That's funny.

I am fascinated by the philosophy of language and at an advanced age am in the middle of a Master's where I am covering lots of topics but focused on language. I don't think Wittgenstein claims as much as some here think: 'some' problems can indeed be clarified by attention to the use of language, but not 'all' or 'most'. — mcdoodle

Good luck Mcdoodle on your masters. How old are you, if you don't mind me asking? I'm 68, in just a few days. Keep thinking it's good for the brain.

My own thinking is that Wittgenstein's methods can be used across a wide array of philosophical thinking. For example, in answering questions such as - what is reality, what is knowing, what are beliefs, objective and subjective ideas, and the very expansive topic of how meaning is derived, which goes to the logic behind the use of words/concepts.

However, to make the point some have already made, just because you get clear on the use of these words, that doesn't mean the problem vanishes. It does help clarify the problems. Many of the problems that disappear, aren't really problems in the first place. Some or many are just linguistic illusions.

It sounds to me like some people's interpretation, even in this very thread, of the later Wittgenstein is that he was trying to cure the philosopher in us from the need to do philosophy. — Marchesk

Well, Wittgenstein did believe that much of what passes as philosophy is just misunderstandings of the logic of language. This is seen from the Tractatus to On Certainty. There's disagreement over this, but I think Wittgenstein would say that if you can clear up the linguistic confusions, it will help clear up the philosophical muddle, and that will enable you to stop. I don't think he meant that all philosophizing would stop, I don't see how that would or could be the case.

All I'm saying is, and you've agreed with me before, that one need not provide their ground to another in order for the belief to be well-grounded. Being well-grounded is the criterion for being justified. It is not providing that ground to another. — creativesoul

The confusion may be in the following: I learn through the language-game of epistemology, i.e., what it means to justify a belief. Once I learn it in the proper setting, then I'm able to apply it privately. I don't learn it privately, but I can apply it privately. Just as I learn mathematics within the language of mathematics (socially again), and then I can do it privately.

It's in the private setting, after I learn it in a social setting, that I don't have to state it. I know what it means to justify, so in this sense I don't need to state anything. Unless someone asks for the justification, then I can give it. The social, or the language part comes first though.

Are you saying that it can be done totally in private? Just trying to clarify.

I understand that you don't. Do you know whether Wittgenstein thought so? — Marchesk

I don't believe so.

I hope in my writings I haven't given that impression. Although at times it might appear that that's my view.

Does anybody understand Wittgenstein? :wink: :razz: — Pattern-chaser

You do, don't you!? :wink:

As do I! The only thing I'd add is that a coherent problem is a grammatically well-formed one. This does not mean the problem of time is 'merely' linguistic: it simply means that it meets the minimal criteria of being a problem that can be addressed at all. It's like saying: "all problems of vision are problems of light": in some sense, this is true and undeniable - but it is also misleading. The disjunction between "all philosophical problems are linguistic" and "philosophical problems are real" is a fake one: philosophical problems are real - are only real - when they have a well-formulated grammar that makes sense of them. — StreetlightX

Well said, I concur wholeheartedly.

Sure, but that's a lot different than the claim that linguistic analysis can potentially dissolve philosophy problems across the board. That philosophical inquiry is itself an abuse of language. That philosophers for two and half thousand years have been misunderstanding language. — Marchesk

I'm wondering what philosophers have thought this? I know that in Wittgenstein's early writings (The Tractatus) he believed that the major problems of philosophy were a result of not understanding the logic of language (mainly an a priori endeavor). Moreover, in thinking he solved this problem, he thought that he had solved the major problems of philosophy, so this may be true of the early Wittgenstein. Are there others that you're thinking of?

But what if dog didn't do way instain mother? Dog is would be, maybe. But definitely dog wasn't. Would be isn't is and wasn't isn't is, can talk that. But only is is is! Therefore wasn't isn't is and isn't isn't was, and would be isn't is and isn't isn't would be. But isn't is maybe would be some of the time. Would be and wasn't isn't is. — fdrake

I definitely will suspend belief when it comes to these statements. :gasp:

Who's Stove?

Later: Oh, now I remember. DUH

The primary reason for creating this thread was to get people to expose their own thinking on the importance of philosophy of language. It may be that it's not that important for some, or it may be of primary importance, or somewhere in between. People tend to gravitate to debating the differences between their ideas, and that's okay, but I was looking for what people have learned as they have studied this particular area of philosophy. This is why I wanted people who have spent a lot of time thinking about philosophy of language. However, I did open it up, because I didn't want to restrict people.

Thanks Blue Lux, for the most part I'm looking for what people have learned, and your post is in keeping with the spirit of my thread.

I went through that link rather fast, but it seems to be the writings of a skeptic, in terms of what we think we know. After all there are many ways we can go wrong in our thinking, as the article points out. Much of this needs unpacking, but I would say that I disagree with the article on many levels.

It would take another thread to discuss it.

That is to say, it describes W.'s method of philosophising as a picture which holds captive its practitioners, as a condition (theoriophobia) which requires therapy! It is said, or at least implied, by its proponents, that someone can be immersed in W.'s method of linguistic analysis only through a volitional switch, which takes place once we have seen and understood what the method shows us. This, of course, is something Virvidakis is sarcastic about. — Πετροκότσυφας

Maybe you could expand a bit on this, and on any of the comments made in that post.

Hm. Philosophy of language or linguistic philosophy. Perhaps we have started out with an issue of ambiguity. I do tend to use "philosophy of language" when strictly I mean "linguistic philosophy"; but then, it was the philosophy of language that led to my adopting linguistic philosophy as a srt of default position. — Banno

When I talk about philosophy of language I'm referring to a Wittgensteinian process, for the most part. Although I sometimes use linguistics to refer to some of the same things, strictly speaking linguistic philosophy is much different.

From the SEP...
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/linguistics/

"Philosophy of linguistics is the philosophy of science as applied to linguistics. This differentiates it sharply from the philosophy of language, traditionally concerned with matters of meaning and reference.

"As with the philosophy of other special sciences, there are general topics relating to matters like methodology and explanation (e.g., the status of statistical explanations in psychology and sociology, or the physics-chemistry relation in philosophy of chemistry), and more specific philosophical issues that come up in the special science at issue (simultaneity for philosophy of physics; individuation of species and ecosystems for the philosophy of biology). General topics of the first type in the philosophy of linguistics include:

"What the subject matter is,
What the theoretical goals are,
What form theories should take, and
What counts as data.
Specific topics include issues in language learnability, language change, the competence-performance distinction, and the expressive power of linguistic theories.

"There are also topics that fall on the borderline between philosophy of language and philosophy of linguistics: of “linguistic relativity” (see the supplement on the linguistic relativity hypothesis in the Summer 2015 archived version of the entry on relativism), language vs. idiolect, speech acts (including the distinction between locutionary, illocutionary, and perlocutionary acts), the language of thought, implicature, and the semantics of mental states (see the entries on analysis, semantic compositionality, mental representation, pragmatics, and defaults in semantics and pragmatics). In these cases it is often the kind of answer given and not the inherent nature of the topic itself that determines the classification. Topics that we consider to be more in the philosophy of language than the philosophy of linguistics include intensional contexts, direct reference, and empty names (see the entries on propositional attitude reports, intensional logic, rigid designators, reference, and descriptions)."

I'm not prepared for a formal debate. It's just that those debates seemed to be well structured, and this sort of topic has the chance of being all over the place, since it attempts to cover the entire reach of philosophy. — Marchesk

Ya, this is a rather broad topic, but don't hold back.

unless some philosophy of language is philosophy of mind...

Profesional philosophers have moved on, it seems; but then, they have to do something in order to convince others to pay them. — Banno

Language seems foundational in some sense to philosophy, as per StreetlightX's comment, but then moves on as we learn to use it in these other subject areas.

I'm wondering how much we can agree on within the scope of philosophy of language. I'm trying to take this thread in a different direction from the typical threads. I'm trying to be a bit more open-minded and not as combative, but it's difficult to do. I guess I'm looking for wisdom from those of you who spend a lot of time thinking.

Nice post, I'm always looking for ways to debunk my own ideas. It's so easy to get into a rut about a particular way of thinking, i.e., it's easy to get tunnel vision. It would be interesting to hear more of this. There are parts of this that I would take issue with, but it does seem interesting.

He is, if you like, a struggling Christian in various stages of retreat and denial. — Snakes Alive

This doesn't seem to fit the Wittgenstein I know, although I can see how you might think this from some of what he said. Wittgenstein definitely believed in the mystical, and he admired the writings of some Christians, like Kierkegaard.

Indeed; Philosophy of Language is, in the end, the whole of philosophy. — Banno

Yes, this is why I think philosophy of language is so important, and this seems to me to be a very important discovery about the philosophy of language. Maybe one can debate the idea that every philosophical problem is a language problem. I know I did leave open the idea that not every philosophical problem is a language problem, but in a sense it is.

The great joy I had from PI was due to reading it as a set of tools more than for the content. Consider, for instance, "Don't think, but look" from ⎰66. It's just brilliant - as in, it illuminates what goes wrong in so much philosophical thinking.

The vast majority of philosophical problems derive from grammatical muddles; here I am using "grammar" in the broad sense of the structure of language and language games. Indeed I am tempted to say if it's not a grammatical problem, it's not a philosophical problem - it belongs to some other field.; That is, it is tempting to posit that philosophy is exactly the study of confusions of language. — Banno

Your post is the kind of post I'm looking for, i.e., the ideas that you gleaned from Wittgenstein. Some of you may have a different perspective, so it doesn't have to relate to Wittgenstein.

I'm not necessarily looking for debate, but having a debate about what's said is part of the process. I'm looking for your perspective in relation to philosophy of language, and it doesn't need to be from Wittgenstein's perspective.

Getting Banno to write more than a sentence or two is an achievement in itself. Maybe I should close the thread.

Its particularly true of child development issues. You have to know when to stop asking the child to further define their issues, and simply accept the rough sketch. In my experience, it usually much earlier than many psychologists seem to think. — Pseudonym

This seems, although I'm not sure, to go along with Wittgenstein's foundational ideas, or what appear to be foundational ideas.

I share the positivist view that there is something 'wrong' with philosophy, that the questions it asks are somehow confused. Philosophy therefore can't be addressed on philosophical terms — Snakes Alive

Can you give an example of what you mean.

I simply mean that language is a practice like any other: playing football, walking a dog, brushing teeth; to use language is to do something. And 'doings' are not specifically linguistic. Moreover they can only be made sense of in wider contexts that might involve everything from economics to power relations to biology and so on. Language is embedded in a world, and to understand language we must understand the world. Witty would capture this in his recourse to his reference to the form-of-life in which language-games operate. — StreetlightX

Yes, I would definitely agree with this.

I think this is the point that Wittgenstein was trying to get across. That of ethics to be found in the ordinary deed done out of charity in every day life. — Posty McPostface

This sounds like something Wittgenstein would say, viz., that ethics is to be found in the deed.

Is this a quote of Wittgenstein's - "Philosophy is only descriptive, its purpose therapeutic. The only problem to be solved is that of the human psychology." I'm interested in the source.

Thank you for your response. — Dfpolis

:up:

I've come to the conclusion, as did Wittgenstein, that the problems of philosophy are psychological or have their root in the psychology of the speaker. — Posty McPostface

If you want to know what I would disagree with, it would be the above statement. There are many psychological ramifications of what Wittgenstein said, there is no doubt about that, but he would not say that the problems of philosophy have their root in the psychology of the speaker. However, to be fair, Posty you may have something in mind that I'm missing.

I am one of those who have read some Wittgenstein and was not unduly impressed. I take responsibility for that. As a student of Aristotle, who is also a genius and often difficult to grasp, I appreciate the need to study a philosopher in depth to fully appreciate his/her genius. So, as I see it, it is a matter of resource allocation. We have limited time, and so we have to judge, after minimal exposure, where to spend it.

One way to overcome this barrier is to have someone show you an instance of the philosopher's genius. — Dfpolis

Your right, it's very difficult to make time to study some of this material, especially since there is just so much to study. All I have time for is a very limited area of philosophy, there is just too much.

His genius is seen in the Tractatus, even if you disagree with it. It's seen in his transition from his early to his later philosophy. I see his genius in his final notes (On Certainty). I've also seen his genius in what he did outside of philosophy. One example was his work during WW2 at Guys Hospital in England...

“Wittgenstein’s job as a porter was to deliver medicines from the dispensary to the wards, where, according to John Ryle’s wife, Miriam, he advised the patients not to take them. His boss at the pharmacy was Mr. S F. Izzard. When asked later if he remembered Wittgenstein as a porter, Izzard replied, ‘Yes, very well. He came and worked here and after working here three weeks he came and explained how we should be running the place. You see, he was a man who was used to thinking.’ After a short while, he was switched to the job of pharmacy technician in the manufacturing laboratory, where one of his duties was to prepare Lassar’s ointment for the dermatological department. When Drury visited Wittgenstein at Guy’s, he was told by a member of the staff that no one before had produced Lassar’s ointment of such high quality. “

Was taken from the following link: http://ludwig.squarespace.com/wittrs-blog/2009/12/12/wittgenstein-labors-at-guys-during-wwii.html

Thanks for the post, Posty. I'm always interested in hearing how others interpret or use Wittgenstein's philosophy.

Yes, but is it really necessary to study Wittgenstein to spot an equivocal use of terms? Clearly not, for Aristotle discusses different types of equivocation — Dfpolis

Obviously not, but Wittgenstein goes much much further than this, and it's this wide view that Wittgenstein deals with over the course of his life. I think most philosophers would agree that Wittgenstein's thinking was genius, but most present Wittgenstein in very basic ways. When I hear some of the interpretations of Wittgenstein, they seem to be of those who have only read some of Wittgenstein, but have not really studied Wittgenstein in depth. The comparison would be like me talking biology with an expert in biology. It seems naive.

The reason I say some of this is that Wittgenstein is very difficult, and yet people will give his philosophy a cursory reading and think they understand. But now I'm way off topic.

but the nature of language is itself not lingusitic: it belongs to a wider set of practices and capacities which must also be grasped in their specificity. — StreetlightX

I don't follow this, specifically, "it belongs to a wider set of practices and capacities which must also be grasped in their specificity."

Does this apply to ancient or medieval philosophical problems in addition to more modern ones? Because various philosophical problems have been expressed in Greek, Latin, Hindi, Chinese, English, French, German, Arabic, etc.

On an abuse-of-language view, different languages would probably present different forms of abuse. Or so we might expect. — Marchesk

I'm a fan of JTB, and we can trace it back to ancient philosophy, but yes, it does apply to philosophical problems across the board, and throughout history.

Yes, different languages would present different abuses. However, I think for the most part many of the problems are very similar.

(3) Rule following is a non-deliberative component of language use; the 'way of following a rule which is not an interpretation'. As StreetlightX put it, language is extra-linguistic.
(4) Highlighting the importance of aspect shifting (seeing as). — fdrake

The rule-following as I interpret Wittgenstein isn't extra-linguistic, i.e., he's saying that rule-following is a necessary feature of language. And it's this feature that tells us much about how language develops in a social setting and not privately. Our private uses of words are meaningless, which further illustrates that language is necessarily social, as seen especially from the rule-following ideas Wittgenstein put forth.

There is a component of Wittgenstein that goes into this idea of "seeing as," i.e., the duck rabbit picture, but I'm not sure of the connection between rule-following and that idea. I would need to hear more.

The interaction of (3) and (4) have been influencing my thoughts and philosophical studies for some time. It's difficult for me to articulate without jargon, but the rough idea is that nature is suggestive. (3) highlights that we're always in the world with the stuff at our fingertips and (4) highlights that the world springs out into structures when we have both at our fingertips.* — fdrake

This last paragraph interests me because I think maybe I've recently being having similar thoughts. Maybe we're coming at it from different angles. Part of this, if I'm not mistaken, is related to to the problem of consciousness.

No, I don't think you take such a reductive view of philosophy. What issues do you think are dissolved, or nearly dissolved, by looking at them through your preferred lens? I don't have a view of philosophy of language in general, but I am rather prejudiced against ordinary language philosophy because at its worst it thinks there are no substantive philosophical issues and because it espouses a kind of 'first philosophy' which is to be done through the analysis of word use. — fdrake

To answer your first question, the issue I've been working on, viz., parts of the epistemological issues get solved. However, solving the issue doesn't mean that people will agree with it, that's another problem. It also doesn't mean that other problems won't arise within that answer. We see this in science all the time.

The problem with ordinary language philosophy is the way people think of it, viz., that how the ordinary man talks, is the talk that we should strive for, but that's a misunderstanding (not that that is your view). The way I think of ordinary language is how a word, for example, is developed over time in ordinary language. It's home, so to speak, and the use of the word/concept in that setting. For example, some philosophers have come up with a sense/meaning of knowledge that doesn't fit within the ordinary use of the word. Thus, they use the word completely out of it's home. It's akin to calling a car a pencil, as if that use explains cars in a way we haven't previously understood; and that understanding the car now as a pencil gives us new insights.

I guess in some sense it is a "first philosophy" as you say, but that would have to be unpacked a bit.

Isn't the emphasis on language pretty much the entire analytical enterprise of the past century? The idea that if we can get clear on language, then many philosophical problems can be adequately addressed, and philosophy can be turned into a respectable pursuit, similar to science. — Marchesk

I agree with this, but I think many people don't understand the "get clear on language" part, what does that mean via Wittgenstein and Austin for example.

Maybe my emphasis on Wittgenstein is overblown. If you think that, then explain why, but don't do it if you don't understand Wittgenstein.

Implicit is some ground to build up from. Imo, there's definition and consistency and performative utility. Anything else - well - what else is there? If thoughts, what are they? If language, what is that? If meaning, what is...? If the world, ...? It would seem as if the entire endeavor is like climbing a smooth rock face with pitons. You drill and drive them in, in such they'll hold your weight, and there you are.

If you're going to have more, what is that the "more" is made of? — tim wood

I like this Tim, maybe you can explain further.