If W rejects sentence 2 of PI 389, as you suggest, then his position is that b) there is a necessary correspondence between a picture and what it is supposed to represent. — Luke

What is rejected is not that the picture could be of something else. What is rejected is that it follows
from the fact that it could be an picture of something else that a mental image must be more like its object than any picture.

That’s right. That may explain W’s definition of a mental image at PI 367. — Luke

Here's the problem. I describe my mental image of an object, a summer house by the lake. When I am finished by brother tells me that my mental image is not the same as his mental image of that house. We talk to my sister and dig out some old photos. It becomes clear to me that my mental image was not of image of this house and of nothing else, it was a composite image of different houses we stayed in over the years.

The same tautological claim about a mental image of X being an image of X can be made about a picture of X. A picture of X is an image of X. For the same reason that we should not conclude from this that it is an intrinsic feature of a picture that it is a picture of this and of nothing else, we should not conclude that a mental image is an image of this and nothing else.

Suppose I give you a description of my mental image of X. "It looks like this 'Y' " Someone else chimes in and describes her mental image of X: "It looks like this 'Z'". In each case the mental image of the same object is different. It is then not an intrinsic feature of a mental image of X that it is the image of this (X) and of nothing else. The mental images are both an image of X but it turns out that my mental image is actually an image of Y and her's of Z.

2. For however similar I make the picture to what it is supposed to represent, it may still be the picture of something else. — Luke

It does not follow from a) the fact that there is not a necessary correspondence between a picture and what it is supposed to represent, that b) there is a necessary connection between a mental image and what it is an image of. It does not follow that a mental image must be more like its object than any picture.

It is a tautology to say that a mental image of X is an image of X. But this does not mean that my mental image of X is anything like X. If I describe my mental image of X it may become clear that the image as described is nothing like X. It may be that it is an image of something else.

It strikes down the Trump mythology of being this successful businessman — GRWelsh

I'm not so sure it does. Those who know him already know that he is much more successful as a con artist than a businessman. This goes back long before he entered politics. The Trumpsters see all this as they are told to see it - not only is he the victim but they too are or will be the victims of a corrupt political system if not for him.

What about those who fall into neither camp? I think most see the trappings of great wealth and success and will look no further.

But I would very much like to be wrong about this.

In the Investigations, Wittgenstein seems to be making a distinction between the language of the ordinary man and the language of the philosopher, but surely he knew that this distinction didn't exist in practice in the ordinary people he came across in his daily life. — RussellA

Having spent much of his time correcting philosophers he surely did know that they are not using terms in the ordinary sense. This is a mistake he attempts to correct by pointing to the ordinary use of terms such as 'know'. If they did not make these inordinate demands on language the problems that arise as a result would dissolve.

"Enemy" being the operative term here. — baker

Yes. The enemy is anyone who questions or is critical of Trump.

Here's a CNN list of 24 former Trump aides and allies all of whom now see him as a threat to democracy. — Wayfarer

The problem is that the Trumpsters do not want to preserve democracy. Democracy is part of the problem. They want an autocratic leader who has the vision and power to do the right thing. They do not want to give the enemy an equal say in how things should be.

Firstly, I don’t read there as being any necessary correspondence with an object in sentence 3. — Luke

Sentence 1 is the interlocutor's claim - the mental image is more like its object than any picture.
Sentence 2 provides his support for this claim.
Sentence 3 is provides further support.

These three sentences are enclosed in quotation marks.

Sentence 4 is Wittgenstein's response to this chain of reasoning leading to the claim of a superlikeness. If we reject the claim of a superlikeness we should reject the whole argument chain. When the interlocutor claims that it is an intrinsic feature of a mental image that it is the image of this and of nothing else, he is referring to the object it is a mental image of.

where you take the point of PI 389 to be that a picture can equally or more closely resemble an object than does a mental image — Luke

The point of PI 389 is to reject claims 1 -3 and thus a superlikeness.

I also believe these passages support my position against your assumption/reading that a mental image (like a picture) can be compared with an object for the purpose of determining the image’s resemblance or correspondence to that object. — Luke

It is, as you quoted in sentence 1, the interlocutor who makes the comparison and concludes that a mental image must be more like its object than any picture. You, I, and Wittgenstein all reject that claim.

Once again, our disagreement is over sentence 3. If not the object then what is it the mental image an image of?

What does "this" refer to?
— Fooloso4

I was quoting PI 389. — Luke

Right, but you said:

I don't see why the mental image must correspond to any object. — Luke

At PI 389 "this" refers to the mental image of a particular object. If you disagree with the interlocutor then we are in agreement.

But you also said:

However, this need not imply that Wittgenstein rejects the interlocutor's statement that "it is an intrinsic feature of a mental image that it is the image of this and of nothing else". — Luke

He does reject it. He rejects it for the same reason you now seem to be rejecting it.

I think Wittgenstein might take issue with your use of "see" here. You don't really see or look at your mental image; it is what you imagine. — Luke

Take the example @Banno discusses from Zettel 14 here

"Say a picture of him suddenly floated before me."

He does not simply imagine or produce an image he sees it.

That's an obvious assumption to make (just like the assumption of a private language), but how does it relate to the text or to what Wittgenstein says at PI 389? — Luke

I am well aware that they may not look like this. It is just an image in my mind, a picture that occurs to me.

The claim made at PI 389 is that:

A mental image must be more like its object than any picture.

The point of my example is that it shows that this is not true. A photo of the person [added: I only talked to on the phone] is more like that person than my mental image of that person.

Obviously, I can't recognize something as the Amazon without having heard other people talk about it. — baker

Perhaps not, but you would know it is not part of the shared community you live in.

Why wouldn't it? — baker

It wouldn't if our way of life was not a shared way of life.

Really? So psychology, sociology, and anthropology don’t contribute theories for this? — schopenhauer1

I am not talking about doing specific things but that we do anything at all. What explanation do you have that we do things rather than doing nothing?

How do you get out of circularity of what community is? — schopenhauer1

Well, if you think a group of people living and working together with shared interests and values is circular then I see no reason why it would be necessary to get out of it.

How is it “out there”? — schopenhauer1

A community is not something "out there". It is something within which we live.

You have to justify a theory of emergence, not just posit it. — schopenhauer1

Do I? Do you think there has always been human language? Do you think there has always been human beings?

I can doubt community exists outside my perception. — schopenhauer1

Yes, you can, but when you express that doubt on a public forum you do so outside of your perception. Or do you think the forum and its participants do not exist outside your perception? Do you think the language you express your doubts in only exist within your perception?

Hinge propositions can’t just stop theorizing as that hinge needs to be grounded further. — schopenhauer1

When you are theorizing are there things that you accept? Things that are not called into doubt when you theorize? Do you realize that your assumptions about grounds functions as a hinge? Something you accept without the grounding having a ground?

But what exactly does this "shared" mean? — baker

Suppose you went to sleep and when you woke up it was 1923 or 1823. Would you realize that this is not the same world it was when you sent to sleep? Or suppose when you woke up you were in some remote fishing village or with in tripe in the Amazon. Would it be apparent that this is not this is not the same place you fell asleep in?

Is it an active and deliberate sharing, like when you offer someone an apple if you have two?

Or is it a kind of sharing we're simply born into, which is imposed on us, without having any say in it? — baker

A bit of both.

For example, how does Wittgenstein explain how it is that social facts exist outside of some sort of linguistic solipsism? — schopenhauer1

In OC Wittgenstein quotes Goethe:

In the beginning was the deed.

Language emerges out of pre-linguistic practices. Social facts include things done not just things said. That we do things is not something that Wittgenstein, or for that matter, as far as I know, anyone else attempt to explain.

So you see, there has to be a greater theory for how something like "community" obtains outside of individual perceptions if one doesn't want to maintain solipsism. — schopenhauer1

A community is not made up of individual perceptions but of shared beliefs, practices, and language. A common form of life.

How does this get beyond the Cartesian Demon? — schopenhauer1

The role of the hypothetical demon is to establish that there is something that cannot be doubted, something we can be certain of even if we are deceived about everything else. Wittgenstein has an interesting response: in order to doubt there must be things that are not doubted.

Hinge propositions are anti-philosophical. — schopenhauer1

Hinges are not anti-philosophical.

It's simply a way of stopping inquiry. — schopenhauer1

It is not a way of stopping inquiry but what inquiry turns on.

Why does the limit have to be how we use language ... — schopenhauer1

Wittgenstein does not claim it does.

... and not how it is grounded in the world or our minds? — schopenhauer1

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/840026

If to know is to hold a justified true belief, then what is the justification here? — Banno

I don't think it has anything to do with justified true belief.

The question of whether I know that the picture I have of him is a picture of him is odd. When the picture of N suddenly floated before him there was no question that it is a picture of N. It is only subsequently, after the fact, that the question arises.

Did I know it was a picture of him? — Banno

I will read and comment in that thread.

"it is an intrinsic feature of a mental image that it is the image of this and of nothing else." — Luke

I don't see why the mental image must correspond to any object. — Luke

In general a mental image need not correspond to any object, but we are discussing PI 389:

389. “A mental image must be more like its object than any picture.

Your requirement that the mental image must be of one object presupposes that it can correspond or be compared to some object. — Luke

This is not my requirement. This is the interlocutor's claim:

However, this need not imply that Wittgenstein rejects the interlocutor's statement that "it is an intrinsic feature of a mental image that it is the image of this and of nothing else". — Luke

Do you therefore think it follows that a picture has a superlikeness to its object, — Luke

No. As I said:

A photo of X may to varying degrees and in various ways capture a likeness of X. — Fooloso4

or is the idea of a "superlikeness" irrelevant to Wittgenstein's point here? — Luke

His point, in part, is to reject the idea of a "superlikeness". He traces that idea back to the interlocutor's assumptions.

Is his point simply that there is no distinction between a picture and a mental image? — Luke

Of course not!

On my reading, a mental image is unlike a picture because a mental image can only be "the image of this and of nothing else", — Luke

What does "

this

" refer to?

I view Wittgenstein as being critical of the interlocutor's inference that the mental image is any sort of likeness; that there can be any correspondence between a private (undescribed) mental image and its object. — Luke

Why can't my mental image be a likeness to the object it is an image of? I do not have to describe that image to myself, I see it.

A photo is a picture; a mental image is not. — Luke

A mental image is the way I picture something to myself.

If you were to describe your mental image, then maybe we could compare it to the object and find out how closely it resembles its object, but a mental image cannot be compared to its object; only a description of the mental image can. — Luke

I talk to someone on the phone who I have never met. I imagine what this person looks like. I form a mental image of them. Later I meet this person and they are very different from my mental image.

Hacker tells us that a mental image is "not a likeness [to its object] at all" since its being a mental image of X "is not determined by its likeness to X". — Luke

This is like saying a photo of X is not a likeness of X at all since it being a photo of X is not determined by its likeness to X.

A photo of X may to varying degrees and in various ways capture a likeness of X. So too, our mental images of X may to varying degrees and in various ways capture a likeness of X.

Then the mental image would be an image of the two blurred events and of nothing else. — Luke

The mental image of this refers to the one object it is an image of. Two blurred objects or events is a counterexample.

I take it he comes to regard it this way for the reasons given at PI 389 — Luke

Right.

Your reading - where you trust the picture to be like its object more than you trust the mental image to be like its object - could explain how the interlocutor comes to regard a mental image as a sub-likeness instead of a super-likeness. This might make more sense to you but it is not consistent with the text. — Luke

The interlocutor comes to regard it as a super-likeness because he assumes that it is an intrinsic feature of a mental image that it is the image of this object and of nothing else. I think the interlocutor is wrong and I gave some reasons why. You think Wittgenstein agrees with the interlocutor's assumption, I don't.

I wish I could talk to Witt about neuroscience and his thinking. — wonderer1

That would be interesting.

This indicates that a mental image is what one imagines at a particular time, and the description will describe what one imagines at the time. — Luke

I agree.

it is an intrinsic feature of a mental image that it is the image of this and of nothing else — Luke

I don't agree. Many things can influence our mental images. Two different events can get blurred in the mind.

What Wittgenstein criticises is that the interlocutor "might come to regard a mental image as a superlikeness" with an object. — Luke

How is it that he might come to regard it in this way? As I read it, because he assumes that a mental image must be more like its object than any picture. I think just the opposite is true. My mental picture of the house I used to live differs from photographs of it. I trust the photo to be more like the house.

Hacker tells us that a mental image is "not a likeness [to its object] at all" since its being a mental image of X "is not determined by its likeness to X". — Luke

Now I remember why I balk when Hacker is mentioned.

The question in hand here is, what happens with the picture theory as Wittgenstein moves on to the Investigations?

Who can give a simple, direct answer to that? — Banno

I don't know what you are looking for. The picture theory is abandoned. Wittgenstein had come to reject the idea that there is a logical structure that underlies both the world and its representation

T 218 What any picture, of whatever form, must have in common with reality, in order to be
able to depict it—correctly or incorrectly—in any way at all, is logical form, i.e. the form of
reality.

On your reading, a picture can be synonymous with a mental image. Your reading therefore seems inconsistent with Hacker's reading — Luke

I'm okay with that.

PI 389, which states: "it is an intrinsic feature of a mental image that it is the image of this and of nothing else." — Luke

It is Wittgenstein's imagined interlocutor who makes this claim in the quotations. W.'s response is:

That is how one might come to regard a mental image as a superlikeness.

One might regard a mental image in this way but a mental image is not a superlikeness. One's mental image can be quite unreliable.

My mental image may be at one time of a duck and at another time of a rabbit, but when my mental image is of a duck I cannot see it in any way other than as a duck (i.e. how I see it at the time), and the same for when my mental image is of a rabbit. — Luke

I agree that we cannot at the same time see it as both a duck and as a rabbit. But Wittgenstein was quite taken by the fact that it can flip from one to other. He discusses this in the Tractatus as well, with regard to a picture of a cube.

Perhaps what is in the imagination is not a picture because what is in the imagination (a mental image) can only be seen in one way, unlike a picture which can be seen in more than one way. — Luke

I can form different mental images of the same thing even though I cannot hold different mental images of the same thing at the same time. An image may change over time based on new experiences or the unreliability of memory.

I think that both a picture and what is pictured can be seen in different ways. Consider the duck-rabbit, for example. — Luke

When the picture itself is an object I agree, but not all pictures are objects.

When Wittgenstein says at PI 1:

These words, it seems to me, give us a particular picture of the essence of human language.

he is talking about a mental image, not an object. Another example:

“This is called a ‘leaf’ ”, I get an idea of the shape of a leaf, a picture of it in my mind.

(73)

When he says:

115. A picture held us captive. And we couldn’t get outside it, for it lay in our language, and language seemed only to repeat it to us inexorably.

he is talking about a mental image, a way in which something is conceived to be.

However, confusingly, at PPF 10 (Part II), W states:

What is the content of the experience of imagining? The answer is a picture, or a description.
— PPF 10 (Part II)

On the face of it, this appears to contradict PI 301. — Luke

The confusion evaporates when one considers that the term 'picture' is used in different ways.

When he says at 301:

What is in the imagination is not a picture, but a picture can correspond to it.

This should not be thought of as a general statement about pictures, as something that holds true for all pictures. He is talking specifically about how pain is imagined. Pain in the imagination is about what pain feels like, not about how we might picture it. See 302:

If one has to imagine someone else’s pain on the model of one’s own, this is none too easy a thing to do: for I have to imagine pain which I don’t feel on the model of pain which I do feel.

At the further extremes, even apart from considerations of pleasure, stand the bad man (kakos) and the man of practical wisdom (phronimos). — Leontiskos

Why do you call phronesis an extreme?

I think a wise person will seek wisdom. They will strive to know wisdom and to learn it. — NotAristotle

The way this is stated it seems as though wisdom is something like an object to be found.

That does not count against the point, so far as I see. — Banno

You quote PI 424, but that is not about a theory of pictures. Making mental pictures is something we do.

Here he is taking on a representational theory of meaning - the picture theory. — Banno

Right, as I said:

What the later Wittgenstein rejects is the logical connection between the picture and reality, not that we form pictures of how things are. — Fooloso4

The Indian mathematician shows that a picture can be seen - used - in different ways. — Banno

It is not that the picture can be seen in different ways, but that what is pictured can be seen in different ways. That is, we can form different pictures, and thus see something in different ways. Looking at the theorem in this way, the proof becomes evident. That is, it can be seen that the theorem is true.

But perhaps saying the picture theory is being rejected is too strong. He is still making use of pictures, and it seems to me that hereabouts he is attempting to see how his previous representational approach fits in with meaning as use. — Banno

This is far too narrow a picture. There is in the PI a greater focus on ways of seeing - seeing aspects, seeing as. And this leads to what Wittgenstein says about the imagination:

254. The concept of an aspect is related to the concept of imagination. In other words, the concept ‘Now I see it as . . .’ is related to ‘Now I am imagining that’.

The imagination is not to be taken as an excursion away from reality, but the way in which we begin to see things in new ways.

What a Copernicus or a Darwin really achieved was not the discovery of a new true theory but a fertile point of view.

(CV 18)

Sow a seed in my soil and it will grow differently than it would in any other soil.

(CV42)

126. The name “philosophy” might also be given to what is possible before all new discoveries and inventions.

There is a connection here with 90:

… our investigation is directed not towards phenomena, but rather, as one might say, towards the ‘possibilities’ of phenomena.

The point of the shutdown is, as usual, to create as much chaos as possible so that they can blame the democrats for being so dysfunctional. It’s worked before — but I’m not sure if it’ll work this time. — Mikie

I think it goes much deeper, to the heart of Republican distrust of government and democracy, and the task of dismantling government agencies.

In the Tractatus, the picture stood between the state of affairs and the proposition. — Banno

In the Tractatus the proposition is a picture of a state of affairs, not something between a state of affairs and the proposition.

What the later Wittgenstein rejects is the logical connection between the picture and reality, not that we form pictures of how things are:

115. A picture held us captive. And we couldn’t get outside it, for it lay in our language, and language seemed only to repeat it to us inexorably.

Here he is not rejecting pictures but this picture.

Pictures continue to have an important place in the later Wittgenstein, in both a positive and negative way.

424. The picture is there; and I do not dispute its correctness. But what is its application? Think of the picture of blindness as a darkness in the mind or in the head of a blind person.

What is at issue here is not the picture but the application:

423. Certainly all these things happen in you. - And now just let me understand the expression we use. - The picture is there. And I am not disputing its validity in particular cases. - Only let me now understand its application.

Consider the following:

143 ... I wanted to put that picture before him, and his acceptance of the picture consists in his now being inclined to regard a given case differently: that is, to compare it with this sequence of pictures. I have changed his way of looking at things. (Indian mathematicians: “Look at this!”)

In Zettel Wittgenstein we find the following:

461. ... (I once read somewhere that a geometrical figure, with the words "Look at this", serves as a proof for certain Indian mathematicians. This looking too effects an alteration in one's way of seeing.)

Despite significant changes the Tractarian theme of seeing and saying are still at work. It is sometimes the case that a proposition stands in the way of seeing things.

PI 66 To repeat: don’t think, but look!

Someone else’s beetle may think they understand what I’m doing, find it “normal” or not, but it’s just their beetle reacting to something. — schopenhauer1

It has nothing to do with beetles. As long as you insist of inserting this analogy where it does not belong you will continue to be confused.

(201) For what we thereby show is that there is a way of grasping a rule which is not an interpretation, but which, from case to case of application, is exhibited in what we call “following the
rule” and “going against it”.

We follow the rules of arithmetic when our calculations yield the correct answer. We follow the rules of chess when we do not make illegal moves. Whatever might be going on in one's mind makes no difference as long as one does not go against the rules.

There is no uncertainty here. If you add 1+1 and get 7 you went against the rules. If you make a prohibited move in chess, we don't check to see if there is a beetle in the box, we consult the rule book. There is a reason why disputes do not arise as to whether a bishop moves diagonally.

That doesn’t confer anything outside of solipsism. — schopenhauer1

You can play solitaire but the game has rules that are not solipsistic. You can make up your own rules but then you are playing a different game. If only you know the rules of the game then how can you be sure you are following them?

How is there a public to Witt if there’s no certainty to ontology? — schopenhauer1

There is no certainty to ontology and it is not done according to rules.

Unless his ever increasing rotating army of lawyers are able to exploit loopholes he is going to find that this defense will be worthless.

Overvalues his properties when seeking loans and undervalues the same properties when he is seeking to defraud the IRS.

My point is exactly the same as how Wittgenstein uses it in OC 94. The inherited background is the world we find ourselves in, i.e., a world of mountains, trees, hands, etc. All of us inherit this background in virtue of the fact that we live in the same reality. — Sam26

Once again:

94. But I did not get my picture of the world by satisfying myself of its correctness; nor do I have it because I am satisfied of its correctness. No: it is the inherited background against which I distinguish between true and false.

The inherited background is not the world but a picture of the world. Consider the "Mountains and Waters Sutra" of Zen Master Dogen:

The green mountains are always walking ...

(3)

This is the inherited background picture he has inherited and gives to his disciples. To state the obvious, it is not our background picture.

... the inherited background is how we get our picture of the world. — Sam26

This is not what Wittgenstein says. "it", what is inherited, refers to the picture not the things pictured.

What I'm saying is that our inherited background (that we live in a world with mountains, lakes, clouds, hands, feet, etc), which is not a system of beliefs, but informs what we believe, both linguistically and non-linguistically. — Sam26

This is an odd and questionable use of the term 'inherit'. While it is true that we live in a world with mountains, lakes, and clouds, they are not ours to be transferred from person to person.

The inherited background is a picture of the world:

94. But I did not get my picture of the world by satisfying myself of its correctness; nor do I have it because I am satisfied of its correctness. No: it is the inherited background against which I distinguish between true and false.

I'm not saying that the inherited background is a system of beliefs ... — Sam26

But, if I understand him, Wittgenstein is:

298. 'We are quite sure of it' does not mean just that every single person is certain of it, but that we belong to a community which is bound together by science and education.

142. It is not single axioms that strike me as obvious, it is a system in which consequences and premises give one another mutual support.

152. I do not explicitly learn the propositions that stand fast for me. I can discover them
subsequently like the axis around which a body rotates. This axis is not fixed in the sense that
anything holds it fast, but the movement around it determines its immobility. — Fooloso4

the foundation of epistemology. — Sam26

I argued above that:

The idea of hinges replace the ideas of foundationalism. — Fooloso4

298. 'We are quite sure of it' does not mean just that every single person is certain of it, but that we belong to a community which is bound together by science and education.

142. It is not single axioms that strike me as obvious, it is a system in which consequences and premises give one another mutual support.

152. I do not explicitly learn the propositions that stand fast for me. I can discover them
subsequently like the axis around which a body rotates. This axis is not fixed in the sense that
anything holds it fast, but the movement around it determines its immobility.

It is the movement of the work of the community bound together by science and education by which our propositions, beliefs, and knowledge are held fast. The axis is not timeless or immutable, but change is not piecemeal. — Fooloso4

And, as I pointed out earlier in this thread, (repeating 94 cited above):

94. But I did not get my picture of the world by satisfying myself of its correctness; nor do I have it because I am satisfied of its correctness. No: it is the inherited background against which I distinguish between true and false.
95. The propositions describing this world-picture might be part of a kind of mythology. And their role is like that of rules of a game; and the game can be learned purely practically, without learning any explicit rules.
96. It might be imagined that some propositions, of the form of empirical propositions, were
hardened and functioned as channels for such empirical propositions as were not hardened but fluid; and that this relation altered with time, in that fluid propositions hardened, and hard ones became fluid.
97. The mythology may change back into a state of flux, the river-bed of thoughts may shift. But I distinguish between the movement of the waters on the river-bed and the shift of the bed itself; though there is not a sharp division of the one from the other.
99. And the bank of that river consists partly of hard rock, subject to no alteration or only to an
imperceptible one, partly of sand, which now in one place now in another gets washed away, or deposited.

Even the builder has different language games. — RussellA

No. The builder has one language game. The one described by Wittgenstein. It is, as he said, a complete primitive language. (2)

What happened to the baseball team analogies? — NOS4A2

Here you go:

Team A plays baseball. A discussion arises when team A scores a home run. NOS, that tireless defender of all things Trump, joins in and says that the players, who he calls "prosecutors", refuse to score a basket. When it is pointed out that the rules of baseball do not include scoring baskets, NOS then says that he is not talking about these players/prosecutors
but some as yet unidentified players/prosecutors who, when their identity is disclosed, it turns out play a different game by different rules.

Perhaps he is confused because both teams play in New York. Or perhaps in his attempt to make a molehill out of a mountain, he intentionally conflates these different games.

The current district attorney, Alvin L. Bragg, declined to pursue that case, but later indicted the former president in connection with a hush money payment to a porn star.

More obfuscation. You said:

Fraud is a crime but prosecutors refused to pursue the case. I wonder why? “Liable” is becoming the common theme because guilt escapes you. New York is a banana republic. See what SCOTUS says. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ — NOS4A2

There is a difference between not pursuing one case and refusing to prosecute Trump for fraud. Bragg is prosecuting him for fraud. [added: in a criminal trial to establish guilt]

You struck out!

He said the box can be empty no? — schopenhauer1

You are making much more of this analogy then is warranted.

43. For a large class of cases of the employment of the word “meaning” - though not for all - this word can be explained in this way: the meaning of a word is its use in the language.

The use of a word is not something in a box. Meaning is use is public not private.

I was quoting one of Ankush Khardori's sources from his article in New York Magazine. — NOS4A2

This seems to be another article you did not read. Pomerantz was a prosecutor, he thought he had a strong case against Trump and wanted to bring criminal charges against him. He was a prosecutor and did not refuse to bring charges. Quite the opposite. This is why he resigned.

The author of the article makes it clear that there was still more work to do. This does not mean the district attorney's office refused to bring criminal charges. Again, quite the opposite. Bragg did not think the case was ready at that point. Subsequently, based on the further work that was done he conclude that their case against Trump was now strong enough and he brought criminal charges against him.

my point, or RussellA rather, is that Witts premise about “use” cannot be solely what picks out meaning. — schopenhauer1

That is Wittgenstein's position! It has been quoted several times including by those who argue as if they disagree with him on this.

This was because, to their chagrin, "There was nothing to indict" — NOS4A2

Who are you quoting?

What evidence do you have that the district attorney's office is no longer pursuing criminal charges? The so called "Hush Money" case is ongoing and includes criminal charges. Or do you have reliable evidence to the contrary?