@Paine @Ludwig V @Joshs @Shawn @Srap Tasmaner

Section 4C (pp. 18-20] Philosophical “Attitude”

To step back just to page 18, he is I believe referring to Socrates when he asks why philosophy is “contemptuous” toward the particular case. On page 20 he says outright “When Socrates asks the question, ‘what is knowledge?’ he does not even regard it as a preliminary answer to enumerate cases of knowledge.” Power (might=right) is someone’s goal of what is good. Is it the most worthy goal? No, but it still exists in the world, and it gets dismissed because it doesn’t meet the standard Socrates wants.

“The contempt for what seems the less general case in logic springs from the idea that it is incomplete.” It wouldn’t seem this equates to the logical necessity Socrates is looking for, but to me “complete” lines up with a solution (answering the “problem” again) that ties up all the loose ends and addresses every contingency before an act. As if we could determine the right thing to do in every angle up front, “completely”.

And this is a matter of method for him. Like Austin, who always investigated how an action failed in order to learn how it worked, Witt implores us to be interested in what distinguishes something rather than search for neat and tidy commonalities. “For after all, there is not one definite class of features which characterize all cases of wishing.” We can draw sharp boundaries to feel we have a complete idea, but “there are many common features overlapping.” as he seemingly first refers to family resemblances, which is important enough to be in the preface of the PI.

I had the impression that his explanation of the temptattion is the only answer that I found in the text. I must have missed something. — Ludwig V

It’s not a matter of another general answer he gives as much as the “answer” he claims that the solipsist wants to satisfy that desire for their pure, imposed criteria. That desire causes them to see the issue only as a problem/answer dichotomy (rather than a “muddle” and “temptation”). Many readers take him to be solving (answering) that “problem” just in a different way, or dissolving it, or not taking it seriously (it’s just about language).

He doesn't seem to take into account that a description can be an explanation and can give us a new view of what we are already looking. — Ludwig V

I think people take the idea of not explaining anything a bit too far. He is of course making claims and explaining things all along. The difference between his descriptions of what we say, and the “explaining” that he wants to avoid is tied to the desire for a single criteria and working backwards to ‘explain’ the world in order to fit that goal (thus the creation of a theoretical, metaphysical perfect realm). So in this tight construct, “explanation” is almost a technical term for him, not the loose act of drawing conclusions. An “explanation” for him is driven by the desire for the kind of “answer” we want in looking at skepticism as a “problem” as above.

I do think Wittgenstein is looking for a way to help the solipsist find an answer to a problem: — Paine

In a sense, but I’m making a finer distinction between kinds of “problems”. In my discussion of Sec 2 above I claimed he was pointing out how philosophy mixes up a conceptual confusion with the desire the solipsist has for a scientific answer because they want to see it only as an empirical problem.

“He is irresistibly tempted to use a certain form of expression; but we must yet find why he is.” Yes, he is trying to help find an “answer”, but just not a scientific answer to the problem the solipsist has framed. He is trying to find out why the solipsist is “irresistibly tempted”.

[Witt] is oddly just like Socrates in accepting he has to live with the arguments he makes. — Paine

I’ve always thought they both start in the same place: asking what we say in a given situation, but Witt listens in a way where Socrates seems to already have something in mind. But they are very similar. Are you saying they both hold us responsible for what we say? or that they are somehow stuck with the arguments they make?

I don't read the issue he has with Plato as equivalent to his complaints about the temptations of modern science. The latter are the people he lives amongst. — Paine

I agree; he is specifically taking on ‘sense data’, and the paragraph about science is as vehement as he gets. I only bring Plato into it to say that the issue (of metaphysics) has followed philosophy all along.

I do think W urgently wants to get past the 'problem of skepticism' in regard to phenomena versus reality frames of discussion. He may eschew other explanations but he keeps taking aim at that one throughout his life. — Paine

Absolutely, that is the target of the times (as with Austin). Given our reading, I think I would phrase it as the “problematizing” of skepticism. That if we take skepticism as a problem, it leads to the desire for an answer, and he wants to show examples of the ordinary working rationality we have, to say that: when that comes to an end (as @Joshs @Ludwig V are discussing), we at least are on open, common ground to differentiate from, rather than fighting in “frames of discussion” of theoretical fantasy. As @Ludwig V says “my ability to dissent from and to question what I am taught (in any meaningful or relevant way) rests on my having learnt what it is to dissent and to question.”

It's not a question of argument, but of learning. — Ludwig V

And of course, as you say, “we are inducted into what we do”, but in the PI we are constantly brought up by the (seemingly irrational) rogue student. Here, just as we’ve resolved a misunderstanding about the locality of thought between science and philosophy (p.8), we are thrust back into disagreement: “But what if someone said ‘I can assure you I feel the visual image to be two inches behind the bridge of my nose’; what are we to answer him? Should we say that he is not speaking the truth, or that there cannot be such a feeling?” (p.9, emphasis added). And bringing in “feeling” tempts us to say the conversation is now hopelessly irrational, to say we perhaps have to rely on the force of (society’s) authority, but he says we “**don’t say that the [person] is telling a lie or talking nonsense” (p.10, my emphasis), just that it “has yet to be explained to us” (id.) how what they are saying makes sense. It is not the sense (truth) that has any power, but the people, open-endedly (or not “negotiation”, but rebellion), just needing to find our (a rational) way together to go forward (not ‘agree’). It doesn’t surprise me that Plato feels differently (though now I’m intrigued to go read that***).

**As I have taken the position before, I take this “don’t” as an ethical *admonition on Witt’s part (we can but shouldn’t), perhaps even political (as it would not be the first time he seems opposed to dogmatism (PI #426).
***turns out it’s the group who believe in the gods but that believe they don’t hold dominion of over us, as if rationality had no sway. They would be (this translation) “ministered to their souls salvation by [*]admonition” for five years then killed, for their “folly”. Laws, Bk 10, p. 909. (In America, it’s four years.)

@Joshs

In the end, the authoritative. dogmatic, answer is the only possible one. — Ludwig V

Cavell will point out that the teacher is only “inclined to say: ‘This is simply what I do.’” (PI #217] so of course we can shut the door to further teaching with dogmatism and authority, but we can always continue the conversation in order to reach agreement and compliance, because it’s the relationship—to each other, to society—that’s more important in this case than anything we might take (or force) as foundational.

@Banno @Paine @Ludwig V @Jamal @Astrophel @Joshs @Shawn @Srap Tasmaner

Section 4B (pp.17-18) science vs. philosophy (generalizing)

Obviously, over-generalization leads to logical errors, but what’s interesting is how he ties it to traditional philosophical issues (however obliquely). It also seems clear that in saying “language” causes problems, he is referring to general problems in thinking, like the desire for simplicity, imprecision, mis-categorization, false analogies, etc., and not that we are pitting ordinary language against philosophy.

In (a) he brings up the abstraction of a quality into an independent property (creating an object) such as turning “real” into a thing that something either has or does not (as in his example of the “ideal” of beauty), which slides into the (not only Kant’s) idea of an (objective) “reality”.

In (b) is our main issue so far in a nutshell in that we turn the meaning of a word (leaf, or, say, thinking) into an object and take it to be what is common to particular instances (hello Plato). Not only that, but it is an image that resides “‘in him’”, creating ‘my’ ‘meaning’ for the solipsist (and the “mechanism” problem of (c)). What he sees is that we don’t actually put particulars together, but we learn (and reflect to make explicit) “certain features or properties which they have in common.” (p.18 my emphasis) These are the criteria for judging what is a leaf (say, from a seed that looks like one)—what is essential about it. (PI #371)

In (d) we see the creation of metaphysics (Plato’s forms; Descartes’ mind) as the product of science’s desire for an “explanation”, which is turning a “muddle felt as a problem” (p.6), into the “preoccupation” with ”answers” (not just never explaining anything @Paine), and here he clarifies, reduced to AN answer. This is the root temptation to solve the “problem” of skepticism, which blinds us (in “complete darkness”) from seeing our everyday criteria, which don’t unravel our “muddle” (once and for all) but unravel us so we can continue on.

But this is not to continue in the same manner, much less with the same goal. He doesn’t want to change the answer, he wants to change us, our interests. Our method is to look at “particular cases”, and our goal is to see what “distinguishes” them (our criteria for judgment).

what makes the reasons mine, as opposed to justifications after the event? — Ludwig V

Aren’t justifications just a subset of reasons, like an excuse is a reason, as is acting on principal? Preparing them in advance to decide to act a certain way does not alter their category as a reason because they are given after the fact. And yes I think I am answerable for the reasons I give to you, as I am responsible for my actions.

there is more than one use of words at stake here — Ludwig V

Agreed, as evidenced by the pencil statement variations.

So do you read Wittgenstein here as rhetorically casting doubt not only on the assumption noted ― about the separate, mental act of interpretation ― but also on the idea of giving a word an interpretation, or interpreting a word to mean something? — Srap Tasmaner

Yes. You pick out the banjo. The picking results in a particular interpretation, or use, as: ‘This is pencil’ can distinguish the material, or the number, etc. depending on the circumstances.

Do you take Wittgenstein to have been saying that "this is tove" might mean any one of… depending on context? — Srap Tasmaner

Yes. Same statement (“This is pencil”), different “uses” (usages, made explicit), or as he also calls them: interpretations. Not that the use is given by me.

But he doesn't exclusively use "use" as a noun — Srap Tasmaner

True. Not sure if sometimes he is just writing “using” regularly or not, but it still bears keeping in mind the point that a usage/interpretation is more than something I do, what with history, context, others’ judgment, multiple uses, etc. (even though I can consider, choose words, plan, hope).

However, my problem is with his comparison of reasons with motives. I have to say, I think of a motive as a desire or wish or value - reasons map the path from there to the action. as in the third bolded passage. But set that aside. My question is how does this fit with the justification post hoc? It looks as if I may act for no reason, but then offer a justification post hoc, which suggests that I did act for a reason. But that doesn't fit with our immediate awareness of the motive. — Ludwig V

I think the comparison of motives with reasons is logical (grammatically similar) both compared to causes, which we may not know. But I can know my motives (though I may not), and I’m the only one that can know, and give, my reasons (“actual reasons” not being mistake for causes). I’m not sure we would act for a reason (seems like a motive, or a principle), but after the fact (post hoc) we could give reasons for acting as I did (which could include causes and motives, as it could include excuses and justifications).

if you're talking about a sign (or doodling mathematical symbols, whatever), you're not using it but mentioning it. — Srap Tasmaner

Yes, but it’s not a matter that words are tools we manipulate then of which “well established usage”(p.3) something is like, as he draws out the different uses of “This is a pencil” in the phrases which follow it (solved by imagining a context for that “use”, as if a crossword).

But one natural test of whether an utterance is a use is whether the speaker means it, or is just quoting — Srap Tasmaner

An utterance is not judged as, or as not, a ‘use’ of words; an utterance has a use—it is a plea, or a threat, or points out a difference; as are the examples regarding the pencil—depending on the context. Thus why words are not ‘meant’ by us, other than in contrast to when we jest.

@Banno @Paine @Ludwig V @Jamal @Astrophel @Joshs @Shawn @Srap Tasmaner

(If anyone else does not want to be “notified” when I read another section, just let me know.)

Section 4A (pp.16-17) “language games”

As he puts off until later in the book the actual discussion of whether a machine can think, I will defer until then as well, only to point out the form of argument that he takes here is, again: a fact making a logical exclusion (what “can”, and “cannot”), which is simply that a machine cannot think because it is not human (analogously it can’t have a toothache either). I don’t know that this would be convincing to those that believe that eventually machines will be capable of “being human” or that reduce their interest in “thinking” to replicating an activity, such as problem-solving, but we can take that up later. As well as the brief reference to the desire that thought be “private”.

Another note on method involves the misunderstanding of what “language games” are for him. Many believe these are, say, contexts of rules that underly or justify the meaning of words, but, clearly here, he is “looking closely” at simplified examples that are “particular”, which I take to be distinguishing enough to show facts that matter to the workings of a specific activity (the criteria of its grammar), with thinking with words involving uses of “comparison”, “difference”, “agreement”, etc. (Thus, the PI is not, for instance, arguing that using words is like following rules, but is drawing out the mechanics of rule-following as a case to study; there, to show how the grammar is different than (falls short of) a desire for pure logic.) Here it shows thinking to be more than merely “activity” but not necessarily “mental”. Importantly, so we are not “misled by… linguistic form into a false conception of… grammar” as we might be misled by the expression that “thinking is an activity... of our mind” into thinking that the mind is “the seat of the activity of thinking” (rather than just pointing out, say, that we did it in our head rather than worked it out physically, and not a matter of locality).

W thinks they are wrong about that, but that is a philosophical position, which needs to be demonstrated. — Ludwig V

His form of proof is logical, but it takes the acknowledgement of his premises, which are the expressions we have about a practice in a situation, and this may seem arrogant.

…W seems to start from our perplexity… everybody needs to start from somewhere - but it seems to rely on a wholesale dismissal of the philosophical tradition(s) — Ludwig V

Also, he is not engaging the tradition on its own terms, which does seem dismissive, but the two methods don’t hit at the same points and if he goes in too close, he gets tied up in the same structural issues as the tradition. It does feel like we joined the lecture halfway through the semester. No explanation of sense data, no history, no defense. But the muddles come from the tradition. Sense data is the modern version of age-old responses to skepticism, other minds, the self, etc.

there may be a different desire underlying scepticism, the desire to undermine baseless certainties. — Ludwig V

Absolutely, the skeptic is right that there is no fact that ensures universality, prediction, righteousness, etc. and so dogmatism is his house of cards. (PI #118) The fear of radical skepticism is that the possibility of overblowing a position leads to the conclusion that it is impossible to hold any position, even in our best case scenario of seeing something right in front of us.

Where, in that description, is an activity outside of psychology? Wittgenstein was the one who insisted upon an activity beyond that. — Paine

Yes, but his derogatory ideas of “psychology” (“mental processes”, compulsion, etc.) doesn’t eclipse his discussion of our human responses to philosophical issues.

Duly noted.

If the intention is truly the end of perplexity… — Paine

The only answer I ever heard was that people would go on making the same mistakes, so the cleansing process would go on. — Ludwig V

The confusions so far appear to be motivated by the desire for a “crystalline purity of logic” (PI #107) like that misapplies the framework of objects to our feelings and sensations, or, most recently, that reasoning is thought to be causality. So there is no “end of perplexity” but there is a truth to our getting perplexed, which I take as the investigation and conclusion of the PI. This book lays the groundwork, not to ‘answer’ the confusion, but to ask what that says about us.

@Banno @Paine @Ludwig V @Jamal @Manuel @Astrophel @Joshs @Shawn

Section 3B (pp.14-15) Causes vs. Reasons

Yet there is a difference between saying that the action is justified for the following reasons and saying that those reasons were the reasons why one did it. — Ludwig V

Yes but aren’t justifications just one kind of (prepared) reasons, as are principals (beliefs for action), mitigating circumstances, impulses, conformity or “embedded beliefs” and any number of practices for which we express to you (or are told) our interest for having done or said something. But, nevertheless, there are things common to reasoning (here compared to rules or causation or motivation).

In his terms, reasons aren’t prior to an act (a reason is not “for action”, as you word it); our responsibility for answering why we did something (after the fact) is why “actual reasons [have] a beginning” (p.15) Riceour says acts are an event (meaning: in time).

And again, we can have “no reason” (and there can appear none), as the apathetic have none for not acting (perhaps this is ‘privilege’), though we can hold them responsible nevertheless.

As an aside, I note we “are inclined” (p.16) to give an (impersonal) cause when we “come to an end” rather than explain our interests and commitments further, as we are “inclined” to turn the spade (PI #217) on the student rather than keep trying to give justifications for our continuing as we do. The inclination here seems the beginning of the temptation at the heart of the matter, so perhaps our desire for science is tied to our fear of exposing ourselves, relying on ourselves.

“No number of agreeing statements is necessary” because my reasons are my own (or yours given to me). Neither are we hypothesizing as to the mystery of me; we are making a “statement” of what we are standing for.

Also, a note on method. He will often try to get us to see a logical impossibility (thus necessary possibility) by pointing out what can and cannot be the case (usually based on what we say in a given situation). A “grammatical” point shows us the hard edge of a practice, but it is our acceptance of the description that creates the power of the distinction (rather than a logical argument trying to force us to accept it, which is what creates the temptation for an abstract predetermined criteria only to satisfy that goal). The mechanism is self-justification—for a cause to be considered a cause (and not a motive) it must meet its own criteria. (Cavell will draw out this “must” in his essay “Must We Mean what We Say”.)

Whoops

I don’t see continuing the series as at all the same thing as extending a word or concept into new contexts. In the former, we say that we are doing the same thing and thatility is determined by the rule. — Ludwig V

I meant to refer generally to the discussion of both, not to just the mathematical section (though, as the text here points out, even mathematically the rule does not “determine” anything; even the judgment (“wrong”) can be suspended, say, with children).

Don’t I have to accept responsibility whether I outsource my decision or not? — Ludwig V

Yes, but maybe that is exactly the motivation for following a rule based on someone else’s authority, or your own feeling as a “cause”: in order to abdicate not only our authority, but to thus try to sidestep responsibility for our acts and speech. Thus the thought we can say “well that was my perception, so…” to attempt to excuse ourselves.

But surely it does not follow that given a specific rule, one cannot determine the next step. — Ludwig V

We learn to take next steps, but in some cases that is more indeterminant than others, so one can definitely anticipate the next step, and with that expectation, say, judge with severity perhaps because there couldn’t be less room for interpretation, but we cannot “determine” a course of action, i.e., predict it, make it happen, or do it “correctly”. We do not apply the rule (or next step), until it is applied (taken). Thus why he makes the point of saying it can only be explained after the fact (not by a “cause”).

He is irresistibly tempted to use a certain form of expression; but we must yet find why he is.
— Blue Book, 59
That's the question that I don't understand. If the whole thing is a conjuring trick, there is no answer to it, or rather, the only answer is to the question how the trick is pulled off. — Ludwig V

The irresistible temptation is not “to use a certain form of expression”. The temptation is for mathematical certainty. That desire forces the expression into a certain form (as forcing the analogy that everything has the framework of an object.)

The "illusion of language" seems like a complete explanation in a work that questions "general explanations." — Paine

It’s an oversimplification to say that he doesn’t do explanations, just not theoretical ones outside of any particular context and particular criteria and facts. A specific explanation about the human condition can have particular facts (we are separate, you are hidden from me, etc.) with a detailed context of our relation to the other.

@Banno @Paine @Ludwig V @Jamal @Manuel @Astrophel @Joshs @Shawn

Section 3 (pp. 10-14) Acting without Rules

As an aside, he finds another logical error, mixing contexts, or thinking we understand a word because we have a definition for it in isolation but that offers up no particular rationale for the specific case. So we do not explain meaning generally; only a particular statement has “neither more, nor less, meaning than your explanation has given it.” (p.10) The idea has temporality to it (which becomes a theme); like we cannot be certain of the meaning of language beforehand, and we may not at first understand after an expression (even knowing the words, and other contexts in which it has sense), so it is not a matter of knowledge but being accustomed to (or learning) how to judge by what is important to us in that case. This is the ability of language to extend into new contexts (discussed in the PI as: continuing a series) because at times how it matters is, as yet, to be determined.

Mid-page 9, once we have finally settled there can be a sense of a “place” for thought in the brain (corresponding activity), he brings up water diviners who “feel” a fact, and those who defy even the logic of a described sense we can acknowledge, which I take as a reassertion that skepticism nevertheless can be endless, and to begin to investigate the individual attempting to retain a standard for his ‘own’ thought, as if my “feelings” fall back onto my ‘perception’ which is a claim of an “object” (sense data) in me that is irrefutable, casual (the feeling we need/want a yellow image to find a yellow ball).

Now we must examine the relation of the process of learning to estimate with the act of estimating. The importance of this examination lies in this, that it applies to the relation between learning the meaning of a word and making use of the word — (p.11)

Yes, he will be externalizing our “feelings” by looking at how we learn to act, but I wanted to focus on the connection between “learning” and “making use of the word” only to point out that this clarifies the meaning of his term “use” in the PI. Many take it that he is pointing out that we “use” words (that we are the cause of their meaning). But I take the term to mean the externalized possibilities (“uses”) of a word (not that we can’t choose our words though)—here he calls it their (rule’s) “application”. If we are learning how a word works (its criteria and grammar) we are learning the different options for the word. So his point is not that we “use” words, it is which use (option) one would make of them (interpret them to be). He interchangeably will say “sense”, so it would be which sense (or “use”) applies in a given situation.

He breaks down learning into cause and rule. I took the “cause” to show the authority that I take, which can be the trust in the teacher’s authority, or, without reason, based on the authority I have for my own acts (example 4 “‘I don’t know, it just looks like a yard’”), which is to externalize some ‘internal’ cause for speech into taking responsibility for what I say (wanting to be certain beforehand vs. continuing to be resolved to what I say afterwards).

When he differentiates between being “in accordance” with a rule or “involving” a rule (p. 13), I take it to be the basis of the PI’s conclusion that meaning/action is not based on rules. “201. This was our paradox: no course of action could be determined by a rule, because every course of action can be made out to accord with the rule.” Here he talks of a rule of squaring but comes short of saying the rule causes the conclusion, but that “What I wrote is in accordance with the general rule of squaring; but it obviously is also in accordance with any number of other rules; and amongst these it is not more in accordance with one than with another. In the sense in which before we talked about a rule being involved in a process, no rule was involved in this.” (Emphasis in original) He points out that the exception is when we actually consciously rely on a rule in taking an action, but, of course, the exception is to prove that rules do not dictate (or are the cause of) our actions—it does not “act at a distance” (p.14). Again, we can follow a rule or we can go “the way one has gone oneself”, even though we were taught by rules, the teaching “drops out of our considerations”. We may or may not explain by rules afterwards (“post hoc”).

Aren't you are citing the ideals that science tries to achieve? In practice science is always provisional and restricted in its scope, not certain at all. — Ludwig V

Well, to the extent it has done its work, the method of science is based on ensuring repeatable, predictability, and removing our (individual) part in its results. But yes, it is in a sense always open to correction and restricted to what it can apply its method. Philosophy has always used math as its actual ideal for knowledge (Descartes, Socrates, etc.). But here we are focused on the desire for the ideal, and not justifying it or achieving it.

So solipsism is part of the human condition? Then how can philosophy free us from it? But then, if solipsism is part of the human condition, what does it mean to say that it is only an illusion of language? — Ludwig V

Veering outside the scope of the text, Cavell will say that in the PI Wittgenstein is showing that there is a truth to skepticism (it is not a confusion or problem) in that knowledge is only part of our relation to the world and there is no fact that ensures it so we fill the gap with/in our actions (to each other and in trusting/questioning the world and our culture).

further clarification is needed about "more logical, clearer, more certain .. criteria". — Ludwig V

I only point it out as the placeholder for the alternative to our ordinary criteria that we uncover by self-reflection rather than impose. By “certain” I just mean the desire for mathematical/scientific answers—that are universal, predictable, generalized, free from context, “objective”, complete, conclusive, etc. I take these as the opposite of the time/place-dependent, partial, categorical, open-ended, etc. ordinary criteria that we uncover in looking at examples of our expressions regarding a practice, which I don’t take as “subjective” or “self-evident” so much as particular to each activity (thinking, pointing, rule-following, apologizing, identifying, etc.)

I can agree that the desire for certainty is a plausible motivation for solipsism. But I don't see any reason to suppose that's the motivation in every case. — Ludwig V

I agree; I only come back to it because I think here he is focusing on that desire for scientific/certain outcomes. I do think it is the basic reaction that drives other desires. The desire of the solipsist for an “object” inside themselves (perception, appearance, sense-data) could be argued to come from wanting to be special, individual in a way that is fixed and innate rather than accomplished.

Once one has started looking for psychological motivations, one has to contend with a pandora's box of them. — Ludwig V

“Psychological” to me is a term for individual motivations, and I think he is uncovering traits along a more generalized, human scale—the fear of uncertainty, etc. Cavell points to the fact of our being separate from each other (unknown, hidden) and our fear of not being able to know the world with the completeness that we desire ahead of time. These are conditions of being human, and thus separate I would argue from psychological motivations.

The desire to be scientific is in direct conflict with the desire for certainty - at least in the context of philosophy. — Ludwig V

As I am using “certainty”, I mean it to be the same as the desire for scientific outcomes; what he calls “logical purity” in the PI.

I'm not clear why you call it an ethical standard — Ludwig V

Well I’m not sure it’s going too far to say being contextual, not forcing conclusions, etc., are virtues. Calling it best practices, or a code of conduct seems fine but it also seems to remove the self-awareness of how those actions reflect on our character, as Socrates was trying to make his students better, not just more knowledgeable. Also, I think the list of these practices could be continued by us, but his “method” is, as it were, proprietary, in that he is revolutionizing philosophy in a specific way (by looking at the kinds of things we would say, as evidence of what has importance, merit) although I realize I’ve been classifying these together so far as well.

What I'm suggesting is that W here is starting from philosophy as he finds it, and not paying enough attention to what gets philosophy started - which must be muddles that arise from common sense - or perhaps from science's search for causes. — Ludwig V

It does seem like he starts mid-staircase (as with Emerson), and so it is maybe not so much a matter of where the muddle starts but why, and I think he would lay the blame on our desire for philosophy to be like science, to have the same kind of results, or that everything else be judged in that shadow. And this is not so much against common sense, or the results of our ordinary judgments, as removed from all our varied reasons for making judgments at all except scientific certainty.

@Ludwig V

Wittgenstein, however, argues that solipsism results from misuse of language: — Paine

I haven’t gotten as far as your quote from the end of the book, but I think I’ve shown sufficient evidence in the text that the vehicle of confusion may be things like: that words can still have meaning imposed on them despite being removed from context, and that analogy can force a conclusion simply because of shared premises, which are both logical errors, but that the cause, more motivation, which “results” in solipsism is the desire for certainty (e.g., wanting everything to have a reference like objects). The common reading that normally we misuse language or get tricked by it is usually followed by the conclusion that philosophy simply needs to impose its own, better, more logical, clearer, more certain, etc., criteria (though distinctions sometimes must be made). I think this argument plays out through the work.

@Banno @Paine @Ludwig V @Jamal @Manuel @Astrophel @Joshs @Shawn

Section 2B: 8-10 Analogy

Some of these sections are a little bumpy so I don’t think we should feel compelled to go through all of it, but I do find the term “grammatical analogy” interesting as in the PI it plays the role of the ‘language’ that confuses us and makes something “nonsense”, here specifically (pp.8-9) “you have not yet given this question sense; that is, you have been proceeding by a grammatical analogy, without having worked out the analogy in detail.” So ‘nonsense’ is not a derogatory dismissal, but a unspecific, imposed framework.

Thus:

It is misleading to talk of thinking as of a ‘mental activity’. We may say that thinking is essentially the activity of operating with signs. — (p.6)

So we can “think” “mentally” (to ourselves) with words or numbers (or images). Again, my answer to which “different sense” (p.7) of “agent” we could point, is not to a casual agent, but the sense or use of agent as one who acts on behalf of something, thus, the designated one who is responsible.

Also, another note on method: when he is saying “if we talk about” or “talk of”, he is coming up with the things we might say, the expressions already there we ordinarily use or made up ones, for example, that there are already “senses” (what he also calls “uses”) of “‘locality of thinking’” such that one could be physical location, like on paper. Additionally, those expressions allow us to “examine [our] reasons”, reflect on ourselves in “understand[ing] its working”, or grammar. I also think it’s important to recognize the unintended logical force that compels us to complete a explanatory picture a certain way because of the inertia of thought and the desire to run an analogy “throughout” the explanation, as it were, creating things to fill missing spots (the ‘thing-in-itself’/‘forms’/‘queer mechanisms’).

As we’ve learned (though perhaps not fully accepted), the analogy of an “activity” is wrong because thinking is not a mechanism nor caused (though we can be “observing thought in our brain”, which is simply “corresponding” (p.7)). He also takes apart the analogy that thought is words/sentences while alluding to a yet-to-be-discovered “use” or ‘sense’ of the word thought, not ”criticizing” or judging “inappropriateness”, nor “hold[ing] throughout”. In fact, he appears to be creating an ethical standard for philosophy, or, ‘thought’, to be, at least, “worked out in detail”, not forced, with an individual/particular framework and workings.

Are those the two mistakes in your headline for this section? — Ludwig V

we are tempted to say "the mechanism of the mind must be of a most peculiar kind to be able to do what the mind does". But here we are making two mistakes. For what struck us as being queer about thought and thinking was not at all that it had curious effects which we were not yet able to explain (causally). Our problem, in other words, was not a scientific one; but a muddle felt as a problem. — (pp.5-6)

The two mistakes are: 1. What the mind does (thought) is strange; so 2. How the mind works must be a mystery. Thus, we create the “problem” that we just need to get to where we can explain how it causes “thought”. But the “muddle” we got ourselves into was because we pictured thought as an object. Thought is not an object, and so is not “caused”; thinking is not a mechanism to be explained. If I even have that right, there is much to say about: Why? and other fallout I would think.

@Ludwig V @Joshs @Manuel
“We are most strongly tempted to think that here are things hidden, something we can see from the outside but which we can't look into. And yet nothing of the sort is the case.”
— Blue Book, page 6

I think the key point is that giving to us an 'agent who thinks' is standing on the outside trying to look in: — Paine

This is an important connection than my merely trying to record the aghast commonly felt at what is seen as removing the self (just, as an object), when he is just following through the categorical error of the ‘strong temptation’ of causality. I would only add that we would be “standing on the outside trying to look in” to ourselves as well if we imagine we can “look into” our own casual object (agent, “self”). Not to move further from the text but to place this in company, the PI will treat the other as opaque and talk of boxes with things hidden, etc.

I am curious about @Paine’s thoughts on the relation to Hume/Kant. Obviously there is Hume’s “agent” and Kant removing the object (but not dismantling the framework that held it).

Thinking is a paradigm of a mental activity. Surely, what he needs to argue is that mental activities, in particular thinking, is not the kind of activity it suggests, because of the contrast with physical activities. Is doing a calculation with pencil and paper a mental or a physical activity? — Ludwig V

I am trying to get at his separation between what are the general activities of the brain, and what would enlighten us as to what is essential about thinking. I concede that @Paine had something in saying that the brain makes thought “possible” but that Witt

sees his work as something entirely different from investigating that — Paine

. The problem of the mechanics of the brain “does not interest us” (p.6) because thinking is not a “curious effect” which is the result of “casualty”—something science could explain.

Thinking is a paradigm of a mental activity. Surely, what he needs to argue is that mental activities, in particular thinking, is not the kind of activity it suggests, because of the contrast with physical activities. Is doing a calculation with pencil and paper a mental or a physical activity? — Ludwig V

I take him to be saying that what thinking IS, is what is important about thinking, which is entirely different than physical causality. Sure, you could explain what is happening in the brain, but it would not matter to what we care about with “thought” (as people (culturally), or as philosophers). The reason science gets confused that it will be important here is that it is working under the misplaced analogy that thought is an object, and thinking is the mechanism that creates that object (and here I am not talking about speaking to ourselves). Now is it actually physical or mental? I don’t think those words matter much in the case of thought. As he implies, we CAN make it matter, but in a number of ways. “I’m thinking through this problem on paper.” Is the thinking mental or physical? The locality is clearly”on the paper”, that is where it is happening, and how; so, physical, right? And then mental could just be: without tools to help the process (say, problem solving), so, to yourself and only with your imagination, memory, self-talk, etc.

@Banno @Paine @Ludwig V @Jamal @Manuel @Astrophel @Joshs @Kurt Keefner @Shawn

Section 2: 5-8 Two Mistakes

a process must be happening organically that makes thinking, speaking, and listening possible but sees his work as something entirely different from investigating that: — Paine

Unraveling what is “different” here, one point is that, yes, there are things happening in the brain. And vision, hearing, imagining, talking to ourselves, all have objects that we experience. But meaning, understanding, and thinking (like problem solving) are not structured around objects. Now, sure, there are things happening in the brain when those things happen, but they are not actual mechanisms of the brain “that we were not yet able to explain” (p. 6). Another way to put this is that science isn’t going to tell us what thought or meaning or understanding are. Thus, “it is misleading to talk of thinking as of a ‘mental activity’.”

The reason these “queer” mechanisms are imagined is because we want to say: instead of just ordinary error (random, unpredictable, but correctable), we create an issue that must have a solution with certainty (thus an object), and so we create a “problem” (p.6). So instead of a regular goof-up, we now imagine a problem of knowledge (a scientific one), to be solved by an (casual) object in us (by a “certain, definite mechanism”), or being able to explain that. But what was “queer” was not something scientifically peculiar, it was just a mistake, a “muddle” because “here are things hidden, something we can see from the outside but which we can't look into”. Thus the reason he says trying to find the place of thinking must be rejected “to prevent confusion”. (p.8)

From here he makes a radical statement that only plays out through the rest of the book. “I can give you no agent who thinks.” (p.6) This seems speculative at this point (and needlessly provocative), and I take it to mean so far that if there is no casual scientific mechanism, then it is the (“external”) judgment of thought that matters, not its agent (though this belies responsibility).

Another note on method. In addition to advising we take our ordinary expressions seriously (p.7), in the PI he gives the impression all our problems are caused by what he says here is the “mystifying use of our language” (p.6). But it is clear here that it is not language which fools us, but our temptation to treat words as objects (like “time”), and it is this desire that mystifies us, as, on page 7, he shows how analogy allows us to mistakenly infer there is a place for thought because there is a place for words.

Yes, that's why I'm suggesting that scepticism/certainty is not the only issue in play in this text. BTW, I'm a bit puzzled by "all states of affairs" are objects. — Ludwig V

I agree but he is taking his time drawing out this side here first. And my recollection of TLP is shoddy but I was trying to draw the parallel of his, as you say Atomism there, and the “queer”-ness of the mechanism here.

In short, there is a lot going on, and it is not evident to me that mental images don't play an important role. Also, what "mental images" specifically covers can be subtle. — Manuel

Well, yes, there can be a lot going on, but most of the time we get along fine, which is only to say that the odd example is not evidence of the need to retreat to always having some thing certain in your brain that controls our relation to the world. By “mental image” he just means picturing something in your head, but a lot gets added onto it when we want that to be an object, of certainty, of knowledge, that a “queer mechanism” “associates”—in terms of necessarily equates—it to the world; that there is a mechanism in us that accomplishes that.

It seems like a natural(ish) way of thinking about this, assuming necessity, because in ordinary talk, why would it seem different? — Manuel

Well I think wanting necessity is different than just going along with what you’re accustomed to (the “ordinary”) without reflecting. But yes the most necessary relation for anyone is the objects they see (or their own “existence”—or, sense as an object—which we call a “subject”).

But once you think about this a bit more carefully, I think you discover, that no necessity is involved. — Manuel

Yes, Descartes thought his way through to radical skepticism, but what we are dealing with here is the first part, which is wanting certainty (thinking of the whole world as objects we should be able to “see”, or know, as we do trees, etc.), which is the desire that starts the spinning.

But isn't there more to all this than radical certainty? …towards contextualism… toward our everyday rule-governed behavior. — Ludwig V

Yes, but the position he is sketching out is like the counter-voice of the interlocutor in the PI. It is also his own experience from the Tractatus (claiming all “state of affairs” are objects Tract 4.2211). There is, of course, the other side of the coin, but he is sketching out the negative case of sense data to cast it in relief.

There seems to be a lack of necessity between our using words like "red", "book" and so on, and assuming there has to be something in the world which is "captured" by these words. But we seem to act as if this does happen; that a "book" is necessarily means that thing made of think wooden pulp with letter in it. — Manuel

What makes it hard to parse I think is that he starts at the end first. What we are faced with is that “usually” we just pick flowers, but sometimes we are trying to point out a banjo and our friend takes us to be distinguishing stringed instruments. And in order to avoid that happening again, we catastrophize the situation (always, all cases the same). When we picked the wrong flower, you even skipped to:

if I lacked [the mental image], I'm not sure I'd get a "red" flower, rather than some other flower (yellow, blue, etc.). — Manuel

Instead of just saying ‘whoops’ and correcting our mistakes, we try to account for the error in our explanation to control the outcome (and also make sure somehow we don’t make mistakes ever again.)

As I read what he is saying, it's that we likely make a mistake when we take a word to necessarily refer or signify necessarily to an object of some kind. — Manuel

I think your instinct is right. I take it that the desire for wanting necessity causes us to reach for an explanation that has certainty, like: in the case of ‘seeing an object’. What I think we miss is that: in order to have an answer that is necessary, certain, we have to create a particular kind of answer. If we take identifying a rock as the pattern for ‘understanding a person’, the explanation becomes “queer” to see them as an object (or to see understanding as a mechanism).

What's unclear to me is why this would be particularly "queer", to think or use some mental process of some kind. I say this because it's just as queer to think that we need mental content as to say that we don't need it, or that we can see the world without eyes, and rely on echolocation instead. — Manuel

It is not that vision or memory or attention, etc. (processes of the brain) are “queer”. It could be “queer” mechanisms that are not mental: quantification of education, politics turned into “process”, etc. The “queer”-ness is that the nature of the issue has gotten twisted (to have necessity), so the kind of solution (like an object) creates a strange magic that must happen. Imagine “understanding” not as an agreement that allows us to carry on (with someone), but as an epiphany that happens inside your brain when you “know” what they know (the “object” of their understanding), then explaining that seems “queer” (as some modern neuroscience tries to).

I hear ya. I just needed to properly read it at some point, thought this would help. We’ll have to come up with a good (short) one again though some time.

@Banno @Sam26 @Paine @Ludwig V @Jamal @Manuel @Astrophel @Joshs @Kurt Keefner @Shawn

Section 1B pp. 3-5: a “queer” mechanism of the mind

At the bottom of page 3, Witt sketches a picture from what it “seems” like “we ought really to be interested in.” I take this to be the “temptation” for an object-like framework; here, “certain definite mental” processes (perhaps in order to give us something fixed in ourselves). He says we want these mechanisms to associate a word with the world, though he intimates there is something wrong (“queer”, “don’t quite understand”, ”occult”(p.4)) that allows the space for error (to “agree or disagree with reality”), which opens the world to doubt.

Another moment on method as he again discusses transferring an internal mechanism to an analogous external process. This makes the process public, all out in the open, but also not personal, not individual, taking out me (which is also a theme), which feels like a loss I don’t know how to record yet. I take it he is playing off the picture of thought as an “object” and a mechanism that has “properties different from” signs, that makes signs come alive (or be ‘present’ as Derrida might critique it? @Joshs), when he contrasts that to “use”. Here I believe we should not jump to assuming we know what this term means yet, but let it take shape based on the role it plays going forward.

But he says, pulled externally it “ceases to seem to impart any life”, which I take it as less than ‘ceases to live’ but that it does no longer “seem to impart” perhaps the “queer” “association” that “you needed for your purposes”. (P.5) I take this purpose to be the desire for an internal mechanism (as object), and so perhaps the death is of the idea of the self as controlling that mechanism, creating meaning. The looked-for object “co-existing” with the sign was then a special vision of us.

He then flat out claims that what gives life to a sign is not us, but a system of signs. And not just that, but its “part” in that system, its “belong[ing]” in it, which shows the “significance” or meaning. I will also point out that time becomes a factor here—that instead of a mechanism occurring at the same time as the sign, “co-existing” with it, there is a system already, pre-existing.

Is this a factual claim? — Manuel

Yes, with “this” being: “there actually is a way to how identifying and naming objects works”, though it does not create a “factual” (unassailable) relationship between word and object (good enough though “usually” as Witt says). What I am trying to point out is that here there is a direct reference (or best case), which is what we desire elsewhere, so we transpose the model.

different aspects of a pencil are being examined or looked at. — Manuel

It is not our “looking” at, nor examining the aspects of, the pencil; different things are important (have greater significance) to us in the different situations. What criteria are used for judgment depends on what matters to us (and the possibilities of the situation; yes, including, the pencil).

I am not seeing the difference in terms of mental or physical terms. If the framework is presented as ostensive vs non-ostensive, then that makes sense. — Manuel

Yes, the point is that there is no difference; the physical patch serves the same purpose as the mental image; it is our process of checking the object against a standard that matters. The ultimate point being that we want the standard to be an object: ever-present, backing up every interaction, not just picking flowers.

My question is, who is the one who is looking for this "objectivity"? Philosophers? Ordinary people? — Manuel

Here I think Witt means those who are tempted by a desire for something sure. Definitely traditional philosophy, but I would argue our larger modern culture. But I would point out that there actually is a way to how identifying and naming objects works, and that is word—thing (flower; though yes the word is not the flower), but that is exactly why we want it to work that way in every case. It is so certain and clear and simple and predictable; the evidence of our senses is so immediate and convincing to us that the idea of seeing something with our eyes is our best-case scenario in the face of doubt about our world (as is ‘pain’ about our feelings).

If you have a different interpretation of what is ostensibly the same thing, say, these words you are reading right now, or maybe the crying tree outside my window, how is this not a different perception? — Manuel

The interpretation is possible because of the criteria and circumstances, not how we see the world (in each of the above pencil cases, they are NOT “ostensibly the same thing”, though the words are). Though, of course, if the circumstances are looser, you still play some part: in identifying a banjo or grouping it as a general string instrument (p.2 (though not in interpreting what identifying is, or how it goes wrong). I can miss the point, can be mistaken, disagree (matters of… responsibility?). But when I say, “THIS is a pencil” after you show me your new mechanical pencil, and as I bring out what I take to be the ultimate pencil, you may take this as condescending or true, but how are the underlying facts and how this situation does what it does here dependent on us?

‘it is not at all essential that the image we use should be a mental one.’ P.3

Not essential, the image? …if I lacked it, I'm not sure I'd get a "red" flower, rather than some other flower (yellow, blue, etc.). — Manuel

What he is saying is that the image could be mental or physical, like a patch of the color. That the physical patch of color serves the same purpose as the “mental” image of color (that it is mental is inessential). Also, it is this wanting to be “sure” at all times that you express which Witt is saying creates the need for the object (fears its “lack”). But, as he demonstrates, let’s create a scenario where you have to be sure. Then you would absolutely carry a patch and match the colors of red to each other. Or, if there was a field of different flowers and we definitely wanted red, we would take care not to have a mistake happen (as I describe below). But unless we have some special circumstance, usually, I would neither need the image nor the patch. As you say, we are accustomed to it.

If I get a red flower without explicitly thinking about the red, then in all likelihood I did it unconsciously, because I am accustomed to getting red flowers all the time. — Manuel

He will address “unconscious thinking” later, but doing it “unconsciously” is different than doing it because you are “accustomed”. You could do it without thinking of the consequences (“thoughtlessly”), inadvertently, or by mistake, but the opposite of “explicitly thinking” is not “unconscious”, but, perhaps, unaware.

I can't see removing all mental content being useful here at all, IF that's even what the issue may be. — Manuel

He is not “removing” mental content; he is beginning to show that we unnecessarily picture it in the framework of an object (as a thing we can be as sure of as seeing a flower), while pointing out there is a larger, pre-existing world out there than us, and also picking at the feeling that we must have it or we “lack” something, which he says later turns into something we feel we “cannot” do.

@Banno @Sam26 @Paine @Ludwig V @Jamal @Manuel @Astrophel @Joshs @Kurt Keefner @Shawn

Section 1 pp. 1-3 Mental objects & Use (cut the first section a little short; and not waiting until after U.S. election).

Wittgenstein starts with claiming that we are incorrectly structuring ‘sense data’ (feelings, visions, thoughts) after an object, as when he says “a substantive makes us look for a thing that corresponds to it.” (p.1, emphasis added) (“A substantive” is defined as something that has importance to us, is meaningful.) He refers to this desire for correspondence as a “temptation”—which will be a theme—as if we are compelled to turn something that matters, into ‘matter’, compared to insubstantial ‘mind’ or ‘idea’, to avoid it being unstable and ensure its importance to us. (He will draw the skeptical picture of mind and its mechanisms—which have something “queer” about them—at the end of page 3.)

One other point is his discussion of method, which a lot of this book introduces and explains. He says we can be “cured” of the temptation (to need objectivity) by “studying the grammar [ workings ] of the [ an ]expression”. As if, when we saw each things’ different rationality, we would let go of the desire to impose the framework (and standard) of an object.

Now a “verbal” definition sets the terms of our words (“attributing” and “predicating” it, he says (p.2)—where the idea that we ‘agree’ to language comes from), which is why he prefers an “ostensive” definition, which is a demonstration by pointing out examples. (I leave the questions he asks to others; we can’t all be interested in the same things—thus why we may have multiple, non-conflicting readings.)

It would seem he is doing the exact opposite when he says it is the job of the O.D. “to give it a meaning”, but he means giving an expression a context of different relevances (fleshing out the “this-ness” as it were, I will take it, in contrast). “This is a pencil” can be taken, or seen, or said, as: its being “round” in that it is not shaped like a carpenter’s marker; or “wood” in that it is not just charcoal; or “one” in that it is “a pencil” (not two pencils), or “hard” (which ?? maybe you can find the circumstance that fits). A “ostensive definition” here is what in the PI he calls a “description” (PI #496, #665).

These are different possible ‘senses’ of the expression “This is a pencil”; he will also call these the ‘uses’—which is not meant to point out that we ‘use’ words—they reflect our interests, the reason to say it (then), and its possibilities, etc. (what he calls “criterion”) along with the circumstances, and practices, say, of picking out things, like instruments. He calls them here “interpretations”, not meant as ‘perceived’ differently, but taken to apply to a different context, under the associated kinds of facts that matter (to the related criterion) in that circumstance.

The already-established associations (criteria, practices) are the reason why we do not usually make a separate decision (unless and until we do; his example: “interpreting before obeying” (p.3)). The example of getting the red flower is evidence that with “the usual way” we don’t have any reason to deviate from or reflect on our life-long patterns (like searching, and matching colors), as we do in politics, and philosophy.