My own thinking on the topic owes much to the Direction of Fit stuff from Anscombe, which I am finding quite useful. Moral claims differ from, say, physicist's claims in that the physicist seeks to match their words to the world, while the moralist seeks to match the world to their words. — Banno

I believe this was discussed at the meeting. Diamond's addition to this was I believe that this was not like an empirical assessment, nor that any disparity from what is the case detracts from the truth of a moral claim. This diverges from Anscombe I'm sure but I wouldn't know how.

I wonder if something like "Slavery is unjust" is a moral statement. After all, that slavey is unjust simply follows from what slavery is, in conjunction with what justice is. — Banno

I agree that we could say that here we are simply stating something about slavery, or even, grammatically (categorically), that part of justice is freedom. But those are not to claim this as a truth in instant sense, simply that these statement are true (or claimed to be). All people are created equal is a type of claim that is not in the same category (it has a different grammar), and there is more to it than what simply follows from it as a statement.

Further, moral statements imply an action. "Slavery is unjust" does not of itself imply an action. To get there we need another rule, something like, "reject injustice!" - and that is where morality enters the discussion. — Banno

I understand where you're coming from; standard moral issues amount to, what should we do? (particularly when we are in a new context or our criteria/justifications run out). I would differentiate these kind of claims because there we are discussing or judging the matter beforehand as to what is best or right (or good, at times).

[we should rid ourselves] of "truth" meaning anything substantive. If you think it does, please state that substantive meaning. — tim wood

The substance of a moral truth I do not believe will assuage the desire for a kind that fits the picture for
the criteria we wish to impose. Here, though, I think the best analogy is Wittgenstein's discussion of blurry concepts, vagary, generality, etc.--the insight that a general claim can be more meaningful than a specific one, more appropriate than limiting its senses (and here "sense" is meant in the way Wittgenstein sees that an expression, like "I know" has different options/opportunities (senses) to be meaningful--even that we might not realize until the expression, at a time and place in a context).

And so our example, that everyone is created equal, has multiple possibilities which need not be reconciled together for the claim to be meaningful (yet not whatever you'd like); in fact, it is more important to us because it, as I said, is a summary of all the depth of truth which it contains: that we are the same more than we are different; that despite our divergent paths, we started in the same place and so our differences are situational; that equality is inherent, essential to everyone, as if we were born with it in us; that everyone should be treated with equal dignity, etc. The depth and breadth here is not limited by the desire for certainty that creates the picture of the singularity of "meaning".

By what standards does the OP judge the truth of his pronouncements and why do they not apply to ethics? — TheMadFool

A moral claim is not gauged by generalized criteria. Our lives have specific histories of judgments and interests and what matters, but the difference in this question is not a matter of judging its adequacy, but accepting its implications for you, for the other.

I take dialectic to be a process of arriving at a sense of truth by logical argument.
— Antony Nickles

No, not a sense of, but a true conclusion from valid argument — tim wood

A conclusion from an argument deemed to be valid is one sense of truth, as a statement that is judgeed to be true or false. Some truth is not at the end of reasoning with a criteria imposed to ensure an outcome, mostly certainty, universality, determined application, etc. The dichotomy that anything else is rhetoric is forced by the abstraction from ordinary means of assessing value, determining identity, acting appropriately, etc., which criteria comes from the thing itself; here, the form of a moral claim, which I am saying is categorical.

The possibilities of a moral claim are only contingent on us, our willingness to stand for what is meaningful in it. But the history and criteria of the truth that all people are created equally are not irrational, various, insubstantial. But it is powerless as an argument to independently explain or logically force you, as if it were proposed to you as a hypothesis. It is not a proof of what was or is, to be solved; it is a demand, an insistence, brought alive, to be witnessed, accepted.

This is not to ask a small concession in the face of science or logic. As I said, this is a claim made on everyone. What is it, or why is it, that we cannot, or will not, accept that everyone is created equal? Maybe there is an example I could show you, an implication that needs description, the picture of an alternative drawn, etc., but anything would be something you could see for yourself (is self-evident, as it were). A moral claim is categorical because it, say another's equality, is a claim on you, and thus your rejection defines you; who you are/will be is contingent upon it.

And so a moral truth is not a noun or a thing--the opposite of it is not a falsity or a lie. The state of its being true is held by us. Its substance is what is meaningful to us, what expresses our interests, our judgments, our possibilities.

Rhetoric v. dialectic. — tim wood

I take dialectic to be a process of arriving at a sense of truth by logical argument. It implies that we have come to a conclusion that all people are created equal, rather than it being something I (we) declare as true, and then answer for that stance. The way this works is that one takes it as their own conviction, but that does not mean that you were persuaded to my statement nor to something that is just variable or temporary, etc. There are ordinary criteria, history, context, etc., that exist already, and thus there is a structure that allows for rationale, the individual logic of such a thing, precision, specificity, etc. What makes the sense of "Truth" as certainty is the imposition of our measure of a true statement (thanks Plato). The reason why the moral realm is subject to the charge of being merely "rhetorical", or just words that are empty, is because it is up to us to fill them.

The what-is v. the what-ought. Two logics that overlap in some of their methods, but are in themselves different things about different kinds of topics. — tim wood

The idea of moral as "ought" is not just the measurement of the current state of our world compared to what we would like it to be. If the question is: what should (ought) I do? there is no general answer to that as there is no determination of what to do without a situation, but also because to decide in advance is to think we can account for every application.

The fact that every person is not currently equal is a measure of our culpability. The extent to which we are created equal is open to debate. But, structurally, the kind of claim I am discussing is not an epistemological one, nor an ideal or aspiration. We create or latch on to these dichotomies to avoid our responsibility, our part in a moral world.

My claim is not a theory but my pledge to be responsible for its state (its life or death), ready to act in its defense, to explicate what is summarized.
— Antony Nickles

......if it is my claim, and expresses that pledge, why isn’t it only my poverty or wellness my claim expresses? ...if it is my (moral) claim, how can it not be from my (moral) thought? — Mww

It is not my claim, as in my thought or my statement (that is not the structure, the grammar). I accept its claim on me. It is my willingness to be responsible for it that is my claiming it. And the wellness and poverty is not about me, but how well it is responded for--its state in culture as truth.

...what right do I have to pledge to be responsible on behalf of everyone? — Mww

It is, as Kant would say, expressed in a universal voice (the 3rd critique). It is as if to speak for everyone; but not to impose or override their voice. Your acceptance of it is to see for yourself whether you would be willing to take ownership of it, be seen by it, as well.

The problem he worried on was the fear of relativism.
— Antony Nickles

It looks like spreading MY moral claims, or the personal claims of individuals represented as each “my”, over everybody, is fear of moral relativism. — Mww

When I say "my", I could as well say "our", or more technically, it is our culture's. As I said in the post, it is not the individual vs. anything--it is the individual's part in truth.

Do you think there is an intrinsic gap between moral claims and ethical claims? — Mww

The words have lost any true sense of individuation, but I take a moral or ethic in the sense of a rule, or standard (determined beforehand); whereas the moral realm, and its claim on us, is when we are lost as to what to do, or that we are necessarily a part of what is ongoing.

Neuroscience wants to be able to figure us out, insofar as we are composed of that which adheres to natural law, but if and when it does figure us out with the certainty of natural law.....will “I” disappear? — Mww

And my point is that science, as with the projection of reality, wants knowledge, but only "insofar as we are composed of that which adheres to natural law", and, taken in that sense, is only that which meets the standard of being certain, which simple just rules out most of who we are; our lives, our criteria for judgment, for action, for saying something; our possibilities, our freedom, etc.

Even if proved illusory, not needed in conformity to law, superfluous with respect to determinism writ large.....do we then relinquish relative truths? — Mww

No, to recognize the desire for a reality or science to ground our world with certainty, is not to condemn us to relativity. We have different specific precise criteria for each thing but not the predetermined irrefutable answer. We have to acknowledge our responsibility, which is not the same as reducing our whole society to my opinion, feelings, or thoughts.

@Banno @180 Proof @Cidat

Now the question becomes, to whom does the fear intrinsic to radical skepticism belong? — Mww

I probably can’t paint a picture with enough depth to instill the grip of skeptical doubt, but I do claim that it is not senseless nor should it be dismissed nor solved. We are not dealing with a simple case of attaching a word to an object; let's try: when two people disagree about not only what is important (what the essential criteria are) about an object, but, say, something like justice, e.g., is it restitution of prior wrongs? or just retribution for prior harms? If I say a table is flat with four legs and you say it’s something we study or eat on, we may struggle to see your world as the same as mine, and maybe then the question we imagine of what is real begins to worry us.

Skepticism is, at bottom, the consciousness of ignorance. — Mww

This seems to say that the take-away of the skeptic’s claim is that we realize we don't have enough (or the right kind of) knowledge, that our problem is an intellectual lack. You characterize this as a limit or that we do not have the capacity. My point is that this limitation is, in a sense, self-inflicted. I'm not saying that we could find the capacity or think our way around a limit, but that knowledge is limited (it's not our fault), which is where our responsibility begins (or we avoid it with the mirage of a perfectly-knowable reality). The truth of skepticism is that we are separate from each other so we can not know the other (their minds), we must respond to them, accept them (or reject them); that it is up to us to project an expression into a new context and then be answerable for the fallout (not that the meaning is in the saying); that we must act and be read by it without complete knowledge of the outcome. Cavell puts it that knowledge is not our only relation to the world. But instead of accepting the structure of the human condition we manufacture this picture of reality and blame ourselves for not knowing it, or it for being unknowable, rather than take on the burden that is the world and what we would be in it (or defined by it, as @180 Proof says). This does not quell our pursuit to learn about the world, only that we understand something in making explicit the various ways we measure each different thing (thus ourselves) rather than forcing one standard of judgment.

We don’t abstract from, we assign to. Finches don’t inform us as to what they are, but only provide the data from which we tell them how they are to be known. That feat is accomplished with such speculative metaphysical predicates as appearances, particulars, meanings and truths, along with that which unites them all under a logical system, which doesn’t strip away, but PROVIDES our criteria for each thing and the context under which they are applied. — Mww

I could not have put the train of thought any better myself that leads to us creating the world for ourselves. If we can agree that each thing has its own criteria in various contexts, the "logical system" (for each differently) is provided to us, not imposed by us as abstraction into generalized terms. The “data” of a thing are the preexisting criteria that are only "assigned" as they have developed as part of the history of all our lives (forever) with things and others. Rather than tell the world how it is to be known, we must listen for what rationale a thing has for itself, wait for what matters to us about a thing (hidden in the criteria to gauge it, see it done, etc.).

What I was tracking was that if we want to ensure that the world is "real" (certain), then the fallible part must be me, my perspective, my individuality, my irrationality
— Antony Nickles

That is.....er......absolutely.....most agreeable. — Mww

This was not meant as a statement or claim. I was telling the story we create about ourselves for the world to maintain a sense of stability. And we might not know the world with certainty, but instead of settling for the ordinary fallible limited understanding we can have, complete certainty remains the gold standard for what "knowledge" is (for reality), so then we assume the fallible part is us, that we only see appearances, etc.

What if the human cognitive system is itself a logical system? — Mww

Or this is the other fantasy we tell ourselves: that we operate a certain way, say, that we have a systematic perception (once it was a moral faculty), and if we (neuroscience!!) could figure us out, or how we can't see the real world, then we will understand how we are certain, or could compensate for our imperfection, or, as you say:

What ground do we have to prove certainty, when what we use to prove it, isn’t certain. — Mww

what does it mean to “fear” the conclusions of a radical skeptic? How would that conclusion manifest? — Mww

I appreciate your asking questions; skepticism is of course a long story (and I won't tell it right), but with Plato and Descartes, etc. radical skepticism differs from regular doubt in that it is not just: how to identify a goldfinch from a robin, but: how do we know that is (an instance of) a table, or a piece of wax? Once we get to that question the fear is that there needs to be an answer or we end up in a place where we are asking how do we know what is real at all. To add fuel to the fire, we want to know what is the right thing to do and know about other people (their minds), and then the wheels come off the bus because we can't find any solution that has any weight in those instances.

I grant the need to answer the radical skeptic with a solution (rebuttal? refutation?) of a particular kind. — Mww

And this is the bottle we get trapped into, picturing the issue as a problem that must be solved. What Wittgenstein and others found is that the skeptic's abstraction from tables and goldfinchs to generalized terms like appearance and particular and meaning and true, stripped away our criteria for each thing and a context in which to apply them. Without those, our answer to the skeptic's picture of our groundlessness is to re-impose criteria which solve for that conclusion outside any context.

If ordinary means of judgement result in truth, why wouldn’t that answer the radical skeptic, as a legitimate solution? — Mww

Even if we put the skeptic's claims within an understandably context, the skeptic is correct about our ultimate groundlessness, our separation from each other, the possibility we may not bridge that gap, and that we can not do it with knowledge alone (beforehand, as it were: sidestepping our responsibility). And the fact our ordinary means of judgement are specific for each thing means that truth (true/false) is not the only measure of importance (or truth-value), nor are we setting (imposing) the bar equally across the board with certainty, a certain logic or rationality, etc.

what is an ordinary means of judgement? Are there extraordinary means? — Mww

The criteria we would ordinarily use would be the measure of, or what counts in deciding, say, the difference between an accident and a mistake. They are the yardstick by which we judge whether the expression of an excuse absolves me of the consequences of an action; whether my expression meets the categorical requirements to call it an excuse, one successfully pulled off. Now if we are worried about leaving our actions in the hands of classification and judgment after the fact, we could remove the context of before and after, and the surrounding circumstances, and simply abstract a generalized theory of action or speech which would remove our part in it.

I grant the contingency of empirical knowledge is a human condition, but reject the groundlessness of it. Knowledge is an intellectual process giving a solution in itself, which suffices as necessary ground. There is irreducible certainty in human rationality, therefore knowledge is possible. That which is possible must have a ground. — Mww

Math and formal logic and science are grounded within themselves. For the rest, we "give a solution" to ourselves" which is modeled on those and only recognizes "irreducible certainty" suppressing our ordinary, fallible rationale and the regular logic of our lives. There is no assurance of us being understood, no guaranty for our acts, no knowledge to secure our relationship to another.

This is the desire for certainty to] relinquish us from responsibility for failure.
— Antony Nickles

Perhaps, insofar far as the failure is not mine, but the other’s. I try my best to be understood, and that I have tried relinquishes me from responsibility for you not understanding me. — Mww

The generalized ideas of intention and meaning are abstractly related to our expressions as reality is to our world. That "I try my best to be understood", to mean something specific, is the desire to have what we say have a meaning that is certain, complete, contained. That I simply control what I say, rather than be answerable for what I have said, as the judgment of what matters in our expressions is after my saying it, to you, here, now.

we take responsibility to avoid being responsible.
— Antony Nickles

I can see taking responsibility FOR avoiding being responsible, but if I do take responsibility, something I’m responsible for is presupposed. It would seem I cannot, then, take responsibility TO avoid being responsible. If I take responsibility I AM responsible for taking it, hence haven’t avoided being responsible at all. — Mww

What I said was maybe a bit too poetic to be useful. What I was tracking was that if we want to ensure that the world is "real" (certain), then the fallible part must be me, my perspective, my individuality, my irrationality; if we want our expressions to have a "meaning" (fixed), then the problem must be "you not understanding me". We (humans) take the blame so that the world and our language have the sheen of certainty, because we do not want the burden, the exposure, the instability, of carrying the world and our communications forward ourselves (continually responsible for our lives, our expressions), rather than hiding behind right, rules, rationality, and fact.

Descartes’ metaphysics at least, was merely the other of a pair of extremes, in accordance with the human system of rational complementary. As such, he didn’t fear it, or its potential, but rather accepted its formal necessity, for without it, his idea of god would be meaningless. — Mww

Yes, I am saying the fear of the conclusions of the radical skeptic creates the need to answer him with a particular kind of solution, ignoring the ordinary means of judgment we already live within, because they are not a solution.

....making the inherent potential for failure and uncertainty seem like (the) only state (left to us)
— Antony Nickles

.....IS to succumb. It just makes no sense to me, to argue the validity in fearing a mere potential, or in doubting the possibility of avoiding it. Why would anybody even get out of bed in the morning, if he was constantly wracked with fear for making potential failure the rule of the day?

Nahhhhh.....no profit whatsoever in allowing the exception to the rule to become the expectation. — Mww

I'm not claiming this reality that we postulate is in response to a "mere" potential or that in abandoning its picture we are giving up. The ultimate groundlessness of knowledge is not an exception but our human condition, without an intellectual solution. Nevertheless we function, and fail; sometimes it does not work out; and we bear that ongoing burden.

As regards reality, if we always receive, who or what is projecting? ...[we] always and only tell ourselves how reality appears to be. As soon as this is understood as the fundamental condition of the human state of affairs, there is no legitimate reason to fear — Mww

This is not to deny the world, just its separation into appearance and reality; which is the differentiation we use to salvage reality as a generalized certainty, making our experience or perception what is limited, tainted, or only individual. The history of our lives, culture, and expressions are the fabric of our criteria for each thing, which responds to our inquiries, provided we are not demanding the answers provide generalizable certainty, as we equate with "reality".

I make the case for wishing to be understood BUT NOT holding with any fear of failing in my own understanding, you make the case for the fear of not being understood BECAUSE of the potential for failure in one’s own understanding. — Mww

As I mentioned previously, the confidence with which Emerson implores us to act is to rely upon our everyday criteria, which is not the same as an arrogance that we are not afraid of failing because we act on a certainty based on reality (not that that is your position). I am not making the case that we should be afraid, but that our creation of this picture of reality is the result and evidence of the fact that we are afraid (like an overcompensation to an insecurity); that we want to ensure our being understood, that we want our knowledge to guaranty our acts beforehand, relinquish us from responsibility for failure. This is not fear of failure of "one's own understanding", but the scisim of us from the world, and so we save the world and internalize the failure as our own; we take responsibility to avoid being responsible.

Our compulsion for certainty is from our fear of the failure of our ordinary means of judgment
— Antony Nickles

Only the common, or the uninformed, succumb to such disaster. Everyone makes mistakes; no need to fear anything. — Mww

Tell that to Descartes. We imagine disaster though we have ordinary ways to mitigate it: excuses, apologies, etc. And we do not succumb, we react, creating the standard of reality and making the inherent potential for failure and uncertainty seem like only our (my) state rather than of everything.

The human compulsion for certainty is merely a reflection of our nature as rational agents to seek truth, and we seek truth because anything else is reducible to it. Simple as that. — Mww

Yet if we reduce the world to true or false, we make it impossible to see the variety and complexity of knowledge and wisdom that we seek.

All this just seems like a solution in need of a problem. — Mww

The problem is the projection of reality as a solution for our inability to manage with the imperfect criteria of our lives, our responsibility for them, and the otherwise groundlessness of our world.

We may see the world as intelligible, capable of telling us its secrets, but not if we require that it be certain knowledge or necessarily stem from a cause.
— Antony Nickles

Wait. Wha??? W says we’re compelled to certainty, but we should at the same time disregard the first principle of certainty, re: cause and effect? .....what did I mistake? — Mww

Our compulsion for certainty is from our fear of the failure of our ordinary means of judgment, and so we strip away any context, abstracting to "reality" as a generalization to which we can attribute a certain ground, a consistent cause that will ensure certainty. As you quote:

....(We) must approach nature with the view, indeed, of receiving information from it, not, however, in the character of a pupil, who listens to all that his master chooses to tell him, but in that of a judge, who compels the witnesses to reply to those questions which he himself thinks fit to propose.... — Kant, Critique of Pure Reason

Wittgenstein attributes Kant's imposition of the terms of judgment as what blinds us to the vast variety of criteria of every different thing, as he himself was guilty of in the Tractatus, which led to his inability to speak on so much of our lives. The desire for certainty and resolution precludes the rational means we have of investigating and discussing everything else, though it may not lead to agreement or avoid our failings.

the human system attempts to... if not attain to certainty, at least have some certainty by which to judge our comprehensions a priori. Hence, the three Aristotelian laws of logical thought — Mww

Our fear of our groundlessness creates a desire for necessity worked out beforehand, thus the popularity of Aristotle's observations. If we can just find premises which ensure conclusions, then we can skip the messy work of sorting out an instant case based on what prior criteria our lives have for each thing. We forget that formal logic's stringent criteria limits its applicability only to certain topics (wanting instead to apply it everywhere). So we create "reality" to apply our own criteria universally and then we internalize uncertainty within ourselves in order to have control over it. Thus we "judge our comprehensions" before they have a chance for the regular failures the world has and we in it.

Still, to be compelled implies the limitless, insofar as it demands an end even if it be contradictory or absurd, the very epitome of irrationality, but to merely wish implies its own limit, and it is always better to be unsatisfied that irrational. — Mww

But to be unsatisfied in our wish for certainty makes us dismiss anything not able to meet that standard as "absurd" or "irrational". So we are the ones which create a "limit" for what rationality is: certainty, completeness, necessity, and the abstract removal of context and ourselves. And our limit (Kant's line) creates the picture of a "reality" which we can then judge everything else against in which we cannot be sure of beforehand (in ourselves, "a priori").

But the ordinary criteria in our lives do have prior standards of identity, judgment, completion, and other implications, though they do not ensure our actions or expressions, and are subject to the context and require our subsequent and continuing involvement (in contrast to our wish to structure rationality or ourselves to avoid, beforehand, this responsibility).

Illusions, mistakes and disagreements are most simply accounted for if what is the case is different to what is thought to be the case. Reality is not what one experiences. Reality is what is the case. — Banno

That my experience (what I saw, touched, tasted) can be an illusion, that I can be mistaken in my memory, my assumptions, makes it seem as if even the closest things to me cannot be trusted. We take the failure of our best case scenario as a sign there must be a different version which is not subject to the limitations of our ordinary means of judgment, instead of looking at it that our failure and limitation happens in normal rational ways. We are apart from each other and still learning and obscure to ourselves and subject to deception or lack of control. However, if we only ascribe certainty and solidity to the world, we strip away the ordinary fallible, different means of judging every separate type of thing.

As @Manuel has said, "reality" is a title with few duties except with respect to something else. And so as @Banno has said, we are mistaken, fall prey to illusions, etc. And as I have pointed out, we become deluded, fooled, dream, hope, etc., but "Reality" is not a thing or quality itself, but only a relation to a state of confusion. We find ourselves lost to our inquiry, away in our own thoughts, even in a picture created by our desire to simplify, and we need to be brought back to the case at hand. But this is not one thing, found in one way, judged by one standard.

why shouldn’t we wish for certainty in some form or another? If we trust the principle of law with respect to empirical science, why not the principle of sufficient reason for pure metaphysics? — Mww

Wittgenstein will say we are compelled (to strip our world of any measure and replace it with a requirement for certainty). We may hope that a moral discussion will end in agreement, but the temptation is to define our morals beforehand so we are ensured of what is right. We may see the world as intelligible, capable of telling us its secrets, but not if we require that it be certain knowledge or necessarily stem from a cause.

I mean, if we look at the ocean, the blueness we see and the wetness we feel are surely part of the reality of the ocean (for us). — Manuel

You can take out "the reality" and, if you take out "surely" (certainly), then you can even take out "(for us)". We may turn out (afterwards) to be mistaken (in a waterpark, say), yet the world does not come crashing down--only our desire to be sure beforehand.

What I am trying to say is that I think it's likely that we cannot study scientifically those aspects of the world which we find most interesting:

Music, colours, politics, most aspect of experience, history and so on. — Manuel

Well the scientific method only works with certain things. But also, particular topics do not respond to a requirement for certainty. We may not be ensured of a result in a moral conversation, but it does not make it irrational.

We have some interesting ideas and categorizations, but not "theoretical depth". — Manuel

As I said, our ordinary criteria allow us to rigorously dig into these topics with specificity, precision, accuracy, distinction, clarity, etc. So there may be something else causing you to overlook philosophy's insights into color (which I mention above), and its ability to add to the discussion of justice.

The implications we find when we say, for example, "You live in your own reality." are more concrete than all the machinations about what "reality" is. — Antony Nickles

…If we speak of "reality" without such specifications, the conversation will be broad as we aren't yet specified by what we agree to take as aspect of reality that are relevant. — Manuel

This is how philosophy removes the context of a concept in order to slip in the criteria that something be certain. The thing is that we don’t speak of anything without the specifications and implications of it in our lives, so if we don’t remove them but focus on them, they are what we intellectually can grab onto about something.

This looks to me as an attempt to (try to) clarify the phenomenal properties we add to the world. — Manuel

Not sure what "this" is (gonna assume everything I said, which seems like an oversimplification may be coming), but no, I am talking about everything. Just not differentiating/separating a "reality" from something we don't quite get at, or only get at rationally, or through "phenomenal properties".

Yes, we grow into certain molds - set forth by nature - we don't know exactly how, aside from saying that genetics play a role. — Manuel

What I am saying is that we do know how to look into ourselves and our world, if only we get past our paralyzing need for certainty (say by falling back to only genetics).

But I think that novels explore these things you are speaking of quite well. — Manuel

It wouldn't be the first time philosophy was looked down upon as stylistic, but I agree with you, only I take our expressions as more than novel. The implications we find when we say, for example, "You live in your own reality." are more concrete than all the machinations about what "reality" is.

Well okay, then we're talking past each since my aside (So, no need for some quasi-platonic "transcendental deduction" ... pace Kant et al). — 180 Proof
dismisses the "traditional use" of a priori. — 180 Proof

I understand you want to avoid "quasi-platonic 'transcendental deduction' " but that is not to dismiss what "a priori" is, but only what you think are the necessary conclusions based on the implications of the criteria for inclusion in its class of reasoning. I disagree with what I take as your understanding of what the criteria are for being a priori, as well as your assumption the above are the only outcomes.

My conception is that "participating in a situation ... with its associated entanglements" is the a priori (e.g. Merleau-Ponty's flesh, Buber's dialogical encounter Witty's forms-of-life, Freddy's bodily perspectivism, Hume's empirical customs & habits of mind, Benny Spinoza's bondage ... re: embodied / enactive cognition). Thus, my focus on 'brain organization – experiencing, judging, reasoning are brain-effects (outputs) and not causes (e.g. "categories" that "constitute experience"). — 180 Proof

To call judging an effect of the brain is of course true in the sense our brains affect everything we do, but it does not have control over everything. The criteria for judging a good example of a dog breed are set by the American Kennel Club. The criteria for what we say is "reality", I could agree, are embedded in the forms of our lives, with each form (concept, category) having its necessary criteria to be walking, seeing, thinking, compromising, understanding, etc. To reduce these to effects of the brain is to gain knowledge and certainty, but only in overlooking all the depth of the history of life.

The reason to distinguish judgments based on a priori reasoning is that we want to have the necessity of criteria of a category for our judgment: that if I'm going to claim you're not seeing reality, only specific questions are expected to be asked, categories of evidence considered, and only certain answers will be accepted (within the lines of our a piori criteria and their types of justifications). "You need to face reality, they are not coming back." would be followed by "I know they will!" which could lead to "You're dreaming; I'm done." Also, "You're not experiencing the real world." would be met with something like "I'm only going to stay with my parents until fall." Now you can say whatever you like, but "I am!! I'm participating!!" seems to lose the thread on not only how but why we differentiate reality a priori.

Now I am not minimizing the a posteriori as Kant wanted to (out of a desire for certainty). It is critical to put a concept like reality into a context in drawing out the implications, and, when we make judgements, we not only must consider the context (applicable to that concept), but that I am also personally, individually, involved sometimes in how things come off (it's not all about knowledge), though not that my "experience" determines anything (outside of my past participation), nor that the "situation" is our brain/body (other than maybe times when the brain is not functioning normally).

real is best conceived as a rational quality
— Mww

Again, the abstraction of reality into a quality......
— Antony Nickles

Notice the difference? — Mww

I didn't differentiate, because it doesn't matter. Rational or not, it is ascription of a "quality" to the world that starts the slippery slope. "Rational' easily slides towards predetermined, complete, self-enclosed, and, most importantly, certain. Of course, if you did not mean to say quality, but simply that the world is best conceived as rational, then I misunderstood.

Cool thing about a 240 yo hole? Nobody’s successfully filled it in. Scoffed at it, ridiculed it, bastardized it, FUBAR’ed it....but never showed its irrationality — Mww

Yes, it is understandable. It involves the fear of separation from the world and so the desire to impose a solution to ensure our relation. The fear is very real, and the desire is understandable.

I don't think "things in themselves" can be studied empirically... So I agree with the spirit of the argument, but I don't think we can study MUCH of "what interests us", in much depth. From phenomenal properties such as colors and sounds to political organizations. We just can't get much depth empirically about these things. — Manuel

I'm not suggesting an emperical investigation. Instead of projecting (the "essence") into a thing, subject ahead of time to certainty, we are investigating what is important to a thing being what it is--what is said to be an essential distinction of a color? Unlike objects, if we have the same color on two objects, we say there is one color, not two instances of the same color. This is part of what color is; how a priori we judge the sameness of color, compared to saying there are two colors, meaning different colors, not different instances. These criteria are embedded in our lives and we grow into them. They are the depth to our unexamined connections to the world.

??? — 180 Proof

I guess what I said might be entirely inscrutable in not explicitly explaining that I took you to be saying that "a priori" was a function of the brain automatically interacting with the world. I imagine your use of the term here was to point out that our brain affects our world before we experience it, or that it is our experiencing in general. The reason I then said "We would like the functions of the brain (science) to be responsible for our connection to the world" is because, though science could tell us about how our brain affects our experience, it only makes it philosophically relevant if our brain was more involved in how we are connected (and disconnected) from our world, how to make clear-headed (realistic) judgments in it, see it for the dog-eat-dog power struggle that it really is, don't get caught in flights of fancy, etc. What I took it to come down to--though not necessarily in response to your comment--is only a desire to have the certainty of brain functions be the measure of our situation, carry our responsibility for us.

As a contrast, I was describing a priori's traditional use to distinguish between the types of reasoning used in the act of making judgments, in which a priori rationale come prior to our experience, but this in the sense of prior to me participating in a situation (with its associated entanglements of my feelings and interests). But how we judge, what matters to us, our standards, are in our lives already (prior to) and are categorically necessary (without me) in that if an expression doesn't fit into the criteria of an apology, it just isn't a real apology. A priori rationale would be: you must be sincere, you must understand what you did, you must say I'm sorry, your forgiveness is contingent on its acceptance by the other, etc.).

real is best conceived as a rational quality — Mww

I'm pretty sure when I post, it just flies into the ether (it feels unreal). Again, the abstraction of reality into a quality was caused by the desire to have certainty. We are digging in a 240-year-old hole.

...reality is whatever there is (for us). Anything beyond that or whatever grounds this reality, is admitted as mostly unknowable. — Manuel

And the fact that our (non-mathematical) world is not certain freaks us out so much we cut ourselves off from the thing-in-itself (from what essentially interests us) so that we can impose certainty onto the (our) world, even though we can't know (for certain) the "real" world. We kill the world before we even get started knowing each thing by their everyday criteria.

To say "the a priori is not part of reality" amounts to saying 'brain organization' doesn't constitute a functioning brain – "a part of reality" – when, in fact, it does. — 180 Proof

We would like the functions of the brain (science) to be responsible for our connection to the world, but a priori is a basis for judgment, and our judgments already (prior to experience) have everyday criteria (apart from us) for what makes each thing, necessarily, what it is (categorically); here, what matters to us about (i.e., the criteria for) reality is, in part, that it is in contrast to illusion, delusion, denial, fakery, etc.

Without any shadow of doubt [as: lack of confidence], amidst this vertigo of shows [appearances] and politics, I settle myself ever the firmer in the creed, that we should not postpone and refer [to a reality] and wish [for certainty], but do broad justice where we are [in a context], by whomsoever we deal with, accepting [before knowing] our actual companions and circumstances [conditions of each thing], however humble [ordinary the criteria] or odious, as the mystic officials to whom the universe has delegated its whole pleasure for us. — Emerson, Experience

It sounds like you're discussing the intersubjective aspects of object permanence -- on-topic -- but in code, or using the forum as a metaphor. — Srap Tasmaner

Hey, I can only point.

In my experience, if you come across it on the page, you get the most recent version. If you follow a link to your name, you get the version that was current when it was first saved. If you add a mention to a post later, the person mentioned doesn't get a notice. — T Clark

I emailed support and they said"

You're right, edits to comments do not generate new notifications. We have no plans to change this at this time.

Links to a specific comment shouldn't change, regardless of whether it's edited or not. Are you sharing the comment's permalink (retrieve this using the "share" icon)? — supportatplushforumsdotcom

I don't think the Share arrow at the bottom of a edited and saved document does us any good, but it sounds like it doesn't send a new notification, which is fine, but if the link to a specific comment shouldn't change after its edited, I'm not sure the link passes through to the edited document. If you can use the notification link to get to this document and see if it has "TEST 1" at the bottom (which I will edit in after I post it, then we know the notification link points to the re-edited document.

TEST 1

Thanks, I've edited it a few times (and probably will again). I'm not sure how that works, but I think if you come at it from a link, you get the old version if you don't refresh the page.

Is it possible to give a rigorous definition of 'reality'? — Cidat

@Banno@James Riley

For philosophy, reality is an abstract quality, such as appearance or essence (though not of an object, but the whole world). The criteria for the quality that we impose is its fixed, certain nature.

Reality is the word we use when we go hunting for certainty. — Tom Storm

The sense is that we can be wrong about the world, but, if we are right, it is because of a relationship with reality (correspondence, reference, etc.). This is the common understanding of a fact that is true (or sometimes knowledge, compared to opinion or "belief").

But the "factness" of a scientific fact (its certainty, its dependability) is based on the method of science, not its correspondence with "reality". Its factness is its repeatability, its constancy, its reliability, its seeming causality. And this desire for a set relationship with something certain, universal, also tempts us to impose the criteria of reality on things other than those subject to the scientific method, instead of seeing what matters to each thing's judgment, identity, correctness, completion, etc.

And this is not to deny the world. In fact, we learn more about the (real) world we live in than a definition of reality by looking (passively receiving, describing) instead of saying so much (actively defining, grasping, imposing, explaining).

If we look at what we imply when we talk about "reality" (or what is real), we say: that we got fooled, as by a fake (not real); that we are deluded, as in creating our own world (own reality); that we should stop day-dreaming, and get back to the business at hand, with tangible (real) results; that hoping will not get us there if we do not deal with the realities (economics, logistics, etc.); that we are only speculating or opining, and not investigating, asking questions (about something other than our own thoughts); that we are in denial of something that happened, or that there is no such possibility. There is also the sense @180 Proof provides:

The real [reality] is that which hurts you badly, often fatally, when you don't respect it.

Say, "They can ignore the consequences all they like now, but at some point reality is gonna smack them in the face."

I'm sure there are more, as these are not my definitions (nor definitions at all), and there is more to rigorously dig into, with more specificity, precision, accuracy, distinction, variety, by drawing out examples of when we talk about reality (our history of expressions) to find the implications and criteria (in what contexts) that this data shows about our lives, thus ourselves, than the intellectual gymnastics that philosophy goes through to make our world "reality" before even getting started.

I think reality is circumstance. I think reality is nature. It brings to mind an Emerson quote, emphasis added:
— James Riley

Here [In nature] we find sanctity which shames our religions and reality which discredits our heroes. Here we find nature to be circumstance, which dwarfs all other circumstance, and judges like a god all men that come to her. — Emerson, Nature

I join in this focus on circumstance (we could say we make "heroes" of scientific certainty, ideals, forms), but I would tweak it that Emerson is not saying "reality is nature" (it is not a statement--he is not solving skepticism); but he is redirecting us to our ordinary circumstances (contexts Wittgenstein and Nietszche will emphasize). Not imposing certainty, but finding the criteria of each thing, in the contexts in which they live (could be extended to), instead of abstracting away from any context in order to apply "reality" to everything.

I haven't really considered this before, I'll have to give it more thought. Thanks for the reply. — Sam26

As I said, I draw it out in more detail in the OP I titled "Bedrock Rules" (for lack of a catchier headline). Luke and I sidetrack into meaning and intention at a certain point as that needs to be cleared up to talk meaningfully about rules. It is an appropriate discussion here as what people call the private language argument is an example, not a conclusion, the fallout of which is not just taking the picture of "meaning" and moving it externally, publicly.

if I intend to mean something within the framework of public meaning, then I can intend what I mean, if that intention is a public conveyance. So, I'm transporting, so to speak, my intentionality into the public domain where my intention gets in line with public meaning (is evaluated publicly) and rule-following. — Sam26

I addressed this in the post to Luke (and many other posts in my OP on Cavell and Rules), but my claim is that the concept of "intention" is discussed afterwards. There is no intention or cause beforehand or during every time. I can choose what I say, for a speech or when talking to my angry wife, but even then I do not intend what I "mean", even if I am intending a public "meaning". There is no "intention" in this way, and this is not how "meaning" works. I say something, and the context and the criteria of the concepts allow it to be judged as meaningful along the sense or uses of that concept in that context. We ask "What'd you mean?" or "Did you intend to shoot that donkey?" and these questions and our responsibility to answer can be endless. Your "intention" is not transported and does not align with a "meaning" or "rule", public or not. Such a picture of intention and meaning goes away. This is a little terse but I've been battling it with Luke over a number of weeks.

@Sam26 @Luke

@Metaphysician Undercover has long had issues with identity, numerical equivalence, and material equivalence. Better not to go down the garden path with him. — Banno

Not that I want to get lost in that jungle, but we say you and I have the same sensation/experience to the extent we express it and agree we do. "I have a scratchy throat." "Me too!" "But mine is raw and only scratchy on the back." "Mine too!" Then to say "But surely another person can't have THIS pain!" (#253) is to want to remain unknowable, unreadable, or to have a crisis about whether there is anything that is mine, there is anything to me (there very well may not be). But there is also a sense in which my pain is not the same as yours, not identical, and that is that mine is in my body, and yours in yours. Numerically there are two pains, in different places. But to say "I am in pain" is not necessarily to differentiate who is in pain, but to say "Help me!", to make a claim on you for myself (#405). Thus in saying your pain is not (I can't know it is) the same as mine, I am, in a sense, denying you. (Cavell, Knowing and Acknowledging)

Because you are the person who said it (as in, not me). You didn’t keep it to yourself. The identity of the expression of pain is that it is yours, individually, not particularly. You own it--you either express or deny it. You stand by what you said or weasel out of it.
— Antony Nickles

This seems similar to what I was saying in the other discussion: that I intend my use of the public language, but I do not invent the conventional uses/meanings that exist in the public language. — Luke

I would agree that we do not invent what is common amongst us, but I would not take "meaning" out of the internal and simply place it externally. Look at it as if "meaning" disappeared completely. Our shared judgments for doing one thing rather than another, what is important in an activity, what is crucial, what counts in failing, etc., is what is meaningful, in explaining, clarifying, distinguishing what is meant by an expression.

The point of disagreement seems to be this: I say that we use words intentionally to have a particular meaning (in accordance with conventional uses/meanings), whereas you say that we use words unintentionally and leave it up to others to decide what we mean by it. — Luke

It is not that we use words unintentionally (this is not the opposite of the picture of intention you propose). We do not intend or "use" (as if during) what we say, based on a private meaning nor in accordance with a public one. We say (do) something, and afterwards we can discuss the use (explain the meaning #560), ask what was intended, identify what conventions it followed, or failed at (one difference is we have a contex now). I'm not sure I can put the importance of the timing better (or am too lazy to) than @Banno does above in discussing his weeding example "articulated" "post-hoc". As I have said, we can choose what we say; we can even deliberately attempt to follow conventions, explicitly address (having considered beforehand) what might be a confusion between one use of an expression (concept) and another in this situation, to this person. However, in the same vein that, as you say, we do not "invent" the use of concepts, neither do we ensure an expression nor make it particular (in the sense of a certain instance) and neither does any rule we might "use".

How is it that others can know what we mean by it but we cannot? That seems to imply that I cannot say what I want, or mean, or intend to say. — Luke

The idea of an intention is the want (the desire) to ensure that what you say has the impact, interpretation, clarity, etc., that makes it complete and certain, without your being responsible for it, and its "meaning", afterwards. This would imply that you have said it according to the rules, rightly, and so my confusion, disagreement, bewilderment, is, as it were, on me, unless I disagree with whether you followed the rules correctly.

And that others can know what I mean but I might not is simply because of the public nature of how expression is meaningful. I know the same way you know (#504). The implication of Witt's realization that meaning is public must be pushed farther. On p. 223 (3rd Ed) there is a discussion of guessing at thoughts, and it is said that some people can be transparent to us. This is the sense in which I may know more about the meaning of what you have said than you. To say you alone can know what you mean defies the fact that once you say something, you can not, as it were, take it back (without saying you misspoke or literally taking it back)--you can not get out of it. Cavell puts this that we must mean what we say--that we can be read by what we have said; we are bound to it, wedded to its implications and consequences, fated to it Emerson says. You can "say what [ you ] want" but you can not make what you say mean what you "intend".

You are equating faith with belief. — Nickolasgaspar

You had said believe "in". I'll take it that was a mistake.

Belief is the act of accepting a claim. — Nickolasgaspar

If you want to choose to discuss the sense of "believing" as in accepting, that's fine, but it is not the only sense of belief. And we also say "I believe you", that is: accepting what they say without evidence, on faith, as in trusting the person enough not to question the claim (their authority, our relationship, etc.) This is not bad, neither is it, therefore, not knowledge. Again, if you want to limit things to make it easy, that's fine, but it doesn't make it a complete picture.

As I just responded to others...belief is the umbrella term. Under it we will find Knowledge and faith. We believe things either on faith or knowledge(without or with evidence). — Nickolasgaspar

I'm not sure if you want to restrict the discussion either to only include certain people under "we", or to just the topic of belief as opinion that is either justified or not (that's a well-trod circle), but I discussed a number of other senses of belief, some of which do not function on a dichotomous relationship to "evidence".

We can not say that we "know" something but we don't believe in it. — Nickolasgaspar

You appear to be making a categorical claim. Something like, if we do not believe in it, or we do not have faith in it, then we cannot say we "know" it. As syllogistic as it sounds, I would think you mean the sense of know as don't doubt. If we do not believe it, we can not say we know it, without a doubt, for certain. But when you phrase it as "believe in it" then what you are saying is there is something that you can not say you know if you don't believe in it, and the first thing that comes to mind is what people say about God. You can not say you know God without believing in Him.

Perhaps the "in" was added by mistake, or perhaps there is another example I am not thinking of. To say we know something, but do not believe in it, might be something we would say about a politician's campaign, that, despite our lack of support, will happen anyway (though maybe not quite certainly). Or to say we know (the facts) about, say, climate change, but we don't believe that knowledge (those facts) will persuade anyone; don't believe in the knowledge's ability to overcome our selfish, lazy, blasé, denial/death wish.

Or maybe it is a different claim. Knowledge determined by the scientific method can be reproduced by anyone (should be able to be, if done right). With this sense of knowledge it does not matter if I believe in it or not, though this does not have any positive force to make me interested, say, to believe strongly about it.

So we need to distinguish beliefs that are knowledge based and claims that are faith based. — Nickolasgaspar

Now you've thrown in "claims" as well as "beliefs". Because we can say a belief is an opinion, like a guess (hypothesis), or in comparison to knowledge, but a claim can be me making a claim upon you, for your support or recognition. And that can be to ask you to trust me, but also my claiming to know something, which would not be verified in the same way as a guess. So, water's a little choppy here.

How am I be responsible for it if I did not intend it? — Luke

Because you are the person who said it (as in, not me). You didn’t keep it to yourself. The identity of the expression of pain is that it is yours, individually, not particularly. You own it--you either express or deny it. You stand by what you said or weasel out of it. If you can show you killed someone by accident or inadvertently, then you can avoid being punished for doing it with premeditation, but to be innocent/not responsible (in most cases), you have to show someone else did it (or that they could have).

I wish to argue that belief and the idea of suggesting that 'I believe' is about ownership of ideas, rather than bringing these in a vague way' as aspects of development of argument for any philosophy position. — Jack Cummins

Modern philosophy has an understanding of our ownership of our expressions. That once you say or do something at a time and place, you are the one who said it--you are responsible for answering for it: clarifying, defending, apologizing, etc.

I am trying to explore in the idea of this thread is the personal and wider aspects of ideas, especially in relation to what may be considered under the scope of 'belief, in the context of the personal and cultural contexts. — Jack Cummins

Your point differs in claiming the ownership of "an idea". But maybe saying "you believe" is in the same sense that Wittgenstein points out in that you "feel strongly about it" (#574-575), which is to say you are serious, ready to justify, defend; and even more, to be making a comment on the criteria for being able to say one believes. If you are going to say you believe something, you must be prepared to back it up by owning it, standing up for it, allowing it to define you.

There is also the sense of belief as a hypothesis, as "I believe it is going to rain" (PI, x), but I don't see that touching on your OP. Perhaps it matters more in the sense that believing is more like hoping than thinking, but it appears you are starting with the more traditional sense of belief: that a belief is like an opinion.

IWhat is 'belief, or a system of beliefs and the scope of its validity'? How does one justify belief, through scientific methodology or through other means of verification of personal belief systems? — Jack Cummins

If we start with the idea of knowledge, or truth, and we characterize everything else as opinion or belief, then we can hold onto the standard and goal of that abstract certainty despite the partiality, failure, and unpredictability of the human. So we say that opinion is individual and that belief is unjustified.

But there is the sense of believing as having faith, trusting. There is blind faith, which would be trusting despite any/every evidence to the contrary (as unjustified as "opinion"). But we also say it as a request, to trust in me (or my authority) without questioning further, despite the opportunity of doubt. So faith could be said to have justifications, but, rather than to convince you that my opinion is knowledge, I would have reasons for asking the request for trust. And then having faith can be the relinquishment of myself as the measure (of certainty, as reliability), giving over my fear of uncertainty, as an acknowledgement that not everything stands in a relation to doubt, that I need not question you (your humanity), nor not trust myself.

In this sense of certainty, we are resolved, steadfast. Now this can come from power, stubbornness, righteousness, ego, or, as Emerson calls it, just quoting another. We can believe, as have confidence, in ourselves even (especially) in a position where there can be no certainty, when we have reached a point where there is no right, because we are sure we did the best we could, considered the negative outcomes, thought it through, explicated all the criteria, questioned our assumptions, etc. We are prepared to have faith in ourselves to be questioned, to answer for our position, etc.

Do collective aspects of verification and validity cancel out the individual ways of thinking, as inferior to larger systems of belief? — Jack Cummins

Science's methodology is to provide conclusions where the outcome does not matter whether you or I did the experiment (unless done poorly). So yes, in this, you as an individual are cancelled out completely. And no one is beating science on its turf. That does not mean that an individual's thought cannot be rigorous, specific, precise, etc., just that there are some areas where we can not be certain in the same way science is. But science has infected politics, economics, sociology, and moral situations with the desire to remove us and impose a predictable, generalized, abstract certainty. Though we may not come to agreement in these areas, or be able to predict, or determine outcomes, that does not mean, however, that the judgments, implications, and conclusiveness are up to you.

and, by "certain", here you mean specific, which is a different sense of certainty
— Antony Nickles

How could I mean one sense instead of another? You just said that "Saying something particular is not caused by my intention". — Luke

I was attributing meaning (afterwards), not guessing at a "meaning" caused by you--I could have said "here in the sense of clear and precise". It is a claim open to debate, not an individual, unique instance. The way I put it sounded arrogant, but it exemplifies how the use or sense of something that is said is as available to me as to the speaker. You are the cause of the meaning of an expression in that you are the one answerable for it, responsible for having said it.

Unfortunately, this assumes what a "process" is
— Antony Nickles

Well, I can confirm here that you make the whole issue too complicated. If we start questioning such common terms as process, idea, logic, and so on, we could never complete a discussion! :roll: — Alkis Piskas

If we do not draw out the options and the implications of what, say, a "process" is, it's possibilities, we do not understand what we are getting ourselves into when we say it, put it in an expression. That a word can have a specific definition does not make it clear even what that is here (between the options of what a process can be), much less the impact on this question as a whole, which is not clear and not subject to definition. The idea of some common sense for ordinary words hides the assumption that our confidence in an expression dictates what it means or that the way it has meaning is "simple". Taking the time to make this unexamined structure explicit I would argue is the basic nature of philosophy from its beginning. Skipping understanding the question is what makes the answers "complicated".

No offense (my turn now! :smile:), and I am really sorry about this, but the discussion has been reduced into clearing very simple and evident points. Let's put an end to it. OK?

I was pleased to "talk" with you! :smile:[/quote]

I'm not sure you understand how being rude works. I pointed out a fact that was not personal, but I still apologized because I knew the embarrassing nature of calling it out, even granting that it actually was up to me to make it intelligible rather than dismiss the matter out of hand before we got started.

You have ignored the bulk of what I took the time to go through to set up and then actually answer your question, and then you are cutting off the conversation right before it could begin. Your implied characterization that I am being obtuse to what you feel are "very simple and evident points" is both condescending and dismissive; that I am (unnecessarily) making this complicated is belittling and vaguely slanderous. And then you want to be cute and passive aggressive at the same time, implying that, because of me, we didn't even get to a conversation you are ending! Apology not accepted. If you don't have the interest to discuss anything that doesn't fit into your self-defined simple world then don't get on a philosophy forum and ask a question. I was going to actually take the time to read your other post answering this question, but, yeah, we're done.

What I was getting at is that the model of meaning based on a word's definition, imagines it as particular and certain; which creates the picture that I cause or intend something particular and/or use rules for a certain outcome. Wittgenstein is taking apart that explanation to see how each thing is important to us (all).
— Antony Nickles

Doesn't what you've written here have a meaning that is "particular and certain"? — Luke

Saying something particular is not caused by my "intention" (or the particularity of a rule) so a particular "meaning" is not transferred from me to you; and, by "certain", here you mean specific, which is a different sense of certainty (something I am sure of, resolved to stand behind) than the kind of certainty in which some kind of intention or rule would give you: complete repeatability, extension, application, removing the need for me, judged as true/false, right or wrong.

3) That a word can be defined (which we do call: its "meaning") does not reflect the way language works, e.g., a sentence cannot be defined. Meaning is not an action (a cause/our "use") or a thing (internally, like, intention; or externally, like rules for a practice); it is what is meaningful to us as a culture, what is essential to us, expressed in the implications (grammar) of our expressions and actions.
— Antony Nickles

How does this relate back to the private language argument? I don't view the PLA as being about what is meaningful or essential to us as a culture. — Luke

If we say: meaning, grammatically, is not something I share with myself alone, than we share meaning together, we share how we would judge a particular event; how it has meaning to us, thus meaningful to us.

It's a trick question, or loaded. ...
— Antony Nickles
All that is unnecessarily too complicated! You could just answer, "Indeed, they are conflicting statements." And make some correction or something.
Anyway, the question is very straight: — Alkis Piskas

No offense, it's just not a straight question; it asks for a straight answer. Logically (technically, definitionally) this is a loaded question because it includes hidden assumptions and then limits the possible answers to only “yes” or “no” forcing an answer within the limits of a specific conclusion.

The term "thinking" is used here basically as "The process of considering or reasoning about something — Alkis Piskas

Okay, I see that I could "make some correction or something" with this definition of the assumption of what thinking is.

The question thus would be: "Does the process of considering and reasoning about something take place in the human brain?"

Unfortunately, this assumes what a "process" is, so we are back in the same (a similar) boat. However, let's try to give the benefit of attempting to move past whatever doubts we may have (we could say this is part of the process of thinking), which is I take it the gist of accusing me of overcomplicating this, perhaps in the vein of my not being constructive. I get it, so let's try to help.

A given is that "take place" limits the answer to a location, and specifically: in or out of the brain. So maybe we can solve for: what processes take place inside the brain? and what processes take place outside the brain?

Science!! It can not only tell you that thinking takes places in the brain, it can tell you where in the brain those (thinking) processes take place.

The prefrontal cortex is where sophisticated interpersonal skills and competence for emotional well-being take place; the inferior frontal gyrus is where the use of baseline knowledge combines with innovation for creativity, along with where speaking and understanding, attention control, and memory take place; the temporal lobe is where reading and hearing take place; the occipital lobe is where visual recognition takes place; the parietal lobe is where math, anaulysis and geometric perception and manipulation take place; and the limbic system is where emotional memory and mood control take place. — Paraphrase of Parts of the Brain Associated With Thinking Skills by Dr. Heidi Moawad

The "process of considering and reasoning about something" sounds an awful lot like: the use of baseline knowledge combined with innovation, speaking, understanding, attention control, memory, reading, hearing, analysis, geometric perception, manipulation, and emotional memory.

So thinking takes place in the brain. Game over. Who needs philosophy?

Actually, if you ask where any of the processes of thinking I mentioned take place, and the answer is: yes, they take place in the brain (or can be said to). Considering, reasoning. listening, explicating, waiting, strategizing, experimenting, reserving, judging, accepting, receiving, contextualizing, mulling over, finding and learning about options, studying history, drawing out the implications of a type of action, and being thorough, patient, creative, reflective, imaginative, concrete, etc., etc.

So what processes of "considering and reasoning about something" take place outside the brain? Let's say "outside" is a physical location (not in us), with other actors, changes in time to an external situation; we could call that, a context. This would include experimenting, focusing on an object (seeing a person in a different aspect); attending to what changes happen; problem-solving by manipulating physical objects, a conversation (bouncing ideas off a sounding-board), being understanding to another's thoughts/hearing them (there's that benefit-of-the-doubt thing), knowing how long to be patient for, not jumping at a first impression, leaving a thought and coming back to it, avoiding dichotomies, etc., etc., ???

We find certain things about seeing puzzling, because we do not find the whole business of seeing puzzling enough. — Wittgenstein, PI p. 212, IIXI (my/Cavell's emphasis)

Doing more science is not going to tell us anything about what is essential to thinking (why we care about it), nor how to think better. What part does our interest play? being attracted? desiring an outcome? how does it go wrong? what temptations? how is it faked? how does a goal fit in? an expectation? how does (must) thinking change based on the object of thought?

The brain allows for thinking, or, put another way, for us, at all. Any examination into the brain is not going to find out how/if it determines or causes our thoughts or intentions. Those concepts just do not work that way (determination, cause, intention, thought), as neither do: currency, fairness, believing, knowing, etc., etc.

Some measures of thinking well are keeping an open mind, , not jumping to conclusions, seeing things from another's point of view
-- Antony Nickles

I am open to all kind of views and I have stressed this point a lot of times. I always like to hear things that challenge my reality. In this case, however, you said "to see for yourself that the answer is no". But I already know and have answered "No" on this subject! What then do I have to see? ... See? — Alkis Piskas

Eeeeeerrrrrr, whoops. That's on me; that's my bad.

There is form essence and essence essence.
Form essence is what form qualities are necessary to call something a particular kind of form — Yohan

The OP is well-stated, thorough. Wittgenstein says that "Essence is expressed by grammar." PI #371 which is fairly cryptic apart from the history of Kant's thing-in-itself which cut us off from a certain picture of a thing's essence, in a sense killing what we are interested in. He does this because the certainty he is requiring ahead of time precludes the fact of the possibility of error, failing, conflict, etc. The division into appearance and "essence" (as "reality", "the world"; essence essence as you put it) is the picture created by this desire for something predetermined, certain, universal, complete in all outcomes, having the ability to force agreement, etc.

So what Witt means is that the "forms" (as you, and Plato, and Kant, call them) of our acts and expressions (Witt calls these "concepts" for lack of a better way to group them): choosing, pointing, thinking, understanding, apologizing, excusing, justifying, meaning, believing--everything in our lives here before us in our culture that we grow into and live--these forms/concepts work by a Grammar: the criteria of judging, identifying, completing, doing something appropriately, etc. for every different concept (applied in each context, possibly in their different options/"senses"/"uses"). Because we have been living our lives, making distinctions, judging rationale, etc. for centuries, our concepts contain, all our interests, desires, judgements. The criteria are what matters to us (together) about each thing.

So it is not a question of what "essence" is generally, it is what is essential, as in important, about something to us (all of us), captured in and revealed by a concept's grammar. Now of course we may differ in what criteria are most important to the concept of justice, but this is a rational (if not certain) discussion along the options and possibilities of a concept (PI #90).

Two other things. The idea of "appearance" is also a picture created by our fear of, say, making a mistake (having a doubt, crashing even Descartes' self to the ground), because we do not have anything more certain to get at. We take ourselves out of the picture because of our fear that without certainty, stability, we may fail to pull off our acts or resolve our differences. We want to get to the "real" "essence" of "the world" because of our desire not to be responsible for, and to, the implications of the grammar of our concepts. Wittgenstein stops at "the human body is the best picture of the human soul" (PI, iv p. 178, 3rd ed)--we must treat (not "know") the other as a person. Emerson, in Experience, will say "We live amid surfaces, and the true art of life is to skate well on them." In our skepticism, we look for a solution by imposing criteria for certainty and logic (frozen logic, Witt says) missing the ordinary grammar/criteria that is all around us that we can "take hold of anywhere". Id.

Not that this is a solution. We still are separate people (our internal life is not special (necessary), but it is owned by us). This is our responsibility, and perhaps your grief. You only have my expression (despite your desire for certainty), but I have a responsibility to make myself known (reveal myself, despite my desire to remain unknowable), even to myself. Emerson's Self Reliance is not me as the judgment of the world, but my duty to turn my "intuition into tuition"--explicate the criteria I am relying on, provide rationale, clarify, answer for myself, etc.; to respond to the other and give voice to our experiences, feelings, differences.

Aren't these conflicting statements? You say "yes" (i.e. thinking takes place in the human brain) and then you say "the answer is no"! And then, "the brain is active, but that is not the 'place' or cause of thinking". — Alkis Piskas

It's a trick question, or loaded. You can't say no, because it begs the question: the body doesn't have anything to do with thinking? (preposterous!) then where does thinking take place? (in the "mind"? Ha!) So, yes, one must say thinking involves the brain, as everything human does, which means it doesn't particularly matter to thinking anymore to anything else, say, any movement (which are not particular "actions" without our history of acts). We could say, "I can't think straight" and the answer could be I'm hungry; my brain is affecting my thinking because I'm hungover.

But to say the body is necessary (a threshold requirement) does not make it important/relevant--it means little to finding out what thinking consists of at all (which acts compared to others); or to the fact that thinking involves thinking well (as opposed to something like pointing); that thinking "takes place" in doing certain things, and, categorically, Kant says, grammatically, Wittgenstein says, in doing them closer to the manner we judge them being done well). To focus on the brain as part of thinking is to confuse science with/for philosophy, that science has an answer for everything, is important simply because of its ability to be certain (not seeing philosophy can be specific and rigorous and rational, just without the same force or ability for conclusion). This also goes the other way, in that science does not consider its knee-jerk framework of an ancient (self-serving?) picture of causality (as the basis and measure of everything).

... to see for yourself that the answer is no
— Antony Nickles
But I don't have to see anything ... I already know! — Alkis Piskas

Some measures of thinking well are keeping an open mind, not jumping to conclusions, seeing things from another's point of view, finding common ground, not prejudging, imposing our interests, etc., etc.

Does thinking take place in the human brain? — Alkis Piskas

I have to say yes, but I offer you to see for yourself that the answer is no. Yes, the brain is active, but that is not the "place" or cause of thinking, anymore than it is the "cause" of, say, us, everything of a human being. Thinned out that much, how does it matter to everything?

As Cicero and Heidegger (and Wittgenstein @Luke, even Austin @Banno) would say, thinking is the kind of act that is ethical, in the sense it matters how you do it, who "you" are, your interests (your voice, Cavell says).

I would like though to include in it all the possible complex functions of the human mind: computation, problem analysis and solving, creative imagination, etc. — Alkis Piskas

So thinking (as an ethical epistimology, say) is in pursuit of the criteria, the way of reasoning, of every different type of thing, action, expression. It "takes place" in our listening, explicating, considering, waiting, strategizing, experimenting, reserving, judging, accepting, receiving, contextualizing, etc., etc. In our striving to do those well, to think better, say, more thoroughly, patiently, creatively, reflectively, imaginatively, concretely, etc., etc.

The term "thinking" is used here basically as "The process of considering or reasoning about something — Alkis Piskas

I would say: considering the process of each individual thing's rationale (taking in the expression of what is essential about that thing). But this is not a "use" of thinking, that is a definition of thinking. I can think, in the sense of: mull over, find and learn about options, study its history, draw out the implications of a type of action., etc., etc. ("In the sense of" is the same as "in the use here of"--as (in the sense of) which option of--here: thinking--are we talking about? which use of the expression or action; in the sense of entertaining, or pondering? And you can tell yourself the difference if you think about it.

— Joshs

what makes us believe that we have that conversation any differently with ourselves than we would with someone else? We are "expressing" the pain, only to ourselves, but isn't that just to say: not out loud. What your two sentences "do" (Cavell would say Wittgenstein is drawing out the implications) are: correcting a mistake, and, realizing a presumption (like freaking yourself out when there is nothing actually there to be scared of). — -- Antony Nickles

A question occurred to me. If it is the case that the above conversation with ourselves would be comparable to having it with someone else, would it not also be the case that a conversation with oneself is a language game, and public? — Joshs

I re-wrote this in the Private Language Argument thread, and what I remembered is that, grammatically, we do not "know" or "doubt" or own experiences or feelings, we focus on or suppress them internally--we allow them to be known (reveal them) to ourselves. I was trying to capture this in saying we "express" them to ourselves similar to another, in that we acknowledge (accept) them to ourselves/as ours, say, out of repression (denial), trying to put them in words, etc. Though I find much the same to our public life, I am uneasy saying the workings here are a mirror (analogous) to our public conversation. We do, in the same sort of way, hide or express (reveal) our feelings and experiences publicly, and they are accepted or denied by the other, but our internal life is still ours, not in the sense it is special, but that it is owned (or not) by us, individually, maybe secretly, but in any case, separately.