Apparently you’re not a fan of Kuhn and Feyerabend. — Joshs

I'm not sure what specifically you're referring to.

Why would you say that? There are plenty of language-games that reflect facts or states-of-affairs. Many of the language-games of science reflect facts, as do other areas of study.

You seem to think that if you view Witts work as above most philosophers that it's somehow giving him godlike power. I'm just saying that his intellect IS superior to most philosophers. For me that's an objective fact. Forget philosophy and just look at his life as a whole in terms of his capabilities. It's not a matter of worshipping Witt, it's just recognizing his amazing mind. If you think otherwise that's ok too. If studying someone who you think has important things to say is fanboying, then I guess I'm guilty.

Why are trying to make Wittgenstein fit your idea of what should or should not be said. All your doing is inserting your subjective feelings into the conversation, as though you know best what Witt should be saying and not saying. None of us can hold a candle to his ability to think through these linguistic ideas, including many professional philosophers.

Maybe it's this presumption that I have trouble with. It makes one seem "above the fray". Come into the pig pen, my dear Witty! — schopenhauer1

He's trying to get people out of the pig pen. He's trying to clarify our philosophical thinking, which is no easy task. I think Wittgenstein went off the rails a bit when it comes to what can be said, i.e., in terms of metaphysics.

s it that Wittgenstein rejects Moore’s language-game or that he is showing Moore what a language game is? Does the idea of rejecting a language-game make sense? — Joshs

We know that there are many different language-games, and some of these language-games, (e.g. religious and political language-games) don't always reflect the facts. So I think Wittgenstein is pointing out how Moore's language-game fails to give a proof of the external world (Although, to be fair, Witt doesn't speak of Moore's argument in terms of a language-game). Moreover, Moore knows what a language-game is because he sat in on many of Wittgenstein's lectures.

Your 2nd question is something I thought about for a long time. I think we reject certain language-games all the time because they often don't reflect facts. So yes, I think it does make sense. In fact, it's important that we recognize that certain language-games don't reflect reality. There are constant battles between competing language-games, i.e., which language-games will prevail in our systems of belief.

For me, OC provides the best foundation for understanding epistemology, and should be used as our starting point for understanding epistemology. OC also provides the grounding for knowledge, i.e., the starting points which have no epistemological grounding. Witt demonstrates where knowing ends, or where justification ends. He ends the infinite regress of reasons, and the circular nature of many epistemological theories. In other words, Witt solved these two problems. More work needs to be done on the nature of these pre-epistemological beliefs (Moore's propositions) and their place in the epistemological landscape.

We have to get away from our emphasis on the internal in relation to objective knowledge.

As I've pointed out before, Wittgenstein talks about two kinds of certainty in OC, subjective certainty and objective certainty (for e.g. OC 245). Wittgenstein believes that Moore's propositions amount to no more than a conviction of what he believes (subjective), as opposed to having objective grounds for his beliefs (referring to Moorean propositions). So Moore's language-game doesn't do what Moore thinks it does, viz., provide a proof of the external world. So Wittgenstein rejects Moore's language-game, and all such language-games that amount to a subjective knowing, i.e., the mistaken idea, common in many quarters today, that "I know..." is purely subjective (one's conviction). This idea has wrecked havoc on many belief systems. It's very destructive.

What pray tell is the error he has shown? Neither his language games argument nor his "silence" argument (from Tractatus), necessarily precludes providing context, connecting with other ideas, etc. — schopenhauer1

First, I should've responded like I did. Second, I'm not sure that my disagreements are the same as @Banno's. - some probably are. Third, I'm responding to passages like the following, which seems a clear misunderstanding of Wittgenstein. I think most people who study Wittgenstein, even many who disagree with some of Witt's remarks, would find @RussellA's remarks in the following quote just wrong.

Wittgenstein asks questions, but avoids trying to answer them
There are two parts to my understanding of language: i) words have a use in the language game and ii) the language game has a use in the world. Wittgenstein deals with the first part, but ignores the second. Wittgenstein is like a mountaineer who buys all the ropes, crampons, thermal weatherproof clothes and tents but then never goes to the mountain, justifying himself by saying that the actual climbing of the mountain is a meaningless pursuit. — RussellA

.

The idea that Wittgenstein ignores how language-games have a use in the world seems way off the mark, since he constantly talks about meaning (use) in reference to the world (including our forms of life in the world). I don't see how anyone who has read Wittgenstein can make such a statement. This isn't about some subtle disagreement, but about the meat and potatoes of the Investigations.

I commend anyone who spends time trying to understand Witt, even when I disagree. His writing style doesn't lend itself to easy interpretations. I think the problem lies in reading too many secondary sources. Secondary sources can be a great help, but you have to read many different sources to get a good balanced understanding, and even this doesn't always help.

One of the reasons why Witt doesn't always answer a question is that he's trying to make us think. He's not trying to avoid answering the question. I can't imagine Witt shying away from answering questions. And finally, if you understand that Witt is giving us a method of doing philosophy and not a linguistic theory, this will help steer you in the right direction. Our tendency is to look for a theory and miss the method. It's the method that is most important. This is Wittgenstein's legacy I believe.

What twaddle. — Banno

What shit is more like it.

It will be interesting to see what Sam26 has to say. — Banno

I just don't have the motivation to give much of a response. I haven't read many of the responses given in the recent pages. I've read yours and Luke's, and there maybe be some disagreements, but that's to be expected when parsing Wittgenstein. If I do any writing in the future it will probably be on On Certainty.

If I haven't read what you wrote it's not necessarily because I disagree, but rather that I just haven't set aside the time to do so. Hopefully I'll get more motivated in the coming weeks, and do some more writing on W's final notes.

Thanks for chiming in Banno.

It doesn't matter if it's rhetorical or if he's pretending, it's nonsense. Descartes was just confused on this point. Moreover, Wittgenstein's ideas go directly to much of what Descartes was trying to say. That's my take. I'm not a fan of Descartes. :smile:

Although it makes no sense to say that I am in pain but I do not know it or I am not conscious that I am in pain, that I do not know that I am in pain is a grammatical claim. I think you are reaching into the wrong issue. — Fooloso4

The use of the words, doubt, know, believe, being conscious, all have correct and incorrect grammatical uses within certain contexts or forms of life; so they provide certain constraints on what can be said reasonable or rationally. And of course "...I do not know that I am in pain is a grammatical claim," so I'm not sure of your point.

Something that does not think cannot be deceived, and only something that can think can doubt. I cannot be deceived about or doubt that I exist unless I am a thing that thinks. — Fooloso4

Why would you think that my point conflicts with these obvious ideas? My point is that in terms of what I can know, it doesn't make sense (and you seem to agree) that I know that I am in pain, and in a similar vain, it also doesn't make sense to claim "I think, therefore I am." which is also a knowledge claim of a similar type. It's not as though I can arrive at these conclusions outside the grammar of the language-games in which they occur. There is no internal language-game (as per the private language argument) that allows me to do this. Descartes, I would contend is doing just this. He starts by doubting everything, which is nonsense from the start. He creates his own private conceptual scheme and proceeds from there.

That I am in pain can be talked about in the language game. That I am in pain can also be known by others. It is just something that I cannot know. I don't learn of, or doubt, or know my pains. I have them. — Luke

This is important to understand. It reaches into the issue of consciousness itself, and it's why Descartes is wrong about "I think, therefore I am." There is no such conclusion to be drawn. I simply think. Others know that I'm conscious, just as they know I'm in pain, but we as individuals have no such knowledge. It doesn't make sense to doubt one's consciousness or to doubt that one is in pain, at least as an epistemological issue because it's outside the scope of epistemology. Many language-games fall apart when using them to point to these inner conscious experiences. Even the idea that consciousness is an illusion is nonsense. It would be akin to saying that pain is an illusion.

Logic, i.e., propositional logic is about correct reasoning. It's about the process of collecting reasons (i.e., propositions) and drawing conclusions based on those reasons/evidence. Logic sets out the rules for doing just this. So logic is concerned with the justifications used to support conclusions. It's not about laws of thought or thinking processes, that's a matter for psychology.

To be clear, the "something" in question at §304 is not a meaning or anything linguistic, but a private sensation; a feeling. However, I assume this is what you meant. — Luke

As I read through these paragraphs, I find that I'm not actually disagreeing with Witt, so my wording is not as accurate as it should be.

As Wittgenstein pointed out in PI 258, there is a problem talking about the accuracy of private sensations, he says towards the end, “But in the present case I have no criterion of correctness. One would like to say: whatever is going to seem right to me is right. And that only means that here we can’t talk about ‘right’. — Richard B

The quote from PI 258 is about the so-called private language argument. I have no problem with the PLA. I think it's clear that rule-following in a private language degenerates into "what seems right is right." However, this is much different from what I was referring to above. My point wasn't about a private language, it was about the public use of words and what we mean by those words (generally speaking). I was addressing the public use of color words, and what it would mean to accurately describe certain colors. The point was that we can and do generally describe colors accurately, so that what I mean by the color blue is generally what we all mean by the color blue. It's not as though we're all confused about what we're seeing or experiencing, unless, for e.g., we talking about very subtle shading or nuanced color differences which may take some training to accurately describe.

What goes wrong with some much talk of private sensations is it borrows so much from the language of the public shared reality that words begin to loose their sense, like “right” “accurate”, “judgment”, “remember”, “something” etc… How much do you cut off a tree where it is no longer a tree but a stump? — Richard B

Yes, these words do borrow (borrow is not a good word for what I'm talking about - words get their meanings from public discourse period - they don't borrow from the public) from public language because if they didn't it would degenerate into purely subjective meanings. Hence, the PLA. I disagree that Wittgenstein would agree that words, such as, right, accurate, judgment, etc lose their sense, if that's what you're indeed saying. It's important when using words like accurate to spell out what qualifies as accurate. In one case of measuring, for e.g., we might say that a measurement within a certain range is accurate, but in another case it may not be. So again how we use words in one language-game might not work in another, but that doesn't mean that the words lose their sense. It just means that sense is dependent upon the language-game you're using at the moment. These language-games are dependent on a wide range of public discourse.

What could “accurately” mean in such a case of private experiences/sensations. — Richard B

What accurately means depends on context. So if we give people the same color patches and they describe them using the same words I use, then what more is needed to say they've described the colors accurately, and that they are seeing what I see? For all practical purposed their descriptions are accurate. There's no good reason to think they are seeing different colors. It's a problem without a difference.

However, I'm not sure whether there is much left to say if W is correct in saying that the private sensation is "not a Nothing", but "a Something about which nothing could be said." — Luke

This is where I disagree with Wittgenstein. I agree that meaning doesn't reside as a thing in the mind/brain, but I disagree that it's a "something about which nothing can be said." At the very least I can say they are private experiences/sensations, and we often do describe such sensations accurately. Moreover, when talking about, for e.g., the taste of wine, some people who are in the business of describing such tastes, can do it in a way that others can clearly understand. They understand because they too are able to recognize the descriptions.

Wherever you have systems of belief and the analysis of those beliefs, you'll have philosophy. In this sense philosophy will always be relevant. What will change is the refinement of the methods. Wittgenstein's method of linguistic analysis brought this into sharp focus.

Why don't you start up your own thread. This isn't what I had in mind when I started the thread, although I haven't posted in a while.

I understand now that language categories are listed for searching similarities instead of differences. — javi2541997

Well, that's not quite true, Wittgenstein's analysis looked at both differences and similarities. Both are important in linguistic analysis.

:up:

But your analysis betrays you. You are inferring a cause (<Mary believes there is a chair available to sit in>) from an effect (<Mary sits in a chair>). The belief is not the effect, and our everyday language reflects this. If someone asks you, "Do you know any of Mary's beliefs?," you would not say, "Yes, one of Mary's beliefs is sitting in a chair." According to everyday language this response wouldn't make any sense. A belief can be inferred from an action, but a belief is not an action. A belief is a state of mind, or as Searle says, an intentional state.

You want to focus on this relation between beliefs and actions, but it seems that in the process you have actually conflated beliefs and actions. — Leontiskos

I'm a Wittgensteinian at least to a large extent when it comes to language. If we want to understand what a belief is, then we look at various uses of the word in our language. It's not a matter of cause and effect, it's a matter of learning the correct use of the word across a wide range of contexts.

I like the way you put words in my mouth. If someone was to ask "Do you know any of Mary's beliefs?" - I certainly wouldn't say "Yes, one of Mary's beliefs is sitting in a chair." Obviously this is nonsense. I would say that the action or act of sitting in a chair shows Mary's belief that there is a chair in the room. Just as the act of stating her belief is a reflection of what she believes. Both actions are ways of referring to beliefs in our language.

Beliefs are states of mind, but they come out in our actions, either linguistic or nonlinguistic. The only way to know a person's state of mind is by their actions.

It is legitimate to describe what belief does as a way of understanding what belief is. To describe an effect is not to describe the cause. That's the problem: ↪Sam26 says "beliefs are..." What he ought to say is, "the effects of beliefs are..." He is not talking about beliefs; he is talking about their effects. — Leontiskos

This is just a confusion as far as I can determine. The concept belief has various uses, one use is to say "Mary believes X" because Mary made the statement that she believed X. So what Mary believes is found in the expression of her statement. Another use of belief has to do with Mary's nonlinguistic actions. For example, we can conclude as Mary sits in a chair that she believes there is a chair available to sit in. So the meaning of the concept belief is tied to the various uses of the word in our everyday actions. Beliefs are tied to our actions (linguistic and nonlinguistic), which is how we determine what people believe.

There is no need to bring in any causal connection in this situation, and I haven't done so.

My hope is to fire up some conversational research. Does this OP make sense ?
Do you see errors in my reasoning ? — plaque flag

I've read this a couple of times and can make very little sense of what you're trying to say. You throw around some philosophical terms but that's about it. Why people think that have to talk like this is beyond me. When I write philosophically I try my best to keep it simple, I don't always succeed, but that's my goal.

Conditions for the possibility of critical discussion cannot be rationally challenged without performative contradiction. — plaque flag

What are you trying to say here? What does this statement even mean? It seems to be open to a variety of interpretations. I'm not going to list all of the problematic statements, but there are quite a few.

As for reasoning, I see very little clear reasoning.

It seems you're pushing me in that direction. Maybe it's that I put more importance on the mind, but that doesn't mean that meaning resides in the mind. My beliefs about consciousness might push you in that direction, I'm not sure.

Sure. It's not a product of such statements. The statement sets out an aspect of the grammar of belief, as between an agent and a proposition. — Banno

Yes, but that's not my only point. I'm pointing out that there's the agent and the proposition, but there is also those acts that show the belief. You keep reiterating that beliefs can be stated, no one is disputing this, that's obvious. And it's just as obvious that beliefs can be shown in animals, pre-linguistic man, and in modern man, apart from language. You seem to agree with this. However, then you say...

Note also the word "exist' here, and the implicit hypostatisation. When one says that a belief exists, what more is one saying, apart from that thinking the world is such-and-so accounts for this behaviour... the beetle is in this box, but you still cannot see it, yet you can talk of it existing. Nothing is brought into existence here. — Banno

I've addressed this before, and you keep trying to put my account of belief into Witt's beetle in the box. I would agree if my account was limited to the subjective, viz., pointing to the thing in the mind as if that's the belief. Nowhere do I do that, that's simply your interpretation of what I'm saying, but it's not accurate. My account of belief is based in nonlinguistic actions (showing the belief), and in the statements that an agent makes about their belief or the beliefs of others. So there's no beetle in the box. The belief exists as a function of those two kinds of acts. So minds do bring into existence the proposition and the nonlinguistic acts that show one's belief. Exists, as I'm using the concept, refers to those things we do, both linguistic and nonlinguistic, that can be said to be beliefs. Again, so the ontology of belief refers to those things minds do in the world that can be said to be beliefs.

The meaning of the concept belief is a function of what we do in language (language-games and forms of life), it's not a function of something we can point to in the head/mind. Wittgenstein was pointing out that the meaning of a concept is not something internal to us. My account of what we mean by belief nowhere suggests that it's the thing in the mind that gives meaning to belief. Thus, the beetle in the box doesn't apply to my account. Even the way I'm using the word existence depends on the external, not the internal.

He definitely thought that religious arguments were not about facts, because facts are part of the world in which we act, whether linguistic or not. "The world is all that is the case" is not a metaphysical statement, and although he was sympathetic to the mystical, he didn't think there were any facts of the matter. No facts that language could latch onto.

In particular, Wittgenstein went to some length to point out that language is embedded in our activities, and certainly not "too distinct, too cut off from the rest of experience". And he might well have agreed with you that it is impossible to avoid metaphysics, being what is shown rather than just said. The sense of wonder is at the core of Wittgenstein's thinking. — Banno

As highly as I think of Wittgenstein, he was just wrong about what can be said about the metaphysical. Language is embedded in reality, and reality is much more expansive, in terms of what we can say, than Wittgenstein realized. Although, as you say, Wittgenstein believed that the mystical was important.

I understand this and have given the reasons why I believe it will always be an ineffective argument, It certainly affects the balance of probabilities, but as this thread shows it leaves people free to believe what they like. Perhaps I should have stopped there.but I was trying explain that there is better argument that is overwhelming. — FrancisRay

First, you never attack any of the premises of the argument. You just make very general statements, for the most part. Second, my comment that people are free to believe what they want doesn't mean that I think the argument is weak. It just means that people are free to believe what they want regardless of how strong an argument is. That just the way it is. People are free to believe the Earth is flat, but that doesn't mean that the counter-arguments are weak.

I'm astonished by your low epistemological standards. By these standards it would be easy to know that God exists. Your argument establishes that it would not be unreasonable to believe that there is an afterlife, just as long as you have a plausible theory of what you mean by 'afterlife'. It's your proof and you know you're not quite sure whether there is an afterlife or what it is like, let alone know it. Surely you can see this. If you can doubt it, even in principle. then you don't know it. — FrancisRay

Again, your statements about how you feel about the argument, or how you feel about my epistemology are worthless. And it doesn't follow that based on the argument I'm using that it would be easy to argue that God exists. You're good at throwing out statements, but not so good when it comes to making good arguments.

Most people know what is meant by afterlife, viz., that one's consciousness survives death, or that your identity as a person survives death.

If my argument is as strong as I believe it is, then I do know that there is an afterlife. Logic is one of the ways we use to justify a belief. Inductive reasoning leads me to believe, and thus know, that the conclusion follows with a high degree of certainty.

What I do say, is that beliefs are not necessarily a product of statements such as, "X believes that P." Those are only beliefs that are part of the language of statements. The fact is that beliefs can exist quite apart from any linguistic expression of that belief. You are starting with language and working backwards. I start prior to language and work forward. So, given my understanding, prior to language there were still beliefs. These beliefs were shown in the actions of those who had the belief. The act is prior to language, then comes language, where we are able to express the belief. In my estimation you and others are putting the cart before the horse.

The other point is, even where language exists, many beliefs (those expressed in our nonlinguistic acts) are never put into statements, but that doesn't mean the belief doesn't exist as part of the act that shows the belief (the act of opening a door shows my belief that a door is there, apart from whether it's stated or not). The belief doesn't pop into existence just because the belief is stated. It can, but not necessarily.

Sam26, creativesoul, Searle is not saying that beliefs are not propositional. Beliefs range over propositions. — Banno

Where did I say that?

I think we can be confident that people believe many things; beliefs which do not make themselves evident in their actions. — Janus

I'm not saying that people don't have beliefs that are not readily known to others. I'm saying that if we're to say that Mary has a belief, then for us to know that Mary believes X it must be expressed in some action (linguistic or nonlinguistic).

You don't seem to understand the point of this thread. I've constructed an inductive argument based on the testimonial evidence. It's not about me presenting an opinion (if that's your point), it's about presenting a well reasoned argument. There are opinions given in the thread, but usually I try to point out where I'm speculating and where I think there is strong evidence.

What follows from the argument is an epistemological point, viz., that based on the strength of the testimonial evidence I can reasonably claim there is an afterlife. In other words, I can know there is an afterlife.

If anyone wants to argue against the argument, which I've given at various places in the thread, then you need to attack the premises of the argument. So I would suggest you familiarize yourself with the argument before you start saying things like I'm just expressing an opinion.

Thanks for the link. I've listened to Dr. Pim van Lommel before, but haven't seen this video.

Do you usually draw conclusions without seeing the arguments? It started with a thread I created years ago in another forum. The thread started as an exegesis of Wittgenstein's On Certainty? The discussion proceeded from there to bedrock beliefs or bedrock propositions and what those could be, but I'm not going to get into it in this thread. Some of the argument is in this thread... https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/7230/some-remarks-on-bedrock-beliefs/p1

What you are unaware of is the ongoing discussion that some of us been having about beliefs. This discussion goes back 7 or 8 years. It started with the subject of pre-linguistic beliefs.

It's actually interesting how far back some of us have been discussing philosophy. My first philosophy forum was Ephilosopher. I became a member of that forum around 2005. My first introduction to academic philosophy was around 1975. Just a little bit of background.

How would you know if someone has a belief if there is no evidence of that belief? That's the question that interests me. How are belief states exhibited in the world, not do they exist when there is no evidence for them. It's about those things that demonstrate that one has a belief.