Must we insist that explaining consciousness at a mechanistic level [is] any easier than explaining the subjective first-person experience aspects of consciousness? — Wheatley

In reviewing all the other responses, I don't believe this will be very popular, but perhaps, after Kant and after Wittgenstein, we can let go of the need for the "subjective" or "consciousness" or "experience". The personal, secret, suppressed, etc., occupy the same place in our world and language, except one. Philosophy has never been able to do without an internal, unique, special quality for me (e.g., my "thoughts", my "being", my "existence"), say, among other goals, to fulfill the desire to be unknowable or to have my expressions fixed to something certain or controllable ("intention" "meaning" "perception").

All conscious experience is meaningful to the creature having the experience. Consciousness is the ability to attribute meaning. — creativesoul

All(?) "conscious experience" is meaningful? We are unavoidably pierced through with "our experience"? constantly bombarded with meaning? How can we differentiate from the mundane, unmeaningful? Perhaps this is just to hold the keys to the castle--we have "meaning" and then we "attribute" it. That picture certainly makes it easy to ensure meaning, or wiggle out, or avoid our answerability to others for our expressions. Perhaps it is sufficient that something is meaningful enough to us that we say something, take a stand, disagree, etc.--and in this sense: be, exist--and simply leave it that our language (along with the world) works apart from (and before) any need for some hidden, private, mental process. Perhaps we are simply not as special as we would like to imagine.

Well this is a refreshing attitude I must say. And, as well, I propose, not without philosophical relevance. (I take some liberty in the exact wording of the quotes, but I believe the spirit is the same.)

By demanding and pursuing some perfect and excellent way of understanding the world, we really do nothing but discourage [participation from our friends in the talk of] truth, justice, and all of those things [that really matter]. — Garth

What jumped out at me is the "demanding" a "perfect" "understanding [of] the world". Wittgenstein, Heidegger, and Nietzsche (among others) all warn that the desire for certainty, universality, predetermination, predictability, pre-judgement, etc., occludes our ability to see the meaningfulness of our ordinary, differing criteria for the varying concepts we have in the contexts in which, and when, they are expressed. The harder we squeeze the less we grasp, Emerson and Heidegger say. Witt would say we sublime (universalize) our language's logic, strip from its context and ordinary criteria, beginning with the example that we might think all language works as naming--a word for an object. PI #38. A logic that "seeks to see to the bottom of things" and not "concern itself whether what actually happens is this or that." #89. To purify (#94) communication is, as @Garth says, to "discourage" the "participation" by humans--fallible, partial, unsure, etc.--in their friendship.

...demanding excellence from one another constantly, we do nothing but destroy the possibility of [the] genuine and authentic [and of] fun. — Garth

J.L. Austin decried the "profundity" of philosophy--for him, the desire for the descriptive fallacy--the difference between fervent ideological belief/theory and a real investigation of our concepts (which is quite fun in his case). Also, an important part of Emerson's work is its constant optimism (in the face of conformity and skepticism). Wittgenstein's interlocutor in the Philosophical Investigations is very adamant and certain--and Witt is constantly leaving them flustered with almost a mocking enigmatic humor. Nietzsche also found joy, courage, and a sense of humor was necessary for philosophy; even to title a book The Gay Science. This is not a trivial, tangential topic--the more certain and strict and strident we are, the less we see of the awe and fullness and fun of the world.

I would say though that, having let go of only being satisfied with a perfect solution, we are still (then) able to perfect our existing human world. Foregoing righteous justice, we can strive for a more just "good-enough" justice (from Stanley Cavell's discussion of Rawls). A new yet unapproachable America, Emerson says.

Quoting John Shotter: "...different directions their new inquiries would take [would show up], “in ‘frontier’ thinking – where the direction of new inquiry has regularly to be redetermined” — Joshs

This extrapolation of the evolution of our scientific paradigms is somewhat analogous to the extension/adaptation/change that does happen with our concepts (Witt discusses it as "continuing a series"). But how this works with scientific theories is different than in the moral realm or with modern art or political discourse, etc. In science, we may put facts together under a different paradigm, but we do not have facts in the other instances (though we might wish to have the "fact" of the certainty of our own "experience", etc.), and we are not changing a paradigm or theory; our words and our lives are tied together, though we are not always able to work out our differences--understanding is not ensured.

is it better to recognize that perceptions in general appear against a bodily interactive field? — Joshs

But here we do have a "verification color"--the swatch in the paint store (not a metaphysical "color"). We do not "misunderstand" each other about a color, we disagree in particular, intelligible, resolvable ways. If we agree, they are the same color (we do not each have our own and simply agree that they are the same). These distinctions and pathways are part of how the concept of color works. But the generalization of color schema for the meaningfulness of everything is to run roughshod over all the different ways concepts work (there is no universal theory of "meaning"). Our identification and description of color is different than that for objects or headaches, etc. (Stanley Cavell, in "Knowing and Acknowledging" from Must We Mean What We Say does a good job of investigating the ways in which we talk about color, pain, etc. regarding knowledge of other minds.)

The implication of a private "perception" (thought, intention, meaning) is to wish to hang on to our own experience (apart from that answerable to others)--they are not "language"; language is for expression (even to myself). As I explain in my other post on Witt's lion quote, his observation is that the desire for certainty, universality, predictability, and something private or hidden, is so that, among other things, I must know myself and can never really know the other. If I say something, I always have something extra to hold back:"my experience", so that I can avoid the responsibility I have to what I express.

That is, perhaps the notion that there is such a thing as an unchanging word use is an derived abstraction, rather than the true case. Husserl pointed out that objectivity is the result of intersubjective correlations. We convince ourselves that what is in fact only similar from one person to the next in our understanding of social conventions like words is identical. — Joshs

And here, in order to hold onto the idea of an internal, private something, we fold ourselves over with theoretical explanations, rather than looking to see how a concept is used (this is not "an unchanging word use"), in an expressive event (not all expression) in an ordinary (temporal, situational) context.

How should a psychotherapist proceed in understanding what their client means in their use of word concepts if not by attempting to discover the idiosyncratic ways in which such concepts are interrelated with a personal system of meanings for that client? — Joshs

My understanding, limited as it is, is that therapy is to bring the client to terms with the ordinary repercussions of their idea of themselves, and with the regular reactions one might have to their trauma, in contrast to the "personal system of meanings" created by their denial and avoidance. So, basically, exactly the opposite of finding "them"--dragging them into the public world.

We then [when we have differences] say they distorted , misread, misinterpreted the ‘true’ meaning of the concepts because we assumed that ...how did you put it?... “ they are not "changing" anything about the workings of that concept.” — Joshs

A. Saying there is a "'true' meaning of [a] concept" is to miss my point entirely that there is no "meaning"--there are ways that a concept is meaningful to us, and these are exactly the different criteria that frame its functioning. Also, "true" (and false) is not how most concepts (other than, e.g., true/false statements) work--you wouldn't say an apology was false, other than to say it was disingenuous.

C. People do not normally (have to) examine the workings of a concept in order to use it correctly or know when someone else is not. We grew up in a world where you must say "I do" in order to get married, that you must acknowledge some wrong in order to apologize correctly, that there is usually something fishy when you ask what someone intended, what the difference is between a game and just playing, etc. These, by the way, are the tools of Ordinary Language Philosophy (like Wittgenstein)--that there are ordinary uses for our concepts and that they work in different, semi-rational (not certain but intelligible, discussable) ways.

B. Though speaking of "semi" rational, you are now using political discourse as an example, which we can say anything about--no amount of my pointing out something isn't fair (part of how fairness is measured) may help. Though this is not to say that it is impossible to have a meaningful, productive conversation about politics--the existence of its failure does not negate its possibility. We are responsible for our denial of the other and our acceptance of our disappointments in our refusal to continue the conversation of justice. Calamitizing based on our failure in, say, the moral realm, is the skeptic's resort to throw up their hands about every concept and desire to, say, internalize something (for me), or otherwise find some solution to maintain the idea of a nevertheless workable world outside of our responsibility for/to it. I would point out that it is exactly the creation of a private world that allows someone to claim "that's not (you don't know) what I meant!" or otherwise renege on their bond for their expressions. Austin points out that it is the saying of "I do" that is crucial in marrying someone, not the idea of an internal experience of "meaning it" (apart from just a normal lie)--reserving a private experience is, among other things, the desire for a world apart from our failings.

Can two people, sharing the ‘same’ context of use, still end up with slightly different sense of meaning of a word? — Joshs

Reading this from the perspective and terminology of Wittgenstein: There is a context, but it is not a fixed thing, nor "shared", nor the "same". The purpose of a context is an endless, if necessary, event of distinctions, if we need to understand in what sense a concept is/was used (by someone). Let's try to let go off equating/connecting "meaning" with words (language), and broaden the idea of a "word" to Witt's term "concept", so, "Can two people... end up with slightly different sense of a word [concept]?" Yes, misunderstandings happen all the time; see the different senses of just the expression "The sky is blue" above, or "knowledge": of a fact, of a skill, acknowledging the other, etc.

Does not a single individual, alone, in using the ‘same’ word over and over, end up slightly changing the sense of meaning of that word ever so slightly from day to day? — Joshs

No. The individual (feelings, intention, cause) does not change the senses of words. They may use a word (concept) in its different senses, but they are not "changing" anything about the workings of that concept. That's not to say there is not the possibility of the extension of a concept, particularly into a new context, that does change/add/diminish/invigorate/cheapen our concepts, but this is as much to change our lives/culture as our words, so not "immediate" nor "intimate" and without the idea of an "identically ‘shared’ discursive meaning" (though it can be said that an individual can change our lives/culture).

if you believe it makes any sense to talk about a world independent of out construals of it — Joshs

This is a misunderstanding. When I said "facts do exist apart from us", I meant: apart from us personally--our feelings about them--not, as apart from humans in (or in relation to) a metaphysical "world" or "reality". Though my point that facts are based in method doesn't mean that we can't have an opinion about how the science was done, or also about the paradigm they are a part of--but the rationality of that discussion is its own matter (as Kuhn, etc. discuss).

In briefly reviewing the essay: I do like the idea of an "event", which brings in the context Witt focuses on as well as Nietzsche's sense of the historicity of our concepts; I believe I studied someone French in the '90s--DeLeuze? And I'll grant there is change and extension in the sense of our concepts as well (over time; or in the moment, along certain possibilities), but I still think there is a confusion here between the personal and the public in terms of control, "intention", "meaning", etc. The explanation seems tied in knots to hang on to the idea of something unique and ever-present and "affected" to/by us, compared to Witt's (and Emerson's, and Austin's) idea that we mostly don't (and don't need to) assert ourselves into our expressions--not everything is an "event". In response to "cognitive and affective processes ...to situate or attune the context of our conceptual dealings with the world." I would say we usually only situate ourselves and examine the context of the concepts we use ("our conceptual dealings") in order to clarify (afterwards) the sense of an expression to another. "The sky is blue." "Do you mean: we should go surfing? It's not going to rain? or are you just remarking on the brilliant color?" All these concerns of course may not need investigating (either to the Other or myself) based on the context.

quote="TheMadFool;483467"]The mystery in all this is whether the distinction subjective and objective significance is real or just a figment of my imagination?[/quote]

As I said differently above, Witt would say that the way a concept matters (its importance, significance)--publically as it were, not to us personally--is baked into the criteria of what counts for us in sorting out all its distinctions in different contexts from our lives and living: for identity, performance, judgment, consequences, etc.. Our personal feelings do not change that (say, each time). We may feel a particular way, and so say something based on that (or without thinking), but that does not change the concept and the senses in which it is used in contexts, or the way those are discussed (their/our rational).

Yes, but this statement must be thought by someone. It doesn’t rest in some eternal space of fact. When it is thought, it is thought with certain aims and purposes in mind, and arises within a certain context. There is always a reason why it should occur to someone at a certain point in time that a watch needs a battery to run , and that reason pertains to their concerns at that point in time. — Joshs

Part of this confusion ("must" 'always") is the idea that everything that is said is connected to a thought (or feeling) or to some intention. Our reasons for saying something most of the time are only developed afterwards when we are asked why we said (or did) something outside the ordinary course of a concept within a certain situation (see J.L. Austin). If I say "A watch needs a battery to run", that is strange enough to elicit such responses as "Don't you know there are spring-powered watches?" or an explanation such as "What I mean is that everyone needs energy to stay productive, so take care of yourself." Someone is responsible for a statement--it is not connected to an internal (hidden) cause (this is not to say that people do sometimes consciously try (intend) to say something particular--controversial, deliberate, etc.). And, though I don't think this is the place for this discussion, facts do exist apart from us. That is the allure of them--that the methods of science remove our responsibility for them.

The particular felt significance the fact has to them cannot be separated from the fact itself. — Joshs

Again, saying the significance of a fact is "felt" by us reduces our relationship to facts to a private, non-rational, personal connection. It may be true that we feel a certain way about a fact, but hardly always, and never necessarily. Most times we simply accept the larger paradigm that gives the fact significance in a scientific theory--doubting a fact/theory is not a feeling; it's a claim.

The way a word concept matters to us not only colors but co-defines the very sense of the word. Wittgenstein shows how the use of a word in activity with others determines its meaning. That implies affective as well as ‘rational’ sense. — Joshs

This is so close I would only clarify that "us" is not "me". The way a concept matters is baked into the (most times unspoken) criteria people have developed through the ways we live for identity, performance, judgment, consequences, etc., for that concept. Our feelings do not change that, though our actions might (including claiming only a personal connection to language). Wittgenstein uses these criteria to show that our concepts are flexible and intelligible in different particular senses, but there is not a "meaning" that is determined by (connected to) "use" so much as if we look at the use of a concept in a certain (present) context we can see the particular sense of that concept there (see my post on Witt's "use" of his lion quote). Again, if that is not assumed, accepted without concern, we must turn to the Other and asks them to explain what (external) sense they were using.

Do you make a distinction between feeling and emotion? — Joshs

I'm not sure it matters here. If we say that emotions are like hunger, anger, love, etc. and that "feelings" are our emotions about situations, statements, opinions, etc., we are still removing things that matter to us like, interest, need, fairness, right/wrong.

Feeling is another way of talking about the way something appears to me — Joshs

I would say if you have an opinion about a situation, it muddles the discussion to say that is "the way something appears to me" as that gives the impression that this is something internal to only you, that you hold that opinion beyond our public language and the distinctive forms of our concepts. Adding that "feeling" is another way of talking about what is basically solipsism only makes the matter worse, as then it is reduced to an unintelligible position with the assumption that it is as valid as a rational discussion. You can of course feel however you want and claim that your point of view need not have any justification other than it is yours, but that narrows the grounds for agreement and isolates you to taking a stand without any responsibility to others by simply maintaining something private, i.e., its a copout.

any concept is understood from someone’s point of view. — Joshs

Concepts (action, knowledge, an apology, etc.) are public and so understanding is not from a "point of view" so much as, say, two people getting clear about a particular context and the sense in which a concept is being used; of course we can have a position on that ("That wasn't the act of firing the pistol, it was a mistake.") but our position ("feelings" if you like) does not dictate the grounds of that discussion.

Awareness always implies a ‘mineness’ to experience. — Joshs

Saying "experience" is mine implies that it is not also others as well. Granted, you are you, in the sense of being separate, but to say your experience is different than any others' is to claim a ground where you can not be reached or that you speak uniquely by the shear fact that you claim an (imagined) quality for your self. Now this is not to say that "awareness" is not different than being unaware, say, of the implications and consequences of what you do and say, and that you can't deliberately decide what expressions you commit yourself to, or to consciously enter into a contract with society regarding justice, etc. But our being aware does not imply (ever) that the experience is yours, only that the choice (or not) and the responsibility for the consequences are yours to make and suffer.

Is duty an emotion? Is fairness a feeling? I might agree that part of what is important to us, what matters, is "what we want to do and what we don't". But to limit what interests us to emotions is to cheapen our motivations and remove our reasoning altogether.

Having the ability to feel sad or happy about something allows us to view things as good or bad depending on the way it makes us feel. — existentialcrisis

Even as an intuitive theory of moral guidance in judging good and bad, "the way it makes us feel" seems arbitrary and, I want to say, left to a state of nature. In any event, even if we do have moments where we are left without guidance, most of our actions are simply following rules and standards ordinarily unquestioned--beyond that, our actions morally define us. What would it look like to have an emotional state always deciding what is good or bad? If you are angry and hate something, does that automatically make it bad? For everyone?

If you are beating your wife and she kills herself, you are responsible; but not morally responsible; you're just a &!$! who beats women and who everyone is going to blame for the death even though you may not be legally culpable. There's already all the tools in place in society to say, e.g., "responsible" is, say, subject to the consequences. And there are many different kinds of consequences; no friends, lose your job, fall into alcoholism by guilt and blow your own brains out. It is not a moral problem--if you are abusing someone, you take the results of those actions. To ask when we are morally responsible is to be in a situation where we do not know already what the consequences are. What matters in this situation. Then you are in charge and,will be judged for determining what to do based on what reasons; how you proceeded or reacted or stood idle..

I could argue that "mental content" (consciousness, thought, meaning, belief, etc.) is a construct, i.,e., does not "exist", if you like, in all animals, but I'm not sure you'd like it as I've already hammered away at this with Mmw in my post about Wittgenstein's Lion-Quote, and, because it is Ordinary Language Philosophy, I think it comes off as if I'm not playing by the rules because all I'm trying to do is get you to see a different angle rather than argue on the same "terms".

This is a philosophical God very strictly defined as "Having the knowledge and power requirements to create a specific universe". There is no mention of anything else. So dismiss all else. Morality... * * *

Everything you need to consider to solve the issue is within the strictly defined definitions and words. Anything outside of these terms is irrelevant. So that being the case, consider how I conclude the probability of a God being a first cause is infinite to one. Does having multiple possible first causes negate my reasoning for claiming this? — Philosophim

Well here I partly beg off. I don't believe philosophy is served by the modern vogue of creating contextless, pre-defined situations (trains and people in trouble as showing us anything about our moral realm)--but I walked into it, so that's on me. I'm trained in Ordinary Language Philosophy, which attempts to flesh out the contexts in which/when we would be talking about, say, causes, in order to see what we want in "strictly defining" the criteria beforehand, say, limiting "[e]verything [ I ] need to consider". If we are not considering "chains of multiple first causes" (moral chains, chains of actions, of identity, etc.) other than the creation of the "universe", then I'm not sure I can help. If the "universe" is just the first thing created, than the question thins out so much as to not hold anything; if you mean the universe to include everything without exception (the "universe" of possible/inevitable things), then everything is caused initially together. Which is to say, this is teetering into a discussion of solipsism/behavioralism and/or determinism/free-will, or devolving due to terms that can mean multiple things without any investigation into what necessitates them here other than adherence to a certain logic. The cart is before the horse I'm afraid, which, again, rigs the game.

I would suggest Emerson's Self-Reliance and American Scholar as examples of his rallying-cry in the face of skepticism, though they take some work to see as commenting on analytical philosophy (Kant, Descartes, etc.); and if you read A.J. Ayer's book "Language, Truth, and Logic", then you will understand the humor/fun in J.L. Austin's "How to Do Things With Words". Nietzsche is similar to Emerson in being hard to see as an extension/critique of Kant, etc., but his references to joy and courage are more explicit though the reason is as complicated/intricate as in Emerson. Good luck and good cheer.

Yes. There can be multiple first causes. But what is necessarily concluded is that all causality reduces down to a first cause. There may be separate causality chains that reduce down to separate first causes. This may be a step in countering the conclusion I made, but it alone is not enough to counter the conclusion I made. Can you flesh it out and show why this counters the claim? — Philosophim

Well, if we are allowing for "multiple first causes", then it opens the field to say that there are infinite chains. We can say the movement to pick up your cup has at least a biological/physical cause, and that stepping in front of a bullet also has the same cause yet also other causes (sacrifice, love, moral duty). Let's say we grant that there is a First Cause to every chain,and that these two causes are simply separate chains, each with a First Cause, then the question is, for each different chain, what do those First Causes consist of/in? You've give us two answers.

In a sense we are sliding into the question of whether every thought is "intended" or whether every movement is an "action"--is God behind movement or just actions (specific movements recognized as an act)? Or both as different causes? And what is it to say the Devil is the cause? Emerson is asked " 'But these impulses may be from below, not from above.' I replied, 'They do not seem to me to be such; but if I am the Devil’s child, I will live then from the Devil.' No law can be sacred to me but that of my nature. Good and bad are but names very readily transferable to that or this; the only right is what is after my constitution, the only wrong what is against it." Are we always acting from the "God" within us? If so, why is Emerson imploring us to rely on that instinct.

Again, is this to refute your claim? I don't think so. But, as I said, perhaps the premises have their own motivations which dictate the form of the answer.

There is an actual difference between a belief and a report/account thereof. Do not conflate the two. We put our reports of another's belief into statement form, we do not put another's belief into statement form. Only they can do that, if they're capable of expressing their belief with language. — creativesoul

And this is to only use a particular ("philosophical") sense of the concept of belief, that is specific but absent any ordinary context, which leads to a framework (picture Wittgenstein would say) that there is something internal (unspoken or hidden) which may or may not be capable of expression, but especially in language. (As I pointed out above, there are other senses of belief that don't have to do with language, even expressions of belief). This is the imagination of thought as a mental process or image or activity which is either constantly happening or, when it does, is something private or internal to me--undetectable by the Other unless reported. Cavell identifies this as a secret, but that does not account for the space (or not) between this particular sense of belief and language. To this I can only say, from Wittgenstein, that this sense of belief is necessitated (created?) to satisfy a purpose. Cavell would explain this as either the desire to be (or fear of being) unreflectively entirely expressed in every report, i.e., that there is no "belief" without language, that our account is equal to our belief. Or the desire to remain unknowable--that we maintain something of ourself (belief) beyond language so that we can, say, slide out of our accounts because they do not entirely report something hidden in us.

The "profundity" of philosophy was a serious nemesis for J.L. Austin, who is actually very funny at times. He was trying to show the difference between serious investigation and fervent ideological belief/theory. Also, an important part of Emerson's work is its constant optimism (in the face of conformity and skepticism). Wittgenstein's interlocutor in the Philosophical Investigations was very adamant and certain--and Witt is constantly poking them or leaving them flustered with almost a mocking enigmatic humor. Nietzsche also found joy, courage, and a sense of humor was necessary for philosophy; he wrote a book called The Gay Science. This is not a trivial, tangental topic. Maybe the more certain and strict and strident we are, the less we see of the awe and joy and fullness of the world.

"Not All Belief Can Be Put Into Statement Form"

Not sure if I'm just the schlub who's taking the bait on a gag, but I would think we'd have to investigate what "statement form" is, and what we are talking about when we say we "believe".

Obviously "putting something into statement form" is not meant simply as opposed to: not stating it, as in, not expressing it in words; though belief can be simply: not doubt. It could also be said to be an outlook, a perspective, an "attitude" Wittgenstein says (p. 152). And, say we believe that the Other is in pain. Do we state that?--"I believe you are in pain"--or do we move to help them, call 911, etc. (Of course we CAN say it, as above, but it is not in the "form" of a statement, to express or claim anything; it is to acknowledge the Other--in this case, possibly, to reassure them that you are with them, that you accept that they are not lying, etc.

I imagine we are actually, however, tied up somehow in the philosophical problem that statements (their "form") are either true or false, and everything else is belief--or, however that one is better explained--or some tangent thereof. (This begs the question: how do we change a worded expression from a "belief" (form?) to "put" it into "statement form"?)

we might have to work backwards. There are numerous examples in Wittgenstein, J.L. Austin, and Cavell, of statements being subject to other, say, "truth-value" standards than true-falsity (other "forms"?). To say "I'm sorry", is to state something, but then what is the form? You can call this a "belief"--to consign everything not certain, universal, or true/false to the rubbish bin--but do we really say that we "believe" we are sorry? Some might say it is the expression of a belief (or knowledge) of something inside of me--my sorry-ness? But "I'm sorry" is a statement in the form (sense) of an apology. And an apology can be done correctly, or incorrectly--it can avoid any acknowledgement of wrong-doing (one of the criteria of doing an apology correctly). It can be sincere or insincere. Now, if I "believe" you; can I "state" that? Sure. Can I call your apology true? false? And again, what would it be a 'statement' of? My (internal state of?) belief?

My passive-aggression? or what it is about "inner ineffable confidence" that to express it properly includes something other than words? (actual confidence?)

Not properly

To attempt a serious reply, take a look at how the pre-chosen criteria for an answer (allowable with unexamined terms) dictates what is acceptable to consider, i.e., the game is rigged.

Either all things have a prior cause for their existence, or there is at least one first cause of existence from which all others follow. — Philosophim

Here, have we thought about the possibility that both are the case? And what would it take for that to be a possibility? First, the term "existence" is murky. Can you point to some thing's existence? the existence of a concept? Or, more importantly, what is it to say that something exists? that it is differentiated from another? that it is here rather than not here (and when would we say that)? that, for me, something has value and importance to affect my life? All of these things?

And so what sense of "existence" are we using here? Well, it appears to be (necessarily?) tied to the idea of a cause--maybe what something is made of, how it turns out, or its purpose. Now, it seems possible that we want some control over how things exist (turn out, continue on, are driven, etc.), so we necessitate a "cause" (The proximity of Descartes meditations can not, I would think, be ignored, and his attempt to find/create something fixed in order to try to solve the problem of skepticism.)

Any deviation in particulates makes it a different universe. — Philosophim

I won't argue whether there is a cause or what started the cause, only ask it be considered whether the idea of "causality" taken back to an initial point starts to thin out. Say I grant that one cause/thing is caused by something prior, etc. When we get back to the First Cause and turn to look forward, yes, we can see possible ripple effects through time (materially, biologically, evolutionarily, etc.); but is every outcome dictated? Morally? Creatively? Aesthetically? Or, in other words, does "everything" have a cause? The 'choice" of the same lunch I have every day? and, even more, a determined one? And where are we drawing the line? Again, what is important about "existence" and "causality" for us in this context? I'm not sure this is exactly an argument against your conclusion (or failed conclusion), so I'm not sure we can call these "flaws" rather than maybe the pitfalls of pre-constructed logic.

What do you mean - then nothing is happening?

Other than a joke, it is also a play on the idea that the words 'nothing' and 'always' and 'happening' have different senses depending on the context, your focus, your interests--to show that 'exists' changes too, as does 'identity'. Your vantage point is harmless to the extent it includes everything and connects everything, and I grant you that, but does it have to occlude everything else?--my interests, my vantage point, the myriad of other ways in which the world exists, in the sense that it comes alive only for me. I can understand though the wonder and awe and comfort and company and connectedness in having something in common with everything else. Cheers.

I think the forefront of modern analytic philosophy (not discussing social topics) is Ordinary Language Philisophy, which was reacting to Positivism (among other things), first with Wittgenstein and then J.L. Austin's response to A.J. Ayer. The current proponent is Stanley Cavell, who is ground breaking in his methods of changing our perspectives, and the breadth of its application, though there are others, Cora Diamond, Mulhall. Try an essay from Must We Mean What We Say.

I hate to say this--it is merely meant for humor and not to be flippant (blasphemous?)--but it needs to be said in light of the question implied by the title of the post... Answer: 5 to1

Self organization is not something we can break free from, or step aside from, even in pure self aware reflection we are self organizing. This perspective has very broad consequences for understanding everything, but in terms of identity and I am, it puts those static notions in doubt, and replaces them with an evolving process of being, as a biological system, where self organization is always taking place -however it may manifest itself. — Pop

I understand this as an underlying, necessary occurrence, and maybe you are aligning this with Descartes' desire for something to connect us (to).** But the idea of something inseparable from us, however fundamental, does not replace our possibility to claim our existence, our responsibility to, even, or we may, in a sense, not exist at all. Emerson's method is to investigate the concepts in these words; bring them back from hovering alone in space with Descartes (like "exist"), e.g., say, that consciousness is not a condition of humanity, but a state of being that comes and goes, like sadness, or focus. This is to say that we may be speaking apples and oranges here, only that "thought" and "being" are also not constants, and so neither "static" nor "notions", but more akin to activities, and so saying an evolving biological system "replaces" them is more like ships passing in the night, e.g., are evolution and character in the same conceptual realm? That being said, your desire/claim that: "I am an evolving process of self organization" is legitimate (you could be making the point that you are like all of us, or that there is hope in being human, etc.). But to say that all of us are is a different claim (factual or general), without the moral force of one claiming their own identity--"I am the means of production!" I'm not saying our thought or identity cannot be forced on us, but, in that case, do I exist?

** Some say the trouble Descartes got into was he set his standards and terms first, and then started investigating his thoughts, but each word has its own criteria already (before us) and each sense its own conditions. Are we looking or insisting? That's only to say: is there a goal and/or desire for certain implications which may have created the form of the concept?

We are an evolving process of self organization. We are not a static - I am. We think because we are conscious, there is no choice in the matter. — Pop

I can agree that "We are not a static - I am", but, in what sense are we agreeing? Factually, sure. But we can also disagree: "I am a static; I've always been a Bruins fan". And maybe if one part stands still, anyways, not all of us does. Sure, but that is to say.... what? Something is always happening? And who would disagree? (Until I'm 18 in Vernon, B.C. on the weekend, and then nothing is happening.)

We can be said to think unconsciously (say, without words, or attention--perhaps working on a Rubix cube), and we can say we choose to avoid thinking ("I'm too busy to think about the funeral arrangements", or "I'm going to clear my mind of any thought"), or even choose not to be conscious (unaware). If we desire to stretch these terms beyond their ordinary use, they loose traction to do anything for us but what we want. Maybe we want them to be given or our nature, but then maybe we overlook what makes them special and that can be lost.

All that uncertainty can be made certain by acknowledging a singular process that in many ways is self evident in the universe and life, though not entirely understood - Yet! Yes it is a god concept - works much the same way as a god, but it places the power of god in the individuals hands, and it gives everybody and everything an equal power of god, by understanding that everything belongs to a singular process of self organization. — Pop

Making uncertainty certain could be said to be the goal of every philosopher since before Plato; but it's like grasping harder, where everything falls through your fingers says Emerson (and Heidegger). Wittgenstein would say the desire for certainty creates a particular picture of our concepts (blocking the actual view) and that without any specific context there is nothing to grab onto at all, so we are back floating around with Descrartes, searching for the thing that will hold down the universe.

The picture is: meaning, thought, any inner processes (how some use Forms of Life), corresponds to the world. We know one (world) through the other (word/meaning)--correlation.
— Antony Nickles

Agreed, in principle. The picture....the mental image as I use “picture”......corresponds to the world, such image I would call intuition, but the remainder of the inner process must ensue before there is knowledge. Different metaphysics, similar principles. — Mww

This is a description of "the picture", not as a theory proposed by Witt (or me). It is also not referring to 'pictures' as, say, mental images; it is the theoretical framework forced on us by the desire for certainty (predictability, universality, etc.). The metaphysics (or Forms of Life, or Use, or any other postulation to solve the problem (separation) of the Other) is created by the need for something other than the stopping point at which we become responsible to each other. This is to veer into territory better suited for another post, but one of Witt's points is there is no space between our pain and its expression to allow our own "knowledge" of it. We express our pain (or hide it); we don't "know" it. Similarly, usually there is no space between the world and our language; no (metaphysical) "reality" to which our words correspond. I say usually because our doubt--our confusion, our fear, our lack of control of the Other--along with other (moral, aesthetic, etc.) problems, create the feeling of space--and thus the need for some connection--between the word and the world. But the Other is separate; we can't agree or convince each other; things fall apart, irreparably sometimes; our standards run afoul. The picture allows a vision of the world where these things are manageable, avoidable, or solved--by knowledge, logic, argument, etc.

it's just we have a relationship to the Other that is more than knowledge ("know" in a different sense--aaaand I just lost Mmw because this is Witt as Ordinary Language Philosopher.)
— Antony Nickles

Kindasorta lost me, I guess, insofar as I attribute no philosophical authority to ordinary language. But I’m still interested in this “know” in a different sense, from its point of view. — Mww

I'll take the second part first. I have discussed elsewhere that Witt is pointing out that knowledge in this sense (our ability to be certain, say, about the Other), comes to an end sometimes. We are separate, and that comes out in ways that cannot be resolved by "knowledge"--either of the Other, or of our world or our language, say, to convince/logically force the Other. As I added just above recently, language is not just word-object or true/false statements; there are myriad uses ("senses" Witt will say, grammars) of a concept--they have numerous possibilities in which they can be meaningful (even projections for new meaning into new contexts), and have different criteria, judged different ways, in each sense, in each categorical context--knowledge as fact, knowledge as skill/familiarity, knowledge as acknowledgement--its many ordinary formations.

Now when you say you attribute no philosophical authority to ordinary language, that is understandable. That is a view of Witt and other ordinary language philosophers shared by much of philosophy. This definitely would be another post, but the observations of OLP are not made to be assessed as statements (about the world, etc.). OLP makes no claim to defend ordinary usage ("common sense") either (say, against "philosophy"). The descriptions also have no authority other than the extent to which someone else sees what I see--the statements about: what we say when, e.g., when we say we "know something", etc.--are philosophical evidence--but they are not facts. Though neither are they merely beliefs. There may be disputes, e.g., over whether it is really the case/sense, whether it applies in this particular context, and whether, even if we accept it, there is any philosophical implication to the issues that concern us, say: does the sense of knowledge as acknowledgement really impact the Problem of Other Minds? OLP is not to compete with traditional analytical philosophy (say, on its terms), but to revolutionize it (from within) entirely.

[concepts have different meanings. Or, the grammar of concepts are not etched in stone, so the] reasoning using concepts is adaptable to circumstance.
— Mww

......Concepts have different "uses" as in different ways in which they make sense.....

Doesn’t that say the same thing? — Mww

In the paragraph above in which this is included is the implication that there is a competition here between knowledge and belief--a way for certainty (stone), and a failing of "difference"/"adaptability". Witt is trying to see past those all-or-nothing pictures by showing that our concepts have varying senses (say, than this dichotomy). But the criteria for you "knowing" your brother's character compared to you "knowing" Newton's laws are not different "meanings". We don't (reason doesn't) "use" or "adapt" concepts. Just because they are not certain, universal, predictable, etc., or that because they are varied, sometimes generalizable, projectable, subject to circumstance, etc., does not make the different senses (and each of their criteria) of our concepts, flimsy, personal, or without implications. You'd have to explain why you'd say you "know" the sun will come up (not that there are no reasons, I guess), not because it's common sense, but because that does not fit the criteria for the concept of "knowledge"--(there'd have to be a reason to doubt it would come up)--My examples of apologies, etc. are better. You CAN say whatever you want ("adapt concepts to circumstances"), but at a certain point you will be said not to be making an apology, no longer playing a "game"; you will be outside any category of a concept, or lying, evading, joking, insincere, avant garde, or maybe called insane (the goal here is not claiming normative force).

A concept is, after all, nothing but a representation of something. A representation, in and of itself, has no meaning. It only attains to a meaning upon being conjoined with something else, and the only way to conjoin, is to reason. To think. It is here that it becomes more rational to insist concepts are fixed, concepts do ensure something, otherwise we couldn’t ever claim any knowledge whatsoever. — Mww

Witt's view of concepts (the same term used by others but with a different framework around it), is that they are categorical (as I said, in sort of a Kantian sense), not representational. It is not "idea" and "reality" (or whatever). A concept is a class held in place (loosely) with criteria (say, for judgment, standards, identity, etc.). The "conjoining" of meaning with anything, by reason or agreement, etc., to "ensure" or "fix", say, our thoughts--the "insistence", the need of it--is the pull that forces a certain view of how meaning must work; the picture, the theoretical threshold. The fear of the fallibility of us, of our concepts, leads to calamatizing "we couldn’t ever claim any knowledge whatsoever."

If we are not certain of a specific representation of a specific quantity, conceived, say, as the number 1, we wouldn’t have any ground at all for what stands as the absolute truth of mathematical expressions. — Mww

Here try to see that "the absolute truth of mathematical expressions" being "grounded" in "certainty" is the grammar of mathematical expressions; it is the way they work, the criteria for being what they are. Is it not easier now to see that there are other expressions that have other criteria? different ways in which they work? Maybe they do not rely on certainty; there may even be no "ground". Our moral realm still has rationale, though it might fail; our aesthetic world still has knowledge, only perhaps not always agreement. Can we never make any claim whatsoever? i.e., is discussion impossible outside the conditions of grounded certainty?

we see what counts as reasonable for each concept may indeed be different — Mww

Seeing the variety of conceptual rationale is one of the main points of the PI. "Seeing what counts" for a concept--even for the different senses of a concept--is to see two things (at least) about the grammar of a concept: the criteria ("what counts") are the structure and limits of that concept. If you stray from the grammar of a concept, the criteria resolve the identity of an action under that concept--e.g., what it can not be (or must fulfill) if it is to be "knowledge". But the criteria also elucidate what "counts"--as in, what 'matters'--under a concept; the human cares and needs reflected in our criteria. "Reasoning" is not internal; grammar is also the ways I which a concept can be meaningful, or at least usually (as humans can do whatever they want for whatever reasons they want), say, "What's your reasoning for doing it that way?"--"for more aerodynamics" or "less weight"; but maybe not: "I felt a moral obligation".

But the number 1 is completely meaningless by itself, and actually wouldn’t even have been conceived at all, if it weren’t for a need only it could satisfy. — Mww

And here we can see a need giving a concept the criteria for its grammar (one of which is the satisfaction of the need). Should we call this the concept of singularity/uniqueness? or of numerical primacy? or a series? All? Are there contexts where there could be confusion between which sense applies? (not here but maybe under the different senses of knowledge, good, should, etc.) We have different criteria for how these senses are used, e.g., different conditions, and different consequences for using them outside that criteria, say, the rigidity for inclusion under one sense or the other. These distinctions go on as far as the need to clarify, even beyond their limits (e.g., the "bad" as the "moral" as Nietschze might say).

I think therefore I am.

Thinking is a function of consciousness, where consciousness is the fundamental activity and thinking being its result. So the sentence can be rephrased:

I am conscious therefore I am.

This is closer to the truth, but now the sentence highlights what was implicit and inconsistent in the original phrase –there are two identities where there can only be one.
I am conscious and therefore I am. It can be rephrased:

I am consciousness - the therefore I am, is superfluous - what I am is consciousness.

I like it. It now cannot be reduced any further, and it is closer to the truth of our being. I believe, at its base. I like the way it does away with false identity and equalizes and unifies everyone.
What do you think? Is it logical?

For the statement to be meaningful, consciousness needs a definition. My definition of consciousness is: an evolving process of self organization. So, I am an evolving process of self organization - sounds about right to me, what do you think? Dose it work for you?

The construction is a challenge to the notion of identity and its product the ego, so an exploration of this might lead to insights about human nature. — Pop

Emerson in Self Reliance says "Man is timid and apologetic; he is no longer upright; he dares not say 'I think,' 'I am,' but quotes some saint or sage."

If this is, as I believe (as does Stanley Cavell), a critique of Descartes, Emerson has taken out the "therefore"; our identity/existence is not contingent (on consciousness, on thought--on anything). But what is left is a standing up for ourselves. As it were in Emerson's example, I no longer speak from others mouths. I am saying this! I am claiming myself! "I am an evolving process of self organization!" Yes!, you be you. But this identifying is not ego, so much as a courageous carving out for ourselves (even if aligning with others, along party lines, against our mother, etc.). It is the opposite of "equalizing and unifying". A ramification of this active claiming is that: not everyone thinks, or is. If you want to be, if you want to be said to be thinking--something must be done! Being and thinking are not given, ever-present states of the human condition; sometimes we act like others without consideration, speak their opinions; some are even ghosts of themselves, lost to themselves. We are not ensured or given; there is only the possibility to think, to be.

You say the lion sentence is to be taken as a fact demonstrating an impossibility. It is only to be taken as a fact because its author so stipulates, but the sentence does not demonstrate an impossibility. — Mww

No, he/the sentence does not demonstrate it, but, Yes!! Witt is asking you to take/accept/imagine it as a fact. Whew.

The conviction that the feelings some dude in pain are inaccessible to us when in truth “we CAN know”, but choose to be convinced we can’t.... — Mww

Again, got it. You go on to assume Witt is using the comparison as a moral equivalency (between our position to the lion and the Other), but that is going one step too far--what you say above is the stopping point with the lion. Also, we are not "choosing" to be "convinced". Picturing knowledge this way expresses our conviction with regard to the Other: I want to know him only by knowing his inner (thought processes, meaning, intention, etc.) or outer (traditions, form of life, etc.), and, since those are not accessible/sufficient, we conclude we cannot "know" the Other (as the Interlocutor says), when we can. But we do have a relationship to the Other; it's just that it's more than knowledge ("know" in a different sense--aaaand I just lost @Mmw because this is Witt as Ordinary Language Philosopher.) Our relationship to the Other (and meaning, Form of Life, etc.) is not predetermined, certain, universal, predictable, not partial, unconditional, free from doubt, etc. There is a gap between us and Them that only we can fill (if necessary)--we know the Other in the sense we acknowledge them, their expressions as meaningful, or reject them.

we [are] relieved of moral responsibility... so can’t be held liable for denying the accessibility of them [the Other's feelings] — Mww

This (which is taken out of the context of @Mmw's discussion, but it) is, in a nutshell, what we want as humans, and which creates the Picture of philosophical (positivist) knowledge. We no longer have to be responsive to the accessible expressions of the Other; no longer have to span the distance of our separateness.

And all that needs doing..... is to grant that... the grammar of concepts are not etched in stone, so the reasoning using concepts is adaptable to circumstance. — Mww

And here all we need to tweak is that "reasoning" (or, us), do not "use" concepts. Concepts have different "uses" as in different ways in which they make sense, say: "to know", as I have discussed elsewhere, a phone number, the theme of a poem, a person's intent, when a star will appear on the other side of the moon, etc. But these senses are not adaptable "to" a circumstance, nor, again, adaptable by reason (or by a person); the "use"--the sense(s) a concept has--is part of the context at the time (as it were, to be determined, if necessary). Just because they are not fixed (do not ensure anything), does not make them adaptable, nor irrational--just that what counts as reasonable for each concept, in context, may be different.

It is not that we CAN NOT know/understand the other.....we decide that without knowledge......we have no obligation to respond to their pain.
— Antony Nickles

It is never our knowledge of others that predicates our moral obligations. — Mww

The issue is the problem the Other creates in being unknown (unknowable (with certainty) the interlocutor will claim, since we cannot know what is going on with their experience--internally; or by some shared external something)). Now this response in a sense moves past the other--the claim on us of them, not others generally, but this person, in front of us, in a present moral situation, say, writhing in pain--past that to find our obligations spelled out in morality, our moral knowledge. As if Kant were not just trying to remove our feelings or instinct from our moral action, but remove what we can't be certain of (beforehand) entirely--including the Other.

The idea of a sentence or a word in isolation is only a thing in philosophy--stemming from the desire to tether it to something determinate, certain, universal.
— Antony Nickles

Yes. Tethering to the irreducible, the apodeitically certain, is the whole modus operandi of human reason, and consequently, for possible mutual understanding because of it. — Mww

Here I should say that there is nothing wrong (false) with the Picture of knowledge that the Interlocutor wants, and there is nothing impossible about it--we can, of course, 'know' the Other, say, scientifically (for what good it does). And the mode of (philosophical, rational, logical) "human reason" is not nonsense, or incorrect. However, the desire to "tether to the irreducible" is the same desire for certainty of the Other that Witt is pointing out comes to an end (categorically) in the human condition. We are separate; there is no understanding that is ensured to us mutually. If there is a miscommunication, or a disagreement, or a refusal to recognize the Other--their cares, their sensibilities, their history--there is nothing that "knowledge" or "reason" will do apart from our willingness to refuse to give up on the process of understanding. The "possibility" for that understanding has a breaking point, an ending moment. But, again, most of the time misunderstanding does not happen--there is no need for concern over the Other; no need to ask about intention or what they mean, but that is not the situation philosophers care about. The desire is to never come to that moment by treating every communication and the process of understanding as the same; setting the bar for certainty and predictability, and solving for that problem. It is to put the cart before the horse, and the philosophical criteria from that desire for certainty leave us blind to the Other, unable to capture all the various ways we save understanding--excuses, apologies, clarifications, acknowledgements, concessions; i.e., reasons, to allow for the possibility for understanding.

Witt credits language use for understanding, or lack of it, but proper philosophy reduces language to its components, and those are the actual ground for understanding, and by association, the prevention of misunderstanding. Rather than worry about what a word means in a language, it is a better effort to realize how words originate of themselves, for then we find the meaning of a word is given BY its origin, and understanding henceforth becomes a matter of its relation, and its meaning becomes merely a matter of convention. — Mww

And now we've come full circle to the "ground for understanding" again; the search for how meaning is given to a word--here maybe by its origin, relation, convention; "language as components"--this is the search Witt is showing forces a picture on us, a certain pre-determined theoretical framework based on our fears and desires. Saying Witt "credits language use for understanding" is to impose that picture onto Witt--attribute to him the desire which he is attempting to reveal. It is important to note that when Witt is saying, paraphrased: "Look at the Use!" (#340), that is not to say that "use is meaning" (use as opposed to... ) but: Look! See how language functions many ways beyond this prejudice for certainty, universality (beyond the person); to see that language is not just word-object or true/false statements; to recognize that there are myriad uses ("senses" he will say, grammars) of a concept--they have numerous possibilities in which they can be meaningful (even projections for new importance, into new contexts), and have different criteria, judged different ways, in each sense, in each categorical context--knowledge as fact, knowledge as skill/familiarity, knowledge as acknowledgement--its many ordinary formations (imagine, even "certainty" in different ways in different places). As if Plato pushed past Socrates' accomplishment in his (Plato's) desire for a standard of knowledge which led to the picture of the forms. Socrates was an ordinary language philosopher first in asking "what do when say: when...", say, we ask about justice. One ordinary answer is: might makes right--that is actually a part of the world of justice; it's a legitimate, rational answer. Maybe not the best justice, but how can we say that the idea that "what is good for the stronger is good for the country" is not part of the concept/possibility/conversation of justice? It's the basis for trickle-down economics. Socrates (and definitely Plato) do aspire to a (more just) answer, but along the way we are investigating our (normally unnoticed, unexamined) concepts--this is the benefit of ordinary philosophy. Plato went too far in imagining a hidden world to fit his desired conditions rather than see the criteria existing in the world. Why ask the question if you know the answer?

But Witt's point is that the grounding we want is a wish; a decision before we look (start our investigation)--starting with a demand for a certain standard. We understand each other most of the time because of the ordinary everything; all the training, all the watching, all the mistakes, etc. Our language is weaved into our lives and world, not in any specific way, but in all the complex, subtle, crass, general, lazy, vague, precise, poetic ways in which we live and judge and how we disagree and know and forget and apologize. Witt is trying to expand our vision to see all the different ways language works in various activities; even just at a particular time/place (the context of the event, the people there, the expectations, the accompanying histories, the feelings). All language can not be reduced to one explanation, a theory.

The point he is making at this moment in the PI is that, despite our wish to interact with the Other based on knowledge that is certain, and with understanding grounded in something that would prevent misunderstanding, our knowledge of the Other comes to an end, and we are left with: not an empirical problem to solve, but a moral situation in which we are responsible for our effort (or lack of) to understand the Other--together, through questions, rebuke, ultimatums, education, exasperation, breakthrough, learning what matters to each other, clearing up hyperbole, generalized terms, different senses, etc. You might say words have meaning; I would say that more important than ensuring that process is to see that words are meant.

"I cannot know what is going on in him" is above all a picture. Witt, PI, p. 223.
— Antony Nickles

Can you help me out with [the] picture? Picture of what, picture of what kind, how do I know it as such, what am I enabled to do with it, what am I enabled to do because of it......and whatever else may apply as far as this topic is concerned. — Mww

This is a legit question for this post, as I skip over the picture to just make a case that the same desire (for the picture) comes from the entire human condition (our separateness). Maybe the best sense of the picture is: a model of sorts; the positivist model of meaning that Witt toyed with in the Tractates (that he is now diagnosing in the PI--"why did I/we want to think about it that way?"). The picture is: meaning, thought, any inner processes (how some use Forms of Life), corresponds to the world. We know one (world) through the other (word/meaning)--correlation.

" [From the Interlocutor:] 'A name signifies only what is an element of reality. What can not be destroyed; what remains the same in all moments.'... This was the very expression of a quite particular image: of a particular picture we[**] want to use." #59 **"We" being what philosophy has wanted in the past--certainty (not"destroy[-able]"), fixed ("the same"), universality ("in all moments")]

If we can't know one (the Other's mind) we can't know the Other (this is the denial). It is the view of (a picture for) meaning as statements that refer to objects; that true/false is the measure of meaning.

" 'The mind seems able to give a word a meaning'... But this is not something that seems to be so; it is a picture." p. 184

It is here important to point out that this is what Witt is trying to show as the shortcomings of philosophical 'knowledge'--its attempt to solve the skeptical doubt of other minds ("I can't know--be certain--what is going on in them"; "I can't but know what is going on in me"--or "I absolutely can not know what is going on with them"---because it doesn't meet the standard of the positivist's "knowledge".

" 'Either he has this experience, or not' --what primarily occurs to us is a picture which by itself seems to make the sense of the expressions unmistakable..." #352

Witt points to the lion; as if, in THIS case, yes, we CAN NOT--but, with the Other, we are ABLE TO, however, we would rather rely on the Picture: where knowledge (of the inner, of agreed meaning, etc.) stands in our place, excusing us from any relation to the Other--to their expressions which ask to be answered, perhaps; "mistake"-nly (see quote above); unjustly, selfishly, by closing our eyes shut, etc.

Clarification: since Witt's focus on "use" seems to be a stumbling block, I wanted to point out that it is not the idea that someone makes a decision or some conscious casual force for a sentence to be used one way and not another (even in a very specific way); the same confusion that every word/action is 'intended'. In literary criticism this is the confusion of asking what the author themselves 'meant'. The context tells you the use, it allows for the determination of it. "Every word has a different character in a different context." PI, p. 181. The idea of a sentence or a word in isolation is only a thing in philosophy--stemming from the desire to tether it to something determinate, certain, universal.

I'll leave you to it; only to say: my whole point is that Witt is not here "making a claim". That is not why this sentence is here. It is used in a different sense in the context of this text. Of course you can take it that way (it is a possibility of those words alone) as it is possible to drop in on one comment of a post.

"If a lion could talk, we could not understand him."

I will argue that it is essential to put the above sentence in the textual context in which it was written to see its USE here by Witt--(...) that it is used in its sense as an uncontested FACT (not to be refuted or interpreted, nor an open question, nor a thesis, etc.)
— Antony Nickles

I can grant the sentence is being used as an uncontested fact, but if it is not be contested, refuted or interpreted asks the question....why did he say it? Apparently Witt is allowing himself to do something with it, even if only to demonstrate something else, which seems to require some sort of correspondence with an uncontested fact. Doesn’t the fact need to be interpreted in order to determine its correspondence? — Mww

As I said in my first post: he is using it as a fact in comparison to the choice (the conviction) in the sentence before, to show that we are in a position to the other (beyond knowledge) in response to their pain. It is not that we CAN NOT know/understand the other ( as with the lion, see ** below) we decide (cave to our desire) that without knowledge (in its sense of certainty, independent from us, etc.) we can not know the other--we have no (further) obligation to respond to their pain.

**Though, as I have said, you can certainly debate the fact if you want, or discuss it in its other possibilities; just trying to get people to see that its use here by Witt is as an uncontested fact, again, for comparison. Maybe it helps to say that: it can be both of these things, along with others. Just because it can be used in various ways, or that it "makes sense"--as in: you know the words and how they go together, say, independent of any context--doesn't mean that it can't be/isn't used in a particular sense--here, as an uncontested fact; it is the context (here, textually) in which its sense is seen.

Again, this should (will I am thinking more and more) be a separate thread about Grammar, and intention, action, etc., but I do see some profit here (with this thread) in pointing some things out.

Yes, I can know what you are going to do; "look he is going to ask her out!"
— Antony Nickles

"...you can’t know he asks until he actually does." — Mww

Just to point out, this isn't predicting the future (especially not ensuring it). It is "going to do", not, know that he actually does it. And, of course, importantly, we can be wrong (or, as you say, something can intervene), but that only proves the possibility that we can. Witt is pointing out that possibility, in comparison to the Interlocutor's refusal to admit that we can "know" the other (even knowing their secrets) without "knowing" what is internal in the other. Importantly, these are two senses of knowledge within its Grammar (possibilities): to know (to guess with evidence, experience of the person, etc.) as opposed to knowledge as certain, prediction, infallibility, etc.

.'Meaning' is like the imagined 'hidden' inner process. A concept's grammar is its possibilities of sense--not a fixed 'meaning' like a definition either. "It's a blue day."
— Antony Nickles

It is because concepts do have specific meanings... which obtains a meaningful statement coincidental to speaker and listener. * * * understanding is a logical procedure in which the objects must align with the subject necessarily in order for there to be understanding in the first place. — Mww

We're almost there, but I put 'meaning' in quotes as connected to the hidden, inner process, because it is the (confused) picture Witt is trying to figure out why we want to insist on. Part of that picture is the idea that "concepts do have specific meanings." The PI starts with the idea that there is more (in his term, ordinary) rationality in the world/our language, than fixed, certain, specific; ALL the different ways each concept makes sense (the possible, available--even the unforeseeable): see two types of 'know' above (also, we can 'know' our phone #, which is the sense of knowledge (in its Grammar) that "we can remember it"). Meaning is not a noun, in this sense, not an adjective (meaningful statement), because meaning usually comes up afterwards (though we occasionally are trying to mean a specific sense, e.g., writing a speech; taking into consideration in advance an obvious possibility of it being taken in a different sense in a given context, etc.) We usually just say things and it works out fine (as you say). The point is nothing is fixed at all ahead of time (the 'object' and 'subject' do not align--the people do); we are endlessly responsible to each other to clarify, re-phrase, apologize, etc. (although we can give up). This frailty is not determined or resolvable by philosophy, logic, Forms of Life, our thought, 'meaning, intention, rules, science, etc. It is the open-ended process of communication.

Witt does say its amazing that we can communicate at all.
— Antony Nickles

...I can see, however, that Witt’s detractors might say exactly that, considering they might think Witt made common language use FUBAR because of his very own philosophical investigations. By the way.....did Witt have any peers playing the role of serious detractor? — Mww

All the positivists turned against him; Russell, Godel, the "Vienna Circle"; I would put A.J. Ayer in that boat (who J.L. Austin eviscerates: He and Witt share in responding to the 'descriptive fallacy'--the idea that everything said is a (true/false) statement; that everything is word--world, meaning--understanding; Austin showing there are other "truth-values", e.g., felicity to the Grammar of a concept, in Witt terms. But Austin is just a destroyer (thinking that refuting the skeptic is all we need); Witt is looking for why we want that in the first place (leaving the door open for the skeptic, putting us at the end of the failure of knowledge).)

[Your admitted paraphrase (of me):] with a human in pain we have to add more assumptions to avoid feeling empathy. * * * I think it is problematic to not realize that the animal us is what is being denied when we assume our way away from empathy with other humans and animals. — Coben

This extrapolates from the consequences of what I am proposing Witt is uncovering in a way that shows you understand where I was coming from, so, again, thank you. You are headed in a different direction (a different interest), which is fine, so I would only say that I (and I believe Witt here) am not so much making a case in place of empathy, so much as diagnosing the desire, as philosophers--to side-step the fallibility of others, their separateness, with, say, knowledge--that starts with the human (common) desire for certainty, and the need to respond to, fill in, that gap (to the other). I would say, before that view of ourselves, there is not even the possibility of empathy, that the denial of our 'human condition'--here I mean our relationship to (the limits of) knowledge--is a desire to avoid any other relationship to the other (animal, as you rightly point out we should add; which also brings up our instinct to see the other (their pain) as the same (as ours)--also avoiding any difference in people (and the people of difference), even further negating them--as we do not want to see our separateness because then I must respond to the other, bridge that gap with, in a sense, me--take their expressions as a claim upon me (e.g., my empathy).

Not that a call for empathy is not needed (even, philosophically), but just that I think there is merit in achieving the ethical perspective that Witt is attempting to get us to see--to see our human reaction (denial) to our condition with the lack of knowledge of the other; especially given the still prevalent influence of positivism (although cloaked now), which is a product of the common (cultural/human) desire for fact and evidence to take the place of individual judgment and putting ourselves in a position to (for) the other--letting ourselves (bravely) be called out, without certainty, for the other, rather than shirking that; e.g., to only rely on DNA evidence rather than seeing that circumstantial evidence, judging an unreliable witness, etc., is sufficient to convict (however fallible); also, e.g., we rely only on science to understand other animals, rather than realizing we are in the same position to them as to another human; as I say it in my other response to you: that we are responsible for our response to their expressions (in the face of our separateness and the inability of knowledge to bridge that gap).

We do have this problem with dolphins. They are clearly communicating, but are they using language? Might we figure it out and be able to say something to them? — Marchesk

I hate to police, but you might notice (I try to point out many times) that this thread is about the difference between: taking something (a statement) as something (a claim) for yourself, and putting yourself in the position of the other (Witt) to see how it is USED (not its other implications) given a certain context; the above--opinions about understanding lions/dolphins--is to ignore my effort here entirely. So, you're not wrong or have a trivial interest, only maybe, imagining this thread as a different topic--and, maybe, hurting my feelings? ; ) Maybe the other responses might help with the difference between 'meaning' and 'use'?

[Witt] [r]einforcing that non-humanness of animals and the non-animalness of humans actually, in the long run, I think does damage to the very goals you are attributing LW with. We've had a long hallucination that we are radically different from animals (and then also even other races of humans) — Antony Nickles

Yours is a thoughtful response, taking into consideration my effort here; I appreciate it. I will say a bit of clarification for me in another reply, and I understand and share your disappointment with his (repeated) distinguishing our biological differences--which I would only say he is (insensitively) using to contrast our 'humanity' positivism would like to ignore--but I am heartened by your association of seeing (desiring to see) a person in a way (for me, past them to something else more certain, less 'human'--per Witt) with the idea of seeing an animal in a way--say, as meat--without noticing the sympathetic. I would say the "seeing as" or "aspect-seeing" that Witt gets into later (pp. 193-208), ties animals and humans together in our ability for denial of the other, say, their pain. There is a great book of back-and-forth essays (four) called "Philosophy & Animal Life" in which, in response to an essay by Cora Diamond (in response to another), Cavell argues a rational argument for the ethical treatment of animals is impotent because it does not address the human desire to see the other (animal) as, in a sense, "inhuman"--not seeing the (moral) aspect of our similarity as animals: that we are responsible in the face of our separateness and the failing of knowledge to bridge that apart from our response.

I have attempted to re-write the OP to address the problems we're having/what I eventually get to (ya only know what you're saying at the end of a paper).

So, are we going somewhere here? — Banno

I'd rather not here (see the edit above)--maybe another post; his path from TLP to the PI and the "rationality" (rigorousness? ability to be subject to study/criticism?) of everyday life, "ordinary language", I may take up in another post about Ordinary Language Philosophy generally. Here I wanted to focus on the ethical argument Witt is making (and the subtlety of 'use' I guess because everyone can't seem to wrap their head around that).

Wittgenstein was never a positivist. — Banno

Weeeeeeell, I'll grant you that. But (though this is said provisionally, i.e., I don't want to argue it here) he did skirt it and was left with nothing to say, and spent the PI filing in that blank (everything other than word--world, true/false statements). More to what I AM arguing here, in the PI he is wondering what the positivist's desire (need) was, which I will argue he did share (as does his other/former self--the Interlocutor).

“the picture is a model of reality” (TLP 2.12)

I think the picture theory ran deep enough to carry well into PI... — Banno

The SEP article you quote is Wittgenstein as a positivist. In the PI, the positivist is the Interlocutor--he is wondering how he got himself into the gordian knot of the Tractatus. He is diagnosing the creation of the picture theory.

I think the picture theory... this is what he has in mind when he talks about the lion; we have no picture of what would be going on.

And I think that we do have at least something of a picture of what is going on. — Banno

If you want to take a position on the content of that sentence, go ahead. I don't have an argument against this; I am not arguing with that. However, I am arguing that Witt had something else in mind (he is using the sentence in another SENSE): here (with the lion) there is not a choice (it is in its sense as a FACT that he is USING it), but with us (with the conviction; in wanting a picture theory) we have a choice, and, in doing so, we shut our eyes to the other.

That first paragraph is quite beyond my keen. — Banno

Yes, this is ships in the night (the arguments are categorically incompatible--back to the "rough ground" as Witt would say; which I would argue is the text--maybe seeing it a new way). I can understand if you don't care to follow it, but I don't think I'm speaking German ;) Always willing to help, of course. And I do edit some of my responses, like my last one, to try to make them more clear and responsive to where I feel the misunderstanding is.

The context is guessing thoughts, and the talk of pictures relating this to his picture theory of meaning; it's the whole picture that we do not understand, as opposed to when some specific utterances are seen as lacking sense (this is dealt with around ∮500). "If a lion could speak we could no understand him" is the expression of a conviction, not a piece of reasoning. — Banno

Well, this is very-much appreciated (someone's been reading--maaaaybe not my post, but it's something). I agree with you that he begins with guessing thoughts and that "it's the whole picture that we do not understand." I would point out the picture is not Witt's, so much as positivism's, but, whatever. But, yes, Witt is trying to investigate: why do philosophers (anyone) hold onto, need, create, this picture (of meaning being internal thought)?

I ask that you look again at my argument that the quote is being USED as a fact (though it is, makes sense as, and can be addressed as--independently--a hypothetical opinion, or questionable claim, whatever--fine; that is not what's happening here/what Witt is doing with it--I'm not sure how to write that any better (it's starting to make me self-conscious); I mean looking at USE is a major point of the PI); He is using it, here, as a fact, for comparison with a conviction (above)--a belief chosen and held onto strongly (and maybe the above back-and-forth with Luke might help). Not (used as) an expression of belief (nor a piece of reasoning). The PICTURE is, in those terms, an (expression of our) denial of the other. I am adding to "the picture"'s motivations, our own (it's our picture anyway), in that it is a human doubt and fear that creates (is expressed into) the picture, but also that its solution--for certainty, rationality, predictability, universality, predetermination--is the same solution that wishes to deny the human in the other (and ourselves); the failing, the responsibility, the unpredictability, irrationality, etc.

I'm not sure how Witt is not seen as looking at "specific utterances" (say every utterance of the Interlocutor?) and sometimes pointing out how they don't "make sense"--yes he can be less than forgiving with this, but it is not a dismissal (insensible idiot!) so much as to bring to light the distinctions between having said one thing as opposed to another, for being judged as falling outside that category, subject to the consequences for that concept, etc. (the Grammar of the concept). He is rather curt and unforgiving though.