It sounds like it is some emerging that arises from humans interacting in a world of objects. It just happens that way. I wonder what Chomsky's idea of innate generation of syntax bears on the more social/world/language game use view of things. Are humans always going to play the same language games with the world, more-or-less with cultural variations, or do they arise independently and ad hoc? The conditions of the world, move the language games to form a certain way, or do human brains do this, or both? Of course, this requires tons of empirical research more or less. Incidentally, here is this week's comic, featuring Wittgenstein:

https://existentialcomics.com/

'proposition' all constitute or belong to the same game. — Luke

Is this a fact of some law of human thought processes, or a fact of convention?

A lecture or article or book might be cited in support of what you say but if we are going to discuss it then you need to state things in your own words. — Fooloso4

I did, but you said you didn't understand speculative realism. I thought I might not be doing a good job of explaining so I sent articles and videos from those more well-versed. However, my take on it is that there is something that humans can glean (hence speculation) that is going on behind the scenes. Yes we will always provide the humanistic ways of seeing the world (unless one is to concede to naive realism, which most aren't), but the speculation is hinting at what kind of things we may speculate is happening outside the anthropomorphic. So Harman (the guy in the video) has ideas of objects other than humans interacting with each other. He thinks objects have been deflated into the subjective experience of objects, and thus aren't given the attention they deserve as interacting entities that they are. He explains things like the fact that until I mentioned "floor" right now, you didn't even think about it, but it is nonetheless interacting. There is something going on, whether our POV draws attention or understands it, that is the world outside the human. Humans then, are just another interacting entity/object of the world, which is quite different philosophical space than the more correlationist approach of the Kantian turn into epistemology. Correlationism is the idea that

‘the idea according to which we only ever have access to the correlation between thinking and being, and never to either term considered apart from the other’ — After Finitude/Meillassoux

The SR camp would reject (for the most part) correlationism, and the critical approach of epistemology over ontology.

Further Levi Bryant explains

Although Meillassoux does not himself specify this, correlationism presumably comes in a variety of different forms, and is therefore not restricted to theories focused on the relation between mind and being. Thus the relation between transcendental ego or lived body and the world in phenomenology would be one variant of correlationism, while the relation between language and being in Wittgenstein, Derrida and Lacan, or between power and knowledge in Foucault, would be other variants. In each case we encounter the claim that being cannot be thought apart from a subject, language or power.

...

Kant claimed that in traditional forms of epistemology the mind was conceived as a mirror that reflects being as it is in-itself, independent of us. He argues that mind does not merely reflect reality, but rather actively structures reality. Consequently, on the other hand, he argues that we can never know reality as it is in itself apart from us, but only as it appears to us. If the mind takes an active role in structuring reality (for us) we are unable to know what it is in-itself because we cannot determine what, in appearances, is a product of our own minds and what is a feature of things as they are in themselves. This is because we cannot adopt a third-person perspective that would allow us to compare things as they appear to us and things as they are in themselves. Consequently, knowledge is restricted to appearances and we must remain agnostic as to what being might be like in itself.

The claim that modern philosophy is inspired by Kantian correlationism is not the claim that most modern philosophers embrace the specific details of Kant’s philosophy. Clearly Wittgenstein, for example, does not adopt Kant’s account of transcendental categories, pure a priori intuitions, or the transcendental ego when he speaks of language games. Rather, the correlationist gesture consists solely in the claim that we can only think the relation between being and thinking and that therefore our knowledge is restricted to appearances.

...

One of Meillassoux’s central projects lies in finding a way to break out of the correlationist circle. He seeks to determine whether it is possible to think the absolute or being as it is in-itself apart from mind, and what characteristics the absolute might possess. Meillassoux’s discussion of ancestrality or statements about time prior to the existence of human beings is not an argument against correlationism per se, but is designed to present readily familiar and widely accepted claims about cosmic time prior to the existence of life and humans that ought not be permissible within a correlationist framework. If correlationism is true, what entitles us to make claims about the nature of the universe billions of years prior to the emergence of life or mind? Meillassoux presents his account of how we might break out of the correlationist circle in his discussion of the principle of factiality in After Finitude.

That is to say Kant is the originator of this correlationism, found right up to and beyond Wittgenstein, and to this day in both analytic and continental traditions.

Sorry for all the quotes, but this does a much better and clearer job than I can do on this subject, and essentially says what I need to say. Yes, I am a bit confused how Meillassoux breaks out of the correlationist vicious circle with ideas of "factiality", but ancestrality

He rejects the claim that epistemology and ontology have necessary qualities. That things are as they are does not mean they must necessarily be as they are or will be. — Fooloso4

Though the "necessary ontology creates necessary epistemology" is just one version, no SR philosopher actually holds it. Some very "scientistic" and "neo-pythagorean" philosophers/scientists/mathematicians like Max Tegmark may have theories approximating to that, but SR usually conveys idea of "hidden but hinting" nature of the ontological reality (my phrase, not theirs). Meillasoux for example, has the view that everything is in fact radically contingent, because the way something is, can always be something else. Thus the only necessity is contingency. Thus, his ontological claim is some sort of hype-chaos of radical contingency.

One thing that Wittgenstein wants to show with his examples of imagined tribes is that what we know is part of our form of life. Different circumstances, different practices, and different concerns yield different concepts, different ways of seeing things. This is not, however, a causal relationship. There can be other ways of looking at something and different ways of seeing things. — Fooloso4

Right, there is a pragmatist streak here, despite claims otherwise. To use Wittgenstein phrasing, it at least has "family resemblances". Can the objective world outside of the social/mental sphere be understood outside of the criss-crossing web of a humans in their form of life? I know WIttgenstein's answer.

But is that all there is? Again, why do things seem to "work out" when math is applied to empirical investigations. The world is "for us" perhaps, but precisely because science was contingently constructed, we can say that it didn't have to go that way. Humans are "hitting upon" something that happens to correspond to certain epistemic human ways of being in the world.

Not without you doing more work, no I can't. — fdrake

What does that look like for you? Also realize, unfortunately, I have a lot of other stuff I have to do to not go homeless, so though I'd love to delve many hours into the minutia mongering of every math problem that ever existed, every proof, every speculative realist argument, every Wittgenstein quote, I have to do this cursory, more playful approach. I know.. shitty of me.

Edit: I don't want to be over dramatic here.. not going homeless, means working for money to survive.

We can look back and see that worldviews change over time. For instance, people once thought the sky was a hard dome. The transformation of the concept of sky isn't something we decided upon. It was part of a large-scale alteration in worldview. Don't think of concepts as toys we play with and change by fiat. Declarations come downstream of seismic changes in outlook — frank

Good point.

Ew, ew, ew. Why is anybody here talking about 'mind' independence (or dependence) in relation to Witty? As if one of the virtues of Witty's work were not to undo the very idea of such a lame distinction. — StreetlightX

So I'm positive if I look back on these forums, I have seen you mention something about speculative realism. What is your take when compared to Witty's critiques? Is the whole SR adventure a big misadventure in your view? I take their critique of Kant to apply just as much to Wittgenstein.

Also, @fdrake I know you have mentioned speculative realism. Can you elucidate on this view, and how it matches up with Witty's critique, or vice versa?

The best that we can do or know, from within our all too human language-games, is "if everything speaks for an hypothesis and nothing against it". At least, that's my reading of it. — Luke

Yes we can never get outside our human perspective. some SR think that objects interact in many ways that are not necessarily knowable to the human, but can perhaps be gleaned at through human lens.

I think, if people have time, they should watch this video of an actual SR philosopher, Graham Harman so that we can be somewhat on the same page as to what we are discussing. Feel free to skip through if you can only watch a little.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hK-5XOwraQo&list=PLttdsDToT81-Do8-J0iKiMwnT6fOgzYzM&index=5

The thing is that we could have the same predictive ability and technology with very different language-games. It is a matter of convention whether we consider that there is such a thing as atoms and subatomic particles or not, we could explain observations differently. Rather than saying "we observe such result because electrons were deflected by the magnetic field", we could say "we observe such result when we heat a metal surface in a vacuum tube and there is a magnet nearby". — leo

True, but that is more about the nature of science. It is more the inferencing factor that is not so contingent.

To create his masterpiece furniture the carpenter would be implicitly applying his theories of how his tools work and how wood behaves in various situations, he just wouldn't call them theories because he would have internalized all that from his experience, each of his past experience with wood being experiments he carried out, from which he inferred generalities and expectations and predictions. Which is what scientists do, they carry out experiments, they infer generalities, expectations, predictions, and they share their results with one another. — leo

Right, that inferencing thing again. Scientists are turning it on principles of the world itself though, not just "for us" objects like furniture.

The difficult question is how much of what we see is a convention? There are plenty of so-called optical illusions, where we see different things depending on our state of mind. Plenty of examples of so-called shared delusions, where something seen by an individual becomes seen by a few other people, while others don't see it and interpret it as a delusion. But then if that "delusion" spread to everyone it would become reality, and then how do we know we're not living in a shared "delusion", how do we know how much of nature is man-made, how much it is not nature imposing constraints on us but ourselves imposing constraints on ourselves? — leo

It could be a shared delusion, but perhaps that things "work" is saying something about the world. A persistent delusion that inferences about the world in such a way that it is useful, and not just some chaotic mess, may tell us something.

I don't understand the meaning of your question. — Luke

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.

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.

But does use itself tell us about an ontology of sorts? Is it merely contingent that humans have the common sense that we do? Evolution works contingently, but the rules themselves don't necessarily change with contingent circumstances. 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. It is the anthropic principle on steroids here. Humans cannot help but understand the universe being what humans have been shaped by. It is the scientific and manifest images of Sellars combined.

Of course, then you have completely opposite points of view of someone like Meillasoux, Harmon, Brassier, and others who have ideas of a world foreign to human understanding yet real in their own sense. Harmon's is a bit more straightforward- he brings back the occasionalist idea that objects are withdrawn from each other but interact in some vicarious object that allows them to interact. Usually, these sorts of non-anthropomorphic realisms end up circling into themselves vis-a-vis panpsychism as objects have their own experience-ness that is beyond human experienceness but then also explains human experienceness.

but then you say they also disagree ("pace") with Leibniz, Descartes, Medievalists, Stoics, Aristotle, and Plato. Perhaps you mean in accord with rather than politely disagree with? — Fooloso4

No I meant the opposite, that those philosophers speculative philosophers.

This lecture by a speculative realist philosopher, Graham Harmon does a pretty good job explaining explaining speculative realism. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hK-5XOwraQo&list=PLttdsDToT81-Do8-J0iKiMwnT6fOgzYzM&index=5

It is "us" who observe and experiment and theorize and conceptualize. We see the world as we do not simply because it is the way it is but because we are the way we are. This holds for both our ordinary experience and for science. — Fooloso4

So I first juxtaposed this "for us" approach against Speculative Realism, as they do not take stock in the "critical" approach which Kant really started and has been with us up through Wittgenstein and beyond. They think that philosophy should turn back to ontological speculation again, pace Leibniz, pace Decartes, pace Medievalists, pace Stoics, pace Aristotle, pace Plato, etc. They do not like this "critical turn" of epistemology limiting speculation, so to say.

Here is a really good article that might elucidate some of the concerns of the Speculative Realist and their critique of the critical turn. https://deontologistics.wordpress.com/2009/08/26/critique-and-correlationism/ . This particular writer is interesting, because though he has sympathies with the anti-critical tendencies of the SR camp, he equally critiques their anti-critical tendencies as well.

First there are constraints on the woodworker. The properties of the wood, the tools, the adhesives, the fasteners. There is also the woodworker's language that deals with these things and the working with the materials. It is a fact that pine is a soft wood and oak a hardwood. It is a fact that some woods are more prone to cupping and warping then others. It is a fact that some woods are more resistant to rot and insects than others. The terms used are conventions, but they are based on the activity of working with wood. The techniques are conventions but not independent of the tools that have been developed over time and what works and does not work. — Fooloso4

But what are these facts compared to science? By simply saying it is a different human inquiry, so requires different language games, is misleading. The practical applications of use, the recreational applications of use, and simply the social applications of use, seem different in kind and not degree.

The philosophy and sociology of science say otherwise. It has its own activities which are not independent of but different from other human activities. — Fooloso4

This a good formulation of the argument that this particular POV is contrasting to and calling into question.

I think the same is true throughout human history. Many cultures have stories of a golden age that has been lost. This is tied to technological advances - agriculture was perhaps the most disruptive, tying people to a patch of land, but tool making and weapons is another. — Fooloso4

So we have a tendency for improvement of our conditions through cultural accumulation. This can be applied to all types of spheres. However, there is something different when it is observing how the world is operating itself, perhaps. Yeah it can be "for us" because we have our epistemological tendencies for systematizing, but I guess I'm wondering if there can ever be an indication of the things-themselves through this science outlook.

Perhaps an extreme form of this, which I can certainly see as being considered "scientisim" is Max Tegmark's theory of mathematical realism. I do not see much justification for it, but it is an example that is definitely opposed to the more epistemological approach like that of Wittgenstein.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematical_universe_hypothesis

Well it generally helps to have a basic mastery of the grammar, at a bare minimum, of what it is you're trying to critique. And it's hard to tell if it's tragic or cute that an appeal to actually read the text you're critiquing is somehow seen as asking too much. As if your laziness is the issue of others. — StreetlightX

So, by telling me to read the literature and not telling me, even just a small summary of what principle YOU think I am violating when discussing Wittgenstein, also shows your laziness. At least when I make a critique, I try to explain it. You can at least provide that. Otherwise, I can always claim the same and you could only defend yourself by further withdrawing into snarkiness, which would then keep proving my point. So we would always be at a standstill unless you explain your critiques leaving little room for me to misinterpret them.

You are not being clever by waiting for others to "hit" whatever point you want them to get, just obtuse. And the style shows more about ego than anything else.

Not even 'all is lanaguage-games' makes sense; nor language-games 'limiting' anything. The grammar here is senseless. — StreetlightX

Wait, am I talking to a Wittgenstein bott? Holy shit, whoever programmed these responses, great trolling.

Because it tries to insinuate a stupid distinction between 'language-games' and 'scientific realism' that is senseless and inattentive to what language-games are. Shitty ideas deservse shitty replies. — StreetlightX

Ah yes, so all is language-games, don't try to debate it. Read Philosophical Investigations only. End of conversation. Sounds about as authoritarian as you can get, if you ask me. Also, limits any inquiry and methodology beyond Wittgensteins. You assume his approach limits all other talk, which is also shitty. You have trapped the fly again.

Everytime 'language-game' is equated with (just/mere/only a) convention, a small kitten dies. This thread is a feline mass grave, and all of you are kitten murderers, in particular the OP. — StreetlightX

Why can't "merely" be used? It is in relation to ideas about realism, so would be appropriate in the context of scientific realism presenting some sort of ontology versus other language games. Essentially, it is about whether science indicates something that we are interpreting, different than what other language-games/forms of life are doing. My last post I said:

But I still think that is fundamentally different than how the observable evidence and technological gains fostered by modern science dictates certain understanding of reality. Both are related, and share family resemblences, but are not the same. One is a constraint on epistemology itself, our ability to go beyond our own language-games. The other is a constraint on how we can interact and conceive of the universe itself. The latter is a constraint that perhaps indicates something about the universe, outside human interpretations of it. Of course the default is that the mathematically-informed science is just an interpretation. But the interpretation corresponds with a greater predictive ability and technology which gives it a different characteristic far beyond other language-games and their heuristics, even accounting for other heuristics getting refined over time with accumulated knowledge. — schopenhauer1

But again, your style gets in the way of your content. This whole making snarky remarks from the corner, isn't helpful to the conversation. If you have something actually interesting to say other than snarky remarks, say it. I am open to dialogue. But I know your style, I can predict another snarky dismissive response, so unless you want to surprise me, don't even bother.

@Fooloso4 @Metaphysician Undercover @Valentinus

Probably a quote that would lean towards the Wittgenstein side would be:

Physics is mathematical not because we know so much about the physical world, but because we know so little; it is only its mathematical properties that we can discover. — Bertrand Russell

This is almost a putting ontological realism on its head or mashing it with epistemological concerns. What is a truism about human capacity, is our inferencing ability. Mathematical and scientific exegesis and computation is just this ability refined over time in a certain place. As I've argued earlier, other animals follow patterns that lead to survival while humans recognize patterns that lead to survival through inference-making and accumulated social learning.

Can humans see anything "real" about the universe in the patterns, rules, regularities, and even the contingencies that come about through these regularities [dynamics of particles and forces (or their stand-in be they strings or what not) across time, increased complexity and interactions, and biological contingency]? Or is it just what we find useful for the human animal? I think here the context of useful is different than other language-games. Everything else can be conventionalized and gone a different way. Perhaps there are constraints on human nature though, that make things less free- constraints of survival, constraints of comfort-seeking, constraints of boredom in the human psyche. Perhaps, there are constraints of what are deemed desirable, etc. These can perhaps shape language-games to only form a certain way, and thus be necessitated in some way. I guess this could be a realism in a sort too. A realism of "human nature". It would be an epistemological constraint, necessitated by natural processes such as evolution on the human animal and human cognition specifically.

But I still think that is fundamentally different than how the observable evidence and technological gains fostered by modern science dictates certain understanding of reality. Both are related, and share family resemblences, but are not the same. One is a constraint on epistemology itself, our ability to go beyond our own language-games. The other is a constraint on how we can interact and conceive of the universe itself. The latter is a constraint that perhaps indicates something about the universe, outside human interpretations of it. Of course the default is that the mathematically-informed science is just an interpretation. But the interpretation corresponds with a greater predictive ability and technology which gives it a different characteristic far beyond other language-games and their heuristics, even accounting for other heuristics getting refined over time with accumulated knowledge.

To put further explain: There is either something "for us", in our language-game that is hitting upon necessity about the world, or the "for us" way of hitting upon something "not for us" but can be gleaned at by way of how useful it is to us.
@Fooloso4 @Metaphysician Undercover @Valentinus

Where are language games played - out in the world, or on one's mind? Is the internet posts and the forum out in the world or in your mind? — Harry Hindu

Both :D.

The behavior of sub-atomic particles is not a social fact. The behavior of people is not a fact of particle physics. There are conventions in both but they are not of the same kind because they deal with very different matters, that is to say, very different facts. Perhaps someday there will be a unified theory that accounts for both, but for now they are very different.

Some may argue that facts are conventions, but as far as I can see, Wittgenstein does not. — Fooloso4

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.

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? — Metaphysician Undercover

Yes, I think Witty implies with language-games that we have rule-following that forms by interacting and an interrelated, overlapping group of behaviors or ways of being in a community. So it organically arises out of the interaction process. Thus, a classroom and a workplace have ways of being, ways of doing things, norms, etc. It becomes a "for us".

But this goes much deeper and broader. We have actual language which arises from various language uses by a community, with various uses of that language by the community. If the whole Private Language thing is correct, then language itself isn't even really private, but an internalized "for us" directed at the self as if it was only "for me". That's my interpretation of it anyways. At the least, your intentions and goals, are originate in a language that is necessarily "for us". So you have individualized goals, they they are intrinsically caught up in the community. It is part of the language-game perhaps.

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

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?

It would make more sense to say that science cannot help but try to prove something is going on beyond the mind. It isnt logically consistent to be skeptical of the ontology of the world but take the ontology of other humans as a given. — Harry Hindu

So what do you think would make more sense?

Recognition of patterns of nature does not indicate something "not for us". It is, after all, "us" who have become aware of it. — Fooloso4

But then what are these "learn new facts". Witty's Tractatus has a picture theory. There is something regarding "states of affairs". But what are these scientific "facts" that are presenting to us, as opposed to "social facts" of conventions and ways of doing things? Sure, we can conflate the science with the social, but then we are looking the other way in terms of what the scientific facts describe and do.

Perhaps what is inexpressible (what I find mysterious and am not able to express) is the background against which whatever I could express has its meaning.

What do you think that means?

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). — Metaphysician Undercover

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

The point is, he is not making the distinction between "things as they are", and "as they are for us" nor investigating that distinction. — Fooloso4

I do not want to be too black and white thinking with Wittgenstein. His approach is an interesting tool to look at meaning and language, but it is easy for it to consume all other approaches. For example, this thread right now can be considered a language game. In fact, forums like this and the internet in general are really good examples of language games being played out in real time, very quickly. This thread set out some questions, that I hoped some other philosophy language-game users might participate in and play. We might come in with slightly different terms for the same thing, we might start talking passed each other. Eventually, there may be an evening out, where we start generating rule-following patterns such that meaning becomes more useful for our conversation, etc. etc.

This idea is interesting if played out across all forms of life, many areas of human interactions. The science language-game is certainly something where let's say Leibniz and Newton were both going at a problem with a different perspective, but eventually, they can be seen as the same thing. Science in general has come to use certain terms in certain community-minded ways that are agreed upon. Violations of this wold take terms out of context, sense, and put person at risk of being considered not playing the language-game correctly of that community.

However, how far does this conception of epistemology go in understanding scientific facts? Clearly there are principles that have better predictive powers and more complex/powerful technological usage than other language-games and forms of life. What does that say about the actual results of the science, and the fact that the very results informs the community on how to change perspectives/terms accordingly? It seems a truism that language-games amongst participants are "useful" for the context of a community. But that may lead to a metaphysical relativism. I know secondary literature tries to show that Wittgenstein isn't just a mere "pragmatist" or "relativist", but some of the ideas seem to indeed indicate this.

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"?

Or, no. De re, Ralph will keep on professing his belief as long as he posses' the quality or trait of being paranoid. — Wallows

The description of being paranoid wouldn't be a rigid designator then. In another possible world, Ralph might not be paranoid. The name Ralph is rigidly designated though.

$\frac{x}{n+Schopenhauer}\text{arctan}(x*\sqrt(\sum_{i=1}^{\infty} \lambda_i)$

Cool

This is in contrast to the philosophical impulse to generalise (in the blue books, Witty famously laments philosophy’s “craving for generality”) and take examples as merely standing for tokens of universilizablity; to make a philosophical problem ‘disappear’, in this sense, is to make note of the local specificity of a language-game; to note where it can, and cannot be applicable, and where and when it starts to stray too far from the form-of-life which gives it it’s sense.

This is why one can “break off philosophising” when one wants to: insofar as ‘philosophical problems’ are always those of an inappropriate generalization, merely noting that inappropriateness simply 'returns words to their everyday use’ (§116), from which philosophy is always a deviation. And having done this, one no longer, as it were, needs to philosophise: the philosophical problems ‘completely disappear’. All this also accounts for why Witty here insists on the plurality of problems (“problems are solved (difficulties eliminated), not a single problem"): insofar as problems are always local, they are also always specific: there are no ‘eternal’ philosophical problems, just philosophical problems brought about by the inappropriate extension or extrapolation of a language-game beyond its bounds of applicability. And this is always a case-by-case issue. — StreetlightX

@fdrake This was the start of this particular sub-discussion. I'll refrain from making comments regarding the context of Witty in the broader philosophy of ideas in this thread. I think it is relevant, but I see that we want to keep it close to the reading. Would it be appropriate to start another thread then?

No, I mean none of these. You don't have a handle on what you're talking about. The distinctions you draw are wrong. The questions you ask are ill formed. Enough. You're not worth dialogue. — StreetlightX

That is not so. It's the same stinking distinctions that are being made, just in different terms. It's all the same at the end of the day, whether you analyze every word of Philosophical Investigations or not. The implications and conclusions will lead to these distinctions. I'm more interested in what PI implies and how it fits with other views in the philosophy world here.

You want to keep it to grammar and context distinctions.. that's fine, but I am moving it to a meta-view of that. You say we cannot get out of that talk when talking of Wittgenstein.

Meaningless. — StreetlightX

So this has to do with what I said about epistemology and ontology. Speculating about ontology beyond human interaction with it. If that is meaningless fine, but then please indicate that. Saying meaningless is meaningless otherwise.

If you would like to assume the "everything is for-us" position, and that science is simply "for-us" always, that is fine too. I am open to dialogue.

whether those uses are themselves 'useful' for survival or not is irrelevant, — StreetlightX

I mentioned survival, as you mentioned earlier that people went about surviving fine long before science, and I agreed with you.

Also forget 'usefulness', language-games are not useful-for-x — StreetlightX

I said "useful in some way for that form of life" which implies

language-games have uses is all — StreetlightX

Language-games are 'real' through and through, and everytime you keep try and institute a dichotomy between 'mere' language-games and 'math-informed science' as turning upon 'hitting a reality' or whatever, you misunderstand language-games. Put 'conventions' in the trash bin of your mind; where they - and talk of 'social' and 'cultural' - belong. — StreetlightX

I never disputed that language-games are not real in their own context and way of being. I only posited that the science language-game has a quality of cashing out certain outcomes, and this indicates patterns of nature are real.

I guess it is more to do with Witty's understanding of science itself. I know he was against scientisim, but so am I. Sceintism I take to be the idea that philosophy and logic can describe the world scientifically, finding some truth a priori, or by simply rigorous examination. This is just a form of language-game as well.

However, scientism isn't science, and I know he had respect for the outcomes that were chased out in scientific disciplines. Perhaps it is that I am against a certain interpretation of Wittgenstein, that can be taken out of his own context, by trying to conflate even scientific understanding as being "just another language-game". Mapping onto a way we go about interacting in or with the world, and mapping out how the world interacts, are two types of things. One is more malleable, and amenable to change. The language-game is fluid. The other is more rigid. The language itself can change, but the concepts informed mathematically are fixing on some phenomena that are showing some real patterns "out there" in the "great outdoors".

I know we've discussed Speculative Realism.. this would be more leaning in that direction I guess. That is to say, there is a way of speculating on the "real" or an ontology above and beyond never getting out of our epistemology. I also want to say, that this does not mean that I am in agreement with any particular speculative realism, but the openness to some ontological speculation is not out completely off the table. This also doesn't mean that I am not open to the idea of Witt's at the end of Tractatus, "Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent". These are sometimes two tendencies of the modern philosopher world. The world presents itself to us, often in ways humans would not otherwise conceive, and is accessed via scientific results. But often it is hard to see how humans can get anywhere out of their predisposed epistemology.

Every language-game has a purpose or a point to which it is keyed, and there are as many language-games as they there are purposes to them, — StreetlightX

Ok, I'm with you there.

That there might be such a difference in kind between the language-games that existed at some supposed break between the various revolutions you speak of (predictably lumped together like so many dead fish, as you lump math, logic and science together, utterly gutting any conceptual cogency each might have) is not an argument against the scope of language-games, but an elementality built right into their definition. — StreetlightX

Right, but we have to parse out the way I am using the idea of "different" or "break" here, as it is different than what you are construing it as. In a very Wittgensteinian way, we are talking passed each other in our language-game. I'm not arguing that each language game does not have its own nuances, complexities, and purposes that they are keyed to.

Rather, I am arguing that hitting upon a way to map the world that cashes out accurate predictions and increasingly complex technology, is a language-game that hits upon something different than other language games. Where we are missing each other, is that you think we don't agree, but I do agree with you that all language-games are useful in some way to that form of life. I am not debating that. Even survival-related language-games do not need to be related with science to foster surviving.

Rather, I am pointing out that there is something special about the way this language-game is able to so accurately predict and create powerful technologies out of the material world to a degree and kind far more than any other kind of language-game. To sum it up:

1) We agree language-games have various kinds for various purposes.
2) We agree that humans do not need the language-game of Western/formalized math-informed science as it has formed in the last 400 years to survive.
3) We have contention as to the significance of Western/formalized math-informed science as it has formed in the last 400 years.

What I think the significance can possibly be is pointing to a realism- a metaphysical indicator that there are structures to the world that are real, and can be mined with certain language-games that roughly map on to the structures enough to harness predictive explanatory power and technology.

Where other language-games are conventionalized forms of life that more-or-less are pragmatic agreements by participants for the indirect and stated purposes of the game, math-informed science language-games are discovering something beyond conventional pragmatic discourse.

'More complex'; ' immensely ratcheted up capacities'; 'something different': these are all so many ways of saying nothing at all: what complexity? What kind of capacity? What 'something different'? Merely insisting on some kind of Very Important Difference - and that is all you've done - is to insist on nothing. You've given no conceptual substance to any of these apparent 'differences', other than beg the question and insist that language-games 'cannot capture real patterns of nature'. And this despite the fact that such 'capturing' is just the sine qua non of language-games as such. As if passing the salt is something unreal. — StreetlightX

Let me ask you this: What is the difference between technologies and explanatory powers before the Scientific Revolution/Enlightenment/Industrial Revolution, and after? Why might there be a difference? Simply just another language-game like passing the salt, or is there something different about this language-game?

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. — Metaphysician Undercover

Yes, then I'd agree with Witt, that per evolutionary forces like theory of other minds, and social learning (something most other primates lack), humans have predispositions that start to work when exposed to social cues to understand the nuances of the language-games of their social environment. I used inferencing as an example of human capacity, but the predisposition for social learning is also an example of a human-centered ability shaped by evolutionary/survival forces. The language-games seem to have a base in these evolutionarily shaped tendencies.

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).

It falsifies not only the concept of language-games, but also the operations of math, logic, and now, apparently, science. As if we did not make predictions until the advent of math. As if we could not invent before the formalizations of logic. Rubbish. — StreetlightX

No, that is now taking me out of context, ignoring what I said earlier. I said that all humans, even tribal ones, have a basic inferencing capability, and it is a universal capability of all humans in all types of cultures. In fact, I said almost the complete opposite of this quoted statement above. I even posited that inferencing is perhaps a necessity of humans due to evolutionary explanations of pattern-recognition

What I did say, and you misrepresented, was that this initial inferencing ability was refined (what you called "formalized") by originally the Greeks (with synthesis from other cultures), and further updated and appended down the generations in mainly Western culture(s). These formalizations/refinements were mainly due to contingent circumstances of historical development (e.g. I mentioned perhaps the culture surrounding the Greek city-state as one possible originating contributor out of a wide-array). This formalized form of logic, however, provided insights to predicitions about the natural world that were accurate, and technology that was vastly more complex than what came before.

Yes, it is not just logic or math that produced these results (which indeed would be a formalized language-game(s)) but it was/is this formalized math along with formalized empirical observations of the natural world that created these results. These results have been cashed out in the predictive power and technology that was/is generated as a result of these insights.

Thus my further conclusion that through evolutionary means, humans have an extremely high capacity for inferencing, which was necessary for survival. I further stated, that most other animals are following patterns of instincts that conform with survival, while humans survive by having the capacity to recognize patterns using inferencing, enhanced by problem-solving and accumulated cultural knowledge. That is not to say other animals don't recognize patterns (as I get that being some objection), but this pattern recognition is usually by instinct and lower-learning capabilities, and not by the immensely ratcheted up capacities that language, accumulated cultural knowledge, and all the rest bring with the human mind which allow it to primarily survive in this form of life rather than via instinctual modules (as is the case for most other animals). So, the "real" here is that there are patterns of nature, and some of our language-games have recognized them, to such an extent that the resultant technology harnesses them.

One lesson here is: no language-game is 'mere', is sufficient unto itself: every language-game is constrained and made possible by the realities out of which it is born and is addressed to. This is as true of one asking to pass the salt as it is of one asking to measure the velocity of light. — StreetlightX

Where yes, every language-game may be sufficient for its use in that form of life/community, there is something different regarding the measure of velocity versus the language-game surrounding how to pass the salt. One is seeing the patterns of nature via a formalized version of our basic inferencing abilities (mathematically-derived empirical science), and one is a contingent convention. We also cannot misconstrue that the historical development, though contingent on how the language-game played, nonetheless produced something that sees "real" patterns of nature that have produced highly accurate predictive models and technology that other language-games cannot and do not do.

Edit: Oh and then I'm guessing you or someone else will probably bring up how sciences have "revolutions" of conventions and relativity and QM replacing Newtonian physics, etc. etc. So, ""HA! realism schealism! You are wrong!" No, it is just that this language-game allows for corrections of its own conventions, built into the game itself. Besides the usual resistance to change, and hurt feelings people get from strongly held beliefs, the actual game of science itself allows for corrective changes in principle, based on where the evidence takes you.

continual conflation between math and logic, which ought to alone disqualify everything you write, but I doubt you care. — StreetlightX

I deem math and more specifically, mathematical logic as a set of logical frameworks for proofs, axioms, and such that try to lay the foundations of mathematical operations of quantity, functions, variables, spacial analysis, geometric analysis, probabilities, etc.. I deem this to be a specific variety of a larger logical framework (language-game) that has essentially been going on since the Greeks. The history of both are intertwined so much, that there is much borrowing of each, though they started out in different avenues, closely related. The early analytic philosophers blurred the lines as many were both mathematicians and general logicians and tried to use symbolic logic to found arithmetic in a larger logical framework, though this approach was obviously questionable. Logic in general, extends to more than just quantity, numbers, space, and probabilities- but also used to analyze the basis of ordinary language and concepts.

Witty's complaint against philosophy is precisely that it doesn't register such 'hits', although Witty would not call them 'metaphysical', but simply, everyday. — StreetlightX

Right, but all is language-games, implies a relativism in how each language-game corresponds to what is the case. He precisely criticizes the idea that we can even get at what is the case. How is it that the language-game of science "hit upon" the technological complexities it has? Well, if all is merely language-games, why are some language-games useful for creating greater complexities out of natural phenomena than others? Clearly, there is something going on with certain language-games over other language-games. Perhaps this leads the way to a realism of the world that the this particular language-game is hitting at, that other language-games are not. Other civilizations (maybe contingent world-histories) can get along without the discoveries of the science language-game, but then that is missing the point of all the technology and predictions the science language-game does compared to other language-games.

you're wasting my time. — StreetlightX

It's either gnashing of the teeth, or meant to piss off..either way, its emotional unnecessary flourish.. and I think you are clearly a well-read poster, I just think this style doesn't befit your knowledge.

No, one can't, that's my point: that it's a total, utter misreading to think this. — StreetlightX

Before I answer anything further.. I'd just like to make a plea in this forum to stop vitriolic hyperbole that. it's unnecessary rhetorical vitriol and only stirs up emotion, not makes a point. It's rhetoric for rhetoric. I will read further though.

What is it about language-games that makes you think they are somehow incompatible with this 'usefulness'? Especially since for Witty, all language-games are useful for particular purposes (that's just what language-games are). You mention caprice - but what makes you think language-games are (merely?) capricious or arbitrary? That they are not, that they are keyed at every point to purposes, is maybe the biggest lesson of the PI: language is use in a language-game. — StreetlightX

Ok, I must clarify here- I'm not anti-Witty to be anti-Witty. I came out swinging hard. His language-games idea, I find enormously useful insofar as describing the internal agreement and history of a community and its conventions and how that historical use dictates further use, because it is useful etc.. So I am not refuting Witty's idea of language-games tout court. It adds some useful thought-tools for understanding universal anthropological tendencies (to use particular conventions), and I'm on board with that. In fact, I think that "logic" and "math" the way it is used today is indeed partly a language-game started mainly by the Greeks, continuing with figures like Leibnitz on through the 19th and 20th century logicists which essentially invented a convention/game/framework that analytic philosophers and mathematicians can use to talk with each other in an internally meaningful way. Also "cool" about Wittgenstein is how he points out that this conventionalized mathematical community starts making its own "problems" by making errors of meaning/use in their own invented game. They missapply their own game and then make problems which the game itself has to fix by integrating the problem as useful in the game again or changing the game accordingly. Bravo, I like it.

However, I was trying to map his picture of human reality with other metaphysical and epistemological conceptions- namely realism, contingency, and necessity. One can construe Witt's metaphysics of these language-games to be be in purely nominalist or conventionalist terms. However, there may be some inherent, universal aspects to them which can characterize them to be necessary. It is necessary that humans inference, for example. It can be argued that general inferencing (this story/this phenomena/this observation is a specific or general case of X... This general case of X can be applied to specific cases of Y) may be a necessary human capability, dictated by evolutionary forces. In other words, in theory, any mode of survival is possible, in reality, evolution only allows certain modes of survival to actually continue. One such mode of survival, is inferencing. Since humans have no other recourse in terms of built-in instincts beyond very basic reflexes- our general processing minds, must recognize the very patterns of nature (through inferencing, and ratcheted with trial-and-error problem-solving, and cultural accumulated knowledge) which other animals exploit via instinctual models and lower-order learning behaviors/problem-solving skills.

In particular, I take it: It is not necessary that we should recognize anything as "logical inference"; but if we do, then only certain procedures will count as drawing such inferences, ones (say) which achieve the universality of agreement, the teachability, and the individual conviction, of the forms of inference we accept as logic. There is no logical explanation of the fact that we (in general, on the whole) will agree that a conclusion has been drawn, a rule applied, an instance to be a member of a class, one line to be a repetition of another (even though it is written lower down, or in another hand or color); but the fact is, those who understand (i.e., can talk logic together) do agree. And the fact is that they agree the way they agree; I mean, the ways they have of agreeing at each point, each step. — StreetlightX

This quote here, which I take to be a sort tie-in to my last post, seems to overextend its point. He is moving from primitive inferencing- something that is universal and even tribal cultures utilize, to Logic (capital "L") as conventionalized by Greek/Western contingent historical circumstances. Inferencing + cultural contingencies of the Greek city-states + further contingencies of history led to our current conventions of logic. So it is a mix of taking an already universal trait and then exposing it to the contingencies of civilizations that mined it thoroughly and saw use for it.

However, that's not all. ONCE these contingently ratchted inferencing techniques were applied to natural phenomena, we found not only that the conventions worked internally in its own language-game, but that it did something more than mere usefulness to human survival/language-game-following. It actually mapped out predictions and concepts in the world that worked. New techniques now harnessed natural forces and patterns to technological use, far beyond what came before. Math-based empirical knowledge "found" something "about the world" that was cashed out in technology and accurate predictive models. This is then something else- not just conventionalized language games. This particular language-game did something different than other language games.

My own conclusions from this is that the inferencing pattern-seeking we employ as a species, to survive more-or-less tribally and at the least communally, by way of contingency, hit upon real metaphysical patterns of nature. Thus my statement in another thread that while other animals follow patterns of nature, humans primarily recognize patterns of nature in order to survive.

@Metaphysician Undercover @Sam26 You may be interested as well.

First, does your post have anything to do with the passages we're currently reading? — StreetlightX

You said:

Insofar as problems are always local, they are also always specific: there are no ‘eternal’ philosophical problems, just philosophical problems brought about by the inappropriate extension or extrapolation of a language-game beyond its bounds of applicability. And this is always a case-by-case issue. — StreetlightX

Witt's theory of the foundations of math are similar to that of language, in that he thinks it dissolves once it is shown to be a game of sorts. This is related to no "eternal" philosophical problems, like that of the foundations of math.

Second, what is the 'basis of math' that Wittgenstein supposedly 'dissolves'? You've said nothing about it, so I have no idea what you're referring to. — StreetlightX

The basis would be ones that see math as something "objective" and "Platonic". Instead, he thinks it is convention that gets played out in language-games.

Third, one of Witty's 'major theses', as you put it, is precisely that language-games take their relavence from the forms-of-life from which they arise, so I don't see why you think the concept of language-games (to say nothing of 'social convention' - a phrase that appears not a single time in the PI, despite you naming it as a 'major thesis') might be in some way disabling of an evolutionary reading of language. Your post simply makes the assumption that they are incompatible, but I don't see any argument to that effect. So there's some implict understanding of Wittgenstein at work in your post, but you've not spelled it out, and so it cannot be engaged. — StreetlightX

Fine, I will play this language-game and conflate "social convention" (my sense of it at least), with your use of "forms of life" (how Wittgenstein of us). Essentially, forms of life are human perspectives of a community- how people act, behave, cultural indicators, wrapped up with how the language is used. Forms of life have a relativistic sense to them- each community has its own form of life, and none are particularly hierarchical.

However, there are language/mathematical/logical communities that DO special things. For example, the conventional math-languages used in the sciences and engineering DO solve problems of a much more complex nature than the problems that other language games solve. It creates predictive models for which other language games do not have the ability to predict. How can this language game be so useful compared with others, in mining complexity in natural phenomena and in secondarily creating synthetic technologies from those original mined complexities?

And here we can say there is perhaps a realism to the complexities of these special language-games. Perhaps a realism that is above and beyond mere forms of life only. Contingency would imply caprice- that the efficacy would work as well as any other convention.

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.

I think Wittgenstein makes an illegal move by trying to on the one hand dissolve the basis for rules like math (equating it to the diagonal moves of a bishop in chess, let's say) but then shrug off any responsibility to employ empirical avenues such as evolutionary psychology which can inform the math/language system itself. Evolutionary psychological reasons for the capability of logical inferencing, for example, would negate the major thesis that all is just social convention and language-games. More over, if patterns of nature necessitate creatures with logical inferencing for survival, that is an even harder blow.