...Witt can't get beyond his own dissolving acid. My premise is that WItt's PI has two points, one of which negates the other:

Point I: People's interpretation/understanding/sense of meaning can always be in trouble of being misinterpreted, of being in error. Of being mistaken. — schopenhauer1

Well, yes, communication can always end up frustrated. But this is not "a point" Wittgenstein is making; it's just the nature of communication, as well as a moral situation, etc. There is no fact or foundation ensuring these practices. But they go wrong in different ways. Apart from someone being "right" in a discussion, I might just give up because the other refuses to concede anything, not even acknowledge points of agreement. ;) That is to say, error is not the only measure, nor is mistake, but yes, things can go sideways, of course. I would think that the fact that things go badly is not a matter of contention.

Point II: If 1 is the case, then the best we can get is how the word is "used". — schopenhauer1

Saying the "best we can get" implies that our ordinary criteria are not sufficient, that they don't work in different but acceptable ways. The standard you are judging that we have not met ("this is as good as we can do compared to...") is a single standard (rather than varied) that Wittgenstein is pointing out is manufactured for a particular reason in the face of the fact of that our world fails, is not resolvable (as discussed above).

any... overriding theory of meaning ...is still not going to get beyond being one's mere solipsistic (private) interpretation of meaning. Use should not even have been offered as a solution. — schopenhauer1

Again, you misunderstand that "use" is not a solution to the problem of, let's call it, our human condition (its possibility of failure), it is not an answer to this truth the skeptic records (nor is it a dismissal, or a cure). It is just a term to point out that an expression can have different importance to our culture (thus different criteria) based on the situation.

1)There needs to be an internal aspect for meaning to obtain. If there is no mental aspect, meaning is not meaning. — schopenhauer1

Maybe we can see that the reason you are digging your heels in here about an "internal aspect" is to record that I have a personal relation to our shared criteria; I can defy our shared expectations, extend them into a new context, court madness, call for revolution, etc. That I matter (me personally, individually). The takeaway of the variety of our ordinary criteria, even that they have different implications (uses, versions) in different situations, is the realization that society’s shared judgments and interests (what has been meaningful in our culture, our lives) are captured and embodied in our ordinary criteria. Usually there is no reason for a conflict with ordinary criteria to come up (there is no need** for "me"), but, as one example, when communication falls apart, it turns on how much these shared criteria matter to me, whether I am willing to be responsible for them, to them--that they do or don't speak for me; whether they are meaningful to me.
**That your picture of "meaning" "needs to be" always present (even when "knee-jerk") is the interlocutor's need, their insistence, which Wittgenstein is investigating.

He basically behaved like a computer, he performed a function, he did not garner any "meaning". — schopenhauer1

The fact that I am responsible for what I say does not require that at every moment I "mean" what I do or say (or "intend" it), as if I always "cause" it, or even that there was anything about it that was personal or individual. Things usually go smoothly; most times no one has to clarify, or dispute, or ask "What?". However, when something strange happens, or we defy those expectations, then our culture’s criteria and the assumed uses of our shared activities (e.g., imploring, apologizing, threatening, etc.) are how we judge what you said, and judge you, at which point you can: clear up the "intention" (from their confused inference), or apologize, or make excuses, or clarify (from how they took it; or under which criteria it should be taken, thus how its meaningfulness should be considered, under which "use"). If we look at responsibility as the duty to respond (be judged) for what we say based on the ordinary criteria of a situation, then the event of my saying it (part of why "expression" is important) simply creates a context of public criteria and the circumstances in which clearing things up is possible (but not guaranteed, assured, certain).

There is no "public" though. There is no respite from the dissolving acid of personal meaning/perception of something." — schopenhauer1

Yes, but this is not a matter of a certain picture ("public", "private"), but of your personal responsibility to be intelligible to me, to put what you expressed within or against our culture’s ordinary criteria. The duty is not a lack of transmission of something within you, it is your responsiveness (you responding) to a confusion in a particular situation. "What did you mean?" is asked because you said something I didn't expect, which is resolved between the situational implications and expectations, not by you looking farther into yourself for a "personal meaning", but that expressions records the fact that you can defy or stretch those criteria.

...as I understand it, it was the next generation (like J.L. Austin) that really started [Ordinary Language Philosophy]. It represents a positive (systematized/construction) aspect of ordinary language. — schopenhauer1

Moore and Austin were doing their thing at roughly the same time as Wittgenstein (Moore published Defense of Common Sense in 1925; the Investigations were published in 1953; Austin published How To Do Things With Words in 1955). Austin and Wittgenstein did not know of each other's work. Wittgenstein clarified Moore's version of OLP by seeing that it is not a matter that "common sense" or the common person's understanding is a better explanation of philosophical issues. He also sees that skepticism (the temptation of it) is an ongoing part of the human condition, where Austin didn't take it seriously.

@Richard B @RussellA @Banno @Fooloso4 @Corvus @Luke

Forgot to tag you all on my Discussion of Witt’s term “Use” above, if anyone still thinks we are getting anywhere (or can).

If indeed everything is conflated to ordinary language and "Forms of Life", surely, to be a pedantic question-asker without providing any exposition would be abusive to the community of sympathetic listeners. You are always going to convince me this is the only way, and I am always going to say to you that you deem it more clever and necessary than it is. — schopenhauer1

Well I tire of your denigrating something just because you don’t understand it; frankly, it reflects more on you than Wittgenstein. Why are you here when you don’t care about it? It doesn’t seem like I can teach you anything.

How is it he is advocating for anything other than our inability to be accurate, or our ability to possibly be in error of what others are saying? It's more a "negative" (in the what is flawed) than positive (how to fix). — schopenhauer1

He calls what he is destroying a “house of cards” (#118), leaving behind what is important, which is that the ordinary criteria embodied in what we say in a situation make our language just as accurate, precise, capable of rigor, and able to communicate as “philosophy’s” abstract, universal, complete substitutions. The possibility of error does not make ordinary criteria inaccurate; our ordinary means of judgment show how errors between us can be reconciled (how to fix it). The pure logic Witt is worried about is built in an attempt to never err, to preempt misunderstanding entirely.

I've heard of Ordinary Language Philosophy, but I believe that came after... — schopenhauer1

Wittgenstein’s method is Ordinary Language Philosophy! He is looking at what we say in situations to learn what matters to us about something, as shown in the criteria we judge it by. This is his philosophical data to learn about the issues of knowledge, thinking, understanding, intention, appearance, essence, etc., and, predominantly in the PI, why we want to run away from the fact that our criteria are based on our interest in them, to an abstract, “pure” place where we are removed from the calculation of precision. If you really want to get into OLP’s method, this is the thread. Heaven help us though.

Sure, but this language game (the uses) learned from a community is not some Platonic "thing" but is rather the various instantiations of understanding in each individual (internally). ...Thus the beetle-box actually seems at odds with this, as if internal understanding doesn't count here. — schopenhauer1

I think this is a similar misunderstanding that @RussellA had (above) between "private" (as Witt uses it) and "personal". I take it you want to record the fact that it is me that is saying my take, my "understanding" (not determined, as it were, by something outside me); that I can say: "This is my understanding". But this is just one “use” of understanding.

“Use" is a made-up technical term for Wittgenstein; it is not any sense of the ordinary word. There couldn't be a more misunderstood term that Wittgenstein created than this one word (maybe “language games” or “forms of life”). This is not "use" as in: to operate, as if I "use" words; nor is it what I make come about, as if uses are up to me. Uses are an expression or activity’s "possibilities" (#90)—what it is capable of (and not). The purpose of Wittgenstein’s term “use” is not to explain anything, it is part of showing that even the same expressions and activities can have different implications, different criteria, different ways it works, which is to contrast with the skeptic’s desire to have things work one way, be judged to have met one criteria.

The use depends on the context. I can “know” New York, which is the sense (use) that I know my way about. I can “know” your phone number, the criteria for which is my getting it right. I can “know” that you are angry, which is the use that I acknowledge it, recognize and accept it, grant that it should be taken into consideration or not. These are the criteria for judging in these instances, the “uses” of knowledge—how knowledge works (not the word).

So, with “understanding” there are various senses (uses, or versions is another way to think about it), which just means there are different criteria and workings then just the sense of "my understanding"; that "understanding" stands for different aspects of our lives at times. Consider your "understanding” me. I say something (or just run you through a process), and then I ask: "Do you understand?" and you say “yes”. But here, with this use of (version of, sense of) understanding, what you say is to extrapolate the implications of what I said or just to paraphrase it back to me. Now my judgment can disagree with your extrapolation, or miss something about your paraphrase, or balk at your prejudicial characterization, etc., but then it is just a matter of my responsibility to continue to explain and yours to try again, which, as we know, can go to ___ or all come to naught. The point being that your "understanding what I have said" has different mechanics than "your understanding" (your assessment); understanding in this use is a measurement of which I am the judge.

If that notion [my understanding] itself is missing, then there is no meaning had, even though, technically "use" can be still had in terms of how the word is being thrown around in the community of language users and acted upon. — schopenhauer1

But with some uses of “understand”, there is no “my” understanding, there is no room for it. “If you leave this base you will be courtmartialed. Got it?” “I understand [Yes, Sir!]” and here the criteria (of judgment) is that there will be consequences, whether you understand or even accept them. In fact, most times, when I say something to you in a particular context, there is no question about “your understanding”. It just doesn’t come up because there is nothing to interpret (as intention only comes up when something is weird).

The past criteria of judgement upon whether a word is correctly used (even if it is the individually learned collective wisdom of a community), and the judging itself, is had within a person's internal mental space. — schopenhauer1

I would offer that “…within a person’s internal mental space” in this context, is the same as: “I judge”. Now, in what situation do I (Witt will ask: what do I say when) I judge “whether a word is used correctly”? Don’t we just say something like “I don’t think that means what you think it means.” Now, yes, I am the one that is doing the judging, sure. But the criteria, the standard used to judge (the routes along which we measure) depends not only on the word, but the situation, and thus the version (use) of that word in that situation (part of that situation may be what sentence it is in, who you say it to, etc.); the criteria may not even be correctness (e.g., appropriateness, cleverness). And yes, I apply those criteria in judging. But I can be wrong, out of line, pedantic, etc.; one implication that it is “me” judging means it reflects on me and my judgment as well as whether the expression is “correct”.

He admitted that he tried to make it a more expositional piece but failed — schopenhauer1

You are overlooking this: "After several unsuccessful attempts to weld my results together into
such a whole, I realized that I should never succeed. ...my thoughts were soon crippled if I tried to force them on in any single direction against their natural inclination.——And this was, of course, connected with the very nature of the investigation." PI, Preface (emphasis added)

It is the motivation to "force" philosophy into a "whole"; a generalized, abstract, single answer, which are the pictures that Wittgenstein is investigating, through which he realizes our fear of skepticism, the desire for a standard of perfect knowledge, which is the revelation/revolution the Investigations is trying to bring about.

...question after question after question with little to no punchline, this itself is unsympathetic to the reader, and lacks empathy. — schopenhauer1

Well I will grant you that it is frustrating, and that Wittgenstein is unsympathetic, however, just look at @RussellA's unwillingness to see any picture but the one he has that includes some fact in me that ensures that I am unique, that what I say and see is only mine. Despite considerable effort @Banno and @Luke have been unable to say anything to convince him of any other perspective. And I have been unable to convey to you the desire for a metaphysical answer to address the fear within a statement like "But surely another person can't have THIS pain!" (#253) So, yes, it is necessary. The method is hard to see, and his style requires a lot of work (for you to find for yourself an answer to his questions and cryptic statements that makes sense), but this intransigence is the problem he is addressing (along with thinking these are, or should be, easy things to see, simply explanations); you take his style as unnecessary or some weakness, but it is hard to understand because it is complicated (p. 212), and it takes the work that it does because the person for which it is written has to work through their defenses, their reluctance to change what they want, to accept that our knowledge is insufficient to live our lives. If you haven't, I would take a look at the Cavell I attached from p 56 about the necessity of Witt's style.

my point is that most philosophers never asked for certainty of things like "pain". This is a false assumption — schopenhauer1

Pain is just one example among many--as is the picture of reference, correspondence; (but they are not the only manifestation, as neither is positivism); all of Wittgenstein's discussions are examples: rule-following, the fantasy of "mental objects", the other as unknown, "seeing", "thinking", etc. Think of Descartes falling back on God as our standard of "perfection", or Plato creating the abstract universal as a measure of "knowledge", Kant's imperative, etc. This does not apply to all philosophers, nor does it preclude their contribution to philosophical issues; and Wittgenstein is not scolding them, or dismissing them, not saying they are wrong" (like he has an answer that is right, or is dismissing them). Perhaps you feel the pull of that fear and desire (of and in response to skepticism) is silly or unnecessary; or, if it is just a matter of interest, and Wittgenstein or Descartes of Hume can't help you feel that sense of being lost, then there is not any argument that will spur that curiosity, and thus be able to see the desire to alleviate it, "solve" it. (And, again, I believe you are thinking of the sense of "certainty" as confidence, or the like, and that is not what Wittgenstein is getting at when he is looking into the desire for "crystalline purity", so, again, let's let go of that.)

If someone like Hume or a Locke had a theory on sensations or whatnot, those are theories and theories are people's best attempt at answering questions, leading to perhaps more questions or useful for constructing various ideas and worldviews. More sharing of in-sights. — schopenhauer1

The thing Wittgenstein is trying to get us to realize is this need to "answer" what the skeptic records (that knowledge cannot solve everything); and to see we are making it a "question" (as if it is an intellectual problem), say, when we find out that we have been wrong when we thought we "knew" (as Descartes says in his intro, as if knowledge precludes error; thus, he (and Plato) start to panic: "What is knowledge then?"), that we sometimes do not know what we "ought" to do, how to come to an understanding, that sometimes we speak past each other. Not that these issues are not important, but that, in response, the skeptic (Witt's "philosopher") abstracts--as in: removes the issue from any context in which it arose--from our shared interests, judgments (which criteria embody), which ordinary criteria Wittgenstein is claiming are just as relevant for doing philosophy, investigating its issues.

You quoted me and then quoted Cavell. You are going to have to explain the connection (or disconnection) if you want me to understand.

@RussellA @Banno @Luke

[RussellA] poses a problem for "use" if it is just "use" without any internal mental states accompanying it. Hence I mentioned zombies and those who really don't understand internally a meaning, yet still "use" the word correctly (aping as Witt might say). I don't see "meaning" and "use" tied exclusively. It has to be use, but intersubjectively understood use. And the intersubjectivity part, requires the mental aspect, exactly which supposedly doesn't matter in the beetle-box. But it does, sir. — schopenhauer1

I’ve addressed this confusion over “use” here when I focused on the sense (another word Wittgenstein swaps for “use”) in showing how the Lion Quote p. 225, in the context, has the use as a fact and not an empirical statement or otherwise to make a point about a picture of language. From that discussion:

“Witt's focus on "use" has been a stumbling block in the responses, so I wanted to point out that it is not the idea that use (some internal force/decision) determines or is the basis for "meaning". There are multiple versions ("senses") of a concept; one determines the use from the context (afterwards). "Every word has a different character in a different context." PI, p. 181. Not to say we do not sometimes chose what we say, but senses (uses) exist outside and prior to us; the same confusion is that every word/action is 'intended' - caused by something internal. The idea of a sentence or a word in isolation is only a thing in some philosophy--stemming from the desire to tether it to something determinate, certain, universal."

I point this out only as you all are imagining "use" as if language were under my control (not what I say, but what it "means"), or that the "meaning" is "caused" by my "intention"--that "use" is in the sense that I operate language or that, every time (or generally), there is some "agreement" or decision (inter-subjective or not) about what the words "mean" (rather than just an ongoing process of clarification after an expression if there is something odd, unexpected "Did you intend to offend her?". Life is meaningful in certain ways, as evidenced by the ordinary criteria that are evidence about what matters to us, what counts as what. That this breaks down at times makes the skeptic feel we need to have some connection between something internal (my intention, meaning) and something external.

Davidson address this again in A nice derangement of epitaphs; our jokes undermine the idea of language as following rules. — Banno

I read some Davidson in school; I’ll have to check it out. And I also enjoyed J.L. Austin’s humor, though it was a little cruel, a little, how would we say… Banno-ish? Sorry, I meant, British.

Who said they are looking for exact certainty of someone’s pain? — schopenhauer1

Pain is used by philosophy as the “best case” of our knowledge of the other (because it’s hard for me to ignore, it’s constant, etc.). By “knowledge” here we are talking about a certain kind of “philosophical” knowledge, like an equating. Now, because there is error in the world, some philosophy (Hume for example) creates a thing between us and the world (appearances, your experience, your impressions, your sensations, etc.) which the philosopher then requires to have matched up exactly with the world, or for you and I to have an identical one or I can’t be said to “know” you (You might be an automaton! Or a zombie—which I also discussed with @RussellA here).

It’s an assumption we are not zombies and that pain is roughly negative in similar ways. — schopenhauer1

When has philosophy ever relied on common sense?—“assumed” anything? Plus, if we don’t investigate “knowledge” or “justice”, etc. we would never uncover all the things we have learned about the world (the assumptions, implications, criteria for judgment) but never drew out of ourselves (Wittgenstein and Socrates both say we all hold the knowledge of how our everyday world works in each one of us—Wittgenstein, because of our growing up together, by osmosis into our unconscious as it were. Hey, it’s a better metaphor than Socrates’.)

Schop's books are all about understanding the "inner" part of existence… — schopenhauer1

Well I should read some Schopenhauer then as I’m getting the feeling that I’d agree with his sensibility. I enjoy others who focus on our inner lives. Emerson looks at our relationship to “community” (@RussellA) in Self-Reliance and the later Heidegger considers how to think ethically in What is called thinking? But which book? Any toe-dip essays?

One can describe abstract ideas and felt sensations, intelligibly. …I don't think that [the possibility of error] disproves that communication about abstract ideas (non observational), are thus irretrievably hopeless — schopenhauer1

This is Wittgenstein’s starting point of the PI (he realizes from the beginning that we can discuss everything that was excluded in the Tractatus). His whole investigation is into why we thought we couldn’t (didn’t want to accept that we can) in the first place.

You (Witt perhaps) seems to be fitting all philosophers in this idea of trying to find a single standard, which creates a strawman that the Great Wittgenstein can then "show" is in error. — schopenhauer1

Not all philosophers attempt to solve (or accept or ignore) skepticism. There are ideas that are abstract, like justice (as I believe you mean by “non-observational”) and then there’s the desire to remove those ideas (abstract them) from the regular contexts in which they live, as some philosophy seems as if it were done in space, without history or a world around it at all.

So what Wittgenstein uncovers is not an “error” (and he is showing us what he claims is evidence, not conclusions). His insight is that the fear of the uncertainty of being wrong, being immoral (“evil” Nietszche calls it), of the future, of others, is actually a primal fear created by the human condition of our separation (thus our basic responsibility to bridge it), and that the desire to overcome that fear (and attempt to remove our responsibility) is the motivation for intellectualizing our situation as a “problem” that can be “solved”.

[The possibility of error] doesn't mean that we turn off our ability to think about the bigger questions of life. — schopenhauer1

I agree and I applaud the effort (and I don’t think Wittgenstein would object, other than thinking that effort is a straight highway” #426). Emerson says, “We live amid surfaces [the fear that the world is “appearance”, “impressions”], and the true art of life is to skate them well.” I don’t see this as foolish, nor that Wittgenstein is avoiding big picture stuff either (morality, the creation of the self, ethics, epistemology, etc.).

…we don’t: “know” their pain, we react to it, to the person; their pain is a plea, a claim on us—we help them (or not); that’s how pain works. P. 225.
— Antony Nickles
— schopenhauer1

That is just describing forms of empathy… — schopenhauer1

No, it’s describing how pain is handled by us (or ignored), it is setting out our ordinary criteria for judgments regarding it, compared to treating it as an object of knowledge (wanting to skip over (through) the person who has it). Empathy is just part of what pain involves (even with the absence of empathy). (Also it might help to see that I had to clarify my “don’t: ‘know’ their pain” comment to @Luke above.)

The experience within my mind caused by a wavelength in the world of 700nm is a private experience, inexpressible to others, in the same sense as Wittgenstein's use of the word. — RussellA

Well, take out “experience” (its just what you see, as in, are focusing your sight and attention on) and “within my mind” (this is the picture you’re tripping over compared to something “personal”) and “caused” (this makes it sound like the medical process of vision creates something other than just: red, like, in addition to it). You just see red.

So, try and say something (ordinary) about red in a context (situation without someone) where it would be important to point out the color. And then you have expressed something about the color; identification, differentiation, etc. along the lines of what we do with color (how it works). Your contextless abstract picture is getting you confused.

And the use of “private” is not Wittgenstein’s; it’s the skeptic’s, the interlocutor’s; it’s the “metaphysical use”; Wittgenstein contrasts that with its “ordinary use”, which has particular criteria and contexts in which it is used, which is, as I said, similar to personal, secret.

Within the communal language game we can talk about the colour red. — RussellA

We talk about color in particular ways; but our “talk” is not separate from something else (say, the world). Outside of the ways we talk about color is not “your” color, it’s just jibberish, madness. “That’s my color!” can only be met with “You mixed it? You have a copyright?”

To express what you see, you could paint a painting, take a picture, or have another there when you see the red sunset, and in that way, point out the amazing red you are focusing your attention on. Or you can keep it all to yourself, and then it is yours, but that is something personal; or secret, as in: you didn’t tell the cops it was a red car.

There is not some “color” in you that someone else cannot see. You’re not an alien, or a lion, you are a human being, just like me. You (and the skeptic) want to be different so that you can be singular, have something unique (but it may be the case that you are not, as I said). But the definition of a self does not work the way you picture it. We all know you: you are stubborn as hell, a creative thinker (to the point of slippery), etc.

It might help to look at my original post again after reading this; with fresh eyes, attempting to see it from a different angle. Everything you want from your position is still here.

I would think you'd say what you think I mean (paraphrase) and then ask questions about specific parts where it gets confusing, no?

@Banno @schopenhauer1 @RussellA

For example, we don’t know someone is in pain, not because it is “unknowable”, but because when someone seems to be in pain, we don’t: “know” their pain, we react to it, to the person; their pain is a plea, a claim on us—we help them (or not); that’s how pain works.
— Antony Nickles

I have to disagree with you here. At PI 246, Wittgenstein says:

If we are using the word “know” as it is normally used (and how else are we to use it?), then other people very often know if I’m in pain.
— PI 246 — Luke

We actually agree here; it’s just I didn't make it clear between the senses of “know”. Of course I can “know” you are in pain, but this sense is, as Witt says, "as it is normally used" (emphasis added)(there are actually a few ordinary senses of "know"); what you point out (and is Witt's sense of its use in this passage) is in its sense that: I recognize pain, become aware of it; see the signs, even if it is from repression, even from contextual information (not just "your behavior") say, that the mother that you loved died recently, even though you are exhibiting no signs of pain or are forcing yourself to appear happy.

Above, I meant "do not" as in: that is not how pain works (Witt will say "Grammatically), not that we cannot know. This sense of "know" is the version of "knowledge" that the skeptic would like to have (the interlocutor): knowledge of some inner process (intention, my meaning) or thing (impression, experience) that would ensure I am not wrong about you being in pain, which starts not just because we can be wrong about it (fooled, judge incorrectly), but, also, that we at times want (Cavell says, desire) there to be a space between their pain and our normal awareness of it--that we want to be buffered from their pain, from their being in pain (see below).

And this gets at the sense of ordinary "knowing" (in addition to awareness) that I am contrasting to the skeptic's use I just described (the "metaphysical use" as Witt says). This is the normal sense that I "acknowledge" pain--that the way it works** (its grammar) is that I accept or reject you because the pain is "yours" (in your body, owned by you). We also have this relation to our own pain, that we accept or deny it (suppress it; not that it is unique, un"knowable", only theirs). This is why the skeptic does not make sense (is abstracting from the grammar, and ordinary criteria and context) in saying "I know I'm in pain" (other than the normal use when we say that: as an acknowledgment to others; possibly to an accusation that I am suppressing a pain I should be "facing"--like, "yeah yeah, I know!").

And so within the desire (the prerequisite, the necessity) to have perfect (metaphysical, certain) knowledge (that your pain correspond exactly with mine or it is not valid), hides the wish (the decision, the "conviction" Witt says p. 225) to deny the other, to not be responsible for them. The way pain "works"** is that their pain is a moral claim on me to which my response reflects on my character.

(**"works" as to say: the workings of the grammar, which are the implications of (our interests in) the expression of their pain (or their words... ); not how the "language" of pain "works" in some theory of meaning, or, say, how the process of pain "works" in the body; thus why science can't do the job of philosophy (what it shows ourselves).

Thanks for catching that. It’s #308. “How does the philosophical problem about mental processes and states and about behaviourism arise?——The first step is the one that altogether escapes notice.”

…the value of philosophy is an insight beyond what can be told. - Antony Nickles

Indeed and this goes right to the heart of what I am trying to convey about why philosophies like Schop's allude the criticism of "certainty". That is because the very essence of his philosophy was about an intangible unknowable(s). — schopenhauer1

To say something is “unknowable” (that I am, or aesthetics are) is not to elude our desire for purity, it is to judge in contrast to it; to find an “answer” despite conceding that standard can’t be reached; to live, but only cynically, in the shadow of skepticism. Now of course I don’t know Schopenhauer is doing this because I have not read him, but Wittgenstein concluded in the Tractatus that parts of our world were unknowable. In the PI he finds that there is rationality despite not being purely logical; he finds our ordinary criteria which embody our interests in the different kinds of things we do, in different situations, filling in the areas set aside by him (and by Kant), and learning why we are compelled to see the world as either pure or unknowable.

…philosophy is about one's (hopefully well-thought out) way of conveying one's insights…. Wittgenstein himself was sharing his insights. — schopenhauer1

Now some take it that when Witt says: some things can’t be told, but only shown, that this is just a different way of conveying knowledge (he’s just being cagey). But Witt’s method is not to impart knowledge; it’s to get you to see the world (yourself) differently. So he’s not telling you “his insights”; he’s “showing you” examples of what we say (in a context), in a sense to ask: “can you see this for yourself?” in order to grasp why we desire a single standard (or give up); so you must change yourself, your “need” (#108), not what you think. He shares his style of autobiographical confessions with Montaigne, and I thought perhaps Schopenhauer, though maybe not.

So when I say there is more to our relation to the world than knowing it, I am not saying it is unknowable. For example, we don’t know someone is in pain, not because it is “unknowable”, but because when someone seems to be in pain, we don’t: “know” their pain, we react to it, to the person; their pain is a plea, a claim on us—we help them (or not); that’s how pain works. P. 225. This insight is a shift in our attitude (as a position in relation to others), a realization of our responsibilities.

I wondered why Wittgenstein admired him, if somewhat begrudgingly. — Banno

I saw a similar start of an approach in the quotes @schopenhauer1 posted, which I began to flesh out here.

My guess is that Schopenhauer gets mixed up somewhere along the way, as others do (Plato, Kant, Descartes, Hume, etc), not because their inquiry is totally misguided, or otherwise useless, but because of the prerequisite they have for an answer (before the “first step” that “escapes notice” Witt says #305]. This might strike Witt as an inability to notice subtlety (only focused on purity), and thus the critique: “crude”.

As Antony Nickles mentioned recently, what Wittgenstein means by "private" in relation to a private language is that the words of this language can, in principle, be understood by one person only and that nobody else can understand the language. — Luke

Just to clarify for @RussellA, my understanding of that section of the PI is an exploration of philosophy's fantasy that there is some fact about me, some thing about me, that I put into language (or try to), and the fact that it sometimes fails would only be that I didn't correctly or adequately paint the picture of my "meaning" or "intention" or "private" experience, and not that communication and understanding involves (at times, say, because of something unexpected in a situation) a continuing process of distinguishing, clarifying, expounding, etc. And the point is not about language, but to find out why we are compelled to (want to) look at ourselves this way.

@Banno @schopenhauer1 @Corvus

The word "private" has many uses, as shown in the Merriam Webster Dictionary. — RussellA

I'm not sure what you are getting at here, but, just because a word has many different definitions does not make it impossible for it to be one of its specific senses when said at a particular time within a particular context--just because there are many uses (amongst all its ordinary possibilities) does not allow that it can mean any of them all the time. What I meant to clarify was that there is Wittgenstein's basically technical sense of "private" and then there is the ordinary sense of private as in personal, secret (among all the other senses it can have), most closely definition 3b: "preferring to keep personal affairs to oneself" though a definition does not draw out the workings of a use (sense). So personal and private (as Wittgenstein terms it) are two different things, and you are using the word "private" in the place of both, which is confusing others (particularly @Luke), and I think getting in the way of your understanding Wittgenstein.

If it is the case that neither of us can describe in words our personal experience of the colour violet, then how do we know that my personal experience is just like your personal experience? — RussellA

But "your personal experience of colour" is not the way identifying color works, by which I mean the criteria we use to judge the identity of colors. I would review his discussion of color starting at #275: "...without philosophical intentions—the idea never crosses your mind that this impression of colour belongs only to you." As with pain (#253), we don't get into distinctions of "my" impression of color unless we are taking into account other interests than its identity (discussed below)--we have concrete ways of identifying color. For example: "Grab the purple ball" (from a ball pit with many other colors). If there is no other purple-ish ball, we do not continue to distinguish that it is actually violet (if you said, "you mean the violet one" we would say your are being obtuse, or a know-it-all). But if we are examining someone's house in order to replicate its color, and I say "that's a nice purple" it might be important for you to point out that it is actually violet, say, given that we need to be able to tell the paint shop. And here (in this case, instance) we can make distinctions even without our input, regardless of our judgment at all, as the creation of color can be broken down empirically, e.g., taking a sample and having it matched. The point being, if two objects are "red" (based on the context), the color is the same, and not because our personal experiences match up (or that we "agree").

It is this context of the importance of (our interest in) distinguishing and the necessity based on the situation that drives the identification of color, not my "personal experience", however, that is not to say that we do not have personal experiences with color. Green can remind me of my childhood home. A Rothko painting is meant to be evocative in many ways. Also, there are rational ways to discuss the use of color for effect, the aesthetics of it. (I'm sure there are other cases where our experience with color matters, but they escape me. Thus the admonition to read Witt's discussion.) Even here, where my personal reaction matters, it is not to say we can't talk about it; that we can't share that experience, though, as I said, this does not preclude the instance of the ineffability to express (even metaphorically, poetically, etc) my experience of, say, a magnificent sunset--but this is the exception, not always the case. This is a step above, but the desire for there to always be something of mine is the desire to hold onto a fact of myself, something ever-present, unique, "individuating" as @schopenhauer1 put it.

I have a friend who is colour blind. How would you describe to them in words your personal experience of the colour violet? — RussellA

"Color blind" as used in philosophy is a hypothetical case based on the same picture that in every case each one of us always has a unique experience of color (it is usually called an "impression" of color). The philosophical imagined case is that when I see red, you see blue. However, imagine the ordinary case that I am no good at color, and my wife says I'm "color blind". That is just because I call blue, green (what she "calls" green--but I've learned she's... right (that was hard to say). That is because she has authority (as color matching could be), so this is just a matter of labels, names. Even in the philosophical fantasy, the color-blind person still knows what color is, how it works. If you say it is red, and I say it is blue, you defer to me about the label because I am not color blind. The point being that identifying color still works the same way as the cases above (what matters about having the "same" color in a specific case). This is totally separate from the science of color, and actual color-blindness, which does not resolve the skeptic's picture of color, which is to actually record that we can refuse the other person, be blind to them, their experience: as in their input, authority, importance.

If we take the case of someone actually being blind, philosophy would say they have never "experienced" color. But we can still explain the experience of color. We would just describe what matters about (our interests in) the experience of seeing color, what color does for us, as humans. It would be things like: color makes us feel alive, it allows us to organize things, it's a means of personal expression, etc.

yes, we might be a “zombie”, a puppet, speaking only others opinions, etc.
— Antony Nickles

From Wikipedia Philosophical Zombie: "A philosophical zombie is a being in a thought experiment in philosophy of mind that is physically identical to a normal person but does not have conscious experience." A philosophical zombie is not someone who doesn't have their own opinions. — RussellA

Again, just because there are alternative uses of "zombie" does not mean I was not being clear about something specific, and that you can take it anyway you want, or point out its multiplicity as some sort of critique of my point. I was obviously not using it "philosophically", and not in its sense as a fantasy of their actual existence, but in its metaphorical sense: that we can be mindless, unthinking, compelled by a force that is not our own, dead inside (as we can be a "ghost" of ourselves); as you even said, a "community of zombies" which is to say, conformists without individuality. This is how "Dawn of the Dead" can be seen as a social commentary.

“Students and scholars of all kinds and of every age aim, as a rule, only at information, not insight. They make it a point of honour to have information about everything, every stone, plant, battle, or experiment and about all books, collectively and individually. It never occurs to them that information is merely a means to insight, but in itself is of little or no value.” - Schopenhauer — schopenhauer1

This mirrors Wittgenstein’s insights about the limits of knowledge, and our desire to have knowledge be everything, that knowledge might equal virtue, will be an answer in place of us, of our responsibility to see for ourselves, to expand our vision; that the value of philosophy is an insight beyond what can be told. This is why I’ve been saying we have a desire to have knowledge (purity) replace our other relations to the world (and others) beyond it, apart from it.

Every man takes the limits of his own field of vision for the limits of the world.” - Schopenhauer — schopenhauer1

I can see this as an analytic statement; perhaps as an insight into our misplaced myopathy out of fear of our lack of control of the world. Even if I haven’t read this right just yet, I still think he is trying to get at the reasons and desires we have that hold us back, just as Wittgenstein is with the interlocutor (that Schopenhauer’s “students” and “every man” share the same fear of skepticism). So I would say they have a similar interest, project. That Wittgenstein uses a different method I would say is because of the specific and entrenched tick he has to dig deep to—that because of his path he is closer to it, has to walk us through it as he undergoes his own insight; though now I think I better understand your preference for Schopenhauer’s style.

I’ll admit I have not read Schopenhauer (which is long overdue given my interest in both Witt and Nietzsche), but I am claiming that the Investigations is specifically about our “human condition” (in relation to knowledge) and “one’s own individuation” (thus the importance of how a certain picture obscures how individuation actually works—see my response to RussellA just above.) I am not trying to dismiss anything; I am just trying to show how strong the fear of it is, thus how pervasive the issue, and how multi-faceted the responses are. I am not trying to say this is the only issue in all of philosophy of course. Just that people don’t usually realize that what they are theorizing about and for, falls under this banner, and thus is based on the same fears and desires that Wittgenstein uncovers, along with the attempt to have knowledge or intellectualization solve our separation, ignore the limitations of knowledge.

But do all "philosophies" really do this, or just some? — schopenhauer1

What Wittgenstein is looking at is one of classical philosophy’s responses to skepticism: trying to solve skepticism (deny the fact that Wittgenstein’s investigation finds about our human condition; the truth it records Cavell will say); some also try to accept its conclusion but work around it (most of modern philosophy); or give up and abandon philosophy (which some people say Wittgenstein is doing). I would say the battle with skepticism, “moral relativism”, etc., has been the crux of “analytical” philosophy. I can’t think of examples that don’t other than what people call “continental” philosophy, which I would categorize as: accepting the world and just investigating how it is (Foucault, Arendt, Rousseau, Machiavelli, Confucius, etc.)—more of just a social commentary.

@Bano @Sam26

You are talking about us each having our own private language. Wittgenstein took issue with that idea. - @Luke

RussellA: Cavell in The Later Wittgenstein makes the point that Wittgenstein never denied that we have private thoughts and feelings… Having private thoughts and feelings is not the same as having what is called "a private language".

As the analogy of the beetle in PI 293 illustrates, private sensations do drop out of consideration within the language game, not that private sensations drop out of consideration. — RussellA

This makes me understand a lot of what you have been saying. You may have been butting heads with people (and with understanding the Investigations) because you are saying the word “private” for two things. One is Wittgenstein’s specific philosophical sense of “private” as having some “thing” in your mind for all of language, every “thing” you say. What is important for you, I think, is better expressed as something personal (which is not all the time either, as I will discuss below). So your ownership of your inner life is: a secret; not that there is some thing always there that is unknown to others, “unknowable”, which is what Wittgenstein means by “private”). So a “secret” is just kept from others, because it is unexpressed, you have to let it out, it is hidden (not “private” in Witt’s sense)—this is the way our inner life works, in the sense of: is judged as meaningful (not, as it is misunderstood, knowing the science of our brain), what matters to us about being a self. If you look at the Index of the PI under expression it is a core idea to understand in this context.

So you have been correct to insist that we do have individual feelings, and even experiences that are inexpressible to others entirely (the awe of a sunset)—though ordinary language is perfectly capable of making us intelligible (for us to agree we are like others), and so it is our choice not to, and so ethically our duty or responsibility to be understood (not start as different, individual). The fact of our inner life is what Wittgenstein means when he asks us to look at why we think he wants to deny that (#308) (in his investigating and deconstructing why we want something pure, certain in us, continual, always known).

If concepts didn't exist in the mind, but only in a community, such a community would be a community of zombies, none having a private concept or private sensation. — RussellA

So if we reframe not having a “private language” (not having a thing inside us, like a “concept” in our “mind”) and look at it as the fear of not having an inner life, then: yes, we might be a “zombie”, a puppet, speaking only others opinions, etc. Emerson will call this “conformity”. Wittgenstein speaks of us as being blind (to others, but also ourselves). The article I offered points out well that philosophy in this sense measures not what we ought to do, but how much we find, know, and are ourselves in contrast to “community”.

However, community does allow the easy ordinary flow of our lives together; most of the time your “experience” is just like mine (#253); we both just “went shopping” or “have a headache”—to preserve our individuality is a different thing than saying my feelings, experience, “consciousness” are always different than yours. But sometimes we need to take a stand, differentiate our experience (our lives). But this is the exception. Only sometimes, Wittgenstein says, we are lost, do not know how to continue, say, a concept into a new context, or from the failure or disappointment with our ordinary criteria (what matters to us, how things usually go). This is when he is saying classical philosophy abandons our responsibility to ourselves by abstracting to ensure myself, my relation to the world, to others.

I think and have hope this will allow you to make great strides in being able to talk about what concerns you here while understanding what Wittgenstein is getting at.

Ironically, you are trying to convey some sort of "certainty" about WIttgenstein's philosophy to me :snicker: — schopenhauer1

That is not irony, it’s obtuseness. What you are haphazardly referring to is certainty in its sense as particularity, and, despite your condescension, I am, of course, arguing that Wittgenstein is being rigorous and specific. Also, generalizing my response in with others is starting to be more just rude than simply unfair and intellectually lazy.

I just don't agree with the premise that philosophers are working to solve skepticism necessarily. — schopenhauer1

You mean the analytical tradition’s disappointment with knowledge and its attempts to resolve that? You’d need to answer for a lot of evidence.

I don't think Will will help me understand how a toilet works, or how it is that humans evolved brains that have the ability for language, for example. — schopenhauer1

But is that philosophy? …isn’t that science? and… plumbing?

the search for Truth itself is something that seems motivating in some way. A search for answers to abstract questions… that accord with what makes sense. — schopenhauer1

“Accord with what makes sense”? Is that rationality? So the uncertainty of another person has a rational answer? If we have a moral disagreement we just agree (or judge?) what or who makes the most sense?

none of this really strikes some sort of profound truth to a personality that never had the demand for certainty in the first place. — schopenhauer1

Feeling the grip of skepticism is not an easy experience to engender either. But you just make up what you think is right about philosophy and I’ll do the same and we’ll just hope we agree.

True, whether I agree or not with the PI is in a sense secondary, as I am using it to help me develop my own understanding of the relationship between the mind and the world using language. — RussellA

This explains a lot.

The two major topics in the PI, self-knowledge and ordinary language, appear to lead into two different directions. Self-knowledge leads into scepticism and Indirect Realism, in that I see a red postbox but this only exists as a representation in my mind, and ordinary language leads into the absence of rationalism and Direct Realism, in that as I see a red postbox there must be a red postbox in the world. — RussellA

Skepticism is the fear that there is an ever-present breakdown in activities such as just: seeing a mailbox, which leads to the fantasy of an essence or “real” mailbox, and thus the creation of the“representation” or something else that is “mine”, to explain our inability to deal with differences and exceptions, etc. of “a mailbox”. In other words, your “own understanding” is philosophy’s classic freakout to uncertainty and doubt.

Self-knowledge comes from self-reflection, from which sceptical doubt arises naturally about the beliefs inherent within ordinary language — RussellA

Skepticism doesn’t come up because of something wrong with ordinary language (and we don’t “believe” in it, or have certain “beliefs” because of it). Our uncertainty just comes up when things just naturally fail, or turn out not as we expected, as, from the first part of the meditations:

SEVERAL years have now elapsed since I first became aware that I had accepted, even from my youth, many false opinions for true, and that consequently what I afterward based on such principles was highly doubtful; and from that time I was convinced of the necessity of undertaking once in my life to rid myself of all the opinions I had adopted, and of commencing anew the work of building from the foundation — Descartes 1sr Meditation

(My emphasis)

Descartes was wrong a couple times and now he is compelled to “build” something certain, “foundational” so he doesn’t have to worry about being wrong.

Ordinary language is criticised as lacking rational justification and is founded on what the observer believes to be obvious. — RussellA

The condemnation of our ordinary criteria is the skeptic’s reaction to their doubt; they fly away from our everyday means of judgment. And Wittgenstein’s claims are not obvious, they are uncontroversial (not as "common sense" but that which we can acknowledge or find out by ourselves).

From my reading of Cavell, there appears to be a fundamental ambiguity in the PI. On the one hand the lack of rationalism in ordinary language, yet on the other hand a desire for self-knowledge which inevitably leads to scepticism about things such as ordinary language. — RussellA

Wittgenstein is using a method other than what we would "usually call reasoning"; that does not mean it "lacks rationality"; plus that is not a characterization of "ordinary language", so not ambiguous or conflicting with skepticism of our ordinary criteria (not language), which does not come from the desire for self-knowledge, but, if examined, leads to self-knowledge.

Maybe one more time through that article.

@RussellA @Banno @Sam26

I came across this (attached) very short 13-paragraph synopsis of the ethical import of the Investigations. It includes a discussion of the actual importance of “forms of life”, as expressions of our interests, and even touches on why he is not abandoning philosophy or its issues @schopenhauer1 I’m not sure I would agree with everything, but perhaps these points are expressed better here than by me.

Well I wouldn’t take what I pointed out before as of little significance; it is the conclusion on Descartes’ Meditations. But of what I have seen of his opinions about religion (which is very little), they seem personal. I am not without interest, just not familiar with those, so to what extent that informed or shaped his insights I can’t say.

He does, of course, say things in the ballpark, for example: about another’s soul.

My attitude towards him is an attitude towards a soul. I am not of the opinion that he has a soul — Wittgenstein, Investigations 3rd p. 178

That is to say our posture to someone else is not a matter of knowledge, knowing something (or something lesser, like my opinion), it is a matter of, say, treating them as if they have a soul.

As to theorizing, I take his main point to be that our theories can stand in the way of seeing.

When he says at PI 66:

... don’t think, but look!

He is not telling us not to think, but rather, in this case, if we think that all games must have something in common we will fail to see that they do not. — Fooloso4

@schopenhauer1

I am merely putting this same observation in a way that goes further to incorporate the larger issue of the fear of skepticism. That it is our desire for purity ("something in common") that blinds us to our ordinary criteria because we will not accept the human condition that we must stand in the place of the limitations of knowledge (it's not just: look! but see why you want an intellectual solution to take your place of being responsible for our interest in our ordinary criteria, or our desire to flee that position).

I think you believe Wittgenstein is throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Kant took away our possibility of knowing the "thing-in-itself" (what Wittgenstein will say is essential about something) because of his requirement for what it would mean to "know". He then replaces it with something that would meet the same standard, the "imperative". But that is not to say that everything Kant says is useless; Wittgenstein's examination of Grammar is based on Kant's Conditions (#90), and his method is contingent on Kant's seeing the possibility of a universal voice in his Critique of Judgment.

concepts that are not tied to a correspondence theory of words to metaphysics, are simply describing their theory. And it is implicit in their descriptions of reality that they are mere descriptions- a way of relating their ideas about reality. — schopenhauer1

But this is creating a vision of "reality" because it is required ahead of time to meet a certain requirement, which I am going to stop calling "certainty" because you are conflating it with the sense of being confident, or something like that.

They are using "forms of life" if you will, to convey their message, and there is no error had with any above and beyond demand for "certainty". — schopenhauer1

Forms of life is not how, say, my ideas are conveyed, as some kind of way of talking for a certain thing, that we might, then, create or abstract. It is just all the stuff we share in common that is necessary to even have language (but not how it is conducted or ensured).

Stanley Cavell will put it like this:

[Being able to, for example, project words into new contexts] is a matter of our sharing routes of interest and feeling, senses of humour and of significance and of fulfilment, of what is outrageous, of what is similar to what else, what a rebuke, what forgiveness, of when an utterance is an assertion, when an appeal, when an explanation – all the whirl of organism Wittgenstein calls “forms of life”.

@Banno has a good Austin quote that amounts to the same but I can’t remember where that is.

In terms of what a “language game” is, look at the examples of "concepts" that Wittgenstein investigates, the list of which is above in a response to RussellA--these are just things we do that he uses as test cases. He will of course invent contexts and imagine worlds in which what the philosopher says might fit.

What I mean by Certainty (what Wittgenstein is getting at in saying "purity") cascades from an occurrence of things not working out; creating doubt in morality, others, and even physical objects; taking that as a rift (between words and meaning, words and the world, appearances and essences, logic and emotion, etc.); wanting to never have that happen again; requiring there be a way to solve (intellectually) ahead of time what is seen as this "problem"; which creates a prerequisite of a single standard which necessitates a generalized application (universalized, known, predetermined, dependable, etc.). It is basically the age-old problem of skepticism and responses to it, based on knowledge. Schopenhauer, Hume, Kant, Plato, Descartes, on and on, are wrestling with skepticism. Positivism, Moore, Russell, and Frege are just one instance of a response; another is the belief that neuroscience will resolve the "problem".[/quote]

@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.