects which we were not yet able to explain (causally). Our problem, in other words, was not a scientific one; but a muddle felt as a problem.” (Emphasis in original). I will try to address this problematizing in a summary, as it is tied to the projection of an object onto understanding thought, etc.

*And I do think the examples are important in actually showing how thinking, understanding, meaning, experiencing, “seeing”, are logical (not internal) practices, which I do see as more traditional philosophical topics, though, again, he gets into these with more breadth in the PI.

Also, as soon as I started talking about fear and desire (of the skeptic), that seemed to ruffle some feathers. As much as I do think that is relevant and evidenced here, it is more a matter of the PI, so I tried to back off that discussion as that is three steps deeper in this text (past where he ends at “conviction”). I would offer though that the resistance to seeing the skeptic as more than intellectual—that “want” is more than logical here—is to want (desire) reasons to just be of a certain type (only a certain “logic”), and to rule everything else out as “psychological”, which traditionally is termed “belief” or “irrational” (“emotional”), or, as you put it, “personal problems”, as if all of us do not have the skeptic within us. But that could, and it appears should, be an entirely different discussion.

Are you saying that Wittgenstein was not bringing in that reference as an important background to think about generality? — Paine

No, sorry to trivialize that. It does seem important, and interesting.

The introduction of "language games" is not the challenge it seems to be given to his contemporaries but is really just a diagnosis of a particular set of personal problems. — Paine

**I take it that ‘language games’ is just a way of referring to the imagined examples that he creates, but I don’t think they are just “rhetorical” though (there is a point). And, as I say above, ‘forms of life’ is just a way of pointing to our practices—which he more specifically terms ‘concepts’, like pointing, or following rules, etc.—but the reasons being their varied logic, and so about judgment, criteria and our interests in them reflected in our language (though I see this as one of my premature impositions of the PI here). And, yes, it’s just taken up by others as a challenge because they misinterpret it as a proposed solution to (or dissolution of) the skeptic’s problem (re: foundation, justification), which comes from applying the method of science to philosophy (p.6). I would suggest though, again, that the first part is more appropriately a separate topic of a discussion of the PI.

There something a bit odd about the mutual silence between Wittgenstein and the Oxford people. There must have been some sort of communication or awareness. — Ludwig V

Well now we’re just agreeing too much for this to be fun. But to this, I did read that Austin and Wittgenstein bristled at the mention of the other, taking some minor distinction and making it seem like a big deal, which is ironic that apparent ego trumped their mutual, vast ability to imagine the position of another, and a bit sad as Wittgenstein always thought no one would understand him.

I think, however, that the approach that argues that what the sceptic/solipsist/whoever wants to say cannot be said sometimes comes over as denying even the space to state a view. — Ludwig V

True, true. His method is to make the most sense of what they say even if that entails imagining a whole new world to do it.

But I think it is dangerous to take widespread agreement about logical differences for granted - it leads to complacency and dogmatism. — Ludwig V

Ah but allowing for the possibility of, even assuming, the agreement, is to necessarily allow for the outlier cases/possibility of aversion to conforming to society, even in every instance.

Are you referring to Socrates or Wittgenstein? I am familiar with the phrase "man-splaining" but don't know how to hear "man-listening." — Paine

Just that Socrates doesn’t hear anything as important unless it meets his criteria. Obviously a poor joke.

Your map has no place for the arguments against Russel and Frege. — Paine

True, there is more going on than just looking at how the interlocutor (the skeptic) imagines their claims, and thus why they are making them, but I would argue that it is the primary thrust of the investigation, starting here in the Blue Book, but of course we all have different things that catch our eye/interests. As far as Cavell and Austin, I tried to limit it to just cross-over instances of the same method, but I imagine my studies leaked into understanding this text.

@Paine

the study of the logic of our language and the study of how people actually use their language are different practices. — Ludwig V

I get that there is a difference between what Witt is doing and (cognitive) linguistics or the scientific study of our ability to communicate. I take his idea to be that learning language involves learning our shared judgments (lives), so the sense and meaning of language, its logic, is wrapped up in our practices. But yes, there is the confusion of turning this into a scientific/sociological enterprise, which I think comes from what Witt points out is the desire for an “answer”.

There's no problem about that. The meaning of "must" is specified by the context. — Ludwig V

Yes, but the logic of ordinary criteria provides a context-based sense of what is appropriate, etc., where the skeptic’s “must” is dictated beforehand by imposing the criteria of certainty.

Is there anything obviously wrong with the answer [to why the skeptic wants certainty] that we want/need to resolve the cognitive dissonance? — Ludwig V

Well I think there is more to learn from the skeptic in the PI than just a resolution. We know how they do it now in the Blue Book, but the question of why, I would think, calls for further investigation.

@Ludwig V

…what sticks out for me is when Wittgenstein complained that Socrates was being too complacent in his job of midwifery in the Theaetetus. Let's make finding out if an idea is alive harder.... — Paine

First instance of man-listening. I just couldn’t with the off-the-wall examples. I mean I know it’s hard to create a situation that matches the logic of the desire of the skeptic, but another’s pain in my body? And what’s “me” and “A.N.”? I can’t tell if it had to be genius or the guy’s imagination was wack.

On a serious note, I think Witt is coming to conclusions, making judgments, and even casting dispersions all over his work. I think people get confused about Witt not claiming “theories” (bad choice of words on his part), which I believe is because a) he is not responding in “answer” to the skeptic’s problematizing; and b) it just relates to the method, in that “what we mean when we say…” is only relevant if it is something we all accept. If we can’t accept the premise of what the logical difference is between an accident and mistake, we won’t see what Austin is trying to tell us about intentional acts.

And as far as bringing philosophy to a close, I don’t think philosophy is relegated to just responding to radical skepticism. And now we can investigate assumptions and connotations, and we learn what the commitments and ramifications are of what we do, and whether we are messing it up by putting ourselves in the middle of it. Sounds like solid thinking when something comes up we aren’t sure how to deal with—when “right” or “ought” are up for grabs.

@Ludwig V

Is the writing, Must We Mean What We Say, where Cavell introduces the central role of the skeptic in his reading of Wittgenstein? — Paine

“Claim of Reason” really but that’s a tomb. “Availability of the Later Wittgenstein” I think. There’s the example of method and evaluation of the skeptic in “Knowing and Acknowledging”, which offers the “truth of skepticism”. These essays are in the book MWMWWSay.

Is that to say it is a sort of last word for you even if it does not satisfy others? — Paine

Well I’m not sure I could explain better, but I’m willing to add more words, though I also think we would want to tie it into the language of his method here in the Blue Book, as he appears to be developing it as he goes along.

That being said, from PI: “599. In philosophy we do not draw conclusions. "But it must be like this!" is not a philosophical proposition. Philosophy only states what everyone admits.”

But my puzzle is what Wittgenstein means by "our real need"… So, in principle, what he is talking about can be spotted or revealed within our general practices and desires. — Ludwig V

The skeptic has a singular need (for certainty). Witt’s method shows society’s various interests (“desires”) in our “general practices”, thus allowing the question whether our personal needs and desires align with (conform to) society’s (“real” in contrast). If the skeptic’s desperation is for a foundation, are we really simply providing a better “answer”?

I think that Wittgenstein later discussion of "seeing an aspect" (interpretation) as in a puzzle picture — Ludwig V

But seeing the other as a puzzle seems to again want the issue to have an “answer”. But I do agree that seeing an aspect is related but in the sense of an “attitude” (PI, p. 178) or relation to another, rather than an “opinion” as contrasted to the sense of “conviction”, as we are not of the opinion the other has a soul (id), because the logic of it is that we relate to them, we treat them, as if they have a soul (or not). Perhaps the “conviction” in the Blue Book is the skeptic’s “attitude”, as it is used in the PI, not as a feeling towards, but in its sense of taking a position (not as an intellectual stance, believing in it) but our orientation in relation to something, our inclination to act in a certain way, as the skeptic has their inclinations.

Redo

I see three different uses of language games here. — Ludwig V

I take all three instances as used in the sense of the first. The teacher/student examples to work out the logic of our relation to others, not the social process of learning; and the histories are also imagined to point out our relationship to our culture, not as factual. Even the facts he brings up (say, about animals) are not factual “claims”.

I've come to think that there is a point buried in solipsism, just not quite the point they see. — Ludwig V

I take it as the topic under investigation in the PI—why do we/they want this logical purity?

We want to say that there can't be any vagueness in logic. The idea now absorbs us, that the ideal 'must' be found in reality. Meanwhile we do not as yet see how it occurs there, nor do we understand the nature of this "must". We think it must be in reality; for we think we already see it there. — PI, Witt. #101

And, not to discuss it here, but he does mention “conviction” again.

If I see someone writhing in pain with evident cause I do not think: all the same, his feelings are hidden from me…. "I cannot know what is going on in him" is above all a picture. It is the convincing expression of a conviction. It does not give the reasons for the conviction. They are not readily accessible. — Philosophical Investigations, Witt p.223 (my underlined emphasis)

@Ludwig V @Joshs @Paine

If there must be a further explanation that all of us can give examples of what anyone would say when X, and the logic of that, then I’ll leave it to someone else:

There are statements which produce instances of what is said in a language ("We do say . . . but we don't say-"; "We ask whether . . . but we do not ask whether-"). (2) Sometimes these instances are accompanied by explications-statements which make explicit what is implied when we say what statements of the first type instance us as saying ("When we say . . . we imply (suggest, say)-": "We don't say ... unless we mean-")…. Speakers of English… do not, in general, need evidence for what is said in the language; they are the source of such evidence. — Must We Mean What We Say, Cavell p.3

We do not accept a question like "Did you do that voluntarily?" as appropriate about any and every action. If a person asks you whether you dress the way you do voluntarily, you will not understand him to be curious merely about your psychological processes (whether you’re wearing them "proceeds from free choice . . . "); …"He wouldn't say that unless he . . ." then in the described situation we will complete it with something like ". . . unless he thought that my way of dressing is peculiar."… the fact remains that he wouldn't (couldn't) say what he did without implying what he did: he MUST MEAN that my clothes are peculiar. I am less interested now in the "mean" than I am in the "must." (After all, there is bound to be some reason why a number of philosophers are tempted to call a relation logical; "must" is logical.) — Id, p.9

Now of course this MUST does not convince the skeptic (these senses are not conflicting; this is not a fight with “common sense”), but it allows us the philosophical data/facts to compare and shed light on their “MUST” reasons.