What I'm fishing for is a distinction between what explanations we can expect from philosophy and what belongs to a different, less intellectual, mode of explanation. — Ludwig V
One distinction I'm looking at is precisely that difference between something we can attribute to anyone who holds that view and something that may vary from one person to another — Ludwig V
In considering the solipsist, I think it is important to keep the "realist" and "idealist" within shooting range. — Paine
I think Wittgenstein understands motives as he understands meaning in general — Joshs
Our interests are enacted in situations, — Joshs
The impression I get is that it is the tricky grammar of language itself that motivates our confusions, not something that could be misread as an inner psychological motive, — Joshs
But I'm led to think that the range and confusion of the possible seats of thinking may be meant to get us to see that the debate about experience simply can't be tidied up into a structure of alternatives. — Ludwig V
I didn't think that my observation would be a distraction — Ludwig V
that destruction would be part of my life — Ludwig V
the Berkeleyan move… [of] giving oneself a world before retreating from it. — Paine
These words [ ‘I can't imagine the opposite’ ] are a defence against something whose form makes it look like an empirical proposition but which is really a grammatical one. PI #251
My focus has been on the discussion of solipsism in the Blue Book and why W says it is not an opinion. I don't see the issue of certainty as germane to my observations. — Paine
The solipsist who says ‘only I feel real pain’, ‘only I really see (or hear)’ is not stating an opinion; and that's why he is so sure of what he says. — (p.60)
When W says that solipsism is not an opinion, the view is connected to the Tractatus saying it is present but cannot be said. There is something to be overcome but it is not like overturning a proposition. — Paine
I do think [ responding to the quote, that ] Wittgenstein is looking for a way to help the solipsist find an answer to a problem — Paine
Scepticism is often explained as a desire for certainty, but if certainty is an unattainable ideal, perhaps we should think of it as being, not the desire for certainty, but the fear of it, as some inflexible that hems us in. — Ludwig V
The first issue is to get him puzzled, to get him to see that his resolution is not a solution. Or, it is we who feel unhappy with his conclusion. So, in a way, all we are doing - all we can ever do - is to develop an untangling - an alternative view, and then, perhaps, persuade him of it. — Ludwig V
Why would the solipsist ask that question? — Ludwig V
To me, this reads as his response to the Oxford ordinary language philosophers. — Ludwig V
I have no idea what this [negation discussion] is referring to. — Ludwig V
[ The solipsist ] is irresistibly tempted to use a certain form of expression [ ‘Only I really see, or hear, or feel (real pain)” ]; but we must yet find why he is. — (p.60)
At one moment we are saying "I know your pain" because we've had an injury like that. The next we are saying "You can't know my pain" because you can't feel it. It may be that there is no truth of the matter, that the illocutionary force attached to each is the real point. — Ludwig V
if it is not based on criteria, it is my pain. If there are criteria (reasons, justifications) in play, it is not my pain. — Ludwig V
I said that the man who contended that it was impossible to feel the other person's pain did not thereby wish to deny that one person could feel pain in another person's body. In fact, he would have said: "I may have toothache in another man's tooth, but not his toothache". — (p.53)
Wittgenstein stops short at saying that "I am in pain" replaces "Ouch" and does not describe it — Ludwig V
he (and Austin) do rather give the impression of thinking they can be some sort of conceptual police. — Ludwig V
W's account of "I have a pain" as an "expression" as opposed to a description — Ludwig V
Ordinary language is sometimes "all right as it is", but sometimes it is not. The trick is to tell the difference. — Ludwig V
The trick here is to juxtapose a sense in which one can speak thoughtlessly with the philosophical doctrine, in such a way that the emptiness of the doctrine stands out. But much depends here on the reaction of the audience, who, I find, are a bit liable to object that they did not mean that, so that the two sides are speaking past each other. — Ludwig V
I have the impression that these writing do not pay attention to the difference between conscious and unconscious processes. That allows the argument that there must be certain processes going on that we are not aware of - i.e. unconscious processes. — Ludwig V
the experience of thinking may just be the experience of saying, or may consist of this experience plus others which accompany it. — After “Let us sum up”, p. 43
This, of course, doesn't mean that we have shown that peculiar acts of consciousness do not accompany the expressions of our thoughts! Only we no longer say that they must accompany them. — p. 42
There's an interplay between what we are aware of, what W calls a mechanism of the mind - I think of it as the unconscious. — Ludwig V
But it seems odd to say that understanding is not "present" during communication. — Ludwig V
The sentence itself can do the work of the shadow, and so no shadow is needed. We can explain what the sentence means, perhaps, by an ostensive definition. That’s how words and things can be connected. — Ludwig V
I've got a bit confused about where we are — Ludwig V
It does rather raise questions about what it means to say that something exists, since the broken or toy watch does, nonetheless, exist - it's just that the description "watch" doesn't apply. — Ludwig V
I shall cover what might be seen as the first phase, — Ludwig V
I've always been a bit puzzled why he didn't take the obvious step from forms or life to historicism, relativism, or even perhaps naturalism. — Ludwig V
In my book, culture and history come back to people, so, while I wouldn't disagree with you, I don't feel that there's a significant difference between us. — Ludwig V
I think that there is another motive at work here - the desire to find something surprising and interesting to say, the need to emerge from one's library with a trophy from all those explorations. — Ludwig V
But we learn to speak a language that already exists, from people who did not invent it…. "A word has the meaning someone has given it." is a misleading way of putting this. — Ludwig V
If ethical desire can transcend historical contingency, then perhaps this is why for Witt other kinds of desires as well (desire for certainty, generality, completeness) are not simply ‘what we do’ in the historical sense of contingent discursive practices, but confused expressions of a transcendent feeling. — Joshs
“…the puzzles which [philosophers] try to remove always spring from this attitude towards language [compar[ing] our use of words with one following exact rules]”. (p. 26) — Witt.
I thought… that Wittgenstein turns this conventional rock bottom into something real, almost foundational. — Ludwig V
You adopt a possible interpretation of "coincide", but I'm not convinced that it is valid in this context. — Ludwig V
this as a rehearsal of the sceptical attack on, in this case, other minds. — Ludwig V
the specter of skepticism remains, — Joshs
I would think a marine might handle a bad situation very well — Athena
Adam Smith, the father of economics, assumed well-bred men function with a high degree of virtues, and could understand the need to do business with good ethics and good moral judgment. — Athena
Offense can be given in many ways—through direct insults, indirect or implied slights, a condescending tone or delivery, hurtful humor, acts of disrespect, deliberate provocation, or insensitivity to someone’s circumstances. — praxis
Is there a history of philosophers trying to prove each other wrong? — Athena