But Wittgenstein did not "crack the code" in the sense of solve the problem. — Antony Nickles

Of course he didn't! He thought he had but he eventually realized he hadn't. But see below.

126. For what is hidden, for example, is of no interest to us.

129. The aspects of things that are most important for us are hidden because of their simplicity and familiarity.

The idea that something is hidden does not have a single etiology. I have been trying to steer you away from that assumption.

His investigation finds that it is because we have fixed our gaze past them to something certain, universal, logical, etc., even if we have to imagine it to be hidden. — Antony Nickles

Both Plato and Aristotle say that philosophy begins in wonder. It is, however, the pursuit of philosophy that led to modern science:

Man has to awaken to wonder - and so perhaps do peoples. Science is a way of sending him to sleep again.(Culture and Value)

I think it is with regard to this that he says in 126:

One might also give the name "philosophy" to what is possible before all new discoveries and inventions.

and in 129:

we fail to be struck by what, once seen, is most striking and most powerful.

Seeing the extraordinary in the ordinary.

Compare what he says in the preface to the Tractatus:

I therefore believe myself to have found, on all essential points, the final solution of the problems.

with PI 133:

For the clarity that we are aiming at is indeed complete clarity. But this simply means that the philosophical problems should completely disappear.

His desire for complete clarity is not something Wittgenstein rejected after the Tractatus.

He continues:

The real discovery is the one that makes me capable of stopping doing philosophy when I want to.—The one that gives philosophy peace, so that it is no longer tormented by questions which bring itself in question.

They're tautological. — Tate

Or contradictory. ( 4.46-4.461) If contradictory then false.

Logic says nothing about the world. That is not in dispute. Logic is used as a aid in examining and correcting our expressions of thought.

Logic is not about the world. Logic is about what we say about the world.

I’m taking the following as a statement or claim that you are making, rather than a diagnosis of the skeptic’s manifestation. — Antony Nickles

It is a statement about human history.

The belief that there are hidden things only disclosed to or by the few who are wise is as old as the desire for wisdom. It manifests in different ways.

Wittgenstein's own search led him to believe he had cracked the code.

The idea that "nonsense" has a special meaning in the Tractacus is from the 1980's realist interpretation. — Tate

Nonsense!

It is not a question of whether it has a special meaning, but rather whether it has the meaning you think it does.

There has always been and always will be disagreement over the interpretation, but in my opinion any interpretation that is worth consideration must be plausible. One way in which to test plausibility is to find things in the text that seem to be at odds with the interpretation.

I've got my own view, but don't we all? — Tate

We could leave it there. Or we could bring into focus what is fundamental to the disagreement between members.

A rhetorical question? or is it for Tate? — Banno

For anyone confused by "nonsense"

This is the very fixation that I have been discussing this whole time — Antony Nickles

I have as well. See my first post:
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/713032

There are, first, the propositions of logic itself. These do not represent states of affairs, — SEP

It is because they do not represent states of affairs that they are without (non) sense. As Banno pointed out:

logic is senseless. — Banno

Logical form is the transcendental condition for saying something that does have a sense. The propositions of logic are not "nonsense" in the sense of illogical or a jumble of words and signs. They are logical.

From the preface:

If this work has any value, it consists in two things: the first is that thoughts are expressed
in it, and on this score the better the thoughts are expressed—the more the nail has been hit
on the head—the greater will be its value.

We cannot, according to Wittgenstein, think illogically. It is in the expression of our thoughts that problems can arise.

On the other hand the truth of the thoughts that are here communicated seems to me unassailable and definitive.

What is called nonsense in the preface are not the propositions of logic but the attempt to say something that cannot be said.

Near the end of the Tractatus he calls "my propositions", which are not the propositions of logic, "unsinnig".

So how do we reconcile what he claims to be true with his calling these propositions nonsense? This is what we must climb "out through". Out through does not mean to dismiss or disregard as nonsense.

I'm not sure where you are finding that Wittgenstein assumes that the world is intelligible, or whether that is your prerequisite. — Antony Nickles

The presupposition of intelligibility is neither Wittgenstein's nor mine. It is behind the notion of something hidden. If the world does not yield to our intellect then it must be because there is something hidden from us.

All objects exist in relation to others. There are no objects that we can know of that exist in isolation independent of all else.

I have seen evidence that changes in the world have been caused by forces between things, but forces are a different thing to relations. — RussellA

If there is no relation between objects a and b there can be no force acting between them.

I have attempted to do two things:

First, explain Wittgenstein's distinction between necessity and accident.
Second, make clear our fundamental differences regarding determinism.

Instead of accepting these differences and moving on you repeat the same things.

Yes, but the virtue would be entirely without consequence if you would not act on it and that seems wasteful. — Tobias

But we do act. There is no getting around that.

What guides our actions? Aristotle's answer is we act according to the way we are disposed.

I think we should be watchful to make virtue entirely subjective, in the sense of a quality of the subject. — Tobias

I agree. I think Aristotle would as well. He lived the examined life. Central to his ethics is deliberation. He typically reviewed the opinions of others. He gave rational arguments in favor of one opinion over others.

Which is the same as saying that something must be written (cause) for that writing to be commented on (effect). — Harry Hindu

That it is written is a condition for me to comment not a cause that leads necessarily to me commenting.

Logical necessity is a type of causal necessity. Certain premises necessarily cause a certain conclusion to be true or false. — Harry Hindu

The conclusion follows from the premises, the premises do not cause a certain conclusion.

But you did comment and Witt writing something is ONE of the many causes that led to your commenting. — Harry Hindu

I am not commenting because of what my parents did or their parents or what the first human did or because of life itself or that out of which life emerged.

Now, if what you're saying were the case, then comments of yours would just appear on this screen even though you were never born. — Harry Hindu

That I was born is by change. The ability to comment is a necessary condition for me to do so, but my being born is not the cause of me commenting.

We don't have this problem in laying out prior causes for present events. — Harry Hindu

Right. We can in some grossly inadequate way trace what happened back to other things that happened. That is as far as we can go. That things did happen this way is not the same as claiming they necessarily had to happen this way.

As you pointed out, it is logically (causally) necessary that Witt write something for you to comment on it. — Harry Hindu

That is not what I pointed out. What I pointed out is that logical necessity is not causal.

Why are we ignorant of the future effects of present causes but not so with present effects of prior causes? — Harry Hindu

Because those causes do not lead to a single necessary outcome. It is only after the fact that we can say what that outcome was. Again, the same conditions might have led to a different outcome. What happens is only one of the possibilities of what might have happened.

What is the nexus of logical necessity? — Harry Hindu

Tautologies and contradictions. 4.46-4.461.

Yes, but from that follows that knowledge as perceiving is not enough for virtue because this knowledge is only actualized in action, no? — Tobias

As I understand it, it is the state of being of the virtuous person that is actualized. This is the case whether one acts on that knowledge or not. But yes, it would be wrong to consider virtue in the absence of action.

That to me seems a shaky assumption though, though might well be one made by Ari. — Tobias

This distinction is often blurred in such discussions.

...he first discovers what sort of thing a virtue is by observing that the goodness is never in the action but only in the doer.

.

I might do something considered virtuous but that does not make me virtuous. My reason for doing it might have nothing to do with virtue.

Contradictions and hypocrisy do not allow an understanding of your interpretation. — Harry Hindu

It is, rather, the case that your lack of understanding leads you to assume intellectual dishonesty, contradiction, and hypocrisy on my part.

If it is necessary that Witt write something down for you to later interpret it then this example is a problem for your interpretation. — Harry Hindu

It is tautological that something must be written in order for that writing to be commented on. That is an example of logical necessity. There is no necessity that I would comment. Since it is not by necessity, and the only necessity he recognizes is logical necessity, that I interpret his work is Zufall, "a sort of accident" (2.0121). The German term also means 'chance'. Now if you believe that nothing happens by chance then we have a fundamental disagreement.

Possibilities stem from our ignorance of the conditions between now and a particular future event. — Harry Hindu

If you accept Laplace's demon then it is only by ignorance that we cannot determine a future that is determinate. This, however, is an assumption not an established fact.

If the necessary conditions underlie both A and B, then A is no more or less the necessary outcome than B. It is necessary that I know how to read and write and have a device I can use to respond to you on TPF, but whether or not I do respond and what I will say if I do respond is not determined by necessity.

You obviously do not agree and assume some hidden causal nexus that can only lead to a single outcome that is already determined by conditions that extend back to some state of initial conditions of the universe.

We can replace x by "relates", and get the situation there is something x such that Plato relates to x and x relates to Socrates. — RussellA

This is what Wittgenstein is objecting to. Objects relate to each other. x is not an object. Plato does not relate to x, he relates to Socrates. a (Plato) R (loves) b Socrates.

There is no infinite regress here because the relation is not a relation to a relation.

As aRb requires a relation, aRb is not a fact, but is part of the picture. — RussellA

.

aRb does not require a relation, it is a proposition that points to a relation between a and b. aRb is a fact that is pictured in the proposition.

However, these relations cannot be shown in a picture using aRb — RussellA

They can. The apple (a) is on (R) the table (b). The relation between the apple and the table is that one is on they other. You can say it. You can show it.

It is not an act of knowing but a state of knowledge. This state is not achieved by knowing abot something.

From the IEP:

Aristotle’s first description of moral virtue required that the one acting choose an action knowingly, out of a stable equilibrium of the soul, and for its own sake. The knowing in question turned out to be perceiving things as they are, as a result of the habituation that clears our sight. The stability turned out to come from the active condition of all the powers of the soul, in the mean position opened up by that same habituation, since it neutralized an earlier, opposite, and passive habituation to self-indulgence.

Aristotle ties this all together under the idea of to kalon, the beautiful. The beautiful connects the perceiver with things perceived as they are. One must be in the proper state, be a beautiful soul, in order to perceive the beauty of things as they are. More specifically, to know that these choices and actions are beautiful and those ugly.

Knowing is not enough because unless one acts one does not get rid of the phobia. So it is a composition of action and knowledge, or in Aristotelian terms actualized knowledge — Tobias

From the IEP article Aristotle:Ethics

The word hexis [habit] becomes an issue in Plato‘s Theaetetus. Socrates makes the point that knowledge can never be a mere passive possession, stored in the memory the way birds can be put in cages. The word for that sort of possession, ktÎsis, is contrasted with hexis, the kind of having-and-holding that is never passive but always at work right now. Socrates thus suggests that, whatever knowledge is, it must have the character of a hexis in requiring the effort of concentrating or paying attention. A hexis is an active condition, a state in which something must actively hold itself, and that is what Aristotle says a moral virtue is. [emphasis added]

He goes on to say:

...he first discovers what sort of thing a virtue is by observing that the goodness is never in the action but only in the doer.

The formulation "virtue is knowledge" does not mean passive knowledge of what virtue is. It is, rather, knowing as an active doing.

reply="Paine;722207"]

I'm with Tom. An explanation would be helpful.

When you are inconsistent and intellectually dishonest then that is my reason to not trust your interpretation. — Harry Hindu

You accuse me of being intellectually dishonest and yet expect me to help you understand what you clearly do not.

How is that any different than how I've been using it — Harry Hindu

Here is what you said, emphasis added:

The accidental only makes sense in light of the determined or predicted. Saying that something is accidental implies that there is a way things are supposed to be but something unintended happened that made things different. Accidents only come about when something was predicted to happen but didn't. If you dont make a prediction then there can be no accidents. — Harry Hindu

I am not going to point out the ways in which this differs from what you say now.

I have even asked you twice (now is my third) what reason do you reject that there is a reason why things happen as they do, and you haven't answered. — Harry Hindu

And in return I asked you why you think they do. I know of no argument that would settle the matter. Reason alone is not decisive in deciding what side we favor.

Let me ask you a few related questions:

Do you think that things could have turned out differently?
Is there some necessity that things can only turn out as they do?
Can the same conditions support different outcomes?

I think the intellect resists accepting any limits. — Tate

That is why the best philosophy retains a comic element.

In ideal conditions, the human intellect can explain anything ... — Tate

It may be that the ideal conditions under which anything can be explained are not human conditions. We are limited animals who often go about unaware of their limits.

Sure, I just thought that 2.15 (and 2.151) might better demonstrate that Wittgenstein held relations to be a part of both the picture and the world; otherwise, they could not share a pictorial form. — Luke

Yes, both. He has other fish to fry with the saying/showing distinction, but it is not clear to me where Banno stands when he says:

Sure, the relation shows the state of affairs, and in that way steps beyond what is said. — Banno

All I've been doing is trying to follow your interpretation of Witt. — Harry Hindu

You want to participate in a discussion of Wittgenstein but refuse to read what he said. Read him and see if my interpretation follows from what he said, and then you might have a better chance of following my interpretation.

It's not how I take the terms, but how most people take the terms — Harry Hindu

Common usage also includes:

2. an event that happensby chance or that is without apparent or deliberate cause.
b :lack of intention or necessity : chance

Once you start declaring some interpretation right or wrong, you prove my point that what makes some interpretation necessarily right or wrong is what is the case prior to interpreting it. — Harry Hindu

What is the case prior to interpreting a text, is the text itself. The irony is that you have declared my interpretation wrong without even looking at the text itself. In addition, you declare Wittgenstein wrong based on claims of what he said that you pulled out of who knows where.

I was asking for what reason do you reject that there is a reason why things happen as they do. — Harry Hindu

See Aristotle on chance. See Ecclesiastes and Job on the expectation of reasons why.

That is a lot of potential for accidents ... — Harry Hindu

Yes, Wite-Out was a much used product. It is still sold but not used as much since we can easily fix typos with a word processor.

How would you know what is possible if not by referring to what the prior conditions are? — Harry Hindu

The prior conditions are, according to the Tractatus, transcendental.



.

One thing that should not be overlooked is that, as with the question of justice in the Republic, the question of virtue is of concern to those who raise these questions. It matters. That it matters, that we care, is not something that can be taught. It is a necessary condition for it to be taught and learned.

I originally included these when writing my post but decided to eliminate them before posting because I wanted to stress the fact that these relations exist between things and not just the picture.

2.031 and 2.15 both refer to "determinate relations".

The picture shows these relations. that's the point. — Banno

Yes, the picture shows the relation. My point is that there is a relation that is pictured, that is, the relation are not just part of the picture. The possibility for objects to be in relation is a necessary condition for facts.

Look at the context, at the mis-view RussellA expresses. — Banno

Sorry, I jumped in in response to the quoted statement. I too admit I have not been paying close attention to the exchange.

In the Gospel of Thomas, self-knowledge is related to poverty and wealth. Whether you follow a denomination or not, this idea is a powerful player in the way we view outcomes. Can my understanding change my fate? — Paine

How is self-knowledge related to poverty and wealth? Is it the inverse of the popular belief that being wise leads to financial wealth? That those who are rich are poor in spirit?

But, as I explained before, relations are part of the picture, not of the world. The world consists of facts. It therefore does not consist of relations. — Banno

I don't think this is correct.

2.01 A state of affairs (a state of things) is a combination of objects (things).

2.0272 The configuration of objects produces states of affairs.

The way in which the objects combine is the relation one stands to another.

2.031 In a state of affairs objects stand in a determinate relation to one another.

A fact is not just a collection of objects but objects standing in a determine relation to one another.

Logic is the transcendent condition for both objects and their representation. In so far as the facts of the world include our representations, the world is not independent of the mind.

But see the shift from the world to my world in his discussion of solipsism, the will, and the "metaphysical ''I".

Although:

6.373 The world is independent of my will — RussellA

when he says:

6.431 So too at death the world does not alter, but comes to an end.

he is referring to my world, the world as it is for me, the world of the metaphysical I.

As to the exercise of the will:

6.43 If the good or bad exercise of the will does alter the world, it can alter only the limits of the world, not the facts—not what can be expressed by means of language.
In short the effect must be that it becomes an altogether different world. It must, so to speak, wax and wane as a whole.

Good luck with that. It's like trying to be clear on what the authors of the Bible are saying. I'm not really rejecting anything Witt is talking about. — Harry Hindu

Many scholars recognize the value of hermeneutics.

I'm taking issue with his improper use of language. — Harry Hindu

You mistake what you take the terms 'accident' and 'necessity' to mean for what the terms mean in their various uses.

For what reason? — Harry Hindu

You assume there must be some reason why things happen as they do. Wittgenstein rejected this assumption. So do I. The issue is not as settled as you assume. This is not the thread to discuss it but see, for example: Sean Carroll:s On Determinism

Logical necessity is just as much a part of the world as any other causal relation. — Harry Hindu

Once again you want to stipulate the meaning of terms. Logical necessity has a very specific meaning in the Tractatus, and what it says is not what you claim.

Yet all you did was infer that you'd either submit your posts or not based on what conditions existed prior to submitting your post or not. — Harry Hindu

The conditions may be there but those conditions might support both A and B or A and N, all of which may be possible under those conditions.

Witt disproves his own assertions by writing his books for others to read. — Harry Hindu

Nonsense! That is not what he asserts. Read the book. Then we can discuss it.




.

I think that "courage" may actually refer to the golden mean between rashness and cowardice — Hello Human

This is Aristotle's formulation. What 'the mean' means, however, is not so simple. For more see Joe Sachs article on Aristotle's Ethics in the IEP Here.

How do you know if it is a "legitimate" form of spirituality? What does legitimate mean here? Is it sufficient to have an experience and call it Gnosis? Or is there a distinction between believing one has gained access to "greater mysteries" and having such access? Can we tell the difference? Do we even know there is such a thing?

The problem with all such promises is that one must first buy into it in order to seriously pursue it, and then when one fails to realize what is expected the blame is put on the person striving for doing or not doing something.

Since this is a thread on Wittgenstein, we need to be clear as to what he is saying about necessity and accident.

Your own view seems to be along the lines that whatever happens happens by necessity. This is something he rejected:

5.135 There is no possible way of making an inference from the existence of one situation to
the existence of another, entirely different situation.
5.136 There is no causal nexus to justify such an inference.
5.1361 We cannot infer the events of the future from those of the present.
Belief in the causal nexus is superstition.

He is not simply denying that we can know what will happen, but that it is necessary that this rather than that will happen. If that rather then this it is not because the latter is the necessary outcome rather than the former.

Off topic so I will keep this brief. A few things that have shaped western views:

The "pre-Socratic" search for what is first or elemental - fire, water, air, earth, Mind.
The God of the Hebrew Bible who creates the natural world.
The Christian idea of the conquest of nature.

I think Wittgenstein is still working to disentangle the confusion of the Tractarian logic. When he says pain in not "a Something" ,I take this to mean it is not a thing or object existing in the world that is represented in thought or propositions.

But this picture of language does not originate with the Tractatus. He begins the Investigations by quoting Augustine and says:

PI 1 These words, it seems to me, give us a particular picture of the essence of human language. It is this: the individual words in language name objects—sentences are combinations of such names.——In this picture of language we find the roots of the following idea: Every word has a meaning. This meaning is correlated with the word. It is the object for which the word stands ...

If you describe the learning of language in this way you are, I believe, thinking primarily of nouns like "table", "chair", "bread", and of people's names, and only secondarily of the names of certain actions and properties; and of the remaining kinds of word as something that will take care of itself.

But the remaining kinds of words do not take care of themselves when this picture holds us captive.

The paradox disappears only if we make a radical break with the idea that language always functions in one way, always serves the same purpose: to convey thoughts — Philosophical Investigations

The purpose of the statement: "I am in pain" is not to convey the thought that I am in pain. The sentence does not have the same logical/grammatical form as sentences about things.

But what would it mean that you wouldn't necessarily end up doing what you intended if not that there was some other necessary condition that prevented you from doing it? — Harry Hindu

I might have a better offer. I might forget. I might change my mind and conclude that I am wasting my time.

Not empirical proof that I was alone, but pursuing the possibility I was not alone. Yes, someone can feel alone even when other people are around.

the kami, supernatural entities — javi2541997

To the western way of seeing things they are supernatural, but in Shinto they are part of the natural world.

What one find tolerable or intolerable is not something that must be put to the test. Whatever it is one might be able or unable to cope with has no definitive bearing on what would happen, which might change in time.

I imagine I would spend at least some time and effort trying to find out if I was truly alone, but from where I sit now I don't think the search would be desperate.

One advantage is that I could post on TPF without anyone contradicting anything I said.

Added: Although I might contradict myself.

I don't see how you could have shared it if you didn't want to, or intend to. — Harry Hindu

Wanting to does not mean I have to. Intending to does not mean I would necessarily end up doing what I intend to do.

It appears that the world is necessarily determined by all the facts. — Harry Hindu

That is logically necessary, but:

1.21 Each item can be the case or not the case while everything else remains the same.

2.0271 Objects are what is unalterable and subsistent; their configuration is what is changing
and unstable.
2.061 States of affairs are independent of one another.

2.062 From the existence or non-existence of one state of affairs it is impossible to infer the existence or non-existence of another.

It's strange to say that all the facts determine what is both the case and not the case. What is not the case can only exist in a mind as imaginary. — Harry Hindu

What is not the case exists in the logical space of what is possible. Logic is transcendental. It makes possible not only states of affairs but the possibility to think of states of affairs. We cannot think illogically:

3 A logical picture of facts is a thought.

3.03 Thought can never be of anything illogical, since, if it were, we should have to think illogically.

So how did you come to quote Witt if the compulsion of Witt writing something, you finding meaning in it and you wanting to share, did not happen? — Harry Hindu

Obviously it happened. It is not, however, necessary that this would happen thought. His notebooks might never have been published. It is not necessary that I quoted him or that I discuss him or post on this forum or that forum exist.

"Wanting to share" is, as you say, something I wanted to do. It is a choice not a necessity.