Timothy Williamson is not one of them — Srap Tasmaner

I haven't yet read much of his beyond the present paper, but from tertiary sources he seem to have some odd approaches to modal logic and epistemology.

The distinction between analytic and continental philosophy has become somewhat anachronistic. There's been somewhat of a convergence, taking the best of both, especially in the recent past. It was never a clear juxtaposition, positing a method against a geographic area.

Progress may not be identical with closure on a given topic. I could lament that we haven't answered or achieved agreement on a host of questions, but still acknowledge we've made progress in understanding them. For that matter, rather than lamenting, I could postulate that a lack of closure is a hallmark of what constitutes philosophy. — J

I'd agree with that. It follows form treating philosophy as a method, as something done, rather than as a set of beliefs. This was one of the themes of my thread on two ways to philosophise.

I'll be interested to see, though, whether he's able to "bootstrap" analytical phil out of the charge that it has selected only those questions which suit its methods. — J

If asking only those questions which suit it's method is asking what bread is made of, rather then what everything is made of, then I think it an agreeable approach. There's a lot to be said for working on questions that are at least answerable.

There's a tension between complaining that philosophy no longer addresses the big issues and agreeing that philosophy must remain incomplete.

indeed, they are not searchable.

You are familiar with the example, from PI? There is presumably a difference between moving blocks and moving blocks following an instruction.

There's an updated copy of the essay included as a afterword Williamson's the 2007 book The Philosophy of Philosophy.

Available here: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/9780470696675.after

Thanks to @Heracloitus for this info.

So to the next issue: how much progress had been made. Williamson is optimistic:

Although fundamental disagreement is conspicuous in most areas of philosophy, the best theories in a given area are in most cases far better developed in 2004 than the best theories in that area were in 1964, and so on. — pp3-4

He argues his point on a case basis - undeniable progress has been made in modal logic and in truth theory, and there has been at least movement in ontology, with the then-raging debate between realism and anti-realism and the semantics of natural languages. There are developments in paraconsistent and intuitionist logic that look promising.

That the progress here is formal, technical and complex does not detract from the fact of progress.

Within this progress Williams sees lost opportunity. Now at about page eight.

Imagine a philosophy conference in Presocratic Greece.

It's an excellent parody, sharp and well-aimed. We have the system-builders, the groupies, the mockers and doubters; where would you be? I'd be with the doubters, and I'll argue that they were right.

The issue is how we are to mark, as well as to make, progress in philosophy; how to avoid "a feeble
and unnecessary surrender to despair, philistinism, cowardice or indolence". The refinements that bring progress about " emerge in the process of attempting to answer the original rough question".

Williamson is right in rejecting the suggestion that the mere divorce of science from philosophy is sufficient to explain progress, and in identifying the problem here as "that one cannot always tell in advance which questions it will be fruitful to pursue." It is the process that brings about progress, not beliefs and not the doubt alone. This takes us to about p.3

My response: Those who jump too quickly to an answer to "what are things made of?" fall; not water, not fire. The doubters have it right: we can intelligibly ask what bread is made of, but not, at least amongst the presocratics, what everything is made of. It is a step too far to ask what things in general are made of. It was exactly by answering questions like "what is bread made of" that we were able to progress towards the broader question. The answerable questions have a large part in this progress. Understanding the nature of grain and water and heat, and how they interact, lead by degrees and indirectly to the questions of chemistry and physics that constitute our present start of play.

This response should not be seen as a rejection of the essays thesis: it is the process that is important. Speculative ambition is an important part of that process. Discourse, the sweeping, theoretical system building, needs dissection, careful analysis of small, concrete questions. Williamson wants both, but insists that discourse must be disciplined by standards akin to those in the sciences.

Yep.

358. Now I would like to regard this certainty, not as something akin to hastiness or superficiality, but as a form of life. (That is very badly expressed and probably badly thought as well.) — OC

This last parenthetical sentence ought give us pause when considering the usefulness of "form of life".

I can't follow your reasoning here, sorry. Was that your point?

The form of life is what we do. It's not here nor there. Consider:

355. A mad-doctor (perhaps) might ask me "Do you know what that is?" and I might reply "I know that it's a chair; I recognize it, it's always been in my room". He says this, possibly, to test not my eyes but my ability to recognize things, to know their names and their functions. What is in question here is a kind of knowing one's way about. Now it would be wrong for me to say "I believe that it's a chair" because that would express my readiness for my statement to be tested. While "I know that it..." implies bewilderment if what I said was not confirmed. — OC

The form of life as "a kind of knowing one's way about".

Are you after something about the supposed missing internal life of a community of AI's? Do you think I am suggesting that there is no "internal life" for the users of "gavagai"? I'm not; I'm just pointing out that you may get your rabbit stew regardless of that internal life. Or not.

, There was an opportunity to consider more of Midgley, which might have been quite helpful. @Hanover's move towards forms of life is interesting, and continues on Sam's thread.

The commensurability of conceptual schema remains one of my main philosophical puzzles.

I'd like to take the idea of treating dissection as a demarcation criterion a bit further - that the difference between, say, literature, myth, or religion on the one hand and philosophy on the other is the emphasis on dissection and critique; on iterative re-assessment of one's position.

To address the form of life in your Gavagai example would require a linguist who is attempting to interpret the language not of a foreign people but of a lion. The lion represents the being with a differing form of life, who, per Wittgenstein's clear statement, we would not understand. The Gavagai example is no different from French to English to German. That is, all those folks share a form of life. We're looking for those who don't. — Hanover

This supposes that the we and the French participate in the same Form of Life...

Are you confident in that? :wink:

Even less so with ChatGPT, since it participates in a form of life in the way of a block or an apple.

So my problem here is that if we're going to say that we're taking as a hinge belief the uniformity of thought processes among various people, why not just make it a hinge belief that we truly have the same beetle metaphysically. — Hanover

That's certainly not something I'm suggesting. "The unity of thought processes" cannot be confirmed in any other way than by what people say and do. It's not a "hinge belief" that brings about any unity. The unity is seen in what is said and done, and that alone.

Hence, we do not have to agree on a hinge belief about gavagai in order to go on the hunt. It;s the doing that counts.

Thanks.

The thread became a bit of a shit show. But overall I'm happy with the result. Indeed, the passion of the response overwhelmingly carries the case in the OP.

These two come off as contradictory:
1. There are only blocks within the game of building.
2. There is more than language; there certainly are blocks. — Fire Ologist

You have misunderstood.

The bit you miss is that language games and language are not the same.

A language game - moving blocks, counting apples - is not confined to language.

So, "There are only blocks within the game of building" is not confined to language. It directly invovles blocks.

And so a language game involves more than just language.

How will you respond?

Long ago, when I was philosophically active, there was a widespread opinion that scepticism was vanquished and could be put to bed (or its grave). It turns out that was not so. It seems to be still alive and kicking. — Ludwig V

I suspect this is only so amongst apprentices, and the occasional journeyman. I'll maintain that Austin and Wittgenstein put the sort of scepticism in the quite well written OP to bed.

The explanation for solidity is not the somewhat vague idea probably everyone has before learning what's really going on. — Patterner

Here's a funny thing: After learning that atoms are mostly space, one does not find oneself sinking into one's arm chair. Things remain solid.

Learning that atoms are mostly space does not change the fact that arm chairs are solid. Both are true.

If there is a problem of perception here, it is the misperception that things consisting mostly of space cannot also be solid.

Your response shows exactly why Banno might prefer a PM discussion. — J

Pretty much. The usual suspects are here, together with the personal attacks. Of course, I created this thread specifically to run away from criticism, as always. :roll:

Paul used to say that our discussions should be conducted, not primarily for the benefit of the participants, but for the silent reader. No silent readers of pms, alas. — unenlightened

Not a bad point. The PM conversations have usually resulted in a few corresponding posts in public, or a whole thread, so are not entirely lost to posterity.

But I rate Banno highly as a philosopher, and he does engage; some people find that unpleasant. — unenlightened

Cheers.

I don't feel obliged to respond to, or even read crap posts from crap posters, so, filtering is not much of an issue. — SophistiCat

There are a few who have shown bad faith, and so with whom I usually do not engage - indeed, I don't often read their posts. They are aware of this, but curiously they insist on participating mainly in my threads.

which might mean sometimes patience with those who are missing the point. — Hanover

Patience is not infinite.

They start deconstructing what philosophers deeply value and build something totally different that's basically an insult to academic philosophy. — Skalidris

You mean like Kripke?

To be sure, I'm talking about using the inbox facility in the forums, not a different provider.

we had deep conversations in Spanish — javi2541997

Nice. I had quite an extensive PM chat with him myself, but it became a bit odd and I ended it. I wish him well.

I miss Isaac for this — fdrake

Oh, yeah. He was very helpful.

I rarely post anything anymore because I find it too much bother wading through trivial responses. — I like sushi

I think that entirely understandable. It's not arrogant to respect your own time.

...Axial Age, ‘a period in human history, roughly between the 8th and 3rd centuries BCE, when significant developments in religious and philosophical thought occurred independently in various parts of the world. — Wayfarer

Some scepticism is deserved here. It's pretty likely that this "boom" was the result of oral traditions being writ down.

Certainly the myth of simultaneous enlightenment is dubious.

"the world is as it appears" — AmadeusD

Just that, in a fairly straight forward way. The arm chair appears to be an arm chair because it is an arm chair, the cat appears to be a cat becasue it is a cat.

If I got up tomorrow and found the armchair was red rather then blue, it would still be an arm chair, still be in my lounge room, still be a piece of furniture, still be worn on the arms, still be solid... the list of things that would not have changed is innumerable. And far outweighs the change in colour of the arm chair. If the arm chair changed to red, I might well seek an explanation. It seems perverse to seek an explanation as to why it stayed blue. That's what arm chairs do.

But hat sort of thing doesn't happen much.

So, which is more reasonable - to supose that it really is an arm chair, and sit on it to do these posts, or to do as the OP suggests and look for a justification that it is an arm chair?

Why should I doubt, here?

If nothing else, it will be a lot less effort.

The arm chair does consistently behave as expected.

No, just pleased to get a bit of harmony.

It's a rare thing.

Wow.

Cheers.

Think that made my day.

@Jamal, any chance of closing this thread, here?

Seems an appropriate point.

Thanks, Srap.

I think I agree.

But I walk away from "perception" because it is seen as private. Seems to me that form a Wittgensteinian perspective, perception as a private experience drops out of the language game.

That is, roughly, that if what counts as a block is constituted by the language game, then so is what is perceived as a block.

Neither the block nor the perception of block are outside of the game.

Not as clear as I'd like. This is not to say that there is nothing more than language. There certainly are blocks.

Pointing already is a language game.

It's only a block so far as it participated in the game of building.

This is of course quite contrary to the view that there are already blocks outside of the language game.

You think there is a right way to philosophise, right? — Skalidris

Very much, no.

But there is bad philosophy.

And Picasso went to art school. Picasso’s early training at formal art schools like the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando in Madrid gave him a strong grounding in classical techniques: anatomy, proportion, perspective. But rather than remain within those bounds, he systematically took them apart. His innovations—especially in Cubism—can be seen as a radical deconstruction and reassembly of that academic foundation.

but i'm personally interested in how you get from "stuff" to "blocks" without already playing the game? — AmadeusD

To play the game is to move blocks and apples around. What counts as a block or an apple is constituted by the game, as much as prior to the game.

Ok, so how would you proceed?

Sure, the world is sometimes not as expected. But we can see this only becasue overwhelmingly it is coherent. Chairs do not turn into cats, chalk is not democracy and so on.

The point being made is that doubt takes place against a background of certainty.

If I've misrepresented you, show me how. Is what I've said above, wrong? How?

And I agree with you that sometimes we are surprised or mistaken. My point is that this can only take place if we are usually unsurprised and correct.

The Gavagai thought experiment is of a linguist attempting an interpretation of a language. The point is that the linguist doesn't need to decide the referent of "Gavagai" in order to participate in the form of life consisting partially of the hunt and the feast.

We don't need determinate meaning to get on with the language games nor with the forms of life.

We assume we are similar forms of life. — Hanover

I don't think that quite right. We might participate in a form of life or a language game, without sucha n assumption.

Hence my reference to the Gavagai example. We don;t have to assume that Gavagai means "un-detached rabbit part" in order to participate in the hunt and the feast.

Seems to be pretty much the question I asked here:

that not all language games involve justification. — Banno

However, language games are embedded and make use of stuff in the world - apples and blocks and so on. Hence they presume the world is a certain way - that it contains blocks and apples.

So I think the general point remains, even if not all langauge games are explanations-justifications.

What do you think?

Could dolphins have a form of life so different to our own that we could not understand it?

If so, how would we recognise it as a 'form of life"?

for example, demonstrating how our methods of justification apply across various language games within our form of life. — Sam26

My OP on two ways to do philosophy is along these lines.

Explanation - or justification - requires a contrast between what is explained and the explanation. For an explanation to function it must take what is being explained as granted - an explanation as to why the wasabi plants are thriving grants that the wasabi plants are thriving. The explanation explains and accepts something external to itself.

What our explanations - justifications - have in common is that there is something to justify. What our language games have in common is that they are embedded in the world, and together they make a form of life.

It's not clear that there is a decline in creativity in philosophy.

It won't do just to assert such a thing. It certainly is insufficient to base such a far reaching statement on "what I've seen".

But further, an undergrad in engineering or archeology, learning the intricacies and methods of their specialisation, would be misplaced in thinking that all there was to engineering or history was stuff already done, and no creativity. An engineer without a background in engineering would not be a good idea.

Especially if they are being creative.

Better that they understand the methods of engineering before they get to design a bridge.

It would be a mistake to think someone unfamiliar with engineering principles is in a better position to design a bridge simply because they are "unburdened" by past knowledge. Quite the opposite: without an understanding of load-bearing, stress tolerances, and material behaviour, their creativity is not just useless—it’s dangerous.

Criticism is the wellspring of creativity, not the undoing.

We criticise to question assumptions, reframe issues, and make space for alternatives. The most original thinkers—Plato, Kant, Wittgenstein—were relentless critics of the traditions they inherited. That’s not the death of creativity; it’s the engine.

Folk want the world to be unpredictable in order to suit their heroic philosophical narrative, but predictably go to the shop to buy their sausages.

They type on their device fully expecting a reply from Banno, and sometimes get one.


There's a truly extraordinary lack of self awareness in complaining on the internet about "the elusiveness of the real".

A foundational performative contradiction.

Perhaps a form of life can be understood via Witt’s description of a family of resemblances, which ties together discrete games on the basis of commonalities that are intertwined but not reducible to a single shared thread: — Joshs

Yep. Quite agree.

Here are all the mentions on PI:

19. It is easy to imagine a language consisting only of orders and
reports in battle.—Or a language consisting only of questions and
expressions for answering yes and no. And innumerable others.——
And to imagine a language means to imaginea form of life.


241. "So you are saying that human agreement decides what is
true and what is false?"—It is what human beings say that is true and
false; and they agree in the language they use. That is not agreement in
opinions but in form of life.

i
One can imagine an animal angry, frightened, unhappy, happy,
startled. But hopeful? And why not?
A dog believes his master is at the door. But can he also believe his
master will come the day after to-morrow?—And what can he not do
here?—How do I do it?—How am I supposed to answer this?
Can only those hope who can talk? (only those who have mastered
the use of a language. That is to say, the phenomena of hope are modes
of this complicated form of life. (If a concept refers to a character of
human handwriting, it has no application to beings that do not write.)

And from OC:

357. One might say: " 'I know' expresses comfortable certainty, not the certainty that is still struggling."

358. Now I would like to regard this certainty, not as something akin to hastiness or superficiality, but as a form of life. (That is very badly expressed and probably badly thought as well.)

So not synonymous with "language game", but more the ground on which they take place.

You're not saying anything relevant. — AmadeusD

So the topic is "On Matter, Meaning, and the Elusiveness of the Real", yet you claim that pointing out that what is real is right there before you is irrelevant.

How are we to make sense of that?

How can you see the forest?

It's extraordinary to have someone use the internet to deny that the world is coherent and predictable.

That's just not so.

I don't know what more to add. The fact that you replied to me shows that the world is pretty much as it seems.