What are the "Ordinary Language Philosophy" solutions to common philosophical problems? — Chaz

OLP is not a theory (argument) but a method, though it is working within the analytical tradition (calling it "linguistic" is to dismiss it as not also about our world). Some people say it is a diagnosis, but I resist the conclusive implication of calling it "therapeutic"--that it makes philosophy, or its problems, go away, or treats them as errors or a confusion. It does not pit "ordinary" language ("what words actually mean in everyday use") against philosophical language (though G.E. Moore appears to be a example of that). Moore did want to resolve our skepticism; Austin in a sense ignored it, focusing on the fallout: positivism's rejection of anything but true/false statements. Wittgenstein's later work started with a similar issue (his earlier self) as Austin, in trying to show that there is not one way of how things have meaning, but his "conclusion" is not that language creates skepticism (though its criteria is the means). What he found out, uncovered, learned about us--which is a better way of framing OLP's goal (not a "solution")--is our desire, our weaknesses, our blindness to ourselves (philosophy's and humanity's). That our desire for certainty is a reaction to the threat of skepticism, but that it is situational, possible to investigate, but not always (or forever) resolvable by our knowledge.

The method is not to attend to the "details" of language, but to see or imagine what matters to us when we say "...", for example, "I know..." (in every day situations and in philosophical ones). That this is philosophical data, much as Socrates' questions, that helps deepen and broaden our picture/understanding of our world, our philosophical problems, and our selves.

I did attempt an OP on it Ordinary Language Philosophy but I'm not sure I did a very good job of clearing up the mischaracterizations. Stanley Cavell is a good current example--try any essay in "Must We Mean What We Say".

An example from that OP:

The method is to ask or imagine (as Austin says): what do we ordinarily imply ("mean") when we say…, e.g., “I know”, "I think", "I forget", "I apologize", which also might involve fleshing out the context (situation) that would go along with that case. As an example, when we ordinarily say an action was done accidentally rather than mistakenly, we can imagine a case (a context): that “the gun went off in my hands and killed the donkey” (accidentally), as opposed to: “I did want to kill the cow, but hit the donkey instead” (mistakenly) (this is Austin's example). The example allows us to see what is usually skipped over unexamined: to describe what “actions” are and how they work, e.g., that “intention” does not come up in every circumstance (just when asked about a mistake) and how moral culpability works (Austin will talk of excuses—“The donkey just walked in the way!”).

Why does Nietzsche almost unique among many of the famous thinkers have to write in such a highly ambiguous way. — Ross Campbell

This makes me think of Wittgenstein saying "We find certain things about seeing puzzling, because we do not find the whole business of seeing puzzling enough." By the time everyone's way of thinking is framed by Kant in reaction to Descartes still looking for Plato's knowledge, it takes a different form of argument not to just fall into the same trap of relativism vs absolutism. Thoreau is not talking about living in a house in the woods, it's about getting your mental (philosophical) house in order. What you think you understand about Nietszche is not wrong, it just lacks depth and an openness that there is more than meets the eye. Attempt to take him as a serious philosopher--not a social critic with personal opinions--writing within the history of the philosophical tradition. If you take something as the first thing it appears to you to be, you will never see anything new in the world. It is really easy to glance at Nietszche (Wittgenstein, Hegel, Heidegger, Emerson, Marx, Austin) think you got the gist and dismiss him. Try thinking analogously, mythologically; imagine he is tricking you into becoming an example of the moralistic person he is critiquing. He can't tell you in the way you want because you have to see it for/in yourself, which is a matter of turning against your first thoughts and looking at it from a new place. I'd try Human, All Too Human for the most straight forward text, though he plays out a lot of examples in the second half.

Real philosophy is not about knowledge of theories, so summaries and introductions spoil the point, which is to listen to how you react when you read the original texts. The result is to change who you are and how you think so there is no shortcut. Don't start with Nietszche, or Descartes, or anyone modern because they usually have an axe to grind. Plato or Aristotle are good because they form the reference for most everyone after. Mill and Hume and Hobbs and Rouseau are all fairly easy to read, which might be the best place to start (do not attempt Kant or Hegel or Heidegger).

I'm afraid I couldn't understand everything you were saying. — Ross Campbell

Well, if you are interested, I stand ready to clarify, draw something out further, or answer any questions.

I think there is a grain of truth in Nietzsche's attack on Christianity as being a slave morality. — Ross Campbell

Or we can simply continue to see these as his opinions (see Witt. P.I. p. 152). I am arguing this is not a discussion of pity and compassion (better to read Arendt, Foucalt, etc.). In this vein, Nietszche is challenging our habit to think we see and can judge immediately. He is asking for a different reader as much as a different moral culture. I found that if I felt I "got him", especially at first glance, I would be wrong, missing something; maybe this is not an argument, but a call for something, a claim on us? Maybe these are not statements (true/false) about our society, but challenges for a change of our entire picture of morality.

And the idea of our being slaves is, again, an analogy, say, slaves to our desire to give our self (our responsibility) away to our morals. Emerson calls for us to "master" ourselves or someone else will; i.e., our unexamined culture makes us a slave. We are quietly desperate, in chains, etc.--this is not new.

The fundamental problem with Nietzsche , as with some other existentialists is that they are too individualistic in their thinking. — Ross Campbell

As I said at the bottom of my original post, this is the other side of misunderstanding Nietszche. If I do not give myself away to morals, that does not mean I abandon them--we take them on, examine the context (or lack of it), history, use (misuse)--perhaps each case on its own terms (we become adverse to them, as Emerson phrases it). He is not anti-morality, but simply asking us to inhabit our moral life. All his talk of self does not mean we then become the sole arbitrator of what is right; that we have some right to a private moralism (equal to the moralism we inflict on each other with our public morals). The call for my will to guide me (my whim Emerson says) may be to help others, be a good citizen, go along with everyone else; my duty need not be our downfall, nor different than yours or anyone's. The aspiration to the self is not an abdication of moral responsibility (but a call for it); ironically, irresponsibility comes from the reliance only on unexamined morals.

Aristotle said, "Man is a social animal". — Ross Campbell

Nietszche is different from Aristotle, and most traditional philosophers, in that he is not advocating for a particular type of human. He is not explaining or telling us what human nature is. Another way to think of this is that he is not talking about what we ought to be or do (setting our future goal or ideal). His is an open-ended call to aspire to your next self, a revitalized culture. Can we trust each other? or are we bound to pre-judge us all? Can we have our humanity without it appearing we desire an anarchy of no culture, no rules, no language?

Nietzsche's attack on the virtues of kindness and compassion seems to me an unfortunate flaw in his thinking. ...Nietzsche's psychology is flawed in many aspects ...his contempt for the virtues of pity and compassion regarding them as weaknesses which inhibit the "strong" individual. — Ross Campbell

There is another discussion of Nietszche's book The Antichrist that touches on this. In that discussion with @frank I try to make the case that Nietszche's work is philosophy, and is not meant as social commentary. His characterization of Christianity is drawn as an example of morality pre-determined with certainty and rules, such as Kant's imperatives and Plato's forms.

Pity and compassion are used analogously. For him they are attitudes we take to ourselves and our perspective on morality. Morality decided in advance and fixed is to remove ourselves (the human) from the equation. Our pity is our sense of lack for what we wish we were (our ideal or ought); our desire for a universal, rational, "normative" moralism is our weakness. Emerson frames it as a quarter he wishes he had the strength to withhold giving to the poor, for they are not his (oh my!) What he is critiquing is Kant's sense of duty, which says: if you just do this, you will be a good person. For Emerson duty is to stand for what I say and do ("I am!"); to be read by it, answerable for it. Our strength is not to take the easy answer that abstract morality provides, contemptuous of our moral self.

So why does Nietszche (and Emerson) court misunderstanding? I'm not sure. Why does Wittgenstein talk out of two sides of his mouth? Why does Heidegger never get around to saying anything? Maybe there are some things that cannot be told, but that we must find for ourselves. You need "new eyes", "new ears"--maybe he wanted to start a fight to set himself as an outrageous example. You're shocked, provoked, antagonized? Is what you think right desecrated? Your sensibilities, your righteousness? Perhaps now you are ready.

(In anticipation of knee-jerk reactions, I'll also say that some take Nietszche to advocate that we are selfish--"pitiless", "dominating", "powerful"--beyond morals (not just beyond good and evil); that he thinks our instinct will make us superior in a zero-sum game (not that my duty could be the same as yours, or better). They take him to propose a new type of human, apart from (above) culture--a morally-naturalistic nightmare. I believe the interpretation comes from a desire not to be subject to society ("free") and the need to feel special, important--an excuse to hold individual (internal) experience paramount.)

Can anyone think of other cases where being a kind of thing at all is conflated with being a good example of that kind of thing? — Pfhorrest

Well J.L. Austin talks about how to decide if a bird is a goldfinch or not, and he uses the example to draw out the criteria we use in making that decision, in determining its identity; this is in distinction from other birds, what distinguishes it.

In another case, we would identify two dogs as bloodhounds but hold one over the other, say, in its "bloodhound-ness". We might say we use criteria of judgement. The importance of saying one is a better example or more representative (rather than just a set of criteria, or ideal) is that there is an embodied comparison and thus no way to explicate all the ways one example differs from another, or, more importantly, how we might value one over another.

And we wouldn't normally say criteria of identity are set by us (that we created the distinction between a crow and a bluebird) but usually that criteria of judgement are in a sense manufactured: utility, beauty, right, etc. Stanley Cavell said "modern" art brought its identity (its medium, its form) into discussion with us as part of our judgement. We might also say when we identify something as fair it is also a matter of judgement.

Maybe you could elaborate what doing or being better means in the context of the contingency of values. What is an aim to do better outside of goals, utility, ought? What is an interest or desire if not normative , goal-oriented , anticipatory? — Joshs

Well this is a necessary demand for clarification, so thank you; these are the questions. If we do not give in to the weakness of abdicating our desire to the desire for certainty--a predetermined, timeless, universal; if we don't sublimate our attraction to the essence of a thing to a fixed, external explanation, then what are our interests, our desires?

It should be noted it is no small thing that Nietszche gets us to this point; and our anxiety to jump to an answer is what requires courage and joy to overcome. If we are now turned and see our reflection in our world, we can then consider our real need, what interests us (draws us, Heidegger will say). So our goal could be put as knowledge of ourselves, in the life we are a part of (Wittgenstein will call it Grammar). We could say: the difference between a value, and what we value; between what is the meaning, and what is meaningful. This is not a goal as an end or answer, it is a reoccurring question (for each type of thing) for which we are answerable--there is what is normal, and what we are prepared to stand apart for (even if seen as mad). Nietszche makes us see our part in our bankrupt morals and rallies us to revitalize them, fill them with us, rather than with our lack (pity) of what we wish we were.

Are you talking about perfection as the thing in itself , as an asymptotic ideal? — Joshs

My point was, similar to when you say that "nothing can reside outside time and history", that we can not reside outside institutions, rules, words (our culture). But, with Nietszche, our culture as it stands needs to be transfigured (not abandoned). That is not teleological (you seem to see an inevitable tipping point here, "Perfecting, approximating, developing, evolving all imply a telos or center that defines the movement.") I frame it as perfectionism only as change and progress. The imagery (of the sun, of moving upward) and the enthusiasm he advises is not to a certain goal (Emerson would say we should live fuzzy in front). We join or re-write the social contract; we aspire to our (next) better self. I only wanted to try to show that he is not doing social commentary of our culture (except as an example); that he is writing in analytical contrast to Kant and Plato. He is humanizing that morality by introducing the context of the history of our interests and desires. The example is our desire for rationality to remove our responsibility, but he is showing us that we do (together/each) have interests and desires. In seeing that now (reflected in our moralism), I/we aim to do/be better. This is beyond the argument of grounded or not grounded; absolute or relative; goals, utility, ought.

Post-structuralism , deconstruction and Will to Power don’t eliminate structures — Joshs

Well there are a lot of people who take Nietszche to propose an individual (seen as selfish--"pitiless"--"dominating", "powerful") who is beyond morals (not just beyond good and evil); to imply that my instinct matters even if that means a zero-sum game. That a "new human" stands apart from (above) culture. I believe the interpretation comes from a desire to not be subject to society and the need to feel special, important (an excuse to hold their (internal) experience paramount).

When our desire is for the ideal , even when we set aside aside the thing-in-itself we are still presupposing it. — Joshs

I agree, that was my initial point. I would only say that this shows the importance of Wittgenstein's realization that in looking at everything individually on its own terms, in each case--not AN essence (universally)--we can recapture what we want from the thing-in-itself: what is important to us about something, how it matters, which we see in looking at its regular ordinary criteria (not abstracted or imposed). He could been seen as continuing this from Nietszche unearthing our unexamined purpose/desire in the creation and use of our morals.

Even as you seem to be closing your hand around an argument only to have it slip out. I don't see in your post anything specific enough to disagree with. — Banno

I enjoy the irony of a comment about vagueness being unspecific. I wanted to point towards how and why the preoccupation here is philosophically important.

this vagueness that irritates philosophers.
— Shawn

That's a psychological problem for philosophers, not a philosophical problem. — Banno

"than what is it that goes wrong with [human life such that idealism emerges]?"
— Antony Nickles

He's saying it becomes a sort of cultural suicidal state. — frank

We die by our own hand. Our desire for the ideal, kills us. We set aside the thing-in-itself because we can not have it on our terms. In our weakness we destroy our world because we can't know it with certainty, and give ourselves the pity of our own reason. It is the humanization of epistimology.

The world with which we are concerned is false, i.e., is not fact but fable and approximation on the basis of a meager sum of observations; it is "in flux," as something in a state of becoming, as a falsehood always changing but never getting near the truth: for--there is no "truth" (Nietzsche 1901/1967 Will to Power) — Joshs

We could simply take away, 'there is no truth', but then why are 'we concerned'? maybe this is not a dismissal, but an observation and critique. If our guidance is changing, in flux, and becoming, then we are getting near and approximating; bettering, perfecting. Maybe this time with a greater attention to observation, and with this knowledge that we will never be perfect and timeless.

“…the origin of the emergence of a thing and its ultimate usefulness, its practical application and incorporation into a system of ends, are toto coelo separate; that anything in existence, having somehow come about, is continually interpreted anew, requisitioned anew, transformed and redirected to a new purpose by a power superior to it; that everything that occurs in the organic world consists of overpowering, dominating, and in their turn overpowering and dominating consist of re-interpretation, adjustment, in the process of which their former ‘meaning' and ‘purpose' must necessarily be obscured or completely obliterated. — Joshs

And if we must 'interpret' again, there is no place outside of standing for a conclusion or description, though 'adjusted' and 'transformed'. So it can be a +/- determination about grounding moral values, but I only urge that is the first, not the last, of him. Yes, he is hammering away at the fixed, certain nature of Kant and Plato, but is that the conclusion?

people down the ages have believed that the obvious purpose of a thing, its utility, form and shape, are its reason for existence, the eye is made to see, the hand to grasp. So people think punishment has evolved for the purpose of punishing. But every purpose and use is just a sign that the will to power has achieved mastery over something less powerful, and has impressed upon it its own idea [Sinn] of a use function; and the whole history of a ‘thing', an organ, a tradition can to this extent be a continuous chain of signs, continually revealing new interpretation and adaptations, the causes of which need not be connected even amongst themselves, but rather sometimes just follow and replace one another at random.” (Genealogy of Morality) — Joshs

And I know, 'at random' jumps out here, but before that is a restructuring of classical epistimology. A thing's rationality ('utility, form and shape') tells us it's 'purpose' (essence). And we take this as 'obvious' because we want everything to be certain and timeless and predetermined. So we skip over, as Wittgenstein notes as well, looking closely to investigate what the actual logic of a thing is, what sense does it make apart from our desires (which Heidegger picks up on). So, again, is pulling out the carpet really the point?

So are we left without 'forms' or 'things'? without morals, rules, words? No. But Nietszche shows us their history, their perspective, that they are used as much as essential. He does what another philosopher suggested, turn and see yourself reflected in the thing. But the clarion call is not kill God, but, do better! less seriously (seeking reason) and more joyously.

The Antichrist comes across as psychology. Proto-Jungian. He wants to analyze the Savior type. He's not psychoanalyzing Jesus, but a type of idealism. He's explaining how idealism emerges out of human life. — frank

But this is philosophy, just maybe not a form (of argument?) we are used to seeing. Why must it take the form it does? If we can agree that he is analyzing idealism (whose? what form?), than what is it that goes wrong with this "emergence"?

In Antichrist, hes not focusing on building morality back. He's just saying that when self condemnation becomes the prevailing vibe (as in Christianity), it's a deathly force. — frank

I'll grant you that Neitszche gets a little one note as he progresses, but It is easy to take from him simply a critique of morality and a description/judgment of attitudes (weak, pity, power, are about our thinking, say, they are in context to our self). I offer that there is more, if you look deeper--what is he trying to get us to see about how it is, in philosophy, that we condemn ourselves ("the human") with our thinking, the creation of our morality?

I suppose this makes me want to compare Christian cultures to non-Christian ones. His critique doesn't seem to bear much on the reality. — frank

It may seem like a sociological critique, but it is analytical. He is not doing history, he's fashioning an example to show a dynamic. You could call it mythical, or fantastical. Wittgenstein will do the same (even creating surreal worlds) to contrast with the logic of our ordinary mechanisms. Plato has his parables of chariots and caves. Nietszche's contribution is in and to this history of moral philosophy, and it is not a stick of dynamite nor simply a social commentary.

This sounds consistent with the moral perspectives of Kierkegaard, Wittgenstein and Levinas (and Caputo, Critchley and Sheehan) , because it still makes the idea of god coherent. I read Nietzsche as deconstructing this thinking. — Joshs

I'm not sure this is such a black-n-white fight. I don't think my descriptions of Nietzsche's critiques of deontology "still makes the idea of god coherent"? Is this to say that Nietzche's aim was to make deontology incoherent? when his work is a description of how it functions? I think it's too simplistic to say Nietszche is doing away with it or replacing it; he finds there is no "human" history or recognition of our part in the creation or our misuse of morals to judge people. If he is taking it apart, it is to see our part in it.

And without Nietszche you don't have Wittgenstein; the idea of looking at a fictitious history as a case to learn the ins-and-outs of something; the idea of the ordinariness of our concepts, that they come from a place in our lives; that our concepts are not precise and fixed...

he doesn't think of morality in terms of fixed rules. — frank

But what I was saying is that he uncovered the desire for them, our weakness for an answer that doesn't involve us, our failings. But also, if you read early work like Human, all too Human, he is simply breaking down our moral framework to build it back with an eye on history and context, and acknowledging our part in our moral judgments, though later he will seemingly be simply railing on an
about the individual.

So you're saying that living out someone else's morality is easy, it provides an easy Good buzz. How would you explain the alternative? That embracing authenticity comes at a price? — frank

Nietszche talks of needing strength, courage, indifference, and, at least elsewhere, joy. If there is a desire in us for certainty and universality and the surety of a fixed morality knowledge, then we must resist a part of ourselves, turn away from our culture, towards our attraction. Our will is not us forcing something, but allowing our instinct and interests to guide us.

From the preface, he describes his reader:

"He must have an inclination, born of strength, for questions that no one has the courage for; the courage for the forbidden; predestination for the labyrinth. The experience of seven solitudes. New ears for new music. New eyes for what is most distant. A new conscience for truths that have hitherto remained unheard. And the will to economize in the grand manner-to hold together his strength, his enthusiasm. . . . Reverence for self; love of self; absolute freedom of self..." — frank

This sounds like Emerson and Thoreau. Whitman talked of having the right person to tell his secrets to. Could Nietszche be asking us to become something else? to change us, rather than simply tell us something? To have us stop giving our self away for nothing?

"...the rottenness I speak of is most apparent to me precisely in those quarters where there has been most aspiration, hitherto, toward "virtue" and "godliness." — frank

-quoting Nietszche

Some prefer to see Nietszche as a continental philosopher, commenting about the state of his world (and Christianity). I read him as an analytical philosopher, reacting to Kant and Plato. His example is religion but his target is deontological morality. If you 'aspire' to a specific idea of what it is to be virtuous, you are abdicating the opportunity and responsibility to be a better you. Also a moral moment may be lost on you if you feel you are a good person because you have done what has been decided beforehand by others long ago.

A history of the "higher feelings," the "ideals of humanity"-and it is possible that I'll have to write it-would almost explain why man is so degenerate. — frank

- again, quoting Nietszche.

But he has written the history of our desire for ideals. His work is an examination by strawman of the forces at work in us to replace our human failing with righteous reasoned imperatives and forms. He is trying to get us to see the historicity of moral philosophy.

However, some misconstrue the impassioned fever of his entreaties, even hatred, as that he is against rules at all and that it is every person for themselves. Emerson is thought of this way as well--withholding charity to others (giving ourselves over). But to follow my whim (will) may be to help others, be a good citizen, go along with everyone else; my duty need not be our downfall, nor different than yours or anyone's. But Nietszche doesn't see any desperation in the quietness of our voice, so he is desperate for us, controversial, shameless, hated--a god-killer--a hyperbolic example, for us. We are the weak and ill-constituted. We pity ourselves (being "moral") rather than being our self.

I think of it as a mythical analogy (prejudiced hopefully more by the trope than in belief) written in code, where "God" is Plato's form and our weakness is our desire to relinquish our responsibility over our self to a moral theory.

I'm not trying to look at this through a lens of preciseness only. I think, it also seems to me to be an issue about inherent vagueness in language — Shawn

This is the killer though. @Banno waves this off as a problem with a philosopher's psychology, but it is so tied to how we think I take the resolution as an analytical problem. The desire you are trying to see with is creating your picture of the concept. Emerson and Heidegger both have the image of closing our (human) hand and everything spilling out. We grasp with the criteria of certainty, specificity, universality, and we end up without the essence of what a heap is, its gist--this is not ontological or correlative or definitional--it is what matters to us about heaps and the judgments we make about them, etc., our lives with heaps. This need is crystallized with Logical Positivism, which excluded everything vague and uncertain. So Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations is the obvious guide out of these woods. His term Concept, like, say, "game", is pulled and pushed to show how our lives are measured in more ways than a simple theory would like. He discusses "vague" at #71, starting "One might say that the concept 'game' is a concept with blurred edges." and to ask "Isn't the indistinct [picture] often exactly what we need?" and also "is it senseless to say: 'Stand roughly there?'" Or at #98 "Where there is sense there must be perfect order--so there must be perfect order even in the vaguest sentence." Now this isn't to say there aren't mistakes, misuses, laziness, etc. but the point is laid out in #101 "We want to say there can't be any vagueness in logic. The idea absorbs us, that the ideal must be found in reality." The cart is before the horse; the game is rigged before the thought problem, say, of criterion, is even set up. But this is a classic philosophical hand-wringer. There is confusion, miscommunication, and lack of agreement, and philosophy blames common language and sets out to correct it or clarify or qualify, but our ordinary criteria (for heaps, games, vagueness) is the most connected to our actual lives.

So are there 3 positions? — Gregory

I meant those as examples, not as alternative explanation. The specific type of answer is not the problem, it is the desire for a particular, certain, or universal answer of Being or the explanation of the structure of Being that is the same type of obsession which led to metaphysical solutions like Plato (and that Kant was trying to get around). The appearance and the real turned into the appearing doesn't get us out of the original desire, which Heidegger falls away from only in the later work.

↪Antony Nickles. "pointing to more practical (ethical) ways of being, such as: our letting being draw us in, listening before jumping to naming/judging, and other approaches which may make the dead word alive again in our voice, our self able to be uncompleted.
— Antony Nickles
— Joshs

But the knowledge of being is always an existing , a transit , We always already understand Being in that we always are projecting ourselves into a future. Understanding is this forehaving that is affected by what it projects itself into. — Joshs

"It is impossible to do because a totality of relevance is always already implied and intrinsic to any experience, regardless of our mode of comportment toward the world. So it’s not a question of experiencing the world pragmatically or not , but of whether or not we are aware of this always underlying mattering. — Joshs

It seems here it doesn't matter the way we conduct ourselves (or the ways there are to conduct ourselves) as long as we are aware (present). But I think we are in the weeds already when trying to pin down Being either as knowledge or source, etc.

Heidegger knows that there is something preconceptual (transcendent) which Dasein has a dialectic with in reasoning that is always mysterious but allows us to reason. — Gregory

Being means: presence. — Joshs

It's as if they felt someone else was behind the scenes in their private noumena with them, but knew not who it was. — Gregory

Once Being becomes the source, the answer, the object, than we are lost in a struggle on metaphysics' terms. That's not to say Heidegger doesn't have something important to say, as does Socrates, though they're better when they leave the question unanswered (universally).

@Xtrix"just as a hammer can be thought of as a wooden stick with a metal piece on the end of it, weighing a certain amount and of a certain dimension or having other properties, but isn't thought of such when we're absorbed in the activity of hammering, likewise the world isn't simply "material."

This is where Wittgenstein helps in showing that knowledge and practice are different for every different thing. There's the criteria by which we identify a hammer, and what counts as hammering (that it might be done with a rock). These concepts and their criteria are not material but are also not preconceptual--simply unexamined, unconscious, forgotten. In each case it does not take presence, but remembering, making explicit; in each case, in each context.

Although he doesn't get into specific "do's and dont's" he tries to make alive philosophical thinking such that thinking in those ways becomes normal for us — Gregory

I do think you would find some specifics in "What is Called Thinking?" and "Language, Poetry, and Thought", particularly as to what thought is and should be. Because Thinking is a lecture, it allows him to draw out a subject as he would want us to be drawn towards the world.

Then he introduces various modes of comportment , and how they modify Dasein’s way of being in the world. He introduces the distinction between authentic and inauthentic models of comportment, and within the inauthentic he explains how average everydayness , propositional statements and empirical science emerges as impoverished modes of experiencing. For instance , about average everyday discourse he says that in the mode of average everydayness Dasein disguises, covers over, conceals, obscures its genuine self, a genuine understanding, an originary and primordial way of appropriating the matter, “getting to the heart of the matter,” primordially genuine relations of being toward the world, toward Mit-dasein, toward being-in itself. — Joshs

I don't know enough about Being in Time to comment on the reading, but, if this accurate, I think in his later work he moves away from a focus on an (abstract) endpoint (@Gregory) and is pointing to more practical (ethical) ways of being, such as: our letting being draw us in, listening before jumping to naming/judging, and other approaches which may make the dead word alive again in our voice, our self able to be uncompleted. That is to say that maybe he misses the mark early on in taking Being as a replacement for a static self, as Marx does (or a reading of Marx does) in skipping over the revelation that we are produced (by means we may not control), to a belief that we can get to a point of being unproduced, rather than choosing or going against the means--that the nature of the proletariat is pure (as is Plato's hope for the forms). This is to say that maybe Heidegger's way to ethics is bringing historicity (temporality?) to our ontology to fight against dogmatism, much as Nietszche brought it to our morals to combat moralism, or as Wittgenstein's ethical argument is considering our part in epistemology. Thus the act, the fight, the considering--not "falling prey", getting "caught up", "cut off"--is of greater consequence than the knowledge of Being; that the explicit hides the implicit, as well as that intuition must become "tuition" (as Emerson puts it), but it is the looking and the becoming that are important.

Maybe you could elaborate what you mean by fundamental. Heidegger’s does make his brand of philosophy the ground of Being. — Joshs

When I said that for Hedeigger philosophy is not fundamental, what I was trying to say is that it is not trying to be support or make certain or remove doubt in the traditional sense of a philosophical ground or foundation; not fixing our nature, but leaving it as an open question. We begin, we are, yet we return to ourselves; it is not our dogmatism about human nature but our analysis of ourselves that is our grounding, our founding and building. He may be making an argument about our human situation, but not as a basis the way other philosophers had for something in particular or as an argument against skepticism. Thus the importance of what we do and say and align ourselves with (what do we call this if not ethical? as in, what matters to us, our interests, what we care about), as our being is both historical and "veiled" (in front, Emerson would say).

It would certainly be a mistake to think this is a theory about being in relation to time understood in any conventional sense. — Joshs

So... a theory (as opposed to a plea), just special?

It is a theory about Being understood as temporality. This notion of time presupposes Attunement, Care and Understanding. — Joshs

An explanation of our human experience that assumes our ethical posture? (takes it for granted?)

Temporality is in itself already an ethics — Joshs

I don't have enough here to understand--to follow from or know where it connects to or is making a distinction from my comment. I could guess that you feel it is necessary to point out that our experience in time (or our knowledge of that), I hazard to say: creates us, or is more fundamental than, maybe, the ontology others argue for; e.g., an explanation of our nature in stasis. And so he is not entreating for a particular better nature, but, as you say, presupposing "an ethics"; that our being, as ethical, perhaps at all, begins and journeys. Or leaving the question open: against what is Heidegger arguing? and for what purpose?

If any of that is close, I would think that, as an explanation of our experience, our understanding of him is more similar than not. Who we are, what we will be, is, and yet, becomes. I only wanted to ask (conjecture) if that is not an ethical argument in (or through) an ontological one.

For me the best part of his philosophy is the implicit concept that science describes a second order aspect of the world while philosophy describes the primary way it must be seen — Gregory

I agree with the sentiment, but I wouldn't want it thought of as an argument ("primary" "must"). One way to look at it, on the grounds of this OP, is to say that our cares matter. Say, with science, we value certainty and have an inate fear of our, call it, frailty. For example, in Thinking: letting our subject (the "object") come to us and not reaching with our desires and fears and predispositions, even our skeptical desire to ignore ourselves, to rid us of ourselves; have science be our guide and substitute for us. Heidegger's insight is that philosophy is not initial--though Emerson's and Wittgenstein's admonition is to start (facing) correctly--nor is philosophy fundamental, but he urgently calls us to wait for it, it's secrets and discoveries, nonetheless.

He does throw hard sentences at us like "being relevant constitutes itself in the unity of awaiting and retaining in such a way that the making present arising from this makes the characteristic absorption in taking care in the world of its useful things possible." — Gregory

I read "What is called thinking?", which is a 1951lecture of an example of how to investigate deeply into a subject and the pitfalls of our initial assumptions and desires, so I see Heidegger not just describing the state of us over time but our duty and responsibilities as well. So when he talks about "awaiting and retaining" or "the making present"or "taking care in the world", I don't think it is accurate to say this is a feeling or emotion, but, also, equally a mistake to think this is a theory about the structure, or explaination, of our being in relation to time. We have an obligation for our posture, our action, our reaction. He will say to let the world lie before us, to look for what calls us, to be grateful in remembering, to let ourselves be attracted to (fall in love with?) the world. If we are also asked to be "awaiting", "retaining", "making present", "taking care", are these not ethical admonishions?

I was wondering if Google utilizes meaning as use, given their enormous knowledge about how language is utilized by its users — Shawn

I think it's important to unpack the idea of "utiliz[ing] meaning as use"; which here I take comes from monitoring how language is used to understand what people mean, or at least want. First, it might help to see this is trading one thing for another: "meaning as[/is] use", is the same as meaning as... say, metaphysical yada yada (positivism). Wittgenstein is looking at the way we picture meaning; he wants us to look at why we picture it that way. So a 'use' is something we are asked to see, not a way to explain language. A word (or expression, or concept) can have different, say, categories, Wittgenstein calls them "senses"--e.g., "knowledge" as information, knowledge as skill, or knowing as recognizing something in another. These are not different "meanings", but the associated contexts of our lives. So 'use' is not our language being manipulated, nor the job to which it is put--as if we always do something, or that we control (i.e.,'use') language--as the article quotes the Standford Encyclopedia claiming that Wittgenstein wants us to see "the variety of uses to which the word is put." That language is put to use inverts its public meaningfulness with our wants and desires, trading history and the ways of the world for intention and personal causality.

Wittgenstein has a method to see what part of our life an expression touches on--which 'sense'; which 'use'. The various contexts in which words can (or can not) be: appropriate, fitting, recognized. This is not a fixed, singular, or limited connection which makes the "meaning" of words understood. It is a new kind of philosophical posture (Witt says "attitude"); to look at an expression and differentiate one 'sense' from another forces us to examine, and in the process become aware of, our ordinary criteria, judgments, expectations, implications, etc., imbedded in the life we participate in; thus, to know ourselves. To know what matters is to know how something can be meaningful.

Now is this what Google is doing? I think the article is justified in saying the perspective is Wittgenstenian in that it is turning away from: word = meaning (like a definition or corresponding object), but it appears to want to replace 'use' there as a way language has meaning. As if people using language in certain ways allows it to have meaning. This description fits Google's framework because it must work backwards from the way words are 'used' in sentences, i.e., what goes before and after what, in order to try to flesh out the different contexts of our expressions. But it is forced to do this, when we are born into the world already; we are trained in and absorb the ways and failures of it. Its vast variability and evolution make it impossible for Google (or math) to map, describe, or encompass. But what Google is doing is not a substitute definition; the important part for it is the prediction and association. It is guessing what you are going to say next, but just not in the same way we have an expectation of the appropriate next expression given the context.

Let's leave it that our expression associates us with its uses which come from the situation we are in. Again, these different uses are not the 'meanings' of the words--except in the way a veiled threat or insincere apology or insecure boasting have meaning. The world is meaningful to us. The attempt to construct context from leftover signs reduces reading to morbidly sifting through evidence for a world already dead. The outcome narrows because the computer is without vision; it is facing the wrong way. Its experiences (its historical attempts) are in isolation from the human experience. Predictive text is a time saver, amazingly apt at finding the appropriate thing to say, taking the words right out of our mouths, but we still wouldn't call this writing without minimizing the endeavor (which some are happy to do).

When I raise the issue of solidity, I am speaking about foundations and strengths and, of a capacity to stand firm and not be thrown asunder. — Jack Cummins

I'm with @Banno in bringing in Austin in this case. His epiphany of sense from pointing out our ordinary lives makes philosophy feel fresh and workable. However, the sentiment expressed here by I believe @Wayfarer that Austin is not replying to or connected with traditional philosophy (he also gets pegged with "just discussing language") is just something Austin doesn't dine to explain, skipping to showing how "real" is, say, opposed to fake. He doesn't show how we got here, nor parse out the motivations or implications.

We aren't led through the creation of the Gordian knot that has become "reality" in philosophy. I'm not the best historian; the story I remember starts with really getting yourself to feel the fear of skepticism: how can we be sure about what's right? how do I know what you're thinking? And then Plato makes a fatal error in the Theatetus and transfers moral doubt onto physical objects. The actual question is not "is it real?" but can we be certain, universally, ahead of time, and project that into the future.

The next step is philosophy imagined "real" as a quality to objects or existence, and a continuous quality. The "real" world; "reality" not as say compared to denial, but as something fundamental, epistimologically relevant which is solid and strong that stands firm against uncertainty. As if what is real had to be proven itself, rather than being a presumption to contrast against outlying cases. So now the question "what is reality"? can seem necessary to answer.

the advent of science has had an extraordinarily, overwhelmingly positive impact on how we live. — Banno

This is to say perhaps that science, with its method that uncovers (and creates) reproducibility, predictability, constancy, universality, has led to discoveries and innovation that improved our comfort and efficiency, impacted other practices, helped ease suffering etc. But the knowledge of science, has also, since the enlightenment, become a standard, created the concept of a fact, what is factual.

The advent of the kind of certain knowledge which science offers created a cultural blindness when the criteria of its judgment was transposed as the measure of every other rationale. We have bad science, but also the damage done in the name of science. Our culture has internalized the need for certainty and will only accept external justification; as if to remove ourselves as knowers. The inability to receive each thing for itself, in the ways it makes itself known, has withered our human judgment. The immediacy of empiricism and the solidity of science have led to the reification of fact which gives us a false confidence in a "soft" field like economics and a distrust of the methods of mastered experience like, say, psychotherapy. We are so taken with the power imbued to fact we are astonished when another refuses to agree or acknowledge the value we have unreflectively given them.

A TED talk I saw yesterday put [the progress of human culture] down to the types of explanations that we accept, arguing that it is down to the rejection of explanations that are too easily reinforced by ad hoc additions. I'd suggest it has to do with the introduction of self-checking conversations, the notion that we check what we say against the way things are. — Banno

So here maybe we could say the talk posits that progress has come from our rejection of the quality of the reinforcement of our explanations. Another way to say that might be that with a justification not created out of thin air but through a method, such as science's, our explanations have the continuity and validity that created the very concept of progress. Unfortunately, I don't believe our culture has benefitted from scientific progress. The expectation that we merely need to explain ourselves in the image of factual knowledge, underestimates the breadth of human culture. I do think there is something to what @Banno adds, if it is in a way not to value what we take facts to express or support, but to judge our selfs, our expressions, even our desire to express ourselves, and not against a standard, but in acceptance or aversion to the status quo, the context. Here there is the possibility not of progress, but of growth.

Your presentation is really clear and well thought out. — T Clark

As most times, pretty sure I stole most of those arguments, but thanks.

There is an interest here, I believe (@Banno), for analytical philosophy. I hope I make a fair assessment. This is a vision of a moral world; it takes into consideration concepts of justice and fairness and freedom and rights, etc. Though it is critical of "liberalism" there is a desire for it to meet the goal of a "a rights-based approach to addressing inequality", though it is seen as failing "in ascribing special value to the property of whiteness."

The basis of a right is my claim to it. The antithesis of this is an imposition, particularly without considering me--not an agreed contract, not a punishment for one's own acts--as, say, the act of "erroneous and harmful beliefs about people of color." As summed up, "we should generally see each person for who they are, not what category they fall into."

Here I take justice to be, that: if everyone has access to their rights, we can see "who they are", which I take to mean here: what they merit, their worth. Thus, working towards a more just society, we should focus on equal rights and opportunity, and responsibility for ourselves and our actions and speech. Thus our speech should be free to be judged on its own merit.

In order for us to have justice, we should have knowledge of the Other, ("who they are"), and judge them as individuals, as a human like me, living in and subject to the same goal of a just and moral world. But Cavell points out in the Claim of Reason that the real horror in slavery was not viewing the slave as inhuman, but "seeing" them as a human, treating them as human, while they were enslaved.

So what is it that blinds us to the Other? Wittgenstein investigated our desire for knowledge that the pain of the Other is the same as our pain, instead of our facing that an expression of pain is a moral claim on us. Emerson would say character is higher than intellect--that we define our self in that moral moment. Nietzsche saw our desire for predetermined moral knowledge as a power move that striped context away allowing morality to be manufactured rather than contingent and historical.

Now this will seem ironic, as here the worry is exactly that a quality is being imposed on us. But it is as if the individual were internalizing society. As perhaps, if I make myself the target of judgment, then the justice of our society is saved by my sacrifice, before it is "torn down". I can be responsible and defend myself, not having to acknowledge the fear of the unknown, the future, the overwhelming, the Other---the state of nature that makes us cling to the social contract which both saves us, and compromises us. In order that the world not break my heart, I cut off the thing-in-itself first, and project my good into the Other. Thus we see ourselves before society, as intending meaning, as individually special. Or maybe there is another cause of our refusal to see that our culture, our language, our institutions, pre-date our coming into the world, and that they are external of our intention and theory and morality. Marx's means of production are the means of the production of our self. Our speech is bound in language--expression only being human (not hearsay) with our ability to stand for it (not anonymously).

We should not "ascribe special value to the property of whiteness". This is a statement of principal, standing alone, much as the isolated traditional philosophical terms that Wittgenstein wanted to bring back to their ordinary context and mechanics. The context of justice is the state of our world, its history, its institutions, the mechanics of judgement, interest, and what is valued. The structure that we are too scared to face was there before us--the mechanics of that structure were imperceptibly (and overtly) affected over time so that now they value whiteness, inherently, internally, as it were, systematically. Getting by is just easier for white people; they are gifted more merit; entitled to their rights; entirely seen. Not this person, or, by that person--but, by the structure of our society. Is it really just a blindness to anything that does not have an impact on us? A fear of the unknown? A lack of imagination of the Other's pain? We can not know them as we know ourselves; their body makes them opaque. But in trying to solve the skeptical problem of the Other with knowledge and morality, we black out our eyes and turn our back on the world.

I think there may be two things going on. First, you are assuming a fixed version/goal of "truth" through substantiation (perhaps it is fair to say, proof). This is basically a deductive argument beginning with a theory of truth, about a standard for reasoning based on knowledge. There are other versions such as what is right, and what is appropriate (or felicitous, as Austin says--who would call the singular goal of substantiated truth, the "descriptive fallacy"). The arguments for these even have different criteria, possible outcomes, etc.; one would be a moral argument (we may not agree; I may have to put myself out there as "proof" of my act); and another being an argument about the workings of our lives/concepts. Austin and Wittgenstein use an induction form of argument for a generalized criteria (Wittgenstein calls it the "grammar" of, say, believing, or, Austin's example, excuses). It is based on descriptions of examples ( and contexts) of what the implications are when we say "...". The claim is universal but the "substantiation" is only that you can see the same thing for yourself.

Now that being said, secondly, maybe we can agree that, since the goal may be different, we can not judge inductive reasoning by the bar you presume. Can we simply say that there is better and worse reasoning? That generalizing without examples, taking everything to be like one thing, etc., is just doing a poor job of inductive reasoning?

So, does context "change" an object? — Don Wade

An object has certain ways in which it can be used, discussed, identified, etc. And each object has its own. There are different senses in which "tree" can be used. This also applies to concepts, such as that of "change". Now when I say traditionally philosophy isolates words/things from a context, your question is exactly that kind of non-specific, contextless use of the concept of change, so we have no idea in which sense you are using it. Wittgenstein refers to the ways we use tree as its grammar, and says that grammar tells us what kind of object anything is (PI #373, emphasis added), as in, the parameters of that class of object; what judgments, expressions, interactions, are possible for a thing to be in the category of a "tree". Say, the criteria of identity (from a bush), the different ways it has value in our society (timber, shelter for animals), the rationale ordinarily attributable to our actions involving trees, its status as an object (and not a principal), etc.

So to attempt to answer your question I can only assume in what sense you are using "change" and "context". The method of ordinary language philosophy (like Wittgenstein's) is to imagine a context in which what is said can be meant (or can not) within the possibilities of the grammar of the concept/thing, and whether we can at least agree on that.

When you (and others) are saying "context" it seems to imply it is a perspective or viewpoint (in me; how I "see"); that "you" (or your "visualization") have a part in the context; but in the sense that science or forestry have "contexts", they are not "yours" (say, internally). Would it do to simply say that we share the same interests and concerns about trees as science (with its context)? The part of the concept of context that I was pointing out earlier is the fact it is the circumstances of a specific situation, but it is, as well, the external limits and possibilities associated with an object--there is the context of our interests, judgments, expectations, and implications, which form our different ways of interacting with a tree.

And we can understand the question of change in the traditional metaphysical sense of how to find certainty due to the fear of skepticism and our desire for a fixed world--we thus remove the ordinary context (do not "acknowledge" it as you aptly say) in order to create a rationale, universal, predictable framework. Or, in an ordinary sense, say, compare the context of science to the context of forestry. In the first a tree is a physical object of study, and in the second it can be a resource. Does an object "change" in different contexts? It appears: no, and yes.

Maybe these examples will help us get clearer about how we are using "change" and "context"? (or stepping outside of their ordinary criteria/sense/grammar).

We can visualize a tree, but add the tree to other trees and it becomes a part of a forrest. In this example the change in context is adding other trees to the visualization. Is the tree a tree, or is it part of a forrest? The difference seems to be in what context the object (in this case, the tree) is thought about, or how we visualize an object. That is, in what "context" do we visualize (or see) the object. It also seems that sometimes we do not acknowledge a context. We may visualize an object (no context). — Don Wade

A context is, among other things, the circumstances of an event, a moment, so not "our visualization". How the object "is thought about" is part of what is happening in the sense that we are interested in different ways in the object. And the ways in which we judge, or value, or use an object is part of the ways the object works or we with it, and the ways it which it doesn't. The fact that we can focus on one tree, or refer to a grouping, that it can be a source of material, or an ecosystem, are the possibilities of a tree and our lives with it. The terminology of "seeing" the tree seems to give us the power to see it as we like, but the external context, including the way the object is meaningful to us, frames the ordinary use of "tree". Philosophy does a good job of isolating words from any context to make them more certain, rational;like know or intend or see or believe.

I have to infer, as you only imply a political principal(?) in the negative, by how people object, but I sense a fundamental struggle for the ability to create a self, a fight for the right to exist. People pounce on the substance of Marx's "means of production" without hearing the important revelation: we produce ourselves--through society, in relation to it--or are produced (by default, the contract is signed for us). For the self, it's maybe not so much changing or controlling the means, as seeing ourselves in their possibilities. Could we say the ordinary is the beginning of the journey towards the betterment of the self, based not on self interest, but the interests you have (that your self has)--what you notice, what you are drawn to do, what you align with (becoming by accepting (you), rather than fighting/acting/knowing, as Heidegger would say). Now, that some may not listen to their voice, never find themselves in the world, seems a greater danger than externalizing the inability to have a self onto the vague oppression/dissappontments of society. In fact that seems like a perfect excuse to get out of the responsibility for and to our self. Is there a problem? I'd say more a tragic misconception, a displacement or blindness by the desire for perfection or to be something special, but this is all conjecture as we have no examples, methodology, motivation, critique, text, etc.

I applaud the suggestion. I tried to make a version of it myself in my post Virtue in Philosophy. Many philosophers have advocated for seeing things from the other's shoes; call it: making the strongest argument possible for them; understanding them on (in) their own terms; not assuming we know what words mean at first sight @Ciceronianus the White. Wittgenstein would say we don't find seeing to be puzzling enough. Ordinary Language Philosophy has the method at its core that my description of the implications of what we say at a given time (it's rationality), is backed only by your ability to see for yourself as well. The context, consequences, presuppositions, implications, all have to be filled out to see what someone else says; all postulated by us in a light most favorable to the one who will silently suffer our judgment, without anyone to further speak for them, but us (or should be treated as such, despite their being able to respond in this case).

Well done with this reading. I agree with the dynamic (though my K is limited), I only find it hard to bear up under the weight of this as a constant state. Every movement is not an action, nor is every expression intended--are we to be skewered at every passing moment on our angst for the state of our self? Cavell talks of a philosophical or moral moment, which is not ever-present; but, say, when we don't know what to do and are at a loss. K seems to capture this with what you quoted:

Where am I? Who am I? How came I here? What is this thing called the world? What does this world mean? Who is it that has lured me into the world? Why was I not consulted, why not made acquainted with its manners and customs instead of throwing me into the ranks, as if I had been bought by a kidnapper, a dealer in souls? — Kierkegaard, Repetition, 1843

I can't help hear the echo of Emerson's Experience, which was written a year before Either/Or.

Where do we find ourselves? In a series of which we do not know the extremes, and believe that it has none. We wake and find ourselves on a stair; there are stairs below us, which we seem to have ascended; there are stairs above us, many a one, which go upward and out of sight. But the Genius which according to the old belief stands at the door by which we enter, and gives us the lethe to drink, that we may tell no tales, mixed the cup too strongly, and we cannot shake off the lethargy now at noonday. — Emerson, Experience, 1844

We don't know our customs, our world, our self; whether to go backward or upward. We enter a world already made, with the past in place, our language already imbued with the interests and desires and judgments of our culture. We have not signed the contract; most of the time we act and speak without standing for ourselves; we quote others Emerson says. The past simply continuing into the future, the abstraction of our self from this moment "annihilates the concept" as K says. The word is dead, and we are quiet (our life is, desperately). But there is an instant which makes all things new; when time is full (of possibilities Wittgenstein might say). We may need to be adverse to expectation (Emerson), convert our interest in our concepts, atone for the unspoken, redeem our judgments--to give them new life and power over our present deliberation. It is we, at this moment, that are responsible, now, before we define our life with our culture, our expression, our action. When duty calls us, we must answer for our current state, beyond our (past) knowledge, or suffer the sin of that lost chance. If we are to say our original sin was the creation of the past--our desire for certain knowledge of it--then our Eden is the sight of the sun at the top of Nietzsche's ladder, at noonday as Emerson says.

And so is the "eternal present" ever-present? or, if it is, is it that we are only at times aware of it, or have the opportunity to rise to the occasion of it? Not that we may not be brought up at any time by society for our action or inaction, but are we to be held to the grindstone by ourselves at all times (as if every second was subject to sin, our grief endless)?

This leads me to also comment on your question: "Is there REALLY a past or future AT ALL?" We could say the past is outside of our self: knowledge, language, culture. And the future is the implications and consequences and judgments from that past. Our default aspect to the present is unrecognized consent, complicity, blindness, inattention, alienation. We fail to shake off our lethargy (or apathy) when our moment arrives. That is to say, the past and the future are ALL that exist; before we are thrust (drawn) into the present to face our eternal, if yet unconnected, unlived, self (Emerson speaks of a "next" self).

Well we’ve started talking about existence as a quality, without any concept of existence. What makes existence what it is? What is the essence of existence? Perhaps there are different senses (is the word used in different ways, Wittgenstein would ask). We can say a unicorn does not exist, but it is a fantasy (and an analogy). We could say the Bermuda Triangle doesn’t exist, but it is still an area on a map; here perhaps it’s the fantasy that we (want to?) say does or does not exist. And we could say it is something real, but then do fake watches not exist? We could say it is something tangible, but we can also say justice doesn’t exist in some places; that gravity exists. When we tell a child that Santa Claus doesn’t exist, what essentially changes? We haven’t just said he is not real, tangible, alive, certain, provable, etc. (“that man at the mall is not Santa”); the tragedy of it is that we destroy the ability for the myth to be meaningful, to be something that matters to us. So, then: does God exist? No, and yes (and so, absolutely not!). But is it always an open question? of everything? “Does that oasis exist?”, but, “Does that table exist?” Does Russell need to solve for the “object” which he can not see (@Wittgenstein), for others (and their minds) to matter to him (us)? Is existence dependent on (a certain) knowledge?

If we do take "empirical" to mean "publicly observable" then we are in effect saying that our experiences play no role in our consideration of empirical data. — Manuel

I think there is a confusion between “experience” as in our personal encounter, “How was your experience at Disneyland?” and the process of learning about something over time, “Let me decide, I have experience in these matters.” And my understanding is that when we are talking about empiricism, it is the later use of "experience". That it started with observation over time; knowledge was what could be directly seen, but that "empiricism" then changed to more than vision (other means of scientific observation), but it still wanted to be based on a certainess like being directly seen.

The interesting part of the quote from Locke is that he makes the jump from learning about the names of colors (something we see which we name) to equating that with learning about the cause of your feelings (something we teach you to fear).

"What you are trying to say is that complex terms like colours are not innate because we can teach children to misunderstand mixing them. I guess this is the same example of fearness. You can feel the fear because previously someone taught you what is darkness, witches, demons, etc."

He is saying that not only is color not innate but that fear is also not innate. Now some people will argue that the experience of color is innate, but that is unnecessary for the uses of the concept of color. Now we can call the fear of a bear "innate" (inherent in our humanness of being eatable) but I can also teach you to fear something not innate (witches, demons, etc.) because of your previous experience with fear. The concept of fear allows for transference because of the nature of feelings (its physical reaction, the ability to recall it viscerally, etc.)

The knowledge of color could be empirical; we can match colors scientifically. But the concept of color is not an empirical matter; the use of the language surrounding color has its own logic. When I say "Is that color yellow", and the other agrees, it may not be the exact same yellow as a sample (we are not matching a color we see to our knowledge of the color) or I may even see it in a different light (our agreement is not based on exact agreement in perception), but it is not red or orange enough for us to bring that up, i.e., discussion of color can be vague as to its identity. Also, color does not have the same numerical identity as physical objects (you have six blocks, same red, but you only have six "reds" if the shades are different), nor can you "point to" the color of an object.

Now possibly because of some of these anomalies of the concept of color compared to the concept of objects, we feel there could be arbitrariness in the naming of colors. This could be true but how is it relevant? We could switch the names of dog and cat too.