• Duty: An Open Letter on a Philosophy Forum
    I don't think neo-liberalism is incompatible with fascism. Not enough of a choice there for me. — Tom Storm

    :razz: If that's the choice you face, you are properly fucked.

    A laughable OP. Only, it's no joke.
  • Duty: An Open Letter on a Philosophy Forum
    I contend that duty is perhaps the single strongest motivator for action I can think of — ToothyMaw

    That's no more than an uninteresting fact about your thinking, showing a lack of imagination on your part. Lust, thirst and hunger come to mind as much greater sources of motivation.

    Also, duty is a conceptually odd critter. Your duty is what you ought to do; and what ought you do? Your duty, of course. It doesn't get us anywhere. Indeed, looking at how "duty" is usually used, it's more about what other folk think you ought do than what you think you ought do. "It's your duty" is used to cajole folk into acting against their own better judgement.

    ↪Joshs
    Indeed.
  • A Wittgenstein Commentary
    Which comes first, knowing the meaning of a word and then understanding the sentence it is in or learning the meaning of a word from the sentence it is in in order to understand the sentence. — RussellA

    Implicit in this is a false dichotomy: that there is a difference between knowing the meaning of the word and knowing how to use the word.

    If someone were to use a given word appropriately in every case, on what grounds could you claim: "Yes, but they do not know what it means."

    Doesn't this mean that the nature of the language game has already been determined by an a priori choice of words that happen to be used in that language game rather than the meaning of a word is how it is used in the language game ? — RussellA
    Not at all. It only means that this game is played. We enter into a community that already plays various language games – see §27, where Wittgenstein points out that naming is already participating in a language game. Subsequent sections show how much is already taken as granted in order for one to participate in the game of naming.

    I didn't properly answer your question. — RussellA
    And you still haven't. However it is clear that you have not seen how to replace thinking in terms of meaning with thinking in terms of use, and are still attempting to get at meaning by looking at use while treating these as distinct things. We can proceed instead by dropping talk of meaning and instead looking only to use.

    And this is where you have plateaued.
  • Strikebreaker dilemma
    More generally, Unionisation is a just reaction to incorporation. Capitalists group together in order to limit their exposure, and are protected by law. This puts individual workers at a disadvantage, which is partially remediated by their grouping together in a Union.
  • Strikebreaker dilemma
    ↪Moliere
    The Gurindji strike, 1966 lasted from 1966 to 1975. Extraordinary patience.
  • Strikebreaker dilemma
    Although, there could be many alternatives and "additions" in these dilemmas, I think it is worthy to debate on how the individual decides to not follow up the group (duty of omission) because of personal circumstances. — javi2541997

    Ok. Again, your scenario allows for removal of all group supports until the individual eventually decides not to follow the group. You want, perhaps, to conclude that ultimately we are individualistic, but all you would be entitled to conclude is that folk will turn there back on an overly demanding and unsupportive group.
  • Strikebreaker dilemma
    I do not understand why you don't see this as realistic. — javi2541997

    Because "we can always add something". So whatever solution is added can be dismissed by mere fiat. As in, no, the union does not provide income support; no, your wife cannot have a job; and so on, for any proffered answer. So it makes it appear that there can be no solution, but this is just an artefact of the way the problem is set up.
  • A Wittgenstein Commentary
    ↪Richard B
    Yep.
  • Strikebreaker dilemma
    Which country did you have in mind as a good example? — BC

    Any with a Labour Party. They are the places that developed a full relation between labour and policy. I agree with you that it's crying shame the US never achieved this, not just for the US but more broadly, for progressive politics.

    Workers do face difficult decisions in supporting a union drive — BC
    Sure, that wasn't the pretence to which I was referring - that was rather the notion that moral dilemmas of this sort lead to a clearer picture of such situations, for the sort of reasons I gave. They are intended to be intractable, and the various proponents will go out of their way to reinforce this intractability. A few more examples of this have already emerged in this thread. It would be much better to look at historical cases, the miners and Thatcher, perhaps.

    Pretence means: an attempt to make something that is not the case appear true. — javi2541997
    Yep. The pretence here is that this is an attempt to make an impossibly intractable situation appear realistic.

    See
    Why can't the wife work?
    — RogueAI

    She can work, but she is unemployed.     — javi2541997

    Thump. Any posited solution is immediately cut down by stipulation.

    This is actually a problem with modal moral quandaries generally: you can always make them impossible to solve. Same goes for the misnamed "trolly" problem. That's why they make for long and often tedious threads.

    My point was to know if "individual" choices in edge circumstances are or not plausible... — javi2541997
    You are not going to get there, because you can always add something that renders the individual choice void.
  • Strikebreaker dilemma
    The United States is not the best example of how unionisation works.

    And it's not difficult to formulate intractable moral issues. They are not as informative as folk might suppose. Usually, the solutions are ruled out by simple fiat, as at
    ↪javi2541997
    , in order to either force the intractability of the problem or to push for one answer over another.

    The
    nicely constructed dilemma involving real choices which workers face — BC
    is mostly pretence.
  • A Wittgenstein Commentary
    ↪RussellA


    Well, first, Kudos to you for your persistence. These are not easy ideas, and it is pleasing to see someone who is determined to work through an extensive argument rather than accept a YouTube video as gospel, as is so common in these threads.

    Next, it's not clear to me where, if at all, we are disagreeing. You quote Wittgenstein, to my ear as if you were countering some of what I have claimed, and yet the bits you quote support my contention.

    So to repeat what might be the one fundamental problem underpinning your misinterpretation of Wittgenstein. Words are not all just the names of things. That this is the case is set out in the first 40 or so sections of PI, where Wittgenstein enjoins us not to think, but to look, and so to move from our dogmatically accepted view that words stand for things and instead look at what we actually do with words, in particular cases.

    So "Ouch!" is not the name of a pain, nor the name of a behaviour, nor the name of anything else; it is instead something we do with a word.

    Consider some more examples:
    "Hello."
    "Good Bye."
    "Fire!"
    "Look out!"
    "Charge!"
    "Please don't!"

    These do not name; they are performances. A greeting, a farewell, a command, a warning, a plea. Things we do with words.

    Wittgenstein is at great pains to insist that we not look for the meaning of a word, as given by the thing named, but instead that we start to look at what is being done with those words, by way of starting to look at their use.

    It was, one way or another, the realisation that so much of our language does not fit into the simple predicate-name formulae of the Tractatus that brought him out of the wilderness to work on the PI.

    Now it seems that you are clinging to the idea that words all refer to something; that they are all ultimately analysable as nouns. If this is so, then you will not be able to grok the argument of the PI, and there is little progress that can be made.

    So, do you agree that we do other things with words besides name things? That it is better to look for the meaning of our utterances in what we do with them than to look for what they name?

    Because until you see this, there is no way you can follow Philosophical Investigations.
  • List of Definitions (An Exercise)
    ...always conducted elsewhere. — fdrake

    It's often a different conversation about something more useful.
  • Belief
    Perhaps this discussion should go back to the Essence and Modality: Kit Fine rather than in a thread on Belief? We seem to be heading back to that discussion of modal and definitional notions of essence.
  • Belief
    ↪Leontiskos
    You must be familiar with Kripke's point, that we do not need to know the essence of some individual in order to refer to that individual?
  • A Wittgenstein Commentary
    ↪RussellA
    That some words are names does not imply that all words are names.

    Also from §38: "— If you don’t want to produce confusion, then it is best not to say that these words name anything".

    Naming things is just one way in which words can be used, one sort of language game among many. There are others. Talk of pain has a superficial resemblance to talk of objects, "I have an iPhone in my hand" looks very much like "I have a pain in my hand". But Wittgenstein is showing that the game being played in each case is very different. The pain is not open for inspection in the way that the iPhone is.

    This leads some to speculate that the pain is a private thing, an invisible object known only to the person in pain. This is the view Wittgenstein is rejecting.

    But Wittgenstein is not providing us with an alternative. He's not saying pain is not this sort of thing, it's that sort of thing; he's saying rather that it's not a thing at all. Any more than there is a thing named by "ouch!".

    This line of thinking broadens into what was subsequently called the Private Language Argument. In a way it is a pity this happened, since subsequently folk tend to treat the the sections from §244 - §271 as discreet, when they are part of this extended discussion.
  • Is touching possible?
    Where one object ends and another begins is a matter of convention. — Hanover

    Pretty well. But of course that does not meant that there are no objects, or that they do not have edges.
  • List of Definitions (An Exercise)
    I'd use the term, and encourage them to use it, so the child can see how it is used.
    — Banno

    All kind of sounds like a cop out to me.     — Mikie

    So what happened? A few folk provided their own lists of synonyms, then the thread petered out.

    Providing a definition is not doing philosophy, anymore than shuffling a deck of cards is playing Rummy. If there is a cop out here, it is in thinking that by providing a definition, one is doing philosophy. Philosophy is not a list of facts, so much as an ongoing conversation.
  • A Wittgenstein Commentary
    ↪RussellA
    You seem stuck on naming. It's no wonder, then, that you are having so much difficulty. Stop looking for what is named and instead look at what is being done.

    "Ouch!" is not a name for some group of behaviours. It is a behaviour.
  • A Wittgenstein Commentary
    but what exactly is being named. — RussellA

    Why need there be a something that is being named?

    What does "Ouch!" name?

    IE, in language, it seems that the form is being named, not the content of the form. — RussellA
    Perhaps the game is not one of naming at all.
  • Is touching possible?
    ↪Hanover
    That's not right.

    The oxygen and the nitrogen of the air of the room you are in occupy the same location - your room. They are not the same object.

    And see https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/identity-relative/

    It's never that simple.
  • A Wittgenstein Commentary
    Naming is not yet a move in a language-game – any more than putting a piece in its place on the board is a move in chess. One may say: with the mere naming of a thing, nothing has yet been done. Nor has it a name except in a game. This was what Frege meant too when he said that a word has a meaning only in the context of a sentence. — PI §49
  • A Wittgenstein Commentary
    There are reasons that the Cogito is difficult to parse logically; and why, when it is so parsed, say into free logic, it is invalid.

    Given that, whatever pull the Cogito has must come from it's positioning within the games we play - as
    ↪Fooloso4
    points out Descartes does in the Second Meditation.

    While Fooloso4 and
    ↪Sam26
    might disagree on the usefulness of the Cogito, they seem to agree that it doesn't make sense to say that I know I am conscious.

    And it makes no sense for you to doubt that you are conscious.

    And that's the core of the Cogito, and why it is useful.
  • A Wittgenstein Commentary
    Something from elsewhere:
    I spoke earlier of the dissimilarity between "I have a pain in my hand" and "I have an iPhone in my hand". The temptation is to think that because the grammar is the same, the pain is a thing in the way the iPhone is. As a matter of exegesis, the next few pages of PI show Witti to be rejecting this. He talks of how the length of a rod seems obvious, but not the length of a sphere; the notion of length ceases to have application, because we cannot imagine the opposite, the "width" of a sphere. He points out how a dog might simulate being in pain, but that the situations in which this occurs shows the dog isn't. He talks of feeling another's pain.

    Then he asks of our use of "the language which describes my inner experience" (§256), and "how we "simply associate names with sensations..." But note the use of the em-dash at the end of this comment. Because he next moves into what is considered the heart of the private language argument, §259 &c.

    And the upshot of that is that it is improper to talk of representing our own pains and pleasures. "I have a pain in my hand" is not like "I have an iPhone in my hand"; it is more like "Ouch!"

    If one were to treat of a private, subjective world, it seems one may not be able to name items therein.     — Banno

    (edited) The relevance is in showing how the section around §242 is a lead in to the private language argument.
  • A Wittgenstein Commentary
    ↪RussellA
    (2) and (4) are the interlocutor. Otherwise, the "Yes, but all the same..." makes no sense, nor do the m-dashes.

    A. In what sense are my sensations private?
    B. – Well, only I can know whether I am really in pain; another person can only surmise it.
    A. – In one way this is false, and in another nonsense. If we are using the word “know” as it is normally used (and how else are we to use it?), then other people very often know if I’m in pain.
    B. – Yes, but all the same, not with the certainty with which I know it myself!
    A. – It can’t be said of me at all (except perhaps as a joke) that I know I’m in pain. What is it supposed to mean
    B. – except perhaps that I am in pain?

    ↪RussellA
    Feynman perhaps misses that there is a difference between the brown-throated thrush and the brown thrasher, for which it is often mistaken. To know the name of the bird is to be able to distinguish it from other birds.

    At some place – Early in PI, I think – Wittgenstein makes the point that naming is like putting the pieces on the board before a game. It's not making a move in the game; but it must be done in order to play. But part of the language game of ornithology is distinguishing different bird types by their features. Being able to name different birds is making moves in the game of ornithology.
  • Belief
    You will have to say what you mean by 'essence' at some point. At this point I'm not convinced you have the slightest idea of what you mean by it. — Leontiskos
    That you ask this perhaps shows how badly we are talking past each other. I am happy to agree that I do not have a clear idea of what an essence is. But I don't think you do, either. I do not think that the notion can be made sufficiently clear. I'm pretty sure that is s thread that runs through my responses to you.

    I'm not sure what it would mean to know something without knowing the essence, and I am not sure what people have in mind when they talk about knowing something without an essence — Leontiskos

    I had a tree fern in the front garden... and my apologies to those who have heard this story. Now you suppose that knowing how to correctly use the word "tree" requires that one knows what a tree is
    That's just not true. We use words correctly without ever setting out exact definitions.

    I might not know if the tree fern outside my window is actually a tree, nor if that shrub over there should really be called a "tree". That does not mean I do not know how to use "tree". Famously, there is nothing that is common to all, and only, fish; and yet, we use the word. That is, it is not possible to set out the essence of "tree" or "fish", and yet the words are used successfully.

    Moreover, when an essence is set out it often lead to risibility; so if berries are simple fruits stemming from one flower with one ovary and typically have several seeds, then strawberries are not berries.

    Learning what a tree is, is no more than learning how to use the word "tree".

    Now, if you have a definition of "essence" that gets around the issues spoken of hereabouts, please set it out.

    I have already addressed this <here>, and you continue to ignore the points at hand. "If there is no such thing as a belief-relation (and it has no essence), then neither P1 nor Searle's claim can hold. — Leontiskos

    I've addressed this multiple times. Your conclusion does not follow. And further, you've misunderstood Searle.
  • The Identity of Indiscernibles and the Principle of Irrelevance
    What fun!

    At stake is the very notion of symmetry. The ubiquitous example is two identical iron balls in an otherwise empty universe.

    Or is that one ball in a non-Euclidian space?

    And so what we have here is a choice of how we would like to talk about such things - which logic we might choose, and why.

    So an empiricist might say the whole exercise is of no avail, while a mathematician would rejoice in the possibilities on offer.

    And again, one's approach will depend on what one is doing.
  • Is touching possible?
    ↪Manuel
    I'm pleased that at least someone saw the problem. Rationality is not completely absent here.
  • What can I know with 100% certainty?
    ↪elucid


    https://www.aruma.com.au/about-us/blog/two-words-you-need-to-remove-from-your-vocabulary/
  • What can I know with 100% certainty?
    retardedness — elucid

    Pretty ugly word.
  • Is touching possible?
    My suspicion is that if you need to refer to electrons to explain touch, you’ve gone astray somewhere. Not sure where.
  • List of Definitions (An Exercise)
    How would you use those terms if you do not know their definition? — javi2541997
    Quite easily. We use terms for which we don't have ready definitions all the time. That's why we need dictionaries, and why good ones are so difficult to write.
  • Belief
    ↪Moliere
    In 'straylian, "slab" is a carton of beer. 24 tinnies.

    I wonder what Aristotle would make of that? A nice derangement of epitaphs?

    The upshot being that essences introduces more issues than it solves.
  • Belief
    I began pressing Banno on his claim, found elsewhere, that definitions do not exist... — Leontiskos
    I don't think I said that - anywhere.

    Banno... thinks the essence of a scissors is neither sharp nor dull. — Leontiskos
    No, he doesn't. He thinks that we would be better served considering use rather than essence. Hence sharp scissors are ill-advised in kindergarten. In that situation the better scissors are blunt.

    my claim has been that the final sentence of that quote commits Searle to the view that the notion of belief is both determinate and normative, and to the view that there exists a real definition of belief that the "mistaken view" has gotten wrong. — Leontiskos

    From the paragraph:
    The proposition is the content of the belief, not the object of the belief. In this case, the object of the belief is Washington. It is impossible to exaggerate the damage done to philosophy and cognitive science by the mistaken view that "believe" and other intentional verbs name relations between believers and propositions. — Searle, my bolding
    He's saying hat the structure of beliefs is not well reflected in the predicate form B(a,p).

    Nothing here supports your claims. He's saying belief is not a relation. He doesn't appear to be saying anything about normativity, determinism or "real" definitions, whatever they are and whatever they might mean in this context.

    And nothing about essences.

    This discussion isn't going anywhere.
  • List of Definitions (An Exercise)
    ↪javi2541997

    Definitions are a post hoc invention.
  • List of Definitions (An Exercise)
    If a kid would ask for your own take on these terms, would the answer be “it depends on use” or would you have some (albeit provisional) answer? — Mikie
    I'd use the term, and encourage them to use it, so the child can see how it is used.

    so how do you use them? — Mikie
    Early and often.

    But yep, unhelpful. I'll leave my comments there.
  • What is Logic?
    ↪Leontiskos
    Ok.
  • What is Logic?
    For a third time now, that "contention" is a figment of your imagination. — Leontiskos

    Well...

    There is also "logic as the study of logical truths,"... — Count Timothy von Icarus

    2(a). Logic is a description of the ways we make good inferences and determine truth, or at least approximate truth pragmatically. — Count Timothy von Icarus

    The purpose of logic is to provide an analytic guide to the discovery of demonstrated truth — James A. Weiseipl, Preface

    the truth-preservation that is validity — Leontiskos

    The post at https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/834084 wasn't directed specifically at you. I was simply making a general observation; seems it hit a nerve.

    ...but from this it does not follow that logic is unrelated to truth or validity — Leontiskos

    And again, (third time?) yes, I agree. There are bits of logic that involve truth, and bits that don't. Truth alone will not suffice to define logic.
  • Belief
    ↪Moliere
    A modal definition - it's a slab if it has slabbyness in every possible world? Or is it enough for it to have slabbiness in this possible world? Or it's a slab IFF it's width is greater than it's height...

    Or it's a slab if the builder places it horizontally, a block if he places it vertically...

    In order to pick out a screwdriver you need to know what it is... — Leontiskos
    And what could "know what it is..." mean, apart from being able to pick the driver from the chisel, the flat from the Phillips? Knowing what screwdriver is, is exactly being able to make use of it, and not understanding what it's essence is.

    And what's an "internalised definition"? One that is not explicit? One that cannot be made explicit? Could such a thing count as a definition?
  • List of Definitions (An Exercise)
    ↪Mikie
    My answer to all: There's a way of understanding each, that is not given by setting out their definitions in words but seen in the way they are used.

    But further, any such string of words will be inadequate, failing to account for all uses.
  • Belief
    If we look at saying, as Austin might, “That is false”, it is unclear what the implications would be (but something is amiss). — Antony Nickles

    That's a very good point.

    S0 we have:
    "The right thing to do is apologize", claimed Antony
    "That's false", replied Banno.

    It's an unusual phrasing, but isn't it clear enough? "That's not true" would be a happier wording.

    Interesting.

    Davidson would have us translate such things into truth-functional first-order sentences. No easy task here.
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