I had one tutor a long time ago who asked: Are you sure you are sharing his problem? Isn't your impatience to go beyond it a lack of interest — Valentinus

Wittgenstein will refer to "interest" roughly 40 times in the Philosophical Investigations (the joys of text search). He will say what interests "us" (and what does not), and what he is doing is making a claim, in the style of OLP, for himself on behalf of all philosophers (and sometimes everyone).

Concepts lead us to make investigations; are the expression of our interest, and direct our interest. — Wittgenstein, PI #570

That "our interest" is "expressed" is to say that: what we care about, what matters to us in our lives, shapes our concepts (which is Witt's term explained in my OLP post--like following a rule, pointing, understanding, apologizing, intending, imagining, etc.) And this "us" is everyone who uses these concepts. But "us" philosophers are led; we, follow; we should let ourselves be directed.

For Cavell and Heidegger and Emerson, our interest(s), what we are attracted to/by, is fundamental. This is the human missing from philosophy. That we should be pulled by our interest, passively drawn by the world, not actively desiring an outcome or a form of result, say, certainty, or universality, or independent of me (the Hindu concept of duty and detachment--I commented on this elsewhere).

Witt, however, is very specific and exclusive about the interests of "our" investigation, contrasting them with the Interlocutor, who is urged, compelled, inclined, forced, to say things (from the desires of positivism, referentialism, empiricism).

#109. "It was not of any possible interest to us to find out empirically that..."

#126 Since everything lies open to view there is nothing to explain. For what is hidden, for example, is of no interest to us.

(The question whether the muscles of the larynx are innervated in connexion with internal speech, and similar things, may be of great interest, but not in our investigation.) p. 220

But our interest does not fall back upon these possible causes of the formation of concepts; we are not doing natural science; nor yet natural history. p. XII — Wittgenstein

This can be off-putting, and causes many (say, those with emperical hopes) to reject Witt because he minimizes their hopes, denies their applicability (thus the retorts that "He is only talking about language", or "only showing how words confuse us"). And this is where I question the wisdom of conducting philosophy this way, along with Nietszche's enigmatic style in appearing to make statements.

But I think there is a reason Witt does not satisfy our desire to be pandered to. If you are not doggedly attempting to "share his problem", he won't tell you; he speaks in riddles; he hides his conclusions; and leaves more questions than answers. The point of making you crawl through the mud blind for it is that, when you consider those questions, put yourself in the Interlocutor's shoes, and fill in Witt's blanks, you come to the realizations for yourself, conclusions justified by you without the need for premises, a change in attitude/perspective. When we say philosophy changes how you think, it isn't to say now you know the answer.

Or maybe the hoped for connection [seeing or understanding] will not happen at all. — Valentinus

Here the "impatience to go beyond it" will latch onto something like: the justification for language is "forms of life". Do we "lack interest" as we lack the virtue of curiosity? Or is it that we already come to a text with other interests (to defend), or a vested desire?

You describe the life of potential virtue but it does not seem to me that this would necessarily result in enabling one to be a 'better philosopher'... surely, that requires analytical ability as well. — Jack Cummins

These are well taken questions that can help to clarify. We can ask ourselves, what does the "ability to analyze" something amount to (what are its criteria for identity, its process, the standard for the judgement of it)? is it a gift? is it intelligence? is it knowledge? a skill? Could it be, not a "life of potential virtue", but the "ability" to imagine (say, examples), the ability for patience (with your impulse to reject the other/absolve yourself), the ability to remember (the tradition of philosophical expression/our ordinary criteria), etc.? And is our "ability" to analyze: a capability? or a willingness, a conscious effort? something to work towards? for/on ourself? If we start, as I said, from our individual position, then our voice, how we act, read, write, will matter and is subject to assessment.

Let's take the example of reading philosophy. Because we can take words to have meaning individually, we can read something and believe we understand it at first glance, without allowing ourselves to be puzzled, without allowing the text to make us question ourselves, to widen our context, our perspective. We can read superficially, we can read searching for what we want to hear, searching for a weakness so we have a "justification" to stop listening. Science is done better or worse, can not philosophy be done poorly or well? We do not have a method that you can follow to necessarily reach the same conclusion as me, as in science. Then how do we judge?

As I originally posted, there is the temptation to skip over our part and reach for the "straight highway" and create an external standard or set a form of universal rationality. Yet can't we determine (don't we have a part in): rigor, depth, expansion, consideration; and, alternatively, when someone is simply embracing easy dichotomies, using unpacked jargon, generalizing before investigation, characterizing merely to dismiss, etc. We are tempted to put it out of our hands, to turn philosophy into independent knowledge, but is it not more of a search, a process; learning, changing, perfecting our selves by reaching for greater personal responsibility for our actions and expressions? The philosophy we read is an example for us to follow; Emerson will see a path in exemplars of our higher self.

I am not sure that to be a philosopher, character is necessarily more important than intellect... — Jack Cummins

We could say above we are judging the writer more than the outcome, but that is not to say Wiggenstein is mistaken because he is snide or Austin's point is trivial because he is curt (though it didn't help). But knowledge is not our only relation to the world Cavell says. At a certain point it is I talking to you beyond something I can directly tell you--some knowledge or theory you can hold to. I make a claim, beyond our knowing, on you, for you to see, to follow, to acknowledge and accept. And what is a modern philosophical justification or basis for my claim, or for you to accept that claim? If we are to set aside the old standard of certainty, a rationality that can't be denied, how do we proceed? Is Wittgenstein's goal of perspecuity--a clear and precise presentation--a form of reason?(reasonableness?) Are his examples of viewing the world as it fits together (a Weltanschauung)--with all its criss-crossing forms of expression--convincing? But this presentation is categorically not rhetorical persuasion because my claim is not an argument to sway or cause you to believe what I know, but a powerless observation; it is a claim on you, it is yours to take up, to follow through, to see for yourself, to aspire to. So it will matter (it will count, as a kind of criteria) if I am thorough, and have run down every objection, and patiently waited to find the details and distinctions, etc. And it will matter as well that when you read philosophy, you respect its secrets and its need sometimes for indirectness (thanking it, Heddeigger will say); that you grant it the benefit of your doubt, go towards it, resist the straight (and lazy) route--taking something up as if every word was chosen of necessity and put down with the seriousness only awarded through hard work, persistence, resolve. I call these virtues, in contrast to the quick, the didactic, condescending, unmoving, dogmatic. Is not the aim of philosophy for understanding, communication, agreement, learning, clarity, epiphany--the betterment of the self?

You ask if 'there is no concession that philosophy being done better (or worse) falls on us being better?' Of course, it is debatable about what us being better means really, but I am inclined to think that the more we explore ideas helps us gain self-knowledge, even if we don't manage to gain absolute knowledge of the big questions, the self knowledge we gain can enable us to live in a more conscious and reflective manner than if we have not thought about the philosophy questions in the first place, and who knows, it can involve stumbling upon new ways of seeing. — Jack Cummins

The implication here might be that we are better for having come closer to gaining absolute knowledge of the big questions (finding the best "answer" we can--"best" being, say, the most certain, universal, etc.); that our reflection might come up with "seeing" something "new", and thus possibly: solving skepticism, perfecting communication, understanding through more knowledge.

Partly I am claiming it is letting go of a certain kind of answer; that self knowledge is not tied to being sure (or more sure) in our uncertainty, but in seeing how we force the framing of the "big questions", and instead turning to see what matters to us about things, the way we value something, how we judge it on its terms--in learning about our shared lives, we learn about how we do or want to fit in (or not). Without that kind of reflection, we lead lives of quiet desperation; we consent unknowingly to what we say.

If there is a debate my contention is that to do better philosophy we need to be virtuous. Our method and our attitude being more than our reasoning and our knowledge; that character comes before intellect Emerson will say. That we need patience, imagination, empathy, an open mind, the ability to leave things unanswered without further investigation; to not be imposing, dismissive, condescending, dogmatic; to remember, to pay tribute to the past; to be responsive to the concerns of others, to allow our words to reflect our selves; to speak as if we are bound to our words, having put everything into them as if we might die afterwards and they could still speak for us. But why would any of this need to be contentious?

The word "concept" here is used as a "term" by Witt with a specific use, not anything like a conception or an idea.
— Antony Nickles

Which is the same as re-defining a term. As we all know.....one can make anything stick by simply changing extant definitions to fit what’s being said. If Witt has something new to say, he should use terms specific to the novelty. — Mww

Well it's not anything new (like, say, the "thing-in-itself"), it is just for referring to a grouping. And he didn't choose the word; it's translated from the German, Begriff, or "term" (ironically) as I understand it, instead of Idee or Konzept. The index includes things like the concept of: experience, a game, a material object, mathematical certainty, noticing an aspect, a number, order, pain, propositions, saying something inwardly, seeing, sensation, and understanding.

you still feel the need to hang on to the feeling that we "all know the same stuff differently".
— Antony Nickles

It isn’t a feeling, it’s an empirical reality. — Mww

And here is the "conviction" in the "picture" that Witt is talking about prior to his quote about understanding lions (PI p. 252 3rd Ed.). When we talk about "reality" there are things we contrast it with like fantasy, or delusion, avoidance, etc. And when we talk about what is "real" we are discussing whether it is a fake, or not a prop. etc. But these examples are skipped over by the fixation with the need for certainty, which projects the quality of "reality" onto the world (I'll take this up in another thread).

Now you might be conflating knowledge with experience; but even then, most times it won't matter to say yours and mine are not the same (we both ate horrible food, we would both say our experience was terrible), though we could make a point of being particular about our experience, to say there was something special about it--but, where not necessary or applicable, this would be self-aggrandizing; "entitled" to our own standard, above our judgement. And, as I said, with somethings our experience is always different (movies, sunsets, private moments). But Witt gives many examples to show that knowing, as well as meaning, intending, and understanding, are not experiences.

One may know an iceberg as a floating chunk of ice, another may know an iceberg as a broken piece of glacier. — Mww

Wittgenstein will see this not as either of you "knowing" an iceberg your own way, but just that you are focusing on different aspects (noticing a use of the word), both of which are options in our relation to icebergs (as with the prism and cube earlier). There is the "use" of the concept iceberg that points out that it is a floating chunk of ice, "Look out! There's an iceberg ahead of the boat!" And there is the use of it in its relation to a glacier, "Wow! That huge iceberg over there just calved off the glacier." And these are contexts in which these uses are meaningful (there may be others).

However, OLP is addressing the issues that are skipped over that only philosophy can still bring to light--self-knowledge through understanding our responsibilities and the implications we are subject to......
— Antony Nickles

Subject to implies empirical psychology or social/linguistic anthropology. Fancy words for “group-think”. — Mww

I'm not sure if this is just meant to be cheeky, but, when I said "subject to", I meant that we are answerable to the implications of our expressions. We are subject to (on the hook for) someone asking, "Was that supposed to be an apology? Because you didn't even say you're sorry!" We can avoid or ignore our responsibility for our expressions and their implications, but their may be consequences, one of which may be rejection from the polis; that we are dismissed as incompetent, ignorant, insane, which, of course, may not be justified. But uncovering our ordinary criteria is not an anthropology, nor a popularity contest, nor just about language (and not the lives we lead in so many ways). And, again, they are not our "ordinary" expressions and actions, they are the unspoken implications and criteria of those (and our philosophical ones too).

Part of what Witt is trying to show in unearthing our desire for certainty is to turn us around to see our real needs and desires.
— Antony Nickles

Our desire for certainty is contained in reason itself; no need to unearth it, for it is manifest as a predicate of an intrinsic human condition. — Mww

Well, very self-aware; some may not see the lengths it compels us to, say, even to set aside our humanity and define our condition as less than perfectly rational, mired in doubt and belief.

To turn us around to see our real needs and desires presupposes we don’t already see them. Being both presumptuous, insofar as that which belongs to me necessarily, cannot but be apprehended by me, and self-contradictory, insofar as my intrinsic “desire for certainty” must already contain them. — Mww

The idea of everything being "seen" and readily apparrent is a fantasy of philosophy. If you are human; you are, even in a philosophical way, blind to yourself (apart from psychology's insights). To avoid our fear; to have a sense of complete control over our expressions, we internalize the possession of meaning; so it is entirely "apprehended" by me. But when we speek, we are open to being called out by our words, held to their implications apart from our wishes, more than what we may have apprehended.

And to the extent we are not explicitly aware of the criteria and conditions and possibiities of the use of our concepts in the context we find ourselves in, we do not consent to them freely, but are determined by them unwittingly.

We know how to walk, but do we thus know ("apprehend") the conditions of walking, the criteria that differentiates it from hopping, running; what about for: requesting, thanking, cursing, greeting, praying, ordering, obeying, guessing, etc., not to mention: thinking, intending, meaning, appearing, etc. We do not "already see them"--their grammar--though we can ask ourselves and others about how they work (or don't) and what constitutes their being what they are (and not something else).

And my "intrinsic desire for certainty" does not "contain them". It skips over their vague rationality and partiality because they do not meet the created and imposed criteria of certainty and universality demanded by knowledge capable of facing skepticism. And they contain our desires and needs because what makes an apology an apology (the criteria, conditions, possibiities, and process), is what we value about it, what counts for us in it--the forgiveness of ourselves and others, the qualification of moral action gone wrong--these are the place it holds in our lives, why it has come to be what it is over thousands of years; what is essential about it--why we need and desire it to be the way it is.

Furthermore, as “real” needs and desires, herein taken to indicate fundamental or characteristically personal as opposed to empirically determinable, they are not susceptible to experiential incursion, for they are derived from purely subjective causality. Which ultimately reduces to some form of moral philosophy anyway, which I wouldn’t think has anything whatsoever to do with OLP. — Mww

Well, this is not a knowledge of new facts or scientific "incursion" or reason to "determine" something with certainty (there are empiricism's problems, and there are philosophy's issues), but something that we seem to know already, but have to remind ourselves of to give an account, though it is open to plain view to everyone (and subject to claims by everyone). And to say it is uncertain, not "determinate", personal, caused by the "subjective", is to dismiss OLP's knowledge because it does not reach that standard, without investigating its own (varied) rationality and criteria, some of which do not lead to certainty or agreement or universality, but nevertheless fulfill what we need from them. Being condescended to with derogatory words thrown from an ivory tower of "reason's" own creation is simply dogmatism, prejudice, and judgement without any understanding (See a new thread I've posted). And to say it "reduces to some form of moral philosophy" is the same old division that what is not certain etc., is characterized as a morass of unresolvable relativism. And OLP is the direct showing against this dismissal of our vague, fallible lives as emotivism, etc.; that our everyday criteria do show us what is essential, how our world is determinable in different (partial) ways--and that we have a part in our actions and expressions beyond knowledge. This is not personal or "caused" by some idea that each person creates the world all on their own, but in the lives all of us have lived together (yet even including the personal, the adverse, and the new in that vision).

Are Witt’s ideas a special and unique enlightenment, to be pitted against the dark history of philosophy, which in its entirety represented nothing but ‘a desire to solve skepticism with knowledge’ motivated by the ‘fear of the human’? — Joshs

Touché; I guess in the zeal to get our point across, we can all be a bit narrow in our focus (thus, I will mention, proof of my point, however). I did not intend to make a sweeping judgement about "all" philosophy, and with the larger theme simply being our part in doing philosophy well. The tendency to want to solve our doubts by demanding certainty is only an example of one form of dogmatism, such as: the end bit of Plato, every grand finale of Hegel, the whole bit of Descartes, the starting move of Kant (and positivism)... Even where this temptation pops up, as I said, there is no need to throw the baby out with the bathwater (as happened to Marx just because he thought the ending would take care of itself). Without Descartes, we would never be able to see the depth of our doubt (and Cavell will even argue there is a "truth" to radical skepticism). And Hegel's dialectic not only sees a way through his "dark path", but shows us the temptation of dichotomies and what they hide. Socrates' questions (along the same method as OLP) lead us to a better understanding of our selves and our lives (even if he is a jerk to everyone he talks to). And without the depth of Kant's work on conditions and possibilities (along with positivism), we would never get to Wittgenstein's later work. Witt doesn't have ideas to accept in contrast, only the insight into ourselves after tearing down some of philosophy's houses of cards.

In Heidegger’s’What is a Thing’ he recognized that a never-ending rethinking of the nature of a thing has taken and continues to take place in philosophy and science. Isn’t the same true of the motivations for failing to embrace his outlook that Wittgenstein is assuming as somehow transcending cultural eras? — Joshs

The idea is intriguing that the desire for certainty might somehow block people from even acknowledging that the way Witt is leading us to see for ourselves is legitimate philosophy. But I will grant that the fear of doubt is a cultural phenomenon. Without the Enlightenment, and all the success of science, no one before Descartes may have tried to apply its example to our moral lives and our ability to understand each other. Of course, Socrates also tumbled from his doubts about objects, to doubts about our political and moral lives, but it may wax and wane perennially--something to think about (pretty sure its waning now). Say, even if we don't take skepticism to be part of the human condition, we could say instead it is a constant threat. But isn't it better to know our impulse in the face of it so we can avoid another philosophical pitfall? is there no concession that philosophy being done better (or worse) falls on us being better?

There are actions and consequences and it really only boils down to whether you can live with the results of your actions. — Darkneos

And why isn't this an acceptable description of where we are in a moral moment? There are such things as actions: a slight, or betrayal, lies, recrimination; and also reactions: an excuse, qualification, etc. And if we look at what they tell us about moral action, we might see that there is the act, then there is the reckoning for it; that there is a responsibility after the consideration of ought and the founding of morals. Most times we know what to do and what to expect, but then there are times when we don't know exactly what to do; nonetheless we act (or fail to). The moral realm is where we stand for what we say (or not), act beyond what is good and right, or against it. But we are held to it, we are separated by it. Where our knowledge of morality ends, we begin; into our future, our self--can you live with the results?

the only thing that really matters is the cost for going against them. — Darkneos

And "what really matters" will be what counts for us (how we will account for ourselves), what we will take as our culture, our words, that we will be heard in, be bound to, answerable for (or flee from).

I don't believe in right and wrong. — Darkneos

But here, right and wrong does not need your belief. You may apologize correctly, or make a mess of it. You can say whatever you'd like, but only some things will be a threat, or an accusation (or both). An excuse has a certain form, or it simply becomes a plea. You can call these "objective", but you'd be using a 300-yr-old framework that wants to ensure something before it happens, enclose an act before we bring our partiality to it (Emerson will say). Must we agree universally or there can be nothing we call a rational discussion of a moral moment? that without agreement or the surety of that outcome, we can never begin?

Asking the question might be the final conscious effort to find specific information. — synthesis

Not to psychologize philosophy, but Cavell uses the term repression for the impact that the traditional search for certainty has on our ability to see and take seriously our ordinary criteria and the contexts they live in (as if everything is out in the open; seen all at once; I am understood immediately, or you do not). So finding our way back to a simple truth is a process that digs deeper (though not a hidden process) than rationally deciding the right framework to allow philosophy to stand over the world and know it, where others, say, simply believe it.

...contrary to the accepted order of things intellectual, the answer must be known before the question posited. After all, how could you possible know what to ask without this knowledge? — synthesis

Wittgenstein (and Socrates) view "knowing" as a kind of remembering (what you already know). Of course this is not an emperical investigation, it is based on the fact that we grow into society at the same time we pick up the langauge intertwined with our practices. So, you may not normally consider what differentiates running or hopping or skipping from walking, but if I made a claim about what counts for it, i.e., how we would judge it, what matters to one and not another, etc., you could agree with me. This is much as Socrates asked people on the street about justice, etc., and they had answers (or could agree with Socrates') seemingly before the question is asked.

And Cavell will draw out Witt's use of his example of a simplified language at the start of the Philosophical Investigations to show that we have a whole entire world of concepts (practices) mastered like pointing, and asking, and seeing, and calling, before we can tell someone to give us a slab. A "question" thus already stands in a world of conditions and categorical possibilities, with our only, say, not knowing how to proceed, possibly into a new context. But the "answer" lies around us (behind us to turn and see as Plato and Emerson and others will say).

The wonderful thing about thinking is that nobody knows anything about it.... — synthesis

And here we may want to reserve "thinking" as something like a secret or new or similar to imagination (and the sloppiness of language allows for this) and to hold "knowledge" to be: for certain or universally for all of us. But if we examine what we imply when we say "I think..." we are sometimes using it as a hypothesis, much in the way we use "I believe...." (it is raining). Or, if I ask you "What do you think?" it could be in its use to solicit an opinion (about prospects for peace in the Middle East?) or asking for agreement (about getting Thai food?). There is also the sense of solving a problem, mulling over options, e.g., "Let me think about it."

Now can we say these aren't things we know about thinking? even that we already knew about thinking? And yet we skip past them to create an idea of something personal, something special to me (or something impersonal, to erase my unpredictability, my human failings). And maybe in asking the question why, we are looking for an answer that has always been there.

The only way out is to introduce some normative idea of why an Austin is doing something different. I want to really focus on this - because even the fact of meta-cognitive illusion etc only matters from a normative perspective. It doesn't necessarily have to be a philosophically normative perspective, but it is going to be normative. The 'puzzle' in my earlier post is to explain why OLP is a better approach (than say german idealism) without using philosophical resources. — csalisbury

I have said this in another post about "ought", but any force of "normativity" does not come from OLP's claims to descriptions of our ordinary criteria for apologizing; it comes from apologizing itself.

I think the chief achievements of OLP are at a meta-level: it was the site of the invention of not only of metaphilosophy (including the journal of that name, which is still going to this day and quite good), but also of metasemantics, that is, the search for the conditions under which expressions become meaningful, and what it is for something to be meaningful. — Snakes Alive

I would say a part of all philosophy is about philosophy--in critique of its past aims or means or other philosophers. And "the search for the conditions under which expressions become meaningful, and what it is for something to be meaningful" seems a pretty good description of OLP's method of uncovering the conditions of our expressions which are how "it is for something to be meaningful" but it seems dismissive to say this is "meta" or "semantic" as if we don't learn anything about our world and ourselves in explicating the conditions and possibilities of what we say about them.

The OLPers had a view of the foundations of meaning, where the foundational conditions were not coherently deniable from within, as you made use of those very conditions ('ordinary language is correct language,') but which themselves were multiform and contingent (something like the the shifting riverbed). — Snakes Alive

The idea that we are talking about "ordinary language" is one of the misconceptions that I have tried to dispell about OLP. Moore's insistence on solving skepticism with "common sense" is basically the cliche that OLP is associated with from then on. But when Wittgenstein moved from the Tractatus to PI he was trying to investigate why people had this desire for "foundations of meaning".

And I have an insight into how it appears that a concept's "conditions [are] not coherently deniable". If I make a claim about the "conditions" (the criteria) for what entails an apology, and you agree that those are accurate, then it can be said we agree that if one doesn't meet those conditions, they have not performed an apology. Now, as I have said elsewhere, this is not a claim that ordinary "language" is correct, but that our ordinary criteria of apologizing are just what it is to apologize--our path to forgiveness from the other--made explicit (not usually considered). An apology is either done correctly or not (with felicity or aptly Austin will say), but this is not to secure a foundation for apologies, but we simply use our insight of these drawn-out ordinary criteria to learn about ourselves, our world, and our lives together (this is not "semantics", nor simply "pragmatics"). To deny the conditions of a concept is simply to rationally disagree with my claim to the terms of our ordinary criteria for it, through the imagined examples and contexts of OLP, about what constitutes an apology.

My view of philosophy is a bit more prosaic. It's just a bad method of inquiry, based on misconceptions that we have no reason to bind ourselves to anymore. It's like entrail-reading to try to see the future, say. We just don't really have a reason to do it anymore. — Snakes Alive

By "method of inquiry" are we not taking OLP as such a thing? that we investigate to learn knowledge of ourselves that we had not realized before that provides insight into what we inquire about? And this wouldn't be trying to see or ensure the future so much as remember our past, uncover what we are agreeing to when we say something so we may consent to our future rather than be determined by it. Should it lead to a different outcome? or be held to a different standard? or be concerned with things other then when we don't know what to do; how to live a better life; how we might come to agreement about art and politics? And isn't part of philosophy its internal criticism to root out misconceptions? And what would be better equipped to do that?

there's a lot to learn about how & what we value by looking at how we talk. & There's also something fun (even creatively joyful) in sussing out our implicit criteria. — csalisbury

Austin is entertaining in his ability to play with our concepts and yet in a way that resonates and satisfies the desire to actually get down to brass tacks and be able to sort the wheat from the chaff. I would add that looking and describing the grammar of a concept is only the first step; that creating examples to make claims about our ordinary criteria provides the discussion point for our philosophical issues (Cavell will call the examples "philosophical data").

Going back one generation, Walter Benjamin's Arcade Project is in the same spirit. In pop culture, I think there was a move in this direction with Carlin & his heirs. Or, to be fair, Lenny Bruce -->Carlin-->Next generation. Obviously it's a little looser, but there's something OLP-y about Seinfeld, for example, at least if you squint. — csalisbury

Cavell has a high opinion of Benjamin, but I have yet to try anything. Cavell uses culture as examples for philosophy, but I had not thought about the fact that actual stand-up comedy does unearth our unreflected shared lives, a very interesting point. And maybe the satisfaction of comedy is the feeling of community in realizing something we had not considered is common to others, and that the humor comes in part from the surprise of the unrealized. Cavell (and Nietszche) will examine the tragedy of missing, dismissing, or overlooking this insight into ourselves.

there's some lack of meta-cognitive awareness of what goes on when we use [language], in general. But sadly, I think philosophy itself is also not a great medium for giving people these meta-cognitive skills. Any understanding of the destructive portion of OLP has to start with the recognition that philosophy, objectively, doesn't work. That is, it is not what it claims to be – a form of effective inquiry. — Snakes Alive

Witt will talk a lot about philosophy not being able to work, get traction, be anything but a house of cards, a fly in a bottle. Heiddeger and Emerson say that the more we grasp (for certainty) the more slips through our fingers; our acceptance of only a narrow criteria for knowledge blinds us to our more varied lives.

So to the extent OLP is "destructive" (of the house of cards) it is to set aside the "picture" (the paradigm) of positivism in order to see our ordinary criteria (amongst the rubble Witt will say). My claim in this OP is that OLP is an effective method of inquiry that allows us to get some grist for the mill of our fundamental philosophical issues (morality, meaning, art, knowledge, truth, the betterment of ourselves, etc.). That "Essence is expressed by Grammar" PI #371 Not just a different form of "essence", but providing us a view of what is essential to us--what matters to us about something; what differentiates it from something else; how we judge, see, count in its regard, etc. Our ordinary criteria express our needs and desires and hopes and agreements--our lives. As well, @csalisbury, although there may be a need to say philosophy should not be a home for dogmatism or ideology or envy or fear, it need not erase the human, the fallible, the partial, the uncertain. That without any surety that we will agree, we nevertheless may have a productive discussion.

If I understand OLP correctly, the move to look at what's actually happening in philosophical discussion is right - people are talking about words and how they're used. — csalisbury

I appreciate taking a stab at understanding OLP and joining the conversation. I would only add that, yes, OLP is looking at what is said in philosophical discussion (expressions) but also the other uses there are for the activities like thinking, believing, knowing, intending, but also regular expressions and uses of apologizing, sitting in a chair, pointing, seeing, etc. And in talking about the uses of words we see the criteria that frame a use--the way it works (its Grammar Witt says), which, ultimately, provides insight into our philosophical issues, and ourselves.

A lot of the animus toward OLP seems to stem from a feeling that it's trivializing those values and emotions and modes of awareness. But values are borne out in action, not discussion; And emotions, or different ways of attuning to the world, are borne out in activities that do that kind of attuning. The 'click' can only happen if you're also willing to give up the (implicit) idea that living-well (in accordance with your values, say) means simply verbally laying claim to the right kind of thing, or discussing the world in a certain way. — csalisbury

I won't quibble here, as I think the gist of what you are trying to point out is relevant. It is hard to avoid the dismissive nature of OLP (Moore, Austin to an extent) when it does not take the effort to account for the legitimate concerns of traditional skeptical philosophy (Cavell does a better job of this). And I agree with looking past philosophical theories to connect them to a motivation. That it is doing more than making a claim; it is a person taking a stance, and it reflects on that person. Cavell will discuss this as "living your skepticism". I would also point out (as I did above regarding a kayak) that when we are making claims about the criteria of our expressions (and actions), we are at the same time making claims about the ways we live in the world--not just discussing language, nor just speculating without any of the value of truth.

Nietzsche singles out Christianity for attack which he claims is based on ressentiment. But what about Nazism and Fascism. Aren't they also based on resentment. — Ross Campbell

It is hard to see Nietzsche as an analytical philosopher (as with Emerson), say, responding to Kant, because he seems to be only commenting on everyday life, social institutions, our culture, people's attitudes, religion, etc. But, to understand his deeper contribution to the philosophical tradition, we must take him for more than what just seems to be his opinion, social critiques, and apparent psychological claims or judgments about people or groups.

Nietszche tells stories; make-believe histories (part of what becomes the method of modern Ordinary Language Philosophy) and one insight of this is it shows a historicity to morality, that it has a past. This highlights that deontological morals in contrast appear dead, static (viewed positively: timeless, universal), but also that his stories have characters, which also implies that philosophical moral theory is constructed, but, importantly, by people--and people have reasons.

The search for certainty and prediction and normativity is based on a human desire to avoid the fear of uncertainty, of doubt; fear that we might not have any way of telling what is right and what to do. So this goal of deontological morality has an intent. The use of the word "ressentiment" is simply a placeholder for this philosophical perspective, this attitude (as Wittgenstein will say) to our moral life.

Much as we have to translate Plato's Republic into an analogy for the creation of ourselves (as much as a polis), try to imagine Nietzsche is analogizing a traditional philosophical argument into the psychology of a person (or persons); the philosophical argument that has rationally considered the matter and come to a judgment with justification--much as we think of knowledge of the world--personified in one judging the good; what we would call, in a person, moralizing. Basically, Christianity is just the straw man in an analytical critique of our philosophical tradition.

Now a lot of people take Nietzsche as just throwing out deontological morals entirely (which leads to a lot of trouble with the impression that everything depends on me--my "will", or "power"). But this impression of Nietszche comes from the fact there is a moment when the regular ways run out and we do not know what to do; we become responsible beyond our expected common acts. There is a time after the setting or following of rules, where we are subject to what we have done, that we must make ourselves known; he will refer to this as the "human" because we in sense create ourselves in that moment, stand for ourselves, define ourselves beyond (above he will say) our impersonal (universal) ethics, averse to them, if need be, says Emerson, but not instead of (Nietszche is not against morals).

Now the fear of this responsibility is the wish to deny its part in our human condition, to desire to take "us" out of the picture entirely by trying to decide everything up front with rationality. If we have already decided, than we do not see the "world" (the context) that will matter at a moral moment; we kill it before we get there, so never reach it--everything is taken care of for us already without having to look at the situation at hand. This is the "person" characterized by Nietszche who believes that being right in their morals absolves them of further responsibility, allows them to skip straight to judgment. And so the "ressentiment" is to ignore our human position, to flee from ourselves, stuck within a moral picture drawn by others (a slave to it), walled off from the world of a moral moment.

As such, my naming is nothing but a relation between the image and my conception of it by which it is known by me. Witt has generalized concepts as having optional characterizations which are then used by anybody, when parsimony suggests concept generation is as private as the mind that contains them. — Mww

Well, we are past trying to understand the method of OLP and even Witt's example and on to just a statement of a theory of language justified by the fact that it is, the simplest conclusion? So we could go down a road where I try to give enough examples where you might see that we do not generate "concepts" or "conceptions" in the "mind' but simply express ourselves in our shared language that mirrors our similar lives in a public process of the uses of our common activities. I don't really want to try to recreate the entire attempt of the Philosophical Investigations to shift people's perspective and attitude, especially because what I seem to be met with appears to be just dogmatic refusal to even consider or understand the process. Not that this isn't a normal and understandable end in philosophical discussions, it's just that in this instance this type of change in perspective is not reached through argument but in you being able to see for yourself what I am (and Witt is) describing. I have tried above to attempt a straightforward argument at times (though that is not the method of OLP), and I would certainly consider discussing specific examples in the PI or any specific one imagined (I just addressed one in the post "How and Why").

“knowing” is not a concept, it is a mental activity, or part of a methodological procedure, as is “conceiving”, and understanding, judging, cognizing. — Mww

The word "concept" here is used as a "term" by Witt with a specific use, not anything like a conception or an idea. It is merely a general grouping of the kind of activities that he is investigating--like, conceiving, understanding, judging, etc., except he is trying to show that they are not like creating meaning with words or generating an individual idea, but, for example, that "thinking" is more like problem solving or trying something new or following a theme into a new context, listening to and seeing the world, etc., than reflecting, or considering, or mulling over, or imagining, or talking to oneself--which all have their own grammar and are their own things separate to "thinking".

This vision of a more public process of language does not mean that I am not an individual with my own interests, insights, perspective, or even experiences; but that all these personal matters can all be expressed (or kept secret) in a more "public" process (one not determined beforehand) that requires our responsibility instead of our "meaning".

it is clear that “how knowing is in our lives” is nothing more than......hey, big deal....we know stuff. I mean, it is quite absurd to suggest that we DO NOT know stuff, so how important can it be to wonder how knowing is in our lives? And if the argument is that knowing has a number of different options in how it can be used, again....big deal. No matter how many options there are for its use, the end result is exactly the same. We know stuff. Thing is....we all know different stuff, and, we all know the same stuff differently. So even if how knowing is in our lives is a valid expression, it doesn’t say anything we didn’t already know. — Mww

And here you see the examples, but are trivializing the impact, which is one of the attitudes taken towards OLP (it can also seem dogmatic, as in: you are not apologizing if you don't follow the criteria of an apology!). With all this agreement, you still feel the need to hang on to the feeling that we "all know the same stuff differently". There is the part where you grant it and the part you take it back Austin will say. The skeptic does have a point, Cavell says in Knowing and Acknolwedging, and OLP must record and take account of it (this is not what I am discussing now though--there are links above to a few Cavell essays that might be interesting on that front). And there are possibilities where we "know the same stuff differently", like "knowing" (in the sense of, experiencing) a movie or a sunset, but we can't be said to "know" our phone number in different ways (the criteria being, we can recall it--and with OLP's method you either agree or not with this claim to criteria--though of course we may remember it in different ways). And when you say "So even if how knowing is in our lives is a valid expression, it doesn’t say anything we didn’t already know" that is exactly how OLP works; Witt will say it leaves everything as it is. We are not finding something new, but rememebering what we may have forgotten--something anyone can see.

Witt went backwards, as did all analytic language philosophers. It used to be that the fact we know things is given, and the quest was in how is knowledge possible. That fundamentalism evolved....probably because of its intrinsically speculative nature....into the broadening of how knowing things interactively affects us, and that broadening determinable, made possible, because the language we use to express how each of us are affected by different options for knowing, is right there in your face, thus being very far from speculative. — Mww

This could be said to be the history of the Enilightenment and how science (or positivism's influence) has, justifiably, chipped away at what philosophy only handled with a speculative epistimology. And the determinism and certainty that this brings is explicit and "right there in your face". However, OLP is addressing the issues that are skipped over that only philosophy can still bring to light--self-knowledge through understanding our responsibilities and the implications we are subject to in the world in our actions and expressions; our human conditions; what a moral moment is; art; political standing and consent; etc.

Hardly a satisfying philosophy, I must say. — Mww

Philosophy and OLP specifically will have its own endeavors and its own satisfactions. Part of what Witt is trying to show in unearthing our desire for certainty is to turn us around to see our real needs and desires. If anything is individual, our interests are, and there is no argument to change that if someone just doesn't care, which is fine.

How and why are questions that bleed into one another.

Suppose I put a book back on a mantel. Then a large truck rumbles by, which vibrations are enough to cause the book to fall. If someone asks, "How did that happen?" a variety of answers are possible. That the vibrations from the passing truck caused it to fall is obviously true. But if the book is too large for the mantel, that is also an explanation. Or if I placed the book carelessly. But even with respect to the apparent-proximate physical cause, the passage of the truck, we could say, if the foundations of the house had been more substantial, then the vibrations would not have affected the book. Or if the driver had not detoured from his usual route today. — Pantagruel

J.L. Austin (among others with the same method) looks at what is ordinarily implied in our expressions. In this case a book has fallen off a mantel, and you have imagined a context in which someone asks "How did that happen?", which is a good start imagining an example with a context (part of the method). One implication is that the question is an accusation; obviously the questioner was not in the room . They are asking someone in the room (say, me), if I had anything to do with the book falling off the mantel--as if to a child, or because it is a prized book. This is not so much to ask about the cause as to lay blame and to demand a plausible explanation from me. This is a moral claim and not an epistimological one (about physical causality). As Austin uncovered, I will have an excuse, or a qualification, etc. "It wasn't me! It was my brother!" or "I knocked it off, but it was an accident when I spun around." or "I must have placed it carelessly." If this were something serious, we could imagine an investigation that involved finding if the truck was not following its normal route, or if the foundation had been unsoundly constructed.

Another implication of course is that the question is asked just out of curiosity, as a request from me for an impersonal explanation (as if the question could be asked of themself). And there will be certain kinds of things that can be said, such as the truck, or an earthquake, or gravity, poor foundation, etc. These are physical causes, determined by an empirical investigation.

Is it possible to dissociate the method or mechanism from the reason? Or from a reason?

Asking how is always implicitly asking why. Every causal explanation is contingent on some purposive stance within the question. — Pantagruel

And now it might be clearer to see how a method (the physical cause) can be separate from a reason (did you do it on purpose?), because causality and culpability are different questions (the "purposive stance" of them is different). Of course some excuses will push off onto physical causality ("I didn't do it, it just fell when a truck went by.")

Separately, I think it's Austin who says (or Cavell) we usually ask "How do you know that?" (which is answered with, say, justification: "Well I ran a study that found...") but not often "Why do you know that?" (answered personally, say, defensively: "I know it might sound trivial, but I've found 13th-century Irish poetry to be profound").

What he is trying to demonstrate is that we use the options (publicly) available in a concept.
— Antony Nickles

Yes, we do that. Isn’t it then a matter of what options are available in a concept? If the thought is that there is only one option available in a concept, that being its relation to something, what other options can there be? All that’s left is that to which a concept does not relate, or, a plethora of somethings to which a concept can relate. — Mww

We might be getting tripped up on Witt's term "concept", but, as I laid out above, the concept of, say, "knowing" has a number of different options in which it can be used (a skill, information, acknowledgement). And these don't "relate" to anything, they just are how we use the concept of knowing, how knowing is in our lives. Now the idea in this section of the PI is that you have a cube, a number of things of which can be pointed out with the word's options ("uses" or "senses" Witt calls them), one of which is the fact that it is a prism, similar in that way to a triangular prism. The point being it is not whatever you have in mind that provides the meaning, but the public concept (of prisms and cubes). You are expressing one of those "uses" (not "using words") rather than there being something like a mental picture that gives the word a "meaning".

What Witt is trying to do in this section is grant the interlocutor the framework that they want (meaning as picturing) and still show how it can't account for how language works.
— Antony Nickles

* * * So my framework can account for how language works, even if sometimes it doesn’t, but we cannot say it never does, so the claim we cannot, is false. Or....I’m not right in what Witt is saying. — Mww

By "framework" I was not referring to something personal to you, like your background or way of looking at things ("my framework"), but that Witt is trying to allow the interlocutor the "picture" of meaning that they want--the philosophical theory that when we see a cube or say cube, there is an image in our mind (our meaning).

I think what is happening is you are adamantly defending something you think I (or Witt) is trying to take away. And this is getting in the way of seeing the rationality of OLP's method even before we get to whatever you believe the repercussions are. Above I try to address what it is people believe Witt is trying to deny (e.g., the individuality of our expressions), and how that is satisfied in other ways.

Sounds like you're ready to take a few years off, design your sister's house, punch some grade school children in the face, and then come back and write an entire book trying to figure out why you got sucked into thinking language only worked one way with a single standard, where you'd have to field questions from your old self and imagine examples of what we would say under which circumstances to be able to see all the places langauge reaches in our lives, and why we would want to ignore all that.

You know we can imagine anything we like, any time we like? — Mww

As I've said, you can say anything you like but only certain things in certain circumstances will count as, say, an apology--insincerity, lack of acknowledgement of wrong, not saying "I'm sorry" without qualification, etc. are all ways it can go wrong. That's why we have a whole nexus of concepts like excuses, qualifications, mitigating circumstances, etc.

because we grew up with cubes as we practiced naming and picturing and focusing on aspects of objects and the language that goes with these activities.
— Antony Nickles

Isn’t naming the source of words? — Mww

I'm not sure about the "source" but Witt starts the PI with the picture of a child learning language as naming. The investigation starts from there looking into why we want all of language to work the same way. What Witt is trying to do in this section is grant the interlocutor the framework that they want (meaning as picturing) and still show how it can't account for how language works.

Language doesn't go with [activities]; it comes after it. — Mww

And this is the picture that there is an entire world of activities, and that learning our language is simply pointing and saying the word that goes with it. That there is a "before" and "after". But we learn language and the world together; we are corrected, we mimic, we observe, etc. Of course this is not a lesson in education, but the analytical observation is that all the different ways language works (and is learned) are as varied and deep as our lives with which they are wrapped up in.

No: the fact that one speaks of the appropriate word does not shew the existence of a something that etc.. One is inclined, rather, to speak of this picture-like something just because one can find a word appropriate
— Wittgenstein, PI

I’m guessing the part left off “Something that etc”, is “comes before the mind”, which transforms the quote into, “the fact that one speaks of the appropriate word does not show the existence of a something that comes before the mind”. Yet, it does exactly that, for otherwise it must be the case there is something named or nameable, that does not exist as coming before the mind, which is absurd. — Mww

The full thought is that deciding a word is "appropriate" does not "shew that the meaning of a word is a something that comes before our mind... [which is] the exact picture we want to use...." #139 (my emphasis in bold). What he is trying to demonstrate is that we use the options (publicly) available in a concept. Here, we can picture a cube in our mind (give the interlocutor what they want) but we still speak of the fact that it is a prism in connection with a triangular prism. So Witt's point is that the picturing of something is not "meaning" something exact, i.e., when we picture the cube are we "picturing" its squareness? its edges? that it's a prism?

[our] creative act is open, at every moment, to the possibility of complete cessation. — charles ferraro

The word itself is dead before it is brought alive into time and context--pedestrian, mundane, banal, or contrary, unexpected, mad. Our very expressions begin and end. But, even in sight of its death, some writing holds itself responsible as we are when we speak: to answer for our expression, stand by it, be seen in it, to make ourselves intelligible, known.

If we turn Descartes around (as Plato, Heidegger, and Wittgenstein suggest for ourselves) he is not as worried about "existence" as knowledge, worried about its certainty to ensure his world (a piece of wax) and even himself.

So we can hope to find a kind of knowledge (thought) that will take the responsibility for ourself away, or we can ensure that we are known by our thoughts. We can look for certainty, or we can be certain, specific, thorough, diligent, resolute.

this perpetual openness to and oppressive, arbitrary, unrelenting subjection to the possibility of complete cessation clearly indicates, to me, that the contingent Cartesian thinking and the indubitably certain contingent Cartesian existing don't really matter that much, even if they are man's own creation. — charles ferraro

Our desire for a certainty in knowledge kills what it seeks before it begins. Emerson suggests we live open in front. If we are to let ourselves matter, is it our being subject to doubt at every turn that stops our first step? or will we exist only so far as we know?

But, perhaps, the most fundamental question of all is whether the occurrence of my "thinking" and of my "existing" is vulnerable, or invulnerable, to the possibility of complete cessation? — charles ferraro

For it might indeed be that if I entirely ceased to think, I should thereupon altogether cease to exist. — Descartes

...a more adequate and more complete version of the truth would be expressed by the phrase: "Cogito contingenter, ergo Sum contingenter." The: When and while I am thinking contingently (in the first person, present tense mode), I must be existing contingently." — charles ferraro

I'm not well versed in Descartes, but Cavell read a phrase of Emerson's that I always thought interesting. Emerson quotes his reader saying what they are too timid to: " 'I think' 'I am' ", and the take is along the lines of the distinction that Wittgenstein sees between words and their expression (that they are said, by me, right now, in this place, etc.). With Emerson it is in the sense, as you say, of a performance. But J.L. Austin will identify a class of words that perform something in being said (expressed), as in: I do, I promise, ect. The saying of it is to marry--Saying I promise is to make the promise. In this sense, saying "I think!" "I am!" is to perform the creation of your own existence. To assert yourself; claim who you are; what you are made of (averse to conformity, Emerson will say).

Now this is a little different than our imagining of "ceasing to exist", but is it really? Put the way you say as "existing contingently", when we simply conform to everyone else, part of us, in a sense that really matters to us, ceases to be; to be distinct.

In conclusion, because of their contingent natures, the true significance of Descartes' Cogito and even of his indubitably certain Sum, is their inherent existential tenuousness and triviality — charles ferraro

So it is not the proof that is tenuous, but us--are we to be trivial?

Well, basically @Mww is responding to my first draft.

I edited my response quite a bit after initially putting it up; it looks like if you click on the link provided in a notification or whatever, it does not take you to the most updated version, unless you refresh the page. I don't know how to fix that.

In any event, I'll give Mww a chance to look at the current version and paste in what responses still fit. It is much the same except I got a better handle on the way Witt uses the word cube in his example.

Question: are images part and parcel of human mentality?

"What really comes before our mind when we understand a word? — Isn’t it something like a picture? Can’t it be a picture". (Emphasis in original)
--Wittgenstein, PI #139 — Mww

This is not Witt speaking, but his questioner; his Interlocutor (or, as it where, Witt's former (positivist) self asking the question). And the next paragraphs are Witt imagining cases of what an answer would look like, and to account for other applications.

We are missing what comes right after this, which is essential:

"Well, suppose that a picture does come before your mind when you hear the word "cube", say the drawing of a cube. In what sense can this picture fit or fail to fit a use of the word "cube"? — Wittgenstein PI

(my emphasis)

Here Witt is asking for a grammatical answer, the ways in which the uses of the word cube with this picture might fit (or fail to). And the interlocutor is proposing a version of language that connects picturing a thing when we understand a word. Before accepting it, Witt pauses ("Weeeeellllll"--see above) and asks us to imagine ("suppose", above) a use of the word cube like this and if there are other uses of the word that include this picture.

From the sensibility of the receiver, then, “the way this picture fits” cannot be otherwise than to immediately relate to the perception, for if it didn’t, there is no explanation for the drawing of THAT picture by my mind. This makes explicit I already knew what a cube is. — Mww

This is the first framework that comes to mind; Witt will say we are "inclined" to it, or it "forces" itself on us. We know what cubes are, we can picture one, even without it in front of me. But this does not dictate the use of the word cube; say, that it can only be used as the relation of what is pictured to what is perceived.

141. Now clearly we accept two different kinds of criteria for this: on the one hand the picture (of whatever kind) that at some time or other comes before his mind; on the other, the application which—in the course of time—he makes of what he imagines. (And can't it be clearly seen here that it is absolutely inessential for the picture to exist in his imagination rather than as a drawing or model in front of him; or again as something that he himself constructs as a model?) — Wittgenstein PI

Here the picture of the word; there the use or application of the word (even without the picture).

.....but Witt allows the something that comes before the mind to immediately relate to the perception....I hear “cube”, I immediately image “something can imagine like a picture of”, a “cube”....
(“...say, the drawing of a cube...”)
(ibid 139) — Mww

It is asked by the Interlocutor if we understand a word instantly, and by Witt, if we see the fit of a use immediately as well. #138-139. As we have seen one is separate from the other, so we can ask: what do we understand when we picture a cube? does the picturing/perceiving have meaning? or does the use?

Witt then asks, “In what way can this picture fit or fail to fit a use of the word “cube”?...”
(ibid 139)[/quote]

And here is the OLP methodology of imagining examples that would show us the place of picturing a cube to the use of the word "cube" to try to understand if the word cube allows for only one use--the representation or understanding ("meaning") of the picture. He does give an example, but it is like a riddle: he says (rephrased) it is easy to imagine a method of projection that allows for pointing to a triangle prism and saying the word "cube" that actually fits the picture of a cube. We have a picture of a cube (which is technically a type of prism) and we are projecting the use of the cube's "prismness" onto a different (triangular) prism. And this is a different use of the word cube (comparing aspects) than the framework that comes to mind when we imagine understanding an object when picturing/perceiving it, or imagine meaning a word as expressing the picture. The picture without the use has no meaning.

Though "the picture of the cube did indeed suggest a certain use [practice] to us [representation], but it was possible for me to use it differently [as an example of a prism]." #139. He will say this "called our attention to (reminded us of) the fact that there are other processes, besides the one we originally thought of, which we should be prepared to call 'applying the picture of a cube'." #140

some post hoc epistemologically invalid imaginings. — Mww

Yes, I don't think this is his easiest example (I would see my discussion of "I believe" above). But it is not epistemology as finding (facts or other) justifications for explanations of a general theory of meaning or language; this is an investigation (it is an epistimology) to see how our concepts (practices) work differently, or similarly, and that there are different ways each can be used. And part of OLP is imagining cases, (even fantastical ones--to make sense of a context for philosophy's fantasies) to compare, or draw connections, or show distinctions, etc.

The perception is hearing, so that “picture” which has come before the mind cannot be some external, objective illustration; it is, therefore, because it is before the mind, it must have been drawn by the mind, and is a representation of this kind of perceptual sensation. — Mww

Isn't that just to describe how we bring an image to our mind (as one thing of many we can do--bring up a memory, even of a smell)? And that there are criteria even for doing this. "I can see the schematic cube as a box;—but can I also see it now as a paper, now as a tin, box?"PI p. 208 3rd ed. And here there will be certain things we can imagine and those we can't within the criteria of a cube because we grew up with cubes as we practiced naming and picturing and focusing on aspects of objects and the language that goes with these activities. I investigate above what we imply when we say "I imagine" or "I see an image".

What is essential is to see that the same thing can come before our minds when we hear the word and the application still be different. Has it the same meaning both times? I think we shall say not. — Wittgenstein PI

He does also offer examples that choosing the appropriate word is not flipping through a book of mental images, but that there are different (ordinary) criteria for what is appropriate in each case and context:

I believe the right word in this case is ... .". Doesn't this shew that the meaning of a word is a something that comes before our mind, and which is, as it were, the exact picture we want to use here? Suppose I were choosing between the words "imposing", "dignified", "proud", "venerable"; isn't it as though I were choosing between drawings in a portfolio?—No: the fact that one speaks of the appropriate word does not shew the existence of a something that etc.. One is inclined, rather, to speak of this picture-like something just because one can find a word appropriate; because one often chooses between words as between similar but not identical pictures; because pictures are often used instead of words, or to illustrate words; and so on. — Wittgenstein, PI

(The interlocutor is in italics)

Here, the "appropriateness" of the word is its "aptness", as Austin says, for this context and the uses of this word, and criteria for applying one to the other. That a word is appropriate is not a connection between "something that comes before our mind" which is "the exact picture we want to use here", ( emphasis added) say the/my "meaning"?

And I underlined "inclined" because Witt likes to show why it is possible to imagine picturing (or other "mentality") as a singular explanation for language: because words can have meaning independent of context, because different words can have the same criteria for use (say, as objects), and because we can create representations of words.

There's a point where masculinity becomes toxic, but where is that point? — Edy

Well, Thoreau speaks of the father tongue (active/writing) and the mother tongue (speech/passive). For there to be form to the world, in order to have speech at all, there must be the active violence of making a difference between this and that, but the passive allows attention for the criteria of what is essential to come forward; that the will is something to be followed, powerless. But without the mother, the father imagines it creates what is essential out of itself; the ego narssasistically creating the criteria of the world for certainty, universality, predictability, with only one solution and without any view of what draws us--in trying to save the world, it kills it.

what is quality? Again, for me, quality is those characteristics of an object that allegedly can't be mathematized i.e. qualities can neither be geometrized nor can be hose things butranslated into numbers. — TheMadFool

You are grouping the entire world into math and not-math (let's throw in science and not-science; fact/value; true/false). If you imagine that language does not have just one way to end that sentence: Quality is those characteristics of _______" and then finish the end of that sentence with any practice we have in: pointing out a good horse, knowing a good joke when we hear one, understanding what is "good science", believing, measuring, thinking, seeing, understanding, etc. Each having its own characteristics of what makes a good example (or an example of that it all) or to say, all the judgments, distinctions, what matters, how it matters, etc. in the ways in which people learn their lives along with language (and so not convention, or agreement, or any type of singluar justification).

Take color for starters; for simplicity I'll stick to red, blue, and green, the primary colors. These three colors appear different from each other but the difference boils down to mathematics: red has a wavelength of 650 nm, green had a wavelength of 550 nm, and blue has a wavelength of 450 nm. Simply put, the unique colors we perceive as red, blue, green are nothing more than numerical variations in wavelength. — TheMadFool

The relation of these facts to the ability of sight is taken as a lesson to impose uniformity onto all our measures of difference. You've told us what color is, but nothing about how we count color? point to it? and why we can't do either of those, but we want to, and, why? And each of our practices have different ways of, say, being rational, having an example to attain, skill, criteria for identity, even "seeing" something, say beauty.

Next, consider beauty. Beauty, as per the received view, is also a quality. There's the symmetry theory of beauty that states that faces we find beautiful are those that have good reflection symmetry and that's another quality that ultimately is about geometry. — TheMadFool

There are differences between pretty, attractive, and cute; there is what gives us pleasure, what we value, and what has forms and means of judging (photography, modern art, literature); the last part are the things which matter to us when we describe something as beautiful. This is not opinion or personal taste (there are means of sculpting, and judging and discussing sculpture).

Can everything be reduced to mathematics? — TheMadFool

Yes, and, no; not and still matter to us in the ways they do/have in our lives.

Is quality an illusion? — TheMadFool

What an illusion is, is to strip a practice of its ordinary criteria and picture it based on only one; it creates the impression one has found a problem and solved it at the same time.

So stop making the author into a god.
* * *
Do you actually read things with that in mind? — frank

Well I believe this was part of the New Criticism from the '50s which focused on the forms of literature instead of the history of the author, etc. What comes to mind is Emerson's comment that people tend to dwell too much on the person of Jesus. I really liked the Anatomy of Criticism by Northrup Frye, which categorized the kinds of stories (tragedy, comedy, etc.) but with an emphasis on the criteria that makes a story part of that category of narratives. I find it similar to Wittgenstein and his ordinary criteria for the forms of activities like believing, thinking, pointing, intending, understanding, etc.

There are a lot of philosophers that speak through someone responding to them (Socrates) or as if not straight at you (Nietzsche, Wittgenstein) or as if they are channeling someone (later Heddeigger, Descartes). When I read philosophy I tend to focus on what my reactions to the text are and note those; also I try to leave off trying to assume I understand terms until I see the context and connections to the rest of the work; also, I think especially with philosophy, it is important to see it as a connection of texts critiquing each other and connected to the same endeavor.

I'm not sure what metacognitive means
— Antony Nickles

Thinking about thought, belief, and language use as topics and/or subject matters in their own right. — creativesoul

I discussed this above in looking up the definition of a kayak. That we learn our lives and our language at the same time, so learning about our ordinary criteria is to learn about the world.

There are multiple sensible uses of the term "belief". Not everyone knows and/or uses them all. Some of them are in direct conflict with others. — creativesoul

And here It would seem appropriate to provide some examples of expressions of different senses (uses) of belief that are in direct conflict.

Witt's failures(on my view) are what so many people hold with high regard(the claims about not being able to get beneath language, the limits of one's language is the limits of one's world, and that sort of thing). — creativesoul

If I'm not mistaken, this might be from the Tractatus, which basically walled off a part of the world as unspeakable. He spends the whole of the PI showing that our language operates in different ways as varied as our lives together.

I've no issue at all with rejecting the idea of private language. To reject private meaning however, shows an inherent inability to take adequate account of language creation and/or acquisition, successful communication, and/or the minds of any and all creatures prior to having done so. — creativesoul

I have elsewhere tried to show how "meaning " is part of a picture Witt is trying to unravel, and, in doing so he does account for language acquisition (we learn it as we learn our lives), communication (expression in a shared language), language creation (that our concepts carry into new contexts) and even what we would consider the "mind" (He does not deny it, as I mentioned.). I think it would be easier for me if you just read the thread for those arguments; I was hoping to only explain OLP here. And, spoiler alert; do not read Philosophical Investigations.

If you could, would you mind revisiting the post where I described Gettier's mistake? Imagine, before you do, that I'm employing a similar approach to OLP. I'm setting out what Smith(anyone and everyone in that same situation) must mean if he's(they are) talking about himself(themselves), which he purportedly is.

"Either Jones owns a Ford, or Brown is in Barcelona". — creativesoul

For OLP usually the example is something expressed with a context. When we have something like this, or something like "I only see the appearance of a chair" or "I know that I am in pain!" we try to imagine the context this would go in. With this, say, Jones has a house in Barcelona. We see someone in a Ford drive up to Jones' house and go in. We know Brown owns a Ford, but we didn't think Jones had one, so "Either Jones owns a Ford, or Brown is in Barcelona." It is a conjecture or hypothesis that one or the other is true. Sure I can have a feeling about it one way or the other, but it will take something else to know if it is true.

Then these claimed criteria of our concepts like thinking, knowing, intending have to account for the issues of the philosophical tradition.
— Antony Nickles

Those who hold that all belief content is propositional are using different senses of the term "belief" that cannot possibly take proper account of belief that exists in it's entirety prior to language use. Thus, such a notion leads - on pains of coherency alone - to a denial of language-less thought and belief.

Like that? — creativesoul

Witt will ask, what are we denying? #305-306. Haven't we accounted for language-less belief? "What we deny is that the picture of the inner process gives us the correct idea of the use of the word...."

"575. When I sat down on this chair, of course I believed [had the hyposthesis] it would bear me. I had no thought of its possibly collapsing...
— Antony Nickles

When one has never even had the thought of the chair collapsing, there could be no possible belief that it would not. Believing a chair will bear our weight is to consider whether or not it will collapse under our weight, and believing that it will not. — creativesoul

I think you're right this isn't an instance of believing as hypothesizing. From the paragraph before I think we can infer that Witt is using this as an example of believing as a feeling, like hoping.

"#574 A proposition, and hence in another sense a thought, can be the 'expression' of belief, hope, expectation, etc. But believing is not thinking. (A grammatical remark.) The concepts of believing, expecting, hoping are less distantly related to one another than they are to the concept of thinking."

The approach depends upon a metacognitive endeavor; to make that which remains implicit, explicit. Exposing and/or discovering the implicit content of some particular language use is the aim of the OLP endeavor. It is an aim that is satisfied solely by virtue of offering an adequate account thereof. — creativesoul

I'm not sure what metacognitive means but I don't know how figuring out our ordinary criteria can be considered "meta" if anyone can be the judge. Just because we normally don't think about walking doesn't mean we can't explain the difference between it and running if we think about it. And I wouldn't say "exposing and/or discovering" but remembering or seeing. And the "content" is the "criteria" of "concepts" (both terms of Witt's I have explained above) not "some particular language use". But you are correct that it "is satisfied solely by virtue of offering an adequate account thereof. "Adequate" being to speak for both of us (all of us), for you to see what I see.

All accounting practices require something to be taken account of, something to take account of it, a means in order to do so, and a creature capable of doing it.

Hopefully I've accounted for all of this.
— creativesoul

OLP is taking account of... how it takes account. — creativesoul

It has to account for itself because its method is also a critique of the philosophical tradition. But it is also seeing what counts in our concepts, what matters to us in them.

The aim is the implicit meaningful content accompanying specific instances of ordinary language use. — creativesoul

As I've said above, what is meaningful to us are our shared judgments. This is not an accompaniment or a justification; they are the criteria for our concepts.

I've asked a few different questions, and raised a few different concerns. Do you believe that you've answered and attended to those satisfactorily? — creativesoul

I've had what seemed like the same objections leveled at OLP a number of times so I may have lost some. There are a few responses after this so maybe those answer some things. I went back over your responses and I found these:

Upon what ground, by what standard are we further discriminating between different uses, aside from some are native, common, everyday uses and some are not? * * * By what measure to we intend to judge which of these terminological uses is worth saving and which deserves forgetting? * * * Which is more valuable to us, as an accounting practice, and how? — creativesoul

We aren't discriminating between "uses"; the examples we imagine are even how they are used in philosophy but they have to be put in a context--which traditional philosophy doesn't do--of when we express our concepts, like "believing", in order to see and claim a description of our ordinary criteria, based only on your agreement, your ability to see for yourself.

Then these claimed criteria of our concepts like thinking, knowing, intending have to account for the issues of the philosophical tradition.

Did [Nietzsche] think first we should achieve happiness which then will make us virtuous? — deusidex

It's been a while since I looked at the actual texts, but, like Emerson (on whom Nietzsche mirrored his work), Austin attempts to take the gas out of "profundity". The sense that if we are "serious" about our criteria for moral knowledge (as close to certainty), then we will do what is right. Emerson is constantly trying to "lift our spirits" as it is hard to be "averse" to conformity when necessary; what he calls self reliance. Nietzsche's way of deflating this "seriousness" is to call for a sense of joy or happiness (lightness--not the feeling, but an attitude (perspective) in the face of morality). (One thing to keep in mind is that Nietzsche is an analytical philosopher reacting to the tradition--Plato, Kant (why he mentions "imperative"), Schopenhauer, etc.--so he is making a point about their moral theories, but his style has to be obtuse and hinting because you have to take the step to see everything differently for yourself--so to take him as making statements that are true/false (accepted or rejected) rather than as riddles and examples to consider, is to miss the point, and take him too "seriously".)

What Nietzsche is talking about with "happiness" is a point we reach in a moral situation (a specific case) where we must go beyond our deontological morals (not that we stay in this state and aren't just reforming them) when we don't know how to go on, maybe even when to be immoral is to do what is right. That there is a point at which pre-determined, generalized guidelines come to an end. Then we are turned on ourselves and what we do defines us (our humanity as it were). We are responsible for how we act, beyond our knowledge of what to do (but extended from it). Wittgenstein will speak of treating someone as if they have a soul; Emerson will say that character is higher than intellect.

So the image that happiness leads to "virtue" is that acting (when necessary) from this place of being responsible to other's moral claims on us, intelligible for our actions, read by them, that that reflects on us, our character--"virtue" in Cicero's sense (an ethical moral epistemology). Not that we will do the right thing, but that (sometimes) what we do makes us who we are ("physiologically" is Nietzsche playing off the "body" (who we are, and are to be) in contrast to the "mind" (seeing moral skepticism as an intellectual problem); which Wittgenstein echoes when he says "The human body is the best picture of the human soul." PI p. 152).

What do you guys think about "human" robots going around being amongst us, doing things for us that are hard for us "real" humans to accomplish, such as learning about nature and reality and inventions? — elucid

This is a traditional analytic philosophy fantasy that captures the fear of not being able to know what is going on with the Other (another person--the problem of other minds it is usually called). It is the outcome of radical skepticism. Wittgenstein has a whole process of showing that knowledge in the traditional sense (certainty, predictive, determinative, universal) comes to an end in the case of the Other. We do not know that someone is in pain in this sense, we either acknowledge they are in pain ("I know, sweetie, you're in pain") or reject it--the claim that their pain makes on us and our reaction to it. We treat someone as a robot. On page 152 (PI 50th Aniv. ed.) Witt describes that we do not talk of believing that someone is not an automaton. "I am not of the opinion that he has a soul. * * * My attitude towards him is an attitude towards a soul." (emphasis in original) "Consciousness" I imagine is lumped into the same class, as would be zombie, monster, ghost...

We do not have the kind of knowledge about our own minds; about our own thought and belief; about our own imaginings, experience; worldview; about our own operative influences that I'm talking about simply by virtue of growing up and learning English at the same time. If such knowledge acquisition were that easy, none of us would be wrong. — creativesoul

Part of what Witt is trying to do is elevate the publicness of our communication. Not to deny that we imagine things or have individual experiences or that we can think to ourselves, but just, to put it roughly, those things are not as important as we think. Not that we don't have misunderstandings, but that it is not a confusion between your meaning and my understanding. The gap is that you and I are separate bodies. If I make an expression, it is through public means, so it is now apart from me, but I still have a future with it. I can answer for any misunderstanding or I can try to wiggle out of it by saying "That's not what I meant." But we can be understood (read) through what we say. As Witt says, sometimes I can know better than you what you are going to do. PI p. 225 Anscombe Ed.

This [that intent is only asked after something fishy] reminds me of a legal argument. Namely, when the defense argues that the charges presuppose intent, and thus the burden of proof rests upon the shoulders of prosecution to prove the defendant's intent of wrongdoing, or something similar... — creativesoul

And wouldn't it be appropriate to say we are asking about intent because something unexpected happened? And mens rea (intent) can be inferred by actions (without confession) based on circumstances. The point is that we made an assumption thinking that intent (or some other internal placeholder) came before action or expression. And that leads to the question: why do we want (need) there to be internal causality? (There is another occasion where I could say "I intend to go to the market" say to hedge my bets because I'll probably end up at the bar and need an excuse. There are perhaps other senses; do any help us here?)

If we take the words "I believe", when spoken by someone with unfettered confidence that something just happened, and what immediately follows that particular use of "I believe" is nothing other than a description thereof(a belief statement about what happened), it makes absolutely no sense whatsoever for us to make a universal claim that all English speakers' use of "I believe" implies a hypothesis about future events. — creativesoul

Well, Wittgenstein comes at it a number of different ways so maybe it is hard to see with just my one example/route, but "it makes absolutely no sense whatsoever"? If to say "I believe it's raining" is not, in a sense, to say "I believe it might be raining, let's check" or "I beliiiieeeve it's raining, I might be wrong" than what are we saying? Does it change it to say someone has "unfettered confidence"? Kinda? It sounds like it could be a bet, even if something happened in the past: "I believe [confidently] the Packers won; $5 says I'm right." But if the Packers did win, it is only that the person was right; and wouldn't we just say they guessed right? And if that is not a hypothesis (guess), what would we say? in what context? It might just be that we are talking about a claim like "I believe that the earth is flat". But, again, we can just say "The earth is flat". If someone questions us, we will have to provide some proof or justification. But this is the grammar of a claim to knowledge.

I'm not going to object to the idea that we can acquire knowledge regarding everyone's language use. — creativesoul

This would seem to be a kind of census; like linguistic anthropology. We are not "acquiring" knowledge; we already have it from growing up and learning English at the same time. We are just making what is implicit in saying something, explicit. Socrates and others will refer to this as "remembering".

Sitting around thinking about what other people's use of some word or phrase implies doesn't do anyone much good at all regarding any of the acceptable uses that are unknown to us. It looks like a recipe for some pretentiousness about another's language use.

Ought we not ask others? — creativesoul

It is not "other people's use" it is a claim on behalf of everyone. The "we" is all English speakers. I make that claim in the first-person plural (as discussed in the post on objective aesthetics, in Kant's "universal voice" regarding the Beautiful). What is implied when we say/do is justified by your being able to make the same claims, or see for yourself that I am correct. (I feel like there is a sense in which you can hear when it is wrong, but epistemologically this adds nothing.) There is no further justification. Cavell will refer to these insights as "philosophical data" but only when they fully account for everything at issue--they are not just arguments in themselves. I have been trying to focus on the method as I feel the examples are being dismissed or argued with independent of trying to understand the method.

What have we done here that is philosophically interesting or relevant aside from parsing out different acceptable uses, albeit in a bit more detail than usual? — creativesoul

Well the example of Austin's about accidentally and mistakenly (above) is part of seeing that intent (meaning, thought) is not a cause of action/speech. He will use this and a whole mess of other examples to say we only speak of intention when there is something unexpected, inappropriate, etc. to an action in that context: "Did you intend to... ?" There is also the claim (Cavell's) that when we say "I know" (above) it is in one sense an acknowledgment, as part of an argument that knowledge is not the only relation we have to the world and that at a certain point we are left with how we answer to the other's claim on us, that we are responsible to what we have said as it defines us.

By the way, I may have very well misunderstood your response to the bit I offered about "I believe" sometimes being accompanied by uncertainty and sometimes not. To be sure, are you denying that "I believe" can be accompanied by certainty and uncertainty both? Are you denying that "I believe" is sometimes used in a manner that is not a guess? — creativesoul

Yes, Witt's claim is that when we say "I believe" the implication is a hypothesis: "I believe it is going to rain" is, in other words, "My guess is that it is going to rain." Now you can say "I believe the earth is flat", but in this sense, belief is simply a claim to knowledge (as if you just said "The earth is flat"), and knowledge is a different matter. Witt does also talk about a sense of belief as a feeling of confidence or determination, which (grammatically) is expressed: "You're going to make it to the finish line!", i.e., I believe in you. And he does mention that certainty has a similar sense (of a feeling): "I shall [am certain I will] burn by hand if I put it in the fire." PI #474. I didn't think these senses of belief or certainty applied, though Witt also talks about feeling certain (about what time it is) but without any justification, and Cavell discusses whether being (feeling) certain is necessary for a claim to knowledge or not (can't remember how this comes down).

My understanding (though don't hold me to it as I did not prepare to get into a defense of this) is that this is part of Witt's argument that a certain difference between knowledge and opinion ("belief") is created to separate and dismiss certain types of justification in order to maintain certainty, universality and other skeptically-mandated criteria for knowledge. He says that Moore's formulation would be as if two people were speaking out of my mouth PI p. 164; Cavell is more conciliatory and says it would be as if you said "It is raining" to a person on the phone, and then covered it and said "but I don't believe it" to someone else.