@RussellA @Banno

I see Witt's style in PI as a sort of "confounding" affect/effect. I can't say if it is intentional, but it is the way the text is laid out. He generally starts out as the "interlocutor" in quotations, sort of like his "demon" presenting various absolute cases of language use (very Socrates-like) and then Witt goes on to prove that absolute case is not as absolute upon further reflection. — schopenhauer1

The style of the Investigations is extremely intentional and necessary for what he is doing--the method he uses is part of the realizations he is able to reach, that the reader is asked to see; it is like Socrates' except Socrates (as with most of analytic philosophy) insisted on a particular type of answer: One that only met a predetermined standard (which Wittgenstein refers to as purity), thus necessitating the idea of "Forms", his inability to come to the conclusion he wants in the Meno, the Theatetus; what @Richard B is calling "consistency and unification, through attainment of coherence, the elimination of exceptions, arbitrariness, and unnecessary idiosyncrasies."--say, making philosophy's findings meet the same standard as science.

does this mean all theorizing stops now because, welp, it's just language games? I think the next move is to present his idea of "No wait, he gives you an out! He gives us the idea of Forms of Life!". But that then seems to indicate all we can do is study the community of language users and their use of words, and not the concepts themselves. — schopenhauer1

This is a common misconception of the Investigations. He is not trying to end philosophy (to avoid addressing the concerns which led to metaphysics); it is just an investigation into the desire that has driven philosophy to certain conclusions, frameworks. The difference between Description and Explanation is also confusing--the description leads to an "explanation" (though the explanation is speculative and simply to see his larger point); it is only that he is not looking for an explanation that satisfies the desire for purity, to generalize, before investigating what is actually the case, what our ordinary criteria are, and why we want to avoid those.

Again, yes, many people misunderstand the reason of pointing out various examples of our lives. The examples are not meant to be foundational (solve skepticism the same way as metaphysics, or facts, or general explanations; the examples are not used, as you say, as a "tool against a particular set of beliefs" emphasis added), they are explicitly meant to lead to the realization that our ordinary criteria for our lives (the "concepts themselves") embody our interests in our lives, what matters to us about a practice, how something counts to be that practice (as I explained above to RussellA, my saying practice here is in place of what he groups and terms "concepts"--to avoid the confusion with the sense of "concept" as in: "idea). These criteria (not the sole criteria that our relation be ensured, "pure") are the "Grammar" meant when Wittgenstein says "Essence is expressed by grammar" #371. Grammar is not "language use" or "use of words" or "rules"; they are the ordinary criteria for judgment that reflect what is essential about an activity for us, rather than a singular "essence" that is constructed from the sole interest for a fixed relation, one that can't go wrong.

And, again, he is not restricting himself to "language" or "language use" (and not the world); his method is to examine what we say in a certain situation (and the associated context) as a means of, as a method to, learn about ourselves and our world, why we overlook these in our desire for purity. As I said above, this misunderstanding leads to the misreading of "Philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of language." (Emphasis added) Here "by means of language" is in the sense we battle against our bewitchment (desire for purity) through the process of (the "means of" as method or instrument of) looking at what we say in a situation (what he means by "language" here, though Wittgenstein will, confusingly, talk of "cleaning up language", by which he means bringing words back from their philosophical use (#116), bringing us back from our desire for that purity, not being a language police or that this is just about language).

Well, if Witt represents being "caught in the web of ecology" of word use and not about understanding things like the "human condition, ethical implications, suffering, what is, what should, what ought, what can, by what criteria, etc." then one isn't really practicing philosophy so much anymore. — schopenhauer1

The Investigations is specifically about our "human condition" as it is a realization about the limitations of knowledge, for instance regarding other minds and the "ethical implications" of that (including their suffering, their pain), along with the ethical implications for how we handle moral situations when we don't know what to do (what people "come to blows over" #240), for how to think ethically; the pitfalls of "what should, what ought", etc. You will say he doesn't explicitly address these issues, but I continue to suggest it is only a matter of working to place him in (yet in critique of) the analytical tradition, e.g., matching up a moral situation with the "extension of a concept". He is not spelling all this out to a layperson that has no familiarity with the history of philosophy.

it does not seem to be the case that it is the reader's problem that they have difficulty in understanding Wittgenstein's writings, but rather the responsibility lies with Wittgenstein himself. — RussellA

I can relate that it is hard to see why it is written this way. First, it is a realization so only you can come to it on your own; understanding is not possible without inner change. Also, yes, skepticism is not a matter to be solved and understood; it is an ongoing threat which recurres in the moral realm, and so each situation can require seeing the temptation to abstract and working through it by explicating our ordinary criteria and the context in a situation. Even Hume and Descartes struggled.

But this undertaking is arduous, and a certain indolence insensibly leads me back to my ordinary course of life; and just as the captive, who, perchance, was enjoying in his dreams an imaginary liberty, when he begins to suspect that it is but a vision, dreads awakening, and conspires with the agreeable illusions that the deception may be prolonged; so I, of my own accord, fall back into the train of my former beliefs, and fear to arouse myself from my slumber, lest the time of laborious wakefulness that would succeed this quiet rest, in place of bringing any light of day, should prove inadequate to dispel the darkness that will arise from the difficulties that have now been raised. — Descartes, end of 1st meditation

I hope not being able to have it straightforward won’t deter you from humbly doing the work first before passing judgment. Did you read the Cavell I suggested (attached above starting at p 56?)

As for seeing Wittgenstein in different ways, there's a long overdue thread on Moyal-Sharrock's Understanding Wittgenstein’s On Certainty that should be started. Have you read it? — Banno

I also ordered Moyal’s 2021 book Certainty in Action.

The first sentence of TLP starts with a declarative type of sentence "The world is all that is the case."
and then it goes on, "The world is the totality of facts, not of things." They are quite unusual writing styles for philosophical texts, which can only be described as aphoristic.

Of course Witt makes his points in his writings, and it is not all 100% aphoristic writing style which fills his books, but we cannot help, but notice the writing style. — Corvus

The TLP are more “aphorisms” but I would also not try to make sense of them outside the context of the rest of the work. What he wanted in the TLP was only things that he could be absolutely sure of, so his statements are meant to move forward building on his absolute certainty of each thing. In the PI everything is more a description he is asking if you see too.

I agree that the style of the Investigations is unique and I believe it is important to his method. I would recommend reading the Cavell essay I attached above, maybe just starting on p. 56.

I don’t have anything more on his thoughts on God.

I have been trying to take another run at On Certainty but @Sam26 is way ahead of my understanding so I’ve been reluctant to weigh in (I don’t want to get things mired in a need to clarify or a disagreement about conclusions I don’t really have enough knowledge or experience on which to have a legitimate opinion). I have read the first third of that book probably four different times. I am thinking of skipping to the last dates he addressed the topic which is a certain section of the end of the book.

I will order the Moyal. I am curious about the structure and role of the “hinge”. I have found people are under the impression that the situations put forward in On Certainty are to somehow negate the realization of the investigations, or to replace metaphysics rather than simply examining our ordinary criteria for certainty, much as Austin would flesh out a topic systematically. Of course I have nothing to base that on but what amounts to philosophical gossip.

what I do get is Witt thought we shouldn’t try to philosophize about these things as there is no certainty… No system is going to give me slam dunk certainty. — schopenhauer1

That’s the wrong takeaway. He is “philosophizing” it’s just a different method and not driven by the desire to resolve skepticism with a”system” (rather than understanding our ongoing part), as classical philosophy was, and, frankly, as is most of today’s “philosophy”. I’m afraid none of this is going to help you. I can only suggest re-reading the book and attempt to see it as a journey of discovery about your insistence (which I would think equates with the Interlocutor at times, as does @RussellA). It might help to read the section by Cavell I attached previously at p. 56 on Wittgenstein’s method “The relevance of the appeal to everyday language” on through “The knowledge of our language” and “The style of the Investigations”. Good luck.

I’m pretty sure you’ll say this won’t mean anything to you either, however, you would interpret that as a refusal to be intelligible. That being said, your backcover, Wikipedia blurb would be: metaphysics is a fantasy created by our desire to fix the limitations of knowledge, which, epistemologically, is not our only relation to the world, and, ethically, this means it is our responsibility beyond knowledge to respond to the world and be accountable for what we do.

Before you condescend to me again, you (and I hate to say, perhaps @Banno) may want to consider your criticism that Wittgenstein is unintelligible might have more to do with your unwillingness to see it on any other terms than what you want. As he would say: your predetermined requirement makes anything that meets it empty (#107)

@Banno @RussellA @Luke

This weeks comic ha. Very appropriate. — schopenhauer1

I get how this would be funny, but it is not accurate or helpful for either Nietzsche or Wittgenstein. I would point out a few things because the comic makes assumptions that are common misunderstandings.

Wittgenstein is not denying “truth” but only saying we have different criteria for judging what truth does in different areas of our lives, and they are not all pure like we want a certain picture of truth to be (like math).

He is not isolating us to language removed from the world. It is through the method of looking at language that he is investigating why we misconceive the world, as they are the normally the same (until we have a situation in time when that falls apart—we don’t know our way about).

Our ordinary criteria are not based on agreement, nor statistical majority (this is not a defense of common sense or “ordinary people”), but the way our lives have aligned over our history, that we would judge things using the same criteria, usually come to same conclusions, respond the same way, have the same expectations, understand the same implications. These are not rules, nor usually explicit. It is the same basis that allows each of us the ability to evaluate his claims of what we say when, to see for yourself.

Both TLP and PI seems written in richly aphoristic style, which attract broad range of different interpretations by the academics and readers. — Corvus

I think aphorism is a misscharacterization. They are not meant as individual (independent) statements of something he is arguing is true. He does make statements, but they are speculative (like a hypothesis) with the purpose of your coming to the same conclusion on your own, seeing the viewpoint of why he is pointing this out in the context of the rest of the book. I would say they are hard to understand because they require you to change yourself in order to see the way he is looking at things. Removed from his process, they are easy to take in multiple ways.

What is his view on mental objects such as fear, anger, joy, hope, doubt ...etc? What is his idea on existence of God? — Corvus

He is trying to find out why we want feelings to be objects. He does not address the argument for the existence of God other than looking at the same desire of why Descartes looked to God for the purpose of having something fixed, universal, perfect, as Wittgenstein equates with purity as a goal and standard for knowledge.

As Wittgenstein writes in the Preface, a vagueness in the PI is inevitable, as he admits himself that he was unable to weld his results together. — RussellA

This is not “vagueness”. It is a realization that there is no general explanation of “meaning” or “solution” to skepticism. He comes at it from multiple angles to understand how the desire for purity affects different areas of our lives.

For some of these questions it is also unclear whether he considers them valid or not, — RussellA

He does test hypotheses, but you may be confusing the role of the “interlocutor” who represents and expresses the embodiment of the desire for purity (what motivated the Tractatus and the picture of the world that created).

I agree when you say "Anybody that thinks they can tell you what it “means” is wrong". — RussellA

I don’t say this to imply there isn’t something clear, specific, rigorous, etc. But just that narrowing it down to positions and statements that we can tell someone misses the point that he is doing something by a certain method which you must participate in to have it become meaningful to you.

What status does a "table" have for me. It is an inseparable fusion of the concept "table" in the mind and a momentary set of atoms existing in the world in time and space. Both aspects are necessary. My position is that of Nominalism rather than Platonic Realism. — RussellA

Wittgenstein focuses on our criteria for judging identity in the case of tables (and objects) but also not a generalized “concept” (I assume some kind of universal or idea) separate from the world. I would move to more complicated activities that he discusses because the case of physical objects makes it too easy to stay stuck in the picture Wittgenstein is trying to broaden. Below are other activities that Wittgenstein groups together under his unique term “concepts” (not the historical philosophical use of concept as idea). See p. 200 about material objects especially.

-of game, 71, 75, 135
- of a material object, p. 200
- of mathematical certainty, p. 225
- of (noticing) an aspect, pp. 193, 213
of number, 67, 135
- of order, 345
- of pain, 282, 384
- of proposition, 136
- of saying inwardly, p. 220
- of seeing, pp. 200, 209
-s of sensation, p. 209
understanding, 532

It is these kinds of things we do where he gets into how things go sideways or when we bump up against limits of an activity or when we don’t know our way about in an activity in a new context:

teaching, learning -s, 208, 384
use of a -, 82; p. 209
- with blurred edges, 71, 76
direct interest, 570
extending a -, 67

Also this ties to the criteria for judging our lives (concepts). Below is another list of concepts he looks at (under “criteria” in the index).

- for a dream, pp. 222-3
- for an experience, 509, 542; p. 198
- of guessing thoughts right, p. 222
- of having an opinion, 573
- identifying my sensation, 290
- of identity, sameness, 253, 288, 322, 376-7,
404
- ofimage, 239
- of intended projection's coming before
one's mind, 141
-of learning a shape, p. 185
- for looking without seeing, p. 211
- for mastering the series ofnatural numbers,
185
- for matter of course, 238
- of meaning, 190, 692
- of mistake, 51
-of reading, 159-60, 164
- of remembering right, 56
-of state of mind, 149, 572-3 -and symptoms, 354
- of talking to onself, 344
- for temporality of thought, 633
- of understanding, 146, 182, 269

Only by theorising can we make progress, as science has clearly shown. — RussellA

The desire for purity Wittgenstein is investigating is the same as the desire for everything (all our activities) to meet the criteria for science; that expectation of predictability, repeatability, generality, abstraction from a situation, resolution, agreement, etc., and such that it should have nothing to do with my ongoing responsibility (anyone can do science and come to the same conclusion). But philosophy is not science; it has other satisfactions, e.g., its progress is understanding ourselves and the conditions (and limitations) of being human.

But this itself is a language game of how "certainty" is used. — schopenhauer1

You really should stop using those words; that use insinuates triviality and that it’s just about language. This isn’t a debate on how certainty should be used. I’m using it as a term—I could spell it all out every time, but it seems pretty clear where it comes up in the PI. Different approaches, influences, methods don’t matter. They all had the same goal, to solve skepticism by having something foundational—call it “constructions of epistemology and metaphysics”.

“Language game” is not a helpful term to latch onto; it confuses people. In an attempt at shorthand (which is never gonna work), abstraction removes any criteria and circumstances of an individual case of confusion and takes me out of the equation, along with my responsibility (in the fear of “subjectivity”). Our ordinary criteria are sufficient; it’s just hard for people to swallow that some of the time things just don’t work out the easy way, or at all.
— Antony Nickles

Not sure what you're quite saying here. — schopenhauer1

Well that certainly makes it easy to clarify.

I still think it stands that if you want to be known, then say it. Show it after you say it. Or show it and then say it. There is a balance. All show and no tell, and now you are a prophet and others are doing your telling. — schopenhauer1

He’s not “showing” you rather than telling you—he’s asking for your approval: do you see what I see? He’s working out something nobody saw and you’re along for the ride; this is not something you can understand from your first impression or with it being spoon-fed to you, so quit letting people do that for you and figure it out if you want or get off the pot. It’s quite clear you don’t want my help.

Eh, that's so vague though. — schopenhauer1

Plato, Kant, Hume, Descartes, etc. are all reacting to skepticism, doubt in our knowledge. That’s not vague, it’s pervasive.

if the "language game" is thus defined appropriately, why would the abstractions not be helpful in conveying these new "concepts" about "reality"? — schopenhauer1

“Language game” is not a helpful term to latch onto; it confuses people. In an attempt at shorthand (which is never gonna work), abstraction removes any criteria and circumstances of an individual case of confusion and takes me out of the equation, along with my responsibility (in the fear of “subjectivity”). Our ordinary criteria are sufficient; it’s just hard for people to swallow that some of the time things just don’t work out the easy way, or at all.

I think certainty has more to do with confidence in one's knowledge. — schopenhauer1

Yes, that would be an ordinary sense of certainty. I am using it in the sense of a math-like necessity; Witt calls it “logic” or “crystalline purity”; Descartes will call it perfection; Plato just calls it knowledge. Basically it is the desire to know beforehand, generally, reliably, based on fact, without involving the human, etc. It is a standard invented by philosophy in an attempt to counteract skepticism.

I'd say something like Forms or the "Thing-in-Itself" or theories of understanding, are more about being, ontology, and the mechanisms of knowing. — schopenhauer1

Wittgenstein is getting at why they were created; it’s not a discussion of what they were about (the theories). I wouldn’t say Wittgenstein avoids existentialism (the creation of the self), ontology (essence), or knowing, but I don’t think you’d like his answers.

Yeah, same reason I think I don't like either of them. It's vagueness is just enough to have a fanbase use it endless debates and they can then always say, "No, it REALLY means this...". — schopenhauer1

Just because you don’t get it yet doesn’t mean that it is “vague”. The writing is very specific, rigorous, and necessary for its purpose. Anybody that thinks they can tell you what it “means” is wrong (including me), thus the problem with summaries. I’m just trying to help you guys in reading it; to avoid its pitfalls. You have to figure it out for yourself (I mean I could walk you through it but again you seem like another thread would satisfy you more).

What exactly is “the fruitcake” in this analogy? The method? The realization about our desire for certainty? A paragraph summary?

How do you know? There are smidgens of philosophers he sort of mentions but this seems very interpretive. — schopenhauer1

The claim is not “interpretative”. It comes from a familiarity with the history of western analytical philosophy. The desire to solve skepticism is an ever-present theme.

Plato was trying to figure out change and permanence, universals and particulars, things like this. Kant was trying to figure out empirical knowledge and a priori knowledge and how they fit together to understand the world, etc. I don't see that as major breakdowns in ordinary use of language. — schopenhauer1

Again, it’s not about language or language use. Skepticism starts with a case of not knowing what to do (#123). Kant and Plato find no satisfactory certainty to resolve it and so abstract from our ordinary cases to the forms or requiring imperatives having denied the thing-in-itself (“constructing systems” you say). It is this flight from ordinary criteria for how things work in a desire for certainty that concerns Wittgenstein.

“The preconceived idea of crystalline purity can only be removed by turning our whole examination round. (One might say: the axis of reference of our examination must be rotated, but about the fixed point of our real need.)” #108 He is turning the investigation around onto ourselves—why we have this delusional need for a standard of purity (certainty) that we create systems in advance of looking at the world.

Nietzsche and Wittgenstein share the goal of creating a new philosophy out of the old, and so are speaking to a new philosopher, one that you must become in order to see in a new way. These are not textbooks that say everything explicitly, only there to tell you information.

Then why doesn't he just say it thus?… Some explication is okay… An author presumably is trying to convey "something". — schopenhauer1

Well there are times he addresses us directly but the point is for you to judge if you would agree with what is said in a situation, or agree that his explication of a context allows what is said to become understandable in a way other than the “philosophy” he is critiquing insists on. He is not trying to convey anything; he is trying to change how you think, get you to see yourself (as having the same desire he did). The investigation is to find out why we want what he wanted in the Tractatus, what Plato, Descartes, Kant, Hume, etc. wanted.

Even "knowing" that there are various rules in various contexts, doesn't thus confer anything more than the usual of me just trying to interpret the person's philosophical statements. — schopenhauer1

Well I would say criteria rather than rules (another day), but what you are meant to see is not (only) his descriptions, but to ask why the philosopher wants to overlook our ordinary criteria to substitute the sole standard of certainty or something certain (as metaphysics was). This I would say first takes letting go of the fixation that he is trying to (somehow alternatively) answer the problem the skeptic (or uncertainty) poses.

It just seems like not making any commitments and saying "language games" is akin to putting on a pair of sunglasses and posting an "office closed" sign with feet up on the desk and calling it a day… if it is just stalling and spinning in circles about language use, I just see it as a kind of long con trolling. — schopenhauer1

He is trying to find out why we want to create explanations, such as correspondence, forms, positivism, and, as I tried to say, your (and others) misreading that “language games” or “use” is a substitute for those (even if a failed one). I would take your requirement to having an explanation (a “commitment”) as the same desire for certainty for which Wittgenstein is trying to find a reason.

Also, as I said, this is not about language. He is looking at the things we say in a situation as a method and means for learning why philosophy ignores our ordinary criteria of judgment about the world to focus on a general explanation to ensure certainty. “Language use” is neither the issue nor a “solution”; it is a means of seeing the variety of what is meaningful rather than a single standard and explanation.

The rest of what you said, I'm not sure. — schopenhauer1

I remain willing to elaborate or answer questions but it’s fine if that is just an expression of a lack of interest.

@Banno @Sam26 @Luke @Corvus

For that reason, I call this particular thing in front of me an "apple", even though "apple" is a universal concept and the thing in front of me is only one particular example of it.
— @RussellA

But that doesn't answer the metaphysical question of "what" is this concept apple. It is obviously a mental thing. What is that? Witt doesn't have an answer. — schopenhauer1

Wittgenstein is responding to the historical status of philosophy in his time. However, the problem of appearances or “resemblances” has been an issue since Plato in the Theatetus. What he did was take the ordinary alignment between language and the world and our lives (that they are the same; that they operate without any concerns) and inserted a space between them, creating the necessity of a connection in order to make it fixed. Mostly this starts with an inability to reconcile moral or interpersonal issues, and then working backwards to try to be certain with the best case scenario, physical objects.

So doubt creates the framework of ontology, appearances, or something else (in Wittgenstein: the misinterpretation of “use” or forms of life or language games) to try to ensure our words are meaningful, to close the gap we created. Philosophy takes the limitations of knowledge and turns it into an underlying ever-present intellectual problem it feels it needs to “solve”, rather than a truth about our human condition that only raises it head when we “don’t know our way about”, and we become dissatisfied with our ordinary criteria.

So Wittgenstein is making explicit the criteria and activities we use about a bunch of different examples in order to show that our ordinary criteria are more complicated and it is not just a matter of solving a problem like “essence” or “meaning” with a different, better explanation. In the case of physical objects, there are many underlying activities and contexts that we skip over, such as: identification, pointing out an aspect, extrapolating from seen to unseen, our interests in that object, when it is out of place, scientific problems, differentiating from other objects, the stretching and extension of the criteria of identity and purpose thus our judgement of whether they are misapplied or broken, e.g., an ottoman is not a table but can be used for that purpose, or, part of or judgment of a “table” is where we gather with others to eat, so, even if it is around a rock, we would still say we are sitting around the “table”. This is not empirical or about the about, but is still normative, “real”, not “subjective”.

@Banno @Luke @Joshs @Sam26 @Paine

After reading some of the recent comments, I wanted to offer what help I can on reading Wittgenstein (following the Cavell essay I attached earlier):

Yes, words sometimes refer to objects (and are meaningful as names), but that is only one of many ways the world (and meaning) works. The PI is an investigation of examples to show how varied other ways are, and why we want it to only be one way.

He is using a particular method (this is not ordinary writing). He looks at the evidence of what we say—shorthanded as: “language”, but not as the subject (except as another example) nor the salvation—when we are doing activities (the examples, which he groups under the term “concepts”, like chess playing, rule-following, meaning, seeing, pointing, etc.) and he either offers an appropriate situation (context) in which we would say it (or he imagines that) in order to see how vast are the ways that the world works (their “grammar” and criteria), and how and when they don’t.

You have to be able to see what he is describing for yourself (at times only hinting at it or in a riddle-like phrase), because he can’t tell you (he is trying to change our mindset, how we see the world, others). Look at what he says as speculative (he is almost running it by himself at times), because we must agree in our judgment of the situation—what we would also say in that situation. (Thus why @schopenhauer1 and @RussellA balk at the unsubstantiated accept-or-reject nature of his statements.) It is almost like it isn’t a matter of understanding him as much as seeing (the vision) the perspective, as he puts it, the attitude (as in: the position in relation to).

The goal is to see how and why we are (philosophy is) tempted to want a single theory for everything that is simple, logical, and certain (he says “pure”); to look at the desire philosophy has to have the problems of skepticism and other minds solved by something we can know. But Witt is not offering a better solution or some foundation for the limitations of knowledge—as people take: language games, “use”, forms of life, etc., to be. The reason he finds is that there is an open possibility of meaninglessness (uncertainty, doubt, skepticism) which scares us away from our ordinary criteria into a myopic view of how the world works so we can be sure about it, know it (but that knowledge is not the only relation to the world).

Also: “Use” is not some operation done to, or result held by, language (say, by the casual power of “our intention”); it is part of his method to look and see that what is said can be meaningful in different ways, from different vantages, in different situations (have different “uses” or “senses” he also calls them) depending on the concept, the context, who, when, where, to whom, etc. He is saying look at all the factors and criteria from the whole history of all our lives that hold what we are interested in, what matters in what we do, our criteria of judgment about what is meaningful. “Meaning” is not put into language by you, it is judged as meaningful (or not) by our ordinary criteria.

What if we were to recognize that responsibility is “the essential, primary and fundamental mode" of objectivity as well as subjectivity? Ethics is therefore not about right response to a radically exterior/ ized other, but about responsibility and accountability for the lively relationalities of becoming of which we are a part.” Barard — Joshs

These are all very interesting. I would agree that yes without “responsibility and accountability” the moral realm is not inhabitable (that refusing to acknowledge the other is a “conviction”. P. 223). But I’m worried Barad might be seeing the other as “radically exterior” before we find out if they are such, and jumping to “becoming” together without knowing how we would—unless we are coming from who we are while simply finding our “way about” (#123) as a culture or community (or friends), which may very well mean extending our understanding, our judgments, or even our lives.

Since responsivity is a given of relational being, the challenge isn’t how to become responsive to each other, morally or otherwise. The issue is how to enrich and enlarge the system of relational intelligibility that defines us as ‘selves’ within a tradition, so that we can make sense of and embrace alien traditions. — Joshs

It is a “given” that our obligation (to their claim on us as other) characterizes us either in responding or not. However, even if we end up disagreeing, that qualifies as a moral answer. Even with the effort to explicate our criteria on an issue or action, and develop what we find important in the context, we may very well still come to a point where we find we are not in agreement on how to continue together, but at least the process allows us to part on terms we better understand, having learned the others’ interests and desires, as it were, rationally, i.e., being morally rational. So, while I support our ability to be intelligible to the other—and more, the importance of working towards intelligibility of and on the others’ terms (especially in doing philosophy)—I don’t believe a moral solution ends with either a global sameness or the rejection of the others’ legitimacy to define their selves without us, even against us.

the radically social constructionist position I’m arguing from doesn’t see shared systems of intelligibility as grounded in autonomous selves. On the contrary, the self is derived concept, a social construction. — Joshs

While I see Wittgenstein as defining the self differently than an inherent, given thing (e.g., as the self only existed, for Descartes, when we are clear and distinct), I wouldn’t think we go so far as to politicize the terms of the self (requiring the other to be intelligible to us or be “ungrounded”, say, irrational). Though I can see how Marx would agree that the self only has public means for its production (“construction”), he took that to show the importance of not allowing a generic capital (culture) to separate us from our interests, our work, or, as some would say, our “subjectivity”, or what Emerson would call our moral “partiality”, which I read as what I take personally.

I agree wholeheartedly that “certainty” and “knowledge” are specific here, apart from the various senses they have in ordinary use. But both are the product of the desire philosophy has always had for, as he puts it, “crystalline purity”, as old as at least Plato, with the creation of his Forms to stand for the wish for a knowledge apart from the human—e.g., the inherent risk of incommensurability in the moral realm—a fixture beyond the limitation of our human condition (our separateness, the contingency of the future at times on us alone).

In poststructuralist and other postmodern forms of discourse, the idea of certainty is no longer considered useful. This is not due to a repression of the desire for it, but because the concept has lost its intelligibility. — Joshs

And I disagree that this obsession has left us. The war between skepticism and attempts to “solve” it is sphinx-like in its incarnations. The whack-a-mole that once was metaphysics continues with the wish for science to resolve our feeling of lacking sufficient knowledge, and in the modern theoretical convolutions to explain away the truth that there is no fact (or theory) that ensures our understanding each other or continuing on together. To claim the dragon dead (or unintelligible) is to miss the point that as humans we clamor not to err, to be good, to ensure that the future is in our vision and control, that intelligibility is only a matter of process rather than our fickle will.

If there is any motive which transcends the locality of cultural eras, I suggest it is the need for intelligibility. — Joshs

But yet we want to maintain our inherent uniqueness; that you can’t know “This!” (#253); that my experience is still paramount to communication and the failure is intellectually explainable. That our communicating with each other is just “constructing, through joint action, shared systems of intelligibility” and not an ongoing responsibility to be responsive to each other and our moral claims on each other, or, all too often, to fail or refuse to make ourselves intelligible.

I believe @Banno was referring to the Cavell essay I attached, but it is about reading the PI anyway.

I’ve taken a run at On Certainty a few times and I’ve found that he was attempting to look at the ordinary ways certainty works, having taken apart the philosophical desire for certainty as a foundational solution to skepticism, much as he took apart the desire for “essences” but showed that our ordinary criteria satisfy that yearning in expressing what we find essential about something, its importance, and so retaining the aspiration of Socrates and Kant without succumbing (as they did) to the need for knowledge to replace our role in the world.

I hope, as well, to find the time and motivation to review the work and your posts and learn more (or something else), but I also keep putting off Zettel too.

I'm not sure what you mean by "explaining language"…he also does this via looking at how language actually works. — Luke

Fair point. But, as you say, he is looking and all I am saying is let’s not loose track of the reason he is looking, and it’s not to be an English teacher (though I do see the irony based on his tone sometimes). We might say he is looking at how language works in the sense of when it is achieving something, but more at why (and when) it doesn’t, which is more akin to why Socrates never seems to quite come up with the answer he wants. Wittgenstein is critiquing traditional philosophy and doing philosophy; addressing traditional philosophical problems. He is not solving the skeptical problem but is investigating language as a means (method) of seeing, for example, that “essence” is what essentially matters to us and “meaning” is really the ways in which things are meaningful, including that the type of sciencified knowledge we want is not our only relation to the world and others.

…Wittgenstein's philosophical investigation gets it importance from "destroying [..,] only houses of cards, and [...] clearing up the ground of language on which they stood." — Luke

It is the house of cards and its destruction that is important—clearing language of the idea that it has a foundation, certainty: meaning or rules or mental occurrences, etc.

Well I don’t want to high-jack the thread. I looked at a Cavell essay on Kripke here in a post on rules.

But I’ll entertain any thoughts on Cavell’s assessment of how to read Wittgenstein more profitably. I always find people take him to be explaining language or offering it as a solution to skepticism, when it is simply a window to see that each thing works differently, not to justify claims about how we play games or follow rules or dream of our own world, but as examples to see why we insist on a requirement (certain knowledge) that they fail to meet.

Wittgenstein reifies as a primal desire of humankind is in fact the product of historically changing social-discursive forms of life. — Joshs

I would characterize Wittgenstein’s insight of our desire for certainty as a temptation based on the human condition (that we are separate and we want knowledge to bridge that gap). Our situation to each other would only change if we someday can read minds or no longer have ongoing relationships (which we may be approaching). The desire for certainty is as ancient as Socrates’ desire for knowledge, spawned from the desire for control, the fear of chaos (and death), and the mistrust of others, so again, I find it unlikely those responses will go away (though they may wax and wain/be overcome and succumbed to).

Yes Wittgenstein is critiquing philosophies gripped by the desire for certainty (including the author of the Tractatus) but he wouldn’t claim that our ordinary language is “a stable, ahistorical background.” It is only a window into our lives (a method) to put the skeptic’s claims into context—not as a skeptical solution, which he goes to great pains (not hard enough it appears) to avoid. The only controversy he is avoiding is the skeptical/anti-skeptical one, the relativist/foundationalist dichotomy, which is to realize our ordinary criteria are sufficient to allow us to bridge the gap between us together.

Cavell would not be my got-to for this stuff. There are others who had more direct contact with Wittgenstein. That's not to say that what he says is wrong, so much as that the emphasis may be skewed. In particular, it seems to me that the essay follows Kripke into rule-scepticism, which I think absent from Wittgenstein. — Banno

I do think Cavell is a good example of the method Wittgenstein uses, and explains it well, so I had hoped those parts would be helpful to Russell. I take Cavell as appropriately reading Wittgenstein, focusing on the effects of the desire for certainty and Wittgenstein’s final insights about the limits of knowledge (and rules), which differentiates him from Kripke, who takes rules as fundamental, though flawed.

The act of “expression” (rather than “observable behavior”) is necessary as it implies that it is of me (reveals me)you can know I am in pain by inference from the context)
— Antony Nickles

I could say "ouch!" or I could wince, both serve the same function in indicating to others that I am in pain. They cannot know that I am in pain, they can only believe that I am in pain.
===============================================================================
And, again, expression is not a “name”.
— Antony Nickles

From the Wikipedia article Name, a name identifies something, a referent. A proper name identifies a specific individual human. A common name identifies a person, place or thing.

Wincing is an instinctive behaviour. Saying the word "ouch!" is a cognitive act, and as a cognitive act refers to something. As a part of language that is identifying something, it is a name. — RussellA

Sorry, but it appears you are not attempting to understand Wittgenstein but are simply operating from your opinions which you refuse to question, in which case, I can’t help. I would suggest reading the entire work of PI and actually answering the questions and trying to see how you could see things entirely differently. Sorry I couldn’t be of more use, good luck.

@Banno @Luke @Sam @schopenhauer1 @Richard B @frank

"Ouch!" is a name for an observable behaviour. As pain is not observable, if there was no observable pain behaviour” — RussellA

The act of “expression” (rather than “observable behavior”) is necessary as it implies that it is of me (reveals me), and pain does not function as “unobservable” but is suppressed (even if I try to hide it, it can be expressed in hiding it; even when nothing is observable, you can know I am in pain by inference from the context). Imagine sadness or guilt (pain is just one example of the problem of the other). And, again, expression is not a “name”. You are confusing all this by hanging onto a certain goal or picture; I suggest you start taking a look at that insistence (the need of that desire). It is the same as the interlocutor’s.

“after all, the interlocutor is part of Wittgenstein's imagination, and is putting forward ideas that Wittgenstein considers important.” — RussellA

They are important because they embody the confusion Wittgenstein was in during the Tractatus; the interlocutor has the impulsive desire for certainty and “crystalline purity” that Wittgenstein is trying to understand and unravel—this is the point of all of his examples (they are not explanations). You appear to be in the mindset of the interlocutor now (which is an ancient desire of philosophy—and why it wishes it was science). Wittgenstein cannot tell you an answer (a fact or theory), you have to become a different person, see differently.

As an alternative reading, or way of reading, I would suggest Stanley Cavell’s 29-page essay on the availability of the PI, a copy of which I am attaching below, particularly the section on the Style on the page marked 70 and the discussion of his method starting on 62.

And to say pain is “caused by something inside us” is just a physiological fact..........................that is philosophically unimportant and confusing because it appears to bring up issues of causation and determinism, etc.
— Antony Nickles

The issues of causation and determinism are important philosophical topics. — RussellA

I said the fact is philosophically unimportant. The picture of our expression being caused or determined by neurons, even if true, is not relevant to the skepticism of the other. We want science to solve philosophy, but they are like two separate worlds, and what Wittgenstein is doing (his method) is not empiricism or statistics or an experiment. The result is not facts or theories, its to change you.

Let’s try to do the work and answer the question “how could I say [ordinarily, he means] I felt something which is established by experiment?” one answer: “I’m sad”, “why?”, “Because of the neurons firing within me” Also, did you figure out how it is “indeed true that observation of regular concomitances is not the only way we establish causation.”? If you can see for yourself the other ways, then perhaps you might start to see the fact that the picture of internal causation is forced by a desire for a particular outcome. (He is more often asking you to imagine something or being cryptic to force you to see something for yourself—he is not arguing for a conclusion.)

“even though the private sensation of pain may drop out of consideration in the language game, pain does not drop out as a private sensation.” — RussellA

First, “language game” sounds trivial (simplistic). Our language and our lives are the same (usually), and it is not playing a “game” as opposed to some alternative that is more serious, valid. Second, if we can say our pain is the same, we have the same pain. #253 “I have a headache. Me too. No, mine is sharp and behind my ear. Mine too!” Taking out the focus on my difference is to show that the owning is the important part about pain. Part of this process would be to ask yourself why you are fixated on our singularity?

The discussion of a “private” language is not an argument—it’s the examination of a fantasy. One realization of its failure is that our lives are essentially shared; that, yes, it is possible to have a personal even ineffable experience (alone with a sunset), but not always or just because I am me (we could say, our nature is the same; I can feel everything that you feel.) Now you can try to hide your pain (even from yourself), but this is not its being private (unique), but secret. These are the ordinary ways in which pain works; humans have (traditional philosophy has) a reason for wanting to hang onto the uniqueness of our sensations, our selves. Wittgenstein is getting at the motivation for those reasons. Maybe to avoid the responsibility to make ourselves intelligible, to block off the other from our imagined “knowledge of ourself”—so we imagine that it is the nature of humans that comes between us, rather than our choice, our “conviction” p 223. And it is possible (and terrifying) for you to be empty, just a puppet, fake, and, in the face of that fear, we want to stay unique, unknowable, so we look around for a reason, and pick the thing most certain—“our” experience. But all the focus on us is easier to face than the real problem to be accounted for: our lack of knowledge of the other. The desire to enforce a connection between outward and inward in me is actually about our limitation to have knowledge of the other, which shows how we do respond to them (acknowledging them, or not).

“PI 304 Not at all. It is not a something., but not a nothing either!” — RussellA

So yes, pain is not a “thing” (like color is not), but what he is saying is that it nevertheless is important (thus, not “nothing”); it just matters in different ways; we care (or not) about the pain being “had” by this person; it is that pain is expressed by a person, that it expresses them, that they matter. It is not a matter of knowledge, but interest.

…the expression "I know I am in pain" does have a different meaning to "I am in pain" PI 246 It can't be said of me at all (except perhaps as a joke) that I know I am in pain. What is it supposed to mean—except perhaps that I am in pain? — RussellA

It is not that they are “joking”; it only makes sense as a “joke” (you are to imagine the context in which it is a joke)—we would never otherwise say “I know I am in pain” because pain is not known (other than in the sense of knowing as being sure, as in “I am certain I am in pain and that it’s not indigestion”) Again, I do not know it, I have it; I do not know their pain, I acknowledge it (them). The idea is to take a strange philosophical picture or framework apart by looking at the ordinary ways they are said (this is his method, not that his philosophy is about language), not that there is a better framework, but to find out why we insist on an intellectual picture at all. For instance, if we had “knowledge” of ourself, there would be something specific that would by mine, me, but also something that I could hold in reserve so I could be different, unique, from you. In addition, we would have “certainty” of ourself, control, and an impersonal explanation for your indeterminacy.

Yes, we can talk about pain in the language game, even though no one else can know my pain and I cannot know theirs. Wittgenstein is trying to find a means of countering Cartesian solipsism, the separation of mind from world, through language. — RussellA

Again, pain is not a matter of knowledge (except in its sense of “I know” as “I accept/acknowledge”). Wittgenstein is not “countering” solipsism, but getting at the desire for it, and the desire to “solve” it. One realization is that there are more relations to the world and others than knowledge.

And there is a misunderstanding that Wittgenstein is trying to create a theory of language that is different, or that the solution to skepticism is that the world is language or “language games” or not skeptical because of “forms of life”. He is bringing up examples of what we say, the language we ordinarily use, as a method, to examine philosophy and ourselves. Most notably misread “ Philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of language.” #109 It is not that language is the “means” of our bewitchment, so we just need to clear up language in order not to be bewitched. Language is the means of “battling”, the method by which we battle. He is using the evidence of the historical things we say in situations as a “means” to gain insight into why philosophy abandons our ordinary criteria to impose the singular standard of certainty.

…the same problem attaches to a language game based on rules. Where is the rule that there are rules. PI 5: A child uses such primitive forms of language when it learns to talk. Here the teaching of language is not explanation, but training. — RussellA

Language does not follow rules; there is no fact that ensures communication. We are not “trained” in rules; it is an osmosis of, an indoctrination into, our culture, including implications, consequences, criteria for judgment, learning from mistakes, being guided, following examples, etc. This is like an apprenticeship, not knowledge to be explained, or workings we are always conscious of, or reasons we always use. Wittgenstein is not looking at rule-following to explain language, it is just one among all the examples of how different things work differently than we’d like. Wanting our world to work like rules has in common with other of his examples the desire for certainty that Wittgenstein is trying to understand why it’s so compelling for humans, for philosophy.

The intent is part of the way we explain actions with reasons…

I think we agree on this. — Banno

Yes. I would only add that we don’t normally (in anticipated contexts) explain actions, and it is not necessary or even possible to always explain—an ordinary context would never necessitate asking “Why are you stopping at the light because it is red?”, and we might not be able to imagine one (even an imaginary one; though, of course, now that I say that, maybe someone learning who has never been in modern civilization). The point being that talk of intention is situational (and, as Banno says, not metaphysical, i.e., part of meaning or all action); in Banno’s example—"Oh, he does that when he wants his bowl filled"—the intention, or reason, must be explained, say: in response to my curiosity at the animal’s, perhaps, inexplicably pawing at the air, or any other action which is, as Austin would put it, “fishy”, or, as I put it to @frank, unexpected, or abnormal (our lives are what is normative Cavell says). Expected, appropriate actions in ordinary situations would not and do not have reasons, and I would be stumped how to answer if you asked for one (though I may have subterfuge at heart in “acting” normal; but the exception proves the rule).

All that to say that traditional philosophy wants to place “intention” before action, or tie “meaning” to speaking, in order to have certainty (rationality, control, predictability) so it can remove (by theoretical explanation) the limitations and vagaries of involving a human, an uncertain future, calling for responsiveness and responsibility, perhaps breaking us apart.

But it is not a request; not because of the lack of something (magic, intention), but just that birds can’t meet the requirement of asking something of another
— Antony Nickles

The parrot might have an intent to elicit a peanut, so yes, that seems right. Those requirements are the "form of life", presumably? Good stuff, although I don't follow the overall argument. — Banno

To address any metaphysical sense, the bird (or anyone) would not have an “intent”, and because it is a bird, it would not intend (in the sense of deliberately decide), but we could ask (it is part of the grammar of intention) whether the bird was asking for a cracker because it was hungry, in other words, whether it wanted a cracker, and the owner might know its behavior well enough to tell when it was hungry and when it is merely saying it, or saying it, maybe, to get attention.

The practice of requesting is different than a demand (which is more what the bird is doing) because it implies that I understand I am asking a favor, that my desires are contingent on you, that I should couch my request in order not to meet the possibility of denial, that I have no authority over your actions, that I can suggest reasons (an emotional pitch, say from a dog, is begging). All of this is philosophical evidence of the difference between the bird and the human that is more than what is normally reduced to the physical differences of animals and humans, e.g., they don’t use language, they aren’t self-conscious, etc. All of that is to say that there are more ways that the world works than: intending actions or referring to objects.

I agree that the exclamation "ouch!" is not a name for the pain inside us, but rather, is the name for an observable pain-behaviour that has been caused by something inside us. — RussellA

Again, Ouch! is not a name for a thing (an object—“something inside us”), it is an expression of my being in pain (an externalization). (This is not to say that we cannot “name our pain”—a headache—but this doesn’t work as a referent to an object but also as an expression to others (though including myself, as other to my repressed self). As Witt says, “In so far as it makes sense to say that my pain is the same as his, it is also possible for us both to have the same pain.” But here it is the saying and the establishment of recognition that matter). And to say pain is “caused by something inside us” is just a physiological fact (firing neurotransmitters, yada yada) that is philosophically unimportant and confusing because it appears to bring up issues of causation and determinism, etc. when what we care about (what matters as evidenced by its workings, its criteria) when we talk about our pain (or don’t care about it) is the person.

Wittgenstein refers to the difference between pain and pain-behaviour:
PI 281 - "But doesn't what you say come to this: that there is no pain, for example, without pain-behaviour?" — RussellA

It is the interlocutor (not Wittgenstein) that is asking a question based on their desire to separate pain and the expression of pain (see #245). They are trying to force Wittgenstein into admitting a behavioral conclusion that without expression there is no pain. Keep in mind, the example here of pain is used for its unmistakability, but it is analogous for the other in their entirety. To keep the pain theirs (as in unique) is to want to keep the picture that they are innately individual, to have certainty of themselves, and the desire to be unknowable to others (or to be fully known in “knowing” and communicating what they take as a definite personal object, “my pain”). But the way pain works is not in my knowing my pain, it is in my having my pain (#246) which the next line says is part of being human—that what is important to us about pain is ordinarily not mine different than yours**, but me separate from you (that it is me that is in pain), and that bridging that gap is not a matter of knowledge of your individual pain, but my reacting to you having pain, your being in pain.

(You seem to be misreading this I believe because you are trying to force as essential the physical nature of pain and are taking this out of context and possibly without understanding the role of the interlocutor (the second voice Wittgenstein uses to speak the assumptions of traditional philosophy). It might help to realize that Wittgenstein is asking questions to get you to reflect on your assumptions and desires; and so you should spend the time to really try to find an answer that reveals something revelatory (say, in #278 & 280)).

And the word is not a replacement for a “picture” (whatever we would imagine when we hear it I suppose you to mean); it is a replacement for the wordless expression, the wince, the cry, the clear attempt at repression, etc.
— Antony Nickles

An Indirect Realist would say that the word is a replacement for a picture of the wince or cry. A Direct Realist would say that the word is a replacement for the wince or cry. — RussellA

Wittgenstein is trying to get us to see that both of those misunderstand how we handle pain, what is important to us about it. His point is that the word (a description, etc.) are expressions, just like a cry is an expression, different entirely from a referent to an object (“reality”).

This way of looking at pain as word-object is created to avoid the real way pain matters between me and to you (how it works)—that it is I that is in pain (I am the one; I don’t know pain, I have it) and you either acknowledge me (say, come to my aid) or ignore me, reject me (say I’m faking).
— Antony Nickles

Yes, how does an observer know whether someone is exhibiting pain-behaviour, that they are actually in pain. An actor on the stage may exhibit pain-behaviour without actually experiencing pain.PI 304 - "But you will surely admit that there is a difference between pain-behaviour accompanied by pain and pain-behaviour without any pain?"—Admit it. — RussellA

Of course we can exhibit pain behavior and not be in pain. That is the uncertainty of the other that makes us want to circumvent them through just having knowledge (certainty) of them; it’s also why we want to know ourselves—have it be impossible not to be known to ourselves—because we can be in pain and not be aware of it at all (suppression being the opposite of expression). But as Wittgenstein points out, the way our lives work, we don’t know another’s pain. “If I see someone writhing in pain with evident cause I do not think: all the same, his feelings are hidden from me.” P. 225. We react to them (or ignore them), accept or reject them (even because of faking it).

**And of course I have personal experiences (alone seeing a unique sunset) and sensations, but the points Wittgenstein makes are that our language and ability to express ourselves have a shared depth and so possibility of reaching all the way into each other, across the panic from our separation; that we have a fantasy that we can’t fail to know ourselves, a desire to be unknowable to others, and a (rightful) fear that there is nothing more to us than anyone else.

Ok. I'm not sure how that relates [that meaning is not internal], but it all sounds good — frank

Well, one point is we do not need intention; that it is only an issue when something is unexpected (not incorrect nor not the norm), and intention is judged differently, comes into play in other ways (there are other reasons for explaining what was intended).

communication requires more than just using words and sentences correctly. We need intention. — frank

The presumption of “intention” comes from expectations that go along with situations. It is not a constant state of something like deciding or “meaning” that we do. We ask about intention when something unexpected happens: “Did you intend to snub them or were you oblivious?” And this is not asking if you had chosen to be rude (though you can), but to now differentiate. So we “need" implications and consequences and expectations and criteria for judging when something is the case or not, etc., and these are all here before anything is said. This is how motive can be inferred from circumstances, which is not guessing at something going on in another’s head.

So just form of life. That's as good an answer as any. — frank

Well, what I am saying is not an “answer”, nor is it one of any, say, foundations, or however “form of life” is thought to play a part. Our relation to the other (their pain) is a fact of the human condition. We (philosophy, historically) want to turn the other into an intellectual problem, a lack of certainty, but the other is just separate from us, and knowledge is not our only relation to the world (and others). We want the other (their pain, for example) to be an object of knowledge to avoid responding to the fact of: them; that we cannot be sure (they are really in pain), that we commit ourselves in relation to the claim of their pain on us, etc. That is how pain works; that is its significance and manner. The picture of “form of life” is only meant to say there is more than one way the world works; more than objects and knowledge, for example. It is not one more justification of a theoretical solution to the truth of our blindness to and possible refusal of the other.

What do humans have that birds don't have, which allows them to "acknowledge the debt of it."? — frank

We have the practices of obligation, asking a favor, duty, betrayal, insincerity, etc. which come into play between triggering a response and making a request; the differentiation between them is, we could say, part of the difference between an animal and a human.

Ouch!" is an exclamation… an exclamation is a noun: — RussellA

It is the exclamation itself that is a noun, as an event, not as a name for (referent for) “the pain” (some object inside us). And the word is not a replacement for a “picture” (whatever we would imagine when we hear it I suppose you to mean); it is a replacement for the wordless expression, the wince, the cry, the clear attempt at repression, etc.

This way of looking at pain as word-object is created to avoid the real way pain matters between me and to you (how it works)—that it is I that is in pain (I am the one; I don’t know pain, I have it) and you either acknowledge me (say, come to my aid) or ignore me, reject me (say I’m faking). The theoretical approach to other minds (of which pain is just an example) is to attempt to get around the opacity of the other, the truth that I may not know because I cannot be certain of the other.

If someone can see me, they see a picture of me wincing. If someone cannot see me, and hear me say "ouch!", they can replace the word "ouch!" by a picture of me wincing, ie, the word "ouch!" names the picture of me wincing.

The word "ouch!" names a picture, and a picture is a noun. Therefore, in the sentence "Ouch!", the word "ouch!" is being used as a noun. — RussellA

“Ouch” is not a name, it is an expression; not like a saying, but like the opposite of being stone-faced. And so wincing is also an expression of pain (they mean the same to us, as in: they have the same implications). Not “a pain” like if you turned the hurt into an object (or a pulse of neurons). Your expression of pain is a release, like a good cry, or it is (to me) a cry for help, a claim on my compassion. These are the ordinary terms upon which we handle pain, what matters about it to us. The desire to name the pain is a desire to be certain of my humanity while avoiding me as a human. To take “what I mean” as an independent thing rather than an obligation to become intelligible to each other.

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

On what grounds would you say they do know what it means? — frank

Ask yourself: what makes it possible, what has to be the case, what would we judge as necessary or sufficient in order to claim that you know what you are saying? The answer are the criteria that matter to us (what is meaningful in this case). To say you know what is meaningful in having said something is to be aware and cognizant of, or at least experienced with, the consequences you are getting yourself into, the implications that can be drawn, what else might have been said in this situation (a threat rather than an apology), etc. Take the case where we would say “They don’t know what they are saying.” The person’s words need not be “incorrect”, nor “misused”.

So a computer or parrot always uses the word correctly without knowing what the word means. I guess that makes me wonder what the special human magic is that renders them knowing. Hmm. — frank

“Meaning” is not attached to words (other than naming, in a sense) to be used (as in operated) “correctly”. There are concepts (activities) like naming and regurgitating, synthesizing, paraphrasing, arguing, supporting, etc. And there are “uses” of those concepts: sometimes different senses, like knowing has; and sometimes just in different situations. What determines what use, is whether and how the criteria of that particular use are ordinarily met in a particular context, even something that is or can be two things at once, like a request that is also a joke. We do not make these things happen (with exceptions), we judge them to be the case.

A parrot saying “Polly wants a cracker” knows how to get a cracker, which is knowledge in the sense of (in its use as) knowing how something works, and it might even mean (as in correspond with, name) that the bird is hungry (even that it is an expression of its desire). But it is not a request; not because of the lack of something (magic, intention), but just that birds can’t meet the requirement of asking something of another (though the concept stretches when we look at some of their dances) because they cannot acknowledge (or ignore) the debt of it. And a parrot having said that also fits into the category of humor, but we wouldn’t say the bird is joking because part of humor is the self-knowledge of the implications and consequences of saying something across form or in the wrong context, which awareness and reflection etc. are only possible in humans (expected of), which is also part of how and why a request coming from a bird is funny. A person can also be unaware though, but then it is foolish, or unwitting; so nonetheless funny, only in a different sense (use).

The interesting case might be, say, ChatGPT, which apparently uses words correctly just on the basis of a large scale statistical analysis. And yes, I am incline to say that ChatGPT does not participate in the world to the degree requisite to say that it understands the words it uses. It lacks the "magic" if you like. — Banno

So if we take away the picture of words being necessarily (always) “used”, as in manipulated or ordered or operated or intended, and so also throw away the measure of “correct”, than we can judge that or whether a computer is copying, quoting, regurgitating, synthesizing, paraphrasing, arguing, supporting, failing, mistaking, etc., which is a richer tapestry and with hope of more interest than just whether a machine is “human”. That ChatGPT is not “participating in the world” is true in the sense that we do not judge it as we would judge a human (the consequences of the plagarism transfer to its user). The words cannot mean what they do to us (even if said correctly) because a computer is not (nor a parrot) responsible for what it says. If a human is unable to face the fallout of their actions, they do not “understand” what they are saying (“the words they use”) because they are ignorant (a child), naive, a buffoon, etc.

A=I think
B=I believe

In the sense of a guess or hypothesis, I think and I believe are the same. “I think it is raining.” is interchangeable with “I believe it is raining.” In either instance, we go outside and confirm if it is raining or not—they are both a claim of knowledge.

But “I think you are mistaken” is in the sense of a claim to a judgment, while “I believe in God” is an expression of faith or an attitude or a duty. In any event, there are uses in which they are not interchangeable.

[ Your assessment that apologizing is the right thing to do is false ] is an unusual phrasing, but isn't it clear enough? "That's not true" would be a happier wording. — Banno

But “phrasing” and “clarity” do not take seriously a claim about the workings of our concepts (like belief, or apologizing). The method of looking at what we say when something is the case is to make explicit the implications of our acts—that our phrases are evidence (philosophical data) of the way the world works. “That’s false” sounds forced in this case (is “unhappy”) because it is an attempt to impose the criteria for truth onto a concept that has its own rationale. True or false just do not apply in a case of right and wrong in a moral sense (or correct or felicitous); in this case, the criteria of when an apology applies or is warranted, etc. The point being that the concept of believing has different senses (uses) which employ different criteria, not all of which are truth.

I find myself here somewhat at odds with Wittgenstein, and leaning towards Davidson. — Banno

I only have a passing familiarity with Davidson, but, if my understanding is correct, the structure of a separate discussion of the workings of a concept are similar to both. Wittgenstein would call it the grammar of the criteria of a concept where Davidson’s talks of a meta-discussion of an object-language. If this is a similarity, where is the space between them?