Switching to newer discussion.

@Banno

Possible wrong assumptions are not a matter of propositions/sentences (i.e forms of words) but of forms of words in the circumstances of their use, i.e.statements. — Ludwig V

I feel this might be misunderstood if we don’t make clear that the circumstances are of greater importance than any “form of words”. Yes, there are expressions that take a particular form, like a statement (or “empirical proposition”), but it is the attendant circumstances which make stating a fact important; whether that it is true, or hurtful, or both. More than that, there are also expressions that do not take a “form of words” at all, because they are simply a threatening gesture, but also because we don’t judge by the words (or the word’s “use”; or my “use” of them) but by the place the expression (or practice) holds in the circumstances, i.e., its sense or “use” (which is here what Wittgenstein is referring to) e.g., a plea, an overture, an apology, pointing, seeing, mocking, etc. To some expressions, the form (or practice) is crucial, like a knock-knock joke, to others, it is the deviance from any form that makes the expression what it is, like modern art, or its singularity, say, the cry of pain from me.

But we don’t hedge unless there’s some reason for doing so. The best policy is not to ask the question. — Ludwig V

This harkens back to Lecture X (p.112), when Austin pointed out that Ayer was pulling back behind “precise” sense-data to allow us to be uncommitted to our expressions. Here “hedging” our claims about the world qualifies our relation in order to mitigate our liability as well. Austin is claiming that our ordinary expressions do not inherently need to be hedged, unless there “is something strange or a bit off-colour about the particular situation.” (P.142) But Austin is not championing the status quo, as if it was more entitled or that it naturally has more solidity. We can unreasonably question another, but in doing so we put ourselves out (too familiar perhaps), or put them out (opening ourselves to calls of libel). In any case, we subject ourselves to judgment, and it is that responsibility Austin wants to be certain we understand.

OLP couldn't exist without definitions — RussellA

I’ll grant you that, but it does not rest on definitions; Austin is drawing out how we judge their use, distinctions, application, possibilities, the circumstances they come up in, etc., so that we understand the variety and logic of more than one case or dichotomy.

Does it mean either 1) the OLP uses ordinary language when analysing ordinary language or 2) the OLP analyses ordinary language but doesn't use ordinary language? — RussellA

Num 2, except it’s technically “what we say when”, like the different kind of things we say on instances of, in this case: “seeing” something, but, also, he’s not just imagining instances of what we say in ordinary use, but also trying to flesh out the criteria and circumstances for philosophical use as well.

@Banno @javi2541997

My point is only that if one remembers the roots of philosophy in ordinary language, it might seem less of an extraordinary aberration to those who don't see the point. — Ludwig V

Yes, and I think it’s also good to point out that the goal is not to negate everything that Plato, Descartes, Kant, Hume, metaphysical philosophers, did (or are doing) because the search for truth, the tendency to doubt and the desire for certainty are clearly part of the human condition, and the work they did obviously has merit. And I mean not in as a theory or summary (knowledge, to tell), but the example they set and the reward in reading those texts.

So long as that voice is hopeful rather than dogmatic… The accusation of arrogance, in both cases, is the response of those who don't recognize the voice or don't find the expected lesson in the book. — Ludwig V

I like to think of it as provisional, speculative. Unfortunately, people always just want something to take away, so any hint that they are generalizing something and we take that as all the value they have, rather than to show us a practice which we continue with our own interests and examples. Austin used performatives utterances as just one example of how not everything is true or false, and now he is forever just the “performative” guy as if that was meant as an entire theory of language.

I assume you mean the whole of the book. — Ludwig V

I meant the whole discussion, but there are a few essays in Must We Mean What We Say by. Cavell that set it out better than I can.

I had taken a rather different direction, thinking about the "ordinary" in philosophy. Descartes starts his meditation from ordinary life. — Ludwig V

Descartes, Socrates, Hume, etc., they all start from ordinary examples

If I look out of the window and see men crossing the square, as I have just done, I say that I see the men themselves, just as I say that I see the wax; yet do I see any more than hats and coats that could conceal robots? I judge that they are men — Descartes, 2nd Meditation

But when they see the possibility of error they just jump to the conclusion that we must not be able to “know” the way they want and then they project the skeptical/metaphysical picture from there. Here, Descartes takes it that we do not have ordinary criteria for identification, and, out of his desire for unassailable knowledge to solve everything, does not see that we also “judge” a person as a person (“see” them as a person, or not), which is a different matter then just information and conclusion. So Descartes falls back on the picture that “judgment” must be a process of the “mind” that is mysterious and thus without the foundation he presets which drives the whole picture. As Wittgenstein and Austin say, the first step is the killer.

Berkeley makes great play of his respect for "vulgar opinion" and "what is agreed on all hands", yet rejects "universal assent". — Ludwig V

Cavell, in Problems in Modern Aesthetics, points out that Kant (in his critique of judgment) says that we make aesthetic claims, like OLP’s descriptions of its examples, in a universal voice, which is to say “Do you see what I see?” for yourself, coming to it on your own. Thus why Austin sounds so arrogant, and Wittgenstein is always leaving things unfinished, asking questions you have to change your perspective in order to answer. We, of course, may not agree, and agreement is only to the case, to the circumstances imagined.

I would like to add, however, that it is at its best when it actually analyses the uses. — Ludwig V

Most people take it that the examples are the point, as if they are to argue within the same old classic philosophical framework for the same end. But drawing out the examples are evidence or data from which they do make claims about philosophical issues (truth, “reality”, the other, knowledge, ethics, essence, etc.) and, of course, critique the practice of philosophy.

In contrast, his dissection of "vague" and "precise" is effective enough, but doesn't take that step — Ludwig V

Clearing up how those work is not only to take one more chink out of Ayer, but to show, as his diversity of other examples are meant to elsewhere, that our ordinary ways of judging things, etc., can be precise and clear and thorough and explicit and sufficient and of import to philosophy just not foundational, universal, ensured of agreement, etc., which is not to say they are just claiming it is “good enough” (simply practical).

The Merriam Webster dictionary definition of the word "see" includes i) to perceive by the eye and ii) to imagine the possibility. — RussellA

OLP is not about definitions. In trying to understand seeing (“perceiving”) the method is to find examples of the kinds of things we would say in a particular situation.

But we must look, of course, for the minuter differences; and here we must look again at some more examples, asking ourselves in just what circumstances we would say which, and why.
Consider, then: (1) He looks guilty. (2) He appears guilty. (3) He seems guilty. — Austin, p. 36

The point is to draw out from there the implications, expectations, and how we judge, how mistakes are made, distinctions drawn, corrections, i.e., how seeing works. This isn’t an argument that we should use language a certain way, or for one type of language (“ordinary”) against another.

As OLP is the position that philosophy should be carried out using words as ordinarily used by competent speakers of the language, — RussellA

So it’s not that philosophy should “use” ordinary usage. It looks at ordinary usages in individual cases to inform philosophical claims because what we are interested in about a subject, it’s essence, is reflected in how we judge it, which is captured in the kinds of things we say about it in particular cases.

But Austin in Sense and Sensibilia is saying that Ayer is wrong, in that we don't see sense-data but do see the material object. — RussellA

Austin is specifically not claiming we see directly or indirectly (bottom of p. 3), but that the whole thing is made up, including the picture of “material objects”, metaphysics’ “reality”, etc.

I'm beginning to think that "ordinary language philosophy" is a misnomer. It's a lot closer to philosophy than it seems to be if one reads the programmatic description. Perhaps the project would be better understood if one talked about "natural language". Logicians seem to have a generally accepted concept, which seems at least close to ordinary language. — Ludwig V

It absolutely is not named by them. It isn’t about language (although Wittgenstein looks at “meaning” as an example to investigate); it’s getting at the criteria and mechanics of, here, seeing (“perceiving”), by looking at examples of what we say (judge, identify, imply, expect, etc.) in particular situations. Some of these are fantasies (with Wittgenstein). Again, it isn’t an argument to say we should use ordinary language, nor is it trying to be “normative” about how we practice seeing; even dry old Austin is inevitably making claims about truth, metaphysics, etc. I did try to explain it here though it’s almost like you have to read the whole huge conversations, as I get something’s wrong and misstated at least initially.

OLP is a movement that believes philosophy must lose its grand metaphysical aspirations in asking such questions "what is truth" and "what is essence" — RussellA

Well OLP is not a movement, nor a belief-system, it’s a method, but Austin is not abandoning either truth, as I discuss here nor is OLP giving up on the essence of things, as I argued in the last paragraph here.

The absence of explicit Ethics in Austin is regrettable — Banno

I agree, though I don’t think it is absent entirely. Part of what I take Austin to be doing is to defend the practice of philosophy, thus, not what we should conclude, but the way we should conduct ourselves. Thus his bristling at the paucity of examples, the manufactured dichotomies, the inattention to detail, the exclusion of our ongoing responsibility, etc. And, although he does not directly alude to this, the import is that, without fixed standards or preset goals, everyone could benefit from such diligence.

@Ludwig V @javi2541997

to defend versions of emotivism elsewhere — Banno

This is how I take Austin’s “How to Do Things With Words”. Of course, with him, he is not so much “defending emotivism” as showing how judging only by the criteria of “true or false” of only “statements” excludes all the other various criteria we have that matter to us with similar importance and consequence, depending on each different practices (and their attendant circumstances), including ethics and aesthetics which positivism explicitly ruled out from being able to be rationally addressed at all (thus emotions, or moral intuition, or some other mysterious process).

@Banno @javi2541997

But-and this is his difficulty-there is no definite and finite set of statements about sense-data entailed by any statement about a 'material thing'.

Austin on Ayer, p, 119

I agree the above doesn’t track, but what I thought was interesting was that Austin does again hint at the fact there are “expectations” (p.119) in a situation (involving anything), and so rather than what Ayer’s classifies as “statements” that I would (or must) make, or that must be the necessary fallout (not sure on this exactly), we are subject to the implications of what type of thing is said or done, qualified non-systematically by the particular circumstances. So, we need not meet a predetermined standard of evidence, nor is there a level and nature to what is “entailed”, but “entailment” and “implication” appear to be in the same ballpark (which may satisfy @Ludwig V’s interest in continuing what “entailment” stands for or does).

it was Apple who invented this keyboard command. — Banno

Window-brain on a Mac at home: thus my shame.

As no method is unbiased, using OLP as a method to investigate the philosophical nature of reality will inevitably come up with a biased answer, an answer biased by the very method being used. — RussellA

OLP proposes to try to reach an unbiased take on each example (not, somehow, generally, entirely), subject to acceptance by you, so also subject to correction, refinement, further cases, additional attention to the circumstances. This focus is to strip away any “bias” as in a hidden agenda or prerequisite, like having a standard or goal ahead of time (like incorrigibility) which is thought only needs to be explained, proven. Instead it examines the lay of the land of what we would agree we would say in a particular circumstance to understand the criteria we use, the implications, the distinctions, etc., in that case, and only then using that data to make any philosophical claims.

On the one hand, the metaphysical problem of sense-data is independent of language, yet on the other hand, the metaphysical problem of sense-data can be discussed within language. — RussellA

I am not talking about the “metaphysical problem” (whether it exists in or out of language, or can or can not be discussed), but the metaphysician’s use of words (knowledge, intent, real, direct, etc.) in comparison to our ordinary use of those words, which reveals how and why metaphysics wants to remove context and generalize only one type of case.

@Banno @Ludwig V @javi2541997

I find Austin a refreshing example of how to productively do philosophy, no matter what the conclusions he comes to; the method is satisfying—the possibility of it (for common ground) is heartening. But when Austin says Ayer & Co “provide the best available expositions of the approved reasons for holding [this position: of the world as, say, hidden]… more full, coherent, and terminologically exact”, I feel like this is a little cagey. He proceeds to tear to pieces what seem clearly strange arguments pieced together like toothpick scaffolding. The only thing I can think is that Austin realized that Ayer throws himself into every part of the position unreservedly, and is detailed and deliberate at every step, however confused. So Austin uses him as a great example of every misstep that metaphysics makes. It’s not that Ayer is a worthy opponent, but that he explicitly hits every touchstone of errors that manifest from the desire for something incorrigible.

But there is the suspicion of technical or specialized concepts. Here's the rub. It is impossible for someone who does not accept the term "quale" or "qualia" as being capable of coherent use to join in the discussion. The only possible strategy is to demonstrate the incoherence of the proposed usage. — Ludwig V

I wouldn’t draw that conclusion about terms from OLP necessarily. Austin’s “terms” of criticism look like ordinary comments, but “circumstance”, “mistake”, “say anything they want”, etc. are in need of unpacking just as he has done with “real” and “perception”, etc. I always feel like the penetration of his insight overwhelms seeing the fact that every philosopher is less aware of themselves than their adversary. Wittgenstein unfortunately used specialty terms to the doom of his being understood, but even pushed words like grammar, criteria, aspect, etc. into terms of art.

I do agree that Austin will seem to be just picking apart others’ terms—and both he and Wittgenstein do talk a lot about nonsense or not making sense—but one of their skills is actually giving others’ terms and arguments as much sense (and circumstance) as they can (both have their limits). I think Austin is asking “What distinction is being made here?”; not to say it is “incoherent”, but to reveal how it is being used, what purpose it is playing, what is important about it to them. What is hard to wrap my head around is that this can be different than what they say, what they want it to do, or the import they wish it had—that they can only mean X. I’ll look back for some examples, but it is not… outright dismissal.

…but there's the issue whether psychosomatic pains and illnesses are "real" or not. I'm in the camp that says they are not deceptions or illusions, even though the usual causal pathways are not involved. — Ludwig V

But if we’ve learned anything from Austin shouldn’t we ask: not whether it is “real” (meets some standard we impose), but what matters to us about pain? What is the distinction we want to impose, and what is the actual criteria and mechanics we judge by. We can try to determine (know) causes. But we, as you said, respond to someone in pain (or ignore them). Could we be fooled? Sure. And there’s our excuse to skip over the other and look inside them instead; to treat the disease rather than the patient (as a human) as is commonly warned against.

But his phenomenological turn, though plausible, is not, I think, particularly illuminating. — Ludwig V

Well no one in this forum has accurately summarized Cavell before, but are you referring to Wittgenstein above? This is obviously for another time, in bulk, but I don’t understand what would be a “phenomenological turn” for either of them.

@Ludwig V

However, I don't agree that he then continues to argue, still as an Ordinary Language Philosopher, that sense-data is not a valid metaphysical position.

The metaphysics of sense-data, which is outside of language, cannot be critiqued by an Ordinary Language Philosopher from a position that reality is established by language. — RussellA

Just to follow through here from my response above, OLP is not arguing that reality is established by “language”. “Language” is not its term. It’s a method that only draws out the things anyone would say in a given situation in order to shed light on the way we look at philosophical issues. It is not about linguistics; it’s about what we do, how we ordinarily judge our practices, compared to how philosophy has traditionally created a standard for knowledge.

So Austin is not trying to replace metaphysics. And he is not arguing just that sense-data is not valid; he’s showing that metaphysics itself is not a valid position at all. He reveals that it is argued for the purpose of its own predetermined manufactured fantasy: certain, foundational, universal, abstract, complete, independent knowledge.

I would have thought that Ordinary Language Philosophy (OLP) is associated with GE Moore's common sense and the later Wittgenstein's ordinary language of the ordinary person-in-the-street. — RussellA

You’re not wrong about Moore. He was simply trying to satisfy the desire of metaphysics for certainty with basically, as you say, common sense (Austin responds to him in “Other Minds”). However, Wittgenstein is using the method of investigating what is said in particular situations, but the lessons from these examples are not a substitute for the foundation that metaphysics wants (I say this to clarify Austin in contrast, but I have no desire to debate this claim here.)

OLP looks at the ordinary use of words, what words mean within the context they are being used in. — RussellA

OLP is examining what anyone would say in a particular situation, in order to find unbiased philosophical data, not as proof of a position. And it makes use only of what anyone would agree is true (though this can be hard for people reading Wittgenstein to see, or agree to; Austin is more understandably insightful, but then without the depth of Wittgenstein). Thus the importance of trying to make the most sense possible of another’s position. Accordingly, here, Austin is also looking at the metaphysical use of words (attempting to give them as much sense as he can—Wittgenstein will actually make up situations that might make sense for them, as he has more sympathy, having been in their position, literally).

And I wouldn’t phrase it that the object is what words “mean”, but the implications that go along with them in different situations, the criteria we use to judge, the distinctions that are made, etc. We could say these are the ways they are meaningful to us. Austin is more concerned with showing that we have the means at hand to address the skeptic’s concerns with errors, illusion, mistakes, etc., where Wittgenstein takes the skeptic’s claims as illuminating the limitations of knowledge of others, expression, understanding, i.e., examples of our relation to ourselves, others, ad the world in general. Austin here only addresses seeing (“perceiving”) but he does elsewhere look at knowing.

OLP tends to be anti-essentialist, meaning that their philosophy is more about relationships between truth and reality rather than based on an absolute truth or reality. — RussellA

I’ll grant that OLP makes it clear that absolute anything is an empty pursuit. But Austin also shows how “reality”, as conceived as a standard for truth or knowledge, is a manufactured idea. Nevertheless, OLP does not abandon the “essence” of the world. I would argue that Austin is reclaiming the myriad ways in which we are interested in things. (I see this as another of Austin’s hidden lessons @Banno @Ludwig V @javi2541997.) Wittgenstein points out that “Essence is expressed by grammar.“ PI, #371 This is not to say that the mechanics of our practices serve the same purpose as metaphysical essence. Grammar is not equal to essence; the standards or criteria we judge by reflect what matters to us about a practice, what is essential to us about the world.

Ctrl-C on a Mac does not do what a Windows’ zombie wants.

@Banno @Ludwig V @javi2541997

In the end, I don’t think people take Austin seriously enough, to be as impactful as he should be, so thanks for taking him up. What I appreciate most is that he makes me realize that what you say matters, and that the truth can matter more than we realize, more than our cynicism, laziness, narcism, self-absorption, delusion, aggrandizement, and on and on. In honor of that, his best from the last Lecture:

“It all runs quite smoothly, there's positively no deception: and yet in the end that baby has somehow been spirited down the waste-pipe.”

“He gets off to rather a bad start, however, which reveals him as already at least half-way to perdition.”

“You've got to get something on your plate before you can start messing it around.”

@Banno @Ludwig V @javi2541997 @Ciceronianus @frank @Richard B @Janus @creativesoul

So are we prepared to accept that:

many kinds of sentences may be uttered in making statements which are in fact incorrigible-in the sense that, when they are made, the circumstances are such that they are quite certainly, definitely, and un-retractably true. — Austin, p.115

Now it seems to me that the first thing philosophy will want to do is qualify this, as: not “incorrigible” in the same way, or not “truth”, or not “a fact”. And we must grant that we are not talking about “true” in all occasions and for all time, and thus not always the case (a fact set in stone), even given similar circumstances. But all of this perfection has been shown to be a fantasy based on fear and desire; the satisfaction of conclusive verification is not a foundation, but only what is demanded in this situation (our “real need” Wittgenstein will say). So, yes, the “truth” Austin is proposing is qualified in that the circumstances must allow for it, and may not sustain it, but, nevertheless, we have something true, and not, as may also be claimed, that it is only good enough for “everyday or practical or ordinary purposes.” P.119

That being said, and without yet having read the final chapter, I will only convey what I know of what Cavell claims are limitations of his old teacher (this @Banno is perhaps the only shoe I have to drop, having been pleasantly surprised that Austin addresses more than I had before considered, if only peripherally). I think we can agree that Austin says that we only know how to (or need to) address a concern if there is reason for asking, and that we have everyday ways of distinguishing and identifying, etc., though they may not always answer the question. Cavell (through Wittgenstein) takes the skeptic’s generic claims more seriously (where Austin is more… condescending?), though not on their terms either (towards certainty). Austin’s examples of objects and identification, etc., work to his advantage, where Wittgenstein is pulling back another layer in discussing pointing, rule-following, continuing a series, understanding, doubting, etc. The difference in these examples is that our not finding an answer reveals not our ordinary means of resolving cases, but that the mechanics of our lives reveal more than just about knowing how to answer questions. This, of course, is for another day—perhaps “Other Minds”?

[Austin does not claim] that first-person statements are incorrigible (even mine to myself) based on their being made by me.
— Antony Nickles

I don't quite understand this. What else would they be based on? — Ludwig V

Well, “based on” is a distracting word here—of course the only one capable of expressing myself may be me (though others can read me). But, obviously (ordinarily), we can be lying, and even lying to ourselves (“I’m angry” as an expression of sadness). More to the point here, what about not being wrong about statements about me is necessary? “I’ve been shot! Wait, no.” Perhaps we are afraid we won’t or don’t know ourselves, but this is a legitimate possibility. Or maybe I don’t have authority in the eyes of others to report on myself (a child, or a captive). This is to say, first-person statements might not be incorrigible at all, and, even if they are, the fact I am making them is not of the only importance.

But how do we distinguish philosophical theories which can be debunked by appeal to ordinary language from other theories, physical, psychological - without begging the question? — Ludwig V

The term “ordinary language philosophy” is confusing and made up. First, “ordinary” is only in contrast to “metaphysical”, here, sense-data. And it isn’t about “language”, it is about the everyday criteria and cases shown in contrast to the singular criteria of certainty (incorrigibility) and an abstract generalized case. And it is not an “appeal”, as if ordinary criteria are in competition with or replacing metaphysics (nor is the use of “ordinary language” the goal). It is a method of doing philosophy by examining specific cases and “what we say when…” in order to draw conclusions about the way things work (and don’t).

Austin mentions that we learn criteria when he says “certainly we learn what sort of thing it is to which the word 'pig' can and can't be properly applied” (p. 121 my bold). What I think he is pointing out is that we do not “define” a pig, nor do we need to check off a list of entailments (as in prerequisites), but that criteria are just the bounds of distinctions (categories), for example, between a donkey and a horse, which only come up when necessary. And so not that it can’t be a pig unless it checks all the (entailed) boxes, because we don’t know which, if any, criteria to apply until there is a situation, which may be novel, and thus require stretching or changing or ignoring our ordinary criteria.

So, has metaphysics seeped into scientific theories? I’m not going to answer that because I don’t want to go down the road of saying most neuroscience is operating under a number of misconceptions (whoops, now I’ve done it). But, of course, science is not searching for philosophical certainty; it has its own: if I apply its method, I come up with the same answer (so does everyone).

"I am in pain" is not simply passing on information, but is an expression that elicits a response — Ludwig V

Which is what I was trying to say, only said better. Of course we need not only be doing one thing either, and so this is to “give information” as well (and why we shouldn’t be said to “use” language), though, yes, the circumstances would need fleshing out. You would need to be unaware I was in pain, and also be someone who would be expected to do something about it, say, the host at a party, or a doctor. If you just walk up to me and say it, I am likely to respond, for lack of a better way to read it, “Yeah, we’re all getting old.”

@Banno @Ludwig V @javi2541997 @Ciceronianus @frank @Richard B @Janus @creativesoul

The shift from worrying about true or false to commitment and retraction is definitely helpful. — Ludwig V

Just to tweak this a bit, Austin is not “shifting” from true and false to commitment (abandoning truth), but only adding that a claim (even to truth) is made in a circumstance, and I am only underlining his recognition that one of the pieces of the circumstance is that it is made by a person subject to the future (responsible to it, to further intelligibility—his “amending” or “retracting” as only examples) rather than philosophy’s desire to try to solve for the future, avoid the possibility of error entirely (be incorrigible, abstractly, universally—thus, also removing our part).

One would have to show this works in the context of incorrigible first person statements of experience. The assumption that the language is being used in standard, or at least shared, ways would be one point. The possibility of self-correction is another. (Austin mentions both of these.) — Ludwig V

Again, Austin’s claim is not that statements are ordinarily (not metaphysically) incorrigible because they are made by me (first-person), but because of the circumstances that make, say, “I am in pain” intelligible, for example, that I am informing you so that you might help me, even if I am not in pain, which is not a matter of it being “wrong”, but of me lying (p. 113, 118), which is always a possibility in that case (without recourse). My understanding is that neither Austin nor Wittgenstein claim that first-person statements are incorrigible (even mine to myself) based on their being made by me. However, in the sense above, it is important that it is me that is making this claim (with respect to my responsibility to it).

Also, saying that Austin is relying on “standard, or at least shared, ways” overlooks the fact that we might not find a right answer (p.66), that he leaves the whole matter of judgment open to new circumstances (though I can’t find that part again, maybe p. 74), and, in any event, any discussion is only brought up when it is under “suspicion” or is questioned, as “if there is never any dilemma or surprise, the question [of doubt, thus criteria] simply doesn't come up” (p.76). This is not a general foundation, but, again, pointing out that a question only comes up in a specific situation. Wittgenstein is read as claiming a foundation based on much the same thing, but he also ultimately finds an end to all that (rules, “my” “mental processes”, “language games”, etc.) and looks at much the same circumstances when investigating “continuing a series”, among other things.

The fundamental point is that what matters is the fact that claims are made in a situation. The conclusion is the same for first-person statements as with identification of a pig, or a color. And not only do they have different criteria (which is more Wittgenstein’s focus), but the application of those criteria still depends on the circumstance (what the “use” or “sense” is of something in that instance Wittgenstein would say).

Isn't there a doctrine - it is present in my memory, but I've lost any sense of where it can be found - that logical truths are true in all circumstances and consequently empty and trivial. — Ludwig V

The whole point here for Austin is that the more stringent our presumed standard (incorrigibility), the less cases that actually meet that requirement. Again, this is why philosophy reduces itself to the best-case of objects (or first-person claims). In fact, no case actually meets that requirement for certainty (not as a lack, but categorically/mechanically—thus philosophy makes up something, e.g., sense-data). As I stated above, Austin addresses this, among other places, in discussing the desire for, and outcome of, generalization (p.112), but also that it is less likely to cover “novel situations” (p. 130). Emerson refers (in “Experience”) to this as everything slipping through our fingers the harder we try to grasp (which Heidegger alludes to in “What is Called Thinking?”).

!@@#$@$$!!!

@Ludwig V

The problem with Austin is that he is taking his Ordinary Language philosophy too far, even further than the Ordinary Man would take it.

For example, in the expression "I see an apple", Austin's approach is to ignore any possible metaphorical meaning for its so-called "ordinary" usage, thereby turning a blind eye to the range of possible meanings as laid out in the Merriam-Webster dictionary. — RussellA

Ordinary Language Philosophy has nothing to do with common sense or with the ordinary man, as I tried to explain here (and elsewhere as referenced in that post), it is a philosophical method, not a position.

Also, “nothing could be produced that would show that I made a mistake” (p.114) about “That’s a pig”, because the “circumstances are such” (p.115), not because of some belief in isolated sentences.

I lied

@Banno @Ludwig V @javi2541997 @Ciceronianus @frank @Richard B @Janus @creativesoul

Lecture X: I was amused to see Austin describe philosophy’s desire for certainty in a few lines (it takes Wittgenstein half his book). Descartes starts his Meditations with “Some years ago I was struck by how many false things I had believed….” Austin characterizes this as the regret that in claiming some truths, we “stick our necks out further.” (P.112) The point being that philosophy hasn’t wanted to know the truth, or knowledge, but just to never get egg on its face (especially in the shadow of science). Austin uses the example of generalizing the case we make (retreating from claiming to know the name of the star, to only knowing that it is a star) to show that Philosophy wants to find a place from which it can “take no chance at all, my commitment is absolutely minimal; so that in principal nothing could show that I had made a mistake, and my remark would be “incorrigible”. (Id. Bold added)

The generalization of Austin’s example is one way that philosophy has tried to not be wrong. It struggles with moral loggerheads, but it only takes up the best case for knowledge (the easiest to prove) in: “seeing an object” (it uses “pain” as an example of the other because it is unavoidable, constant, etc. as well), and then it wants to universalize its findings back to ethics (and wonders why it has nothing to say).

Also, you will notice that I emphasized that Austin is aware that when we make a claim, we are making a “commitment”; we are committing ourselves to what we have said, to be responsible for “amending” the meaning, to be subject to the implications of how it is judged (or “retract” it)(p.112). In wanting to be “incorrigible” (as Banno has pointed out) philosophy not only wants something foundational for knowledge, but to rule out even the possibility of being corrected, which means forsaking the part we play in making a claim (or making it poorly, as to magenta on p. 113), which it does by assuming that “the words alone can be discussed…” not only by “neglecting the circumstances in which things are said” (p.118) but apart from a person having said it (“expressed” it Wittgenstein will record this as).

@Banno @Ludwig V @javi2541997 @Ciceronianus @frank @Richard B @Janus @creativesoul

Lecture X: skipping seven pages in, past the Ayer/Carnap muck, we finally get to the truth. @Banno or others will be better at telling this story, but, traditionally, I would assert something (“The tree is green”) and the assertion is true if the fact is correct, thus all the worry about whether we can be sure that the tree is really green, that we see it (“perceive” it) correctly. Also, some will claim that only a certain type of sentence can be true or false, thus the “assertion” (or “proposition”).

Austin will claim that it is neither the form of the sentence that makes it capable of being true or false nor on what it is even claiming (its “meaning”) because the truth will “turn on… the circumstances in which it is uttered.”(p.111) If you and I are looking at a tree, and you say “The tree is green”, I could say “No [that’s false], Aspens are green, that’s a Maple, it’s brown.” But, if you say, “I meant the leaves.” I would admit “Okay, sure [that assertion is true (however banal).]” But now when you say “It just seemed too cold for leaves not to have turned yellow.” I might see what you describe, and say “Huh [that’s true].” And that is not a true fact, but an acknowledgement of the remark, and based only on a vague calculation of fall.

A tree falling

May I gently point out that there seems to be a typo here. There is a member called "LUDVIG" on this site, but that isn't me, but you were quoting me. I wouldn't want to miss something. — Ludwig V

I tried to tag everyone doing the reading when I wrote up my notes on a section; you have been spared all that. Not them.

@Banno @Ludvig @Corvus @javi2541997 @Ciceronianus @frank @Richard B @Janus @creativesoul

Just to loop back to Lec. VIII where Austin countered Ayer in saying an illusion was a case where we see something where something else is, in Lec. IX Austin directly addresses that we can choose which way to say what we “see” (p. 99), which doesn’t depend on “my” perception but on what needs to be pointed out given the situation—our “interest in this aspect or that of the total situation” (p. 100). This differs from philosophy’s fixation that there must be a universal chair for all particulars, rather than at times that we have different interests in how we judge a chair to be a chair. And so, “…there will sometimes be no one right way of saying what is seen…”, not a “surface” or a sense-data. Or, as @Ludvig puts it: “it isn't clear that there is any description that is truly neutral” perhaps forgetting that there is always a context for a case. I will only point out that at other times there will be a right way of saying what is seen.

I also find it fascinating that Austin recognizes Wittgenstein’s work on seeing an aspect of something, “see…as…” as Austin says, though only allowing it for “special cases”. Not as empathetic as Wittgenstein I think, for whom seeing an aspect is part of treating a person as if they have a soul (PI, p.178), or seeing (acknowledging) the aspect of them as a person writhing in pain p.223.

Last time, swear

So here's a question for anyone who cares to delve deeper. That [we can’t see material objects and so only see sense data] seems to me to be the argument in Foundations, found on pp 24-25. If not that argument, then which? — Banno

Well, you are right that he does try to make it a “linguistic issue” “because [ordinary language] is not so good an instrument as the sense-datum language for our special purposes” Foundations p. 25 (emphasis added) And so the “purpose” forces the argument, thus “it is useful [in looking at how our experiences relate to what we say about things to] refer to the contents of our experiences independently of the material things that they are taken to present.” P.26 So the “purpose” here is to remove our statements to be “independent” from judgment to particular cases. Having removed ourselves from the “empirical propositional” and only relying on different methods of “descriptions”, “we cannot properly claim that it is either true or false.” I think this is why Austin characterizes it as being able to say anything you want, but what I take Ayer to be doing is abstracting the discussion from a factual one so we are always correct, despite it only being about our description, with the actual goal that we are never wrong about what we see (sense-data).

We could just refer to color and shape as a thing’s color and shape (thus the reticence to “abstract” from them to anything else as unnecessary); our interest in them (what we judge them for) is how we identify, count, compare, etc., and so we could investigate the mechanics and criteria of those practices in various contexts. However, no thanks.

The Cambridge Dictionary definition is "existing as an idea, feeling, or quality, not as a material object". This, to me, fits with, for example, Austin's insistence that not everything is a material object. Numbers would be an prime example. The Cambridge Dictionary gives, truth, beauty, happiness, faith and confidence as examples of abstractions. I have always understood properties like colour and shape to be abstractions — Ludwig V

Well, we could play a little at ordinary language philosophy and see if there are any actual distinctions but don’t we see here at least a related problem because of the use of “material object” as a contrast, when that term is the unattainable maguffin that has left us with “appearance” and “indirect perception”?

I would take an “idea” as an abstraction solely because it is, or can be, removed as my expression “Hey, that was my idea!” This is tied perhaps to a sense of problem-solving.

I’m not sure a feeling counts. This sounds suspiciously like it is in contrast to reason, as “emotive” to the positivists; somehow turned into a value.

Again, quality makes me nervous of its philosophical sense (as “real” was to be a quality), but quality is of course a measure of attainment, and so the goal (refined metal) or standard (of a specimen of horse) is abstracted in order to be standardized, though metal has science, and husbandry has breeding.

Numbers are the ultimate example. If math and science weren’t so successful, philosophy would never have gotten dragged off course so much trying to be like it. So, of course, the most important thing missing from math is us.

Truth and beauty are measured by standards; I’m pretty sure we don’t measure happiness (except in being petty). I want to say faith is more like resolve than opinion so I don’t think that counts, along with confidence, which is more like knowing a skill, though I imagine it could affect one’s general demeanor (or head size).

I know too much to want to get into color and shape here (I take it back, can we call them qualities and be done with it?)

I think that abstraction and generalization (which, despite Berkeley, I do not think are the same thing) are also sources of truth. So let's not over-generalize about it. Pragmatism is probably the best policy here. — Ludwig V

Of course there are legitimate cases where applications of generalization are more useful than specificity. This comes from the sense applied to multiple objects: classification, inferences from particular observations, etc., which is what Austin is doing. But here I am talking about generalization from a single case or two (in the sense of without objects). Abstraction is a harder practice to justify. Not taking into consideration multiple examples (the practice in multiple situations, contexts), as it were, of how things "are" (as Dewey might say I believe), is to intellectually theorize separate from actual cases (an event with attendant circumstances). So I would need an example (or two) of when abstraction is actually a good or useful process.

What I think differentiates these practices in philosophy is that they come from the desire for absolute certainty or universal truth as Austin discusses in Lec. X. (p. 104). In order to be universal, we necessarily must abstract from the particulars. In order to have a standard of certainty like direct perception, we must generalize our perception of every object from a case which works that way (direct perception of at least sense-data).

@Banno @Ludvig @Corvus @javi2541997 @Ciceronianus @frank @Richard B @Janus @creativesoul

Lecture IX: The smack-down that Austin gives Ayer here seems almost uncanny (@Banno even feels Ayer might be misrepresented). And so how is Austin able to claim this kind of logical necessity? Take Ayer’s example when “I see a stick which looks crooked”. (P.87) Ayer wants to make this a special kind of “seeing”, but Austin says that what this ”shows” us is “that what looks crooked may not really be crooked.” almost as if it were a rule (P.88). He says this is something “we all know”, but then who are “we”? and what do we “know”? Isn’t it everyone who knows how “looks” works, in its sense of “seems”? Is there anyone who would deny the implication? Though perhaps there is a moment where it hasn’t yet dawned on you, but then you realize it (maybe with a slap to the head, as it seems obvious now), maybe if it were emphasized “I see a stick which looks crooked”, and then it is a given to accept the unspoken implication, as if it were simply a continuation of the sentence, “[but I don’t know that it is crooked or just seems that way]” and there might be other implications that we could acknowledge apply here, as “[until I get more evidence, look at it closer, differently].” So then ask yourself, say @Corvus, how these “just words” have now become, undeniable?

@Banno @Ludvig @Corvus @javi2541997 @Ciceronianus @frank @Richard B @Janus @creativesoul

Continuing from p.80 in Lecture VIII, Ayer admits that the criteria he values most is that of prediction. I have here and elsewhere asserted that the claim to objectivity or universality or purity or Ayer’s “directness” is based on the desire to have a reliable, predetermined, complete, independent standard, like math, that allows us to have outcomes that are predictable (thus the clamor for something like science, the facts of which are based on repeatability). For example, we want a moral rule or goal so that we don’t have to be good, we can just do what has been determined is good, and thus we are absolved because we can just claim, “I followed the rule!”

The desire to anticipate the implications of our actions is also a motivation for a general explanation. If there is anything Austin is good at, it is showing that abstraction is the death of truth. It seems clever to find one criteria to judge everything by (true or false? Real or not?) because it doesn’t change, which makes for predictable outcomes. But a general account also flattens out distinctions, which are exactly what will inform us of what might happen in a particular instance.

Shouldn’t type while biking

@Banno perhaps it could be said that the picture of a real world we would describe, merely mitigated by sense-data, limits itself only to a description of the difference of the relations between that data (p.80), and thus is just another version of the descriptive fallacy. Too early to tell as the “difference in relations” is so far unexplained and Austin does seem more concerned that the judgment is based on prediction.

Actually, if you are saying that perhaps in this context "real" and "unreal" are more important than "true" or "false", I think you may have a point. After all, part of the problem is that it seems that everything we want to describe can be equally well described in sense-datum language and in ordinary (natural) language. So truth/falsity is arguably not the issue. — Ludwig V

What I was trying to say is that Austin's goal here, as elsewhere, is to show that there are more considerations (criteria) and situations than philosophy takes into account. However, as he hints at earlier, which I mention here, I do think he is (or will be) concerned here also with truth, what Ayer refers to as "veridical", and, though I might grant we can describe things within the picture of sense-datum and on our ordinary terms (these are not a matter of "language"), I think Austin's point will be that there is a right and wrong, perhaps based on what doing those "well" consists of, or that we are not aware of, or do not get, "everything we want". This remains to be seen of course.