I guess that the "craving for generality" is a condition that we cannot escape. That is a psychological observation along with whatever it is that Wittgenstein sees as going beyond that.

The question I have is to what degree does the Blue Book discussion of solipsism argue with what the Tractatus says. In the latter, the condition is "manifest" but not "said". In the former, it is a problem that is not necessary after considering other means of expression. Is that another way to point to what cannot be said or is it a change of opinion about the grounds of talking about conditions?

So solipsism is part of the human condition? Then how can philosophy free us from it? But then, if solipsism is part of the human condition, what does it mean to say that it is only an illusion of language? — Ludwig V

I don't get the sense that the condition is explained away. The "illusion of language" seems like a complete explanation in a work that questions "general explanations."

If completely general explanations work for establishing human conditions, then Wittgenstein is hoisted by his own petard.

Till next time.

:up:
The effortless grace of it is scary.

Let's replace "time" with anything, say a tree or an idea. It is not the case that "all the facts" are open to us, only those facts which we are of aware of at the given time and (crucially) those facts which we may have no access to. — Manuel

I agree that our access to facts is limited. I don't think "tree" applies in this case because "time" is being compared to other ideas with no body:

But it is the use of the substantive "time" which mystifies us. If we look into the grammar of that word, we shall feel that it is no less astounding that man should have conceived of a deity of time than it would be to conceive of a deity of negation or disjunction. — Blue Book, page 6

I see him saying that we are not concerned with the "causal connections" here, not that they are a category error. We can discuss this if we want, rather, we are choosing not to do so now. — Manuel

I agree with this view of a choice. Separating the activities brings new interest to why "time" came to be conceived as a deity where 'negation' and 'disjunction' are just ideas.

The song has the tension of a nostalgia for a place that does not exist, at least yet. "Blossom fails to bloom."

There is a sense of shame in the negation. "Promise not to stare too long."

The chorus tells how we get by: "Sha La La La La."

There is a connection to the vibe in Kafka's Amerika: An ideal vision stuck living in a cramped cabin.

I am more personally connected the Who will Love Aladdin Sane generation: "Battle cries and champagne, just in time for sunrise."

But that is unambiguously nostalgic because it is not a "model of sustainability", shall we say.

This reminds me of the reaction to Berkeley's "removal" of matter or the entire physical world. A modern case is the outrage caused by "illusionism". I've never been quite sure whether the authors of those ideas deliberately chose a shocking formulation rather than the mundane version. What's that French phrase about upsetting the bourgeoisie? — Ludwig V

Berkeley's version of solipsism is precisely what is discussed in the latter portion of the Blue Book. Wittgenstein's effort differs from Kant who worked to counter the arbitrary quality of causality as presented by Hume. Kant put forth that all of our thinking requires the intuitions of space and time. This places the Cogito of Descartes in a particular "set of facts" that is psychological in nature. Wittgenstein, however, argues that solipsism results from misuse of language:

Now when the solipsist says that only his own experiences are real, it is no use answering him: "Why do you tell us this if you don't believe that we really hear it?" Or anyhow, if we give him this answer, we mustn't believe that we have answered his difficulty. There is no common sense answer to a philosophical problem. One can defend common sense against the attacks of philosophers only by solving their puzzles, i.e., by curing them of the temptation to attack common sense; not by restating the views of common sense. A philosopher is not a man out of his senses, a man who doesn't see what everybody sees; nor on the other hand is his disagreement with common sense that of the scientist disagreeing with the coarse views of the man in the street. That is, his disagreement is not founded on a more subtle knowledge of fact. We therefore have to look round for the source of his puzzlement. And we find that there is puzzlement and mental discomfort, not only when our curiosity about certain facts is not satisfied or when we can't find a law of nature fitting in with all our experience, but also when a notation dissatisfies us--perhaps because of various associations which it calls up. Our ordinary language, which of all possible notations is the one which pervades all our life, holds our mind rigidly in one position, as it were, and in this position sometimes it feels cramped, having a desire for other positions as well. Thus we sometimes wish for a notation which stresses a difference more strongly, makes it more obvious, than ordinary language does, or one which in a particular case uses more closely similar forms of expression than our ordinary language. Our mental cramp is loosened when we are shown the notations which fulfil these needs. These needs can be of the greatest variety.

Now the man whom we call a solipsist and who says that only his own experiences are real, does not thereby disagree with us about any practical question of fact, he does not say that we are simulating when we complain of pains, he pities us as much as anyone else, and at the same time he wishes to restrict the use of the epithet "real" to what we should call his experiences; and perhaps he doesn't want to call our experiences "experiences" at all (again without disagreeing with us about any question of fact). For he would say that it was inconceivable that experiences other than his own were real. He ought therefore to use a notation in which such a phrase as "A has real toothache" (where A is not he) is meaningless, a notation whose rules exclude this phrase as the rules of chess exclude a pawn's making a knight's move. The solipsist's suggestion comes to using such a phrase as "there is real toothache" instead of "Smith (the solipsist) has toothache". And why shouldn't we grant him this notation? I needn't say that in order to avoid confusion he had in this case better not use the word "real" as opposed to "simulated" at all; which just means that we shall have to provide for the distinction "real"/"simulated" in some other way. The solipsist who says "only I feel real pain", "only I really see (or hear)" is not stating an opinion; and that's why he is so sure of what he says. He is irresistibly tempted to use a certain form of expression; but we must yet find why he is. — Blue Book, 59

This confirms the observation made by Fooloso4:

The temptation is not to treat words as objects, but to assume that there must be some object that corresponds to the word:

"But it is the use of the substantive "time" which mystifies us. — Fooloso4

The last two sentences of Blue Book:

Let's not imagine the meaning as an occult connection the mind makes between a word and a thing, and that this connection contains the whole usage of a word as the seed might be said to contain the tree.

The kernel of our proposition that that which has pains or sees or thinks is of a mental nature is only, that the word "I" in "I have pains" does not denote a particular body, for we can't substitute for "I" a description of a body. — ibid. page 79

Sha La La La La:

It is important to consider and give a response. I need to take some time to make it more than an emotional reaction. I am presently fixing a hole where the rain gets in.

I hear you, friend of mine.

Women. losing rights by changes in law. The U.S. is suddenly the new Tehran.

If you look back on the comments, there is much litigation of the past but very little hope for a future. He could be making fun of trump or serving him.

That is why he is still around.

Edit to add: Too speculative and ad hominem.

Nice. I resemble that remark.

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). — Antony Nickles

I think the key point is that giving to us an 'agent who thinks' is standing on the outside trying to look in:

We are most strongly tempted to think that here are things hidden, something we can see from the outside but which we can't look into. And yet nothing of the sort is the case. — Blue Book, page 6

Science does try to uncover what is hidden but Wittgenstein sees his enterprise differently. The problem of describing the agent while being that agent is prominent in the Tractatus:

The subject does not belong to the world: rather, it is a limit of the world.
Where in the world is a metaphysical subject to be found?
You will say that this is exactly like the case of the eye and the visual field. But really you do not see the eye.
And nothing in the visual field allows you to infer that it is seen by an eye. — Tractatus, 5.633

In the Blue Book, Wittgenstein abandons the explanatory éclat of Tractatus but there is a bridge between the two. He goes from saying this:

There is no a priori order of things.
Here it can be seen that solipsism, when its implications are followed out strictly, coincides with pure realism. The self of solipsism shrinks to a point without extension, and there remains the reality coordinated with it.
Thus there really is a sense in which philosophy can talk about the self in a non-psychological way.
What brings the self into philosophy is the fact that ‘the world is my world’.
The philosophical self is not the human being, not the human body, or the human soul, with which psychology deals, but rather the metaphysical subject, the limit of the world—not a part of it. — Tractatus, 5.64

to talking about the "craving for generality" The fifth example he gives is:

Our craving for generality has another main source: our preoccupation with the method of science. I mean the method of reducing the explanation of natural phenomena to the smallest possible number of primitive natural laws; and, in mathematics, of unifying the treatment of different topics by using a generalization.
Philosophers constantly see the method of science before their eyes, and are irresistibly tempted to ask and answer questions in the way science does. This tendency is the real source of metaphysics, and leads the philosopher into complete darkness. I want to say here that it can never be our job to reduce anything to anything, or to explain anything. Philosophy really is 'purely descriptive'. (Think of such questions as "Are there sense data?" and ask: What method is there of determining this? Introspection?) — Blue Book, page 18

This is all in aid of my saying Wittgenstein is inverting the perspective of Kant and Hume in how he talks about what is immediately given as 'internal' versus 'external'. Their versions of solipsism do not lead to sentences like: "The self of solipsism shrinks to a point without extension, and there remains the reality coordinated with it."

What I liked about Selzer is that she refused to speculate how her method would work in other States. Her groove was "try it and see what you find."

Quite nerve racking honestly... — Manuel

It reminds me of that time in High School when I was an unwarned participant of a game of chicken on a street out West as a passenger in a rusty Impala...

He then flat out claims that what gives life to a sign is not us, but a system of signs. — Antony Nickles

People using signs are alive. They give life to the signs through their use. Wittgenstein recognizes that a process must be happening organically that makes thinking, speaking, and listening possible but sees his work as something entirely different from investigating that:

We may find that such a mind-model would have to be very complicated and intricate in order to explain the observed mental activities; and on this ground we might call the mind a queer kind of medium. But this aspect of the mind does not interest us. The problems which it may set are psychological problems, and the method of their solution is that of natural science.

Now if it is not the causal connections which we are concerned with, then the activities of the mind lie open before us. And when we are worried about the nature of thinking, the puzzlement which we wrongly interpret to be one about the nature of a medium is a puzzlement caused by the mystifying use of our language. This kind of mistake recurs again and again in philosophy; e.g. when we are puzzled about the nature of time, when time seems to us a queer thing. We are most strongly tempted to think that here are things hidden, something we can see from the outside but which we can't look into. And yet nothing of the sort is the case. It is not new facts about time which we want to know. All the facts that concern us lie open before us. But it is the use of the substantive "time" which mystifies us. If we look into the grammar of that word, we shall feel that it is no less astounding that man should have conceived of a deity of time than it would be to conceive of a deity of negation or disjunction — Blue Book, page 6

That is a bold statement that separates his interests from the skepticism of Hume considered by Kant. Perhaps those different agendas cannot be completely separated as Wittgenstein put forth. It would be a mistake, however, to ignore his efforts to do just that.

So, a guy asks you to imagine having sex with a porn star. But he becomes appalled that you thought he was thinking of ejaculating upon her.

But wait!

He meant to say that the porn star would not be so saucy if she had gone to Vietnam.

It is odd that the Trump campaign went to New Mexico. They have many ethnic divides but nothing a flyby gringo could capitalize upon. The place is nothing like Arizona or Texas.

And there is the gnashing of their teeth and the lamentations of their women to hope for.

A thread of humiliation weaves the bromance into a single hair shirt.

The support for Trump extends far beyond the man himself—it's that people want to see a peevish, arrogant, and nakedly contemptuous pseudo-aristocracy punished for its abuses, and re-electing the Orange Man is clearly THE most effective way to do it. — Chisholm

That's the Bannon message in a nutshell. The joke will be on those people when their fortunes decline further through the expansion of monied interests at their expense. I wonder if the pain inflicted upon some of their neighbors will be a sufficient return on their investment.

The Libertarians of past generations have given way to billionaires swapping spit with a group who promises authoritative solutions to political problems. As Carlson said at a recent rally, Daddy is coming home to spank the bad little girl.

Just wanted to acknowledge the congressional element of your observation. A group who has voted reliably is suddenly in play.

The Tiki torch crowd will shake their burning sticks no matter what is said. The thing about saying this in NYC is the long history of the people from Puerta Rico in the city. What I have learned from working with many of them is that they are closely networked with their relatives here in the States and back on the Island. I also learned that many are conservative in their views. Here is a guy who puts those elements into focus:

Agreed. There is a strong conservative interest in those groups who vote for their perceived interests even if it aligns them with people they otherwise do not like. They can tear down a tent as quickly make one.

Having one of the speakers of the MSG rally held last night joke that Puerto Rico is garbage is going to piss off people on both sides of the political divide. The campaign seems to have forgotten where the hell they were.

I don't want to make light of the peril of another Trump administration. I am only saying that the most dangerous parts go well beyond a particular person and their intentions.

I take a less apocalyptic view. I survived Covid when Trump was talking about quack cures and the power of bleach. One has to only listen to him speak for ten minutes now to learn that he is less than the ignorant person he was back then.

So, it would really suck if he were elected. It is the people around him who would use that for their advantage that is the more present danger. He is the El Cid riding the horse into battle after passing away.

Your take of his persona is odd for me to hear.

I have been working in construction for almost 40 years in NYC. He has long been the client you do not want to have. He makes deals to burn them. I worked for outfits that made similar deals with similar people. I never got paid fully from them. Pour Champaigne on me twice, shame on me.

Of course it is a business. They serve their market just as the Washington Times serves theirs. If it was a matter of only the marketplace, the paper would not suffer for declining to endorse. If we are to believe the narrative, Bezos does not want to be on the enemy list if Trump wins. That too, can be a financial decision but a different calculation than maximizing profit.

Another big news organization in chaos from big money pulling for Trump:

I am not sure how to talk about these different experiences in a modern context.

In the Republic, the most repeated ratio is the individual soul being the measure of what happens in a City.

Socrates becomes a voice in the City like his internal voice works on himself.

The 'moral panic' language can be found on Fox, Washington Times, Breitbart, and Red State.

The sources for the 1/6 action at the Capitol being engineered by the deep state is less available. Like his master, Nos for a two cannot be fact checked.

According to Kelly, Trump did not believe him when he pointed out that some of Hitler's generals tried to kill him. I am sure you are right about the image of success.

Trump's real problem is that the Constitution limits the role of the military in our society.

The bleakest work of Russian literature I've read is probably Life and Fate by Grossman. Or maybe it's harrowing, rather than bleak, since it's fundamentally optimistic and non-nihilistic. Anyway, it's great. — Jamal

I get why you say it is non-nihilistic but it changed the shape of my nightmares forever.

John Kelly reports on Trump's approval of Hitler in some respects. The pooper scoopers who follow his every move will probably not pick that one up.

There are many elements to your thesis that require different kinds of responses. I will stick to one question for now:

The principle of sufficient reason was developed by Leibniz a hundred years or more after Spinoza. Which part of Spinoza's argument in his Ethics demonstrates the use of this principle?

There are the accounts of Socrates' daimon giving him warnings. In Phaedo, the voice said he should set poetry to music. Plato shows him as withdrawn from others before going to the party in Symposium. Plato keeps pointing to these personal experiences but does not turn them into a single story. They seem to vary as much as the different myths that are used throughout his works.

That is a contrast to Xenophon who does speak of 'conversations' with a divine agent in his Apology.

As for introducing ‘new divinities,’ how could I be guilty of that merely in asserting that a god’s voice is made manifest to me indicating what I should do? Surely those who take their omens from the cries of birds and the utterances of humans form their judgments on ‘voices.’ Will any one dispute either that thunder utters its ‘voice’ or that it is an omen of the greatest moment? Does not the very priestess who sits on the tripod at Pytho divulge the god’s will through a ‘voice’? But more than that, in regard to the god’s foreknowledge of the future and his forewarning of it to whomever he wishes, these are the same terms, I assert, that all people use and credit. The only difference between them and me is that whereas they call the sources of their forewarning ‘birds,’ ‘utterances,’ ‘chance meetings,’ ‘prophets,’ I call mine a ‘divine’ thing, and I think that in using such a term I am speaking with greater truth and piety than those who ascribe the gods’ power to birds. That I do not lie against the god I have this further proof: I have revealed to many of my friends the counsels which the god has given me, and in no instance has the event shown that I was mistaken.” — Xenophon, Apology, 12, translated by Marchant and Todd

No court reporters at the time so verification of who is closer to what was said is not possible.

I am curious about your age and level of education. What might help one person could be meaningless to another.

Bleak House by Dickens.
A return to fiction after a long hiatus.