#531 We speak of understanding a sentence in the sense in which it can be replaced by another which says the same; but also in the sense in which it cannot be replaced by any other.

#532 Then has "understanding" two different meanings here?—I would rather say that these kinds of use of "understanding" make up its meaning, make up my concept of understanding. — Witt, PI excerpts, emphasis added

The concept of "understanding a sentence" is meaningful to us, it matters to us, in (at least) two uses/senses. One is the sense that we can rephrase it to say exactly the same thing. There is another sense--in the concept of "understanding a sentence" (in its grammar)--where we follow something even though there is no other way to express it, as it is said, here, now, to you.

So words have possible uses (senses, varieties, options), but we don't actually choose any of the uses/options? — Luke

Wittgenstein's realization is the first part; the second is a different concept. You seem to see the "possibilities" of a concept, it's uses. And yes we can choose our words ahead of time (as, for a speech, which might help in clarifying the use), and we do say words--express them--(or not say them), but we do not "use" words as in: do not "mean" words. You may understand it as when Wittgenstein realizes that the internal process of "meaning" vanishes, taking with it the picture of us putting "meaning" into what we say, i.e., "using" language. All of this is externalized, so the sense (or use) of an expression is in the expression and context, not coming from us.

An intention is embedded in a setting, in human customs and institutions. If the technique of the game of chess did not exist, I could not intend to play a game of chess. To the extent that I do intend the construction of an English sentence in advance, that is made possible by the fact that I can speak English. — Wittgenstein, PI # 337 emphasis added

(PI 337)

As Austin will say, intention is only something we ask about afterwards if something is out of place (phishy)--"Did you intend to run that stop light?" So the expectation (only apart from which we may be rightfully be asked what we intented) is in the context (embedded in a setting). Now you can choose ahead of time to fly in the face of convention, but that is the extent to which we intend, mean, cause, etc.

We do not always or necessarily even choose our words before we speak, though questions can be answered about what we said afterwards. To have "spoken thoughtlessly" is not to have chosen our words poorly, but not to have taken into consideration the use for which they will be taken. We are still held to the words we say, even if we only register that this is the kind of thing said here, never considering the use (the grammar of an expression, as we don't for walking).

To the extent we "say" something (can be said to have said something) is how much what we say meets all the varied, ordinary criteria for having said (or done) that thing. Not just the words we say, but in a contex as an event--as in there is an after, in which there may (or not) be questions, determinations, pointing out parts that meet our criteria to differentiate one concept from another, one use in that concept ("I know" in the sense of ("yeah, yeah, I got it") from another, excuses, adaptations, even, but not only, justifications, etc.

But our desire for "mathematical" certainty creates a picture of the power of (necessity for) judgments made previously (rules, moral imperatives) which threatens our ability to see we can continue, to wait, to try again, to listen, without which how can we teach anything new to anyone, try to tell someone something hard to hear, have any hope in a moral moment.

I'm not versed in Ponty, and all I really remember about Sartre was his character put a fork in his hand because he was worried it wasn't his (a different take than Moore). The worry of the other is worse than ours for ourselves. We cannot know them, so we project our uncertainty onto them, making them unknowable, something we can't see. These philosophers are attempting to solve this problem by putting us into a relation with the other, seen/judged, or pushed away from/connected to a body. But there is nothing ensuring the vision of, or connection with, the other. Wittgenstein say that we are separate from the other. Me in my body, you, yours. "The human body is the best picture of the human sole." This is not only to say we have no way in, but that our knowledge can only go so far in relation to the other; that we don't know the others pain, we accept or reject it--we treat them as if they have a soul.

Zoom and social media and useless forums may all "distance us" from each other, but they are nothing to the human power to blind ourselves to the other's humanity, perhaps to even blind their view of me.

...the point being that it doesn't have anything to do with "you".
— Antony Nickles

I didn't mean to emphasize the "I", and I don't know why you think I did. — Luke

I pointed it out for a reason, but not emphasizing "you" as apart from anyone else, but that the way a word has meaning doesn't have anything to do with us, in the way your picture describes.

...an expression can be used (e.g.) as an assertion or as a hypothesis, but which of those possibilities is actualised depends on what a speaker/writer actually does with it (how a speaker/writer actually uses it) in a given instance. — Luke

underline added

Your picture injects the speaker as "the user"; that the use of language depends on them. But "the" use (not "our" use) is a part of language (our lives), not in the speaker doing something, "using it".

#43 For a large class of cases—though not for all—in which we employ the word "meaning" it can be defined thus: the meaning of a word is its use in the language. — Witt, PI

That words are meaningful is not because of how I use a word (or expression), as in the way it is used by me. There is the whole of language, that is to say everything worth expressing or that matters in our lives, and this word has a role, a place. That is its use, not our using; the word's use, as in the word has a use, or uses; Witt will also call them senses (like varieties or options), which depend (mostly) on the context, not upon my intention or my "actualizing" it.

#531 We speak of understanding a sentence in the sense in which it can be replaced by another which says the same; but also in the sense in which it cannot be replaced by any other.

#532 Then has "understanding" two different meanings here?—I would rather say that these kinds of use of "understanding" make up its meaning, make up my concept of understanding. — Witt, PI excerpts, emphasis added

There are two (at least) "understandings", and Wittgenstein is saying "in the sense of" to clarify/differentiate which grammar for this concept we are discussing. As Cavell discusses on p. 80, the classic idea of the "meaning" (what you also call the "sense") of a word, disappears completely, vanishes.

Of course if there is confusion [about which sense] we can ask: "What did you mean?", but the answer to this falls (usually) within a concept's grammar (its possible senses). Now this is different than saying there are rules and I "used the word" in accordance with its rules.
— Antony Nickles

How is it different? Language is the game and grammar is its rules. — Luke

This is one main part of this essay in understanding the impact of the desire for "mathematical" rules: that the first picture of how language works, the question is asked after, the second way, with rules, is with all applications thought to be completely known beforehand.

Thus, it is not a matter of simply judging whether a rule (aspiring to be mathematical) was followed (unless it is that kind of concept--math, chess, etc.), but understanding/teaching post-expression justifications; the usual context; the extension of the concept into new contexts; making explicit the grammar of this concept; finding out if we are missing something; adding/changing something because our lives have changed.

I think part of the motivation for misunderstanding here is that if we imagine language works on rules, than at the end of justifications for following them, we imagine there is nothing else to do because the point of the rule was to provide a foundation for a kind of certainty to our language, a bedrock. So, if what happens at the end of justifications turns on us, then it will seem our language is arbitrary, uncertain, individual, because of the ultimate contingency on me and you (not for a prior ground, but an ongoing reconciliation).

@Banno help

for Wittgenstein, grammar is about the sense of the words "excuse", "apology", "threat", "pain", "learning", "reading", "talking", "lying", "seeing", etc. Our actions are obviously related to the use of these words, but grammar is not about the actions themselves (independently of the words/concepts). — Luke

Talking about what we imply when we say "I was only following the rule" is to talk about the act of making an excuse, how it works in our lives. To learn about a concept is to learn about the world (and ourselves in it); sometimes they are not aligned, or our words are dead to our culture, or sublimated, but I wouldn't say there is a necessary separation or disconnect, but, if there was one (the spade turned), we could bridge that gap.

What if someone breaks (or fails to learn) the rules of grammar (i.e. the bounds of sense)? This is a "depth" that language cannot "reach" or reconcile. — Luke

My phrasing was maybe too poetic. The point being we can not rely on blaming language for the breakdown. Language does not ensure it, but it makes it possible to reconcile (even to a new culture, an expression in a new context, beyond its usual senses) up to the point we give up. Your example does not foreclose that possibility/responsibility, but the picture of rules running language creates the picture of "bounds" because we want everything neatly applicable and predictable and universal, etc.

I hope you do not intend to argue against Wittgenstein's position, famously summarised as "meaning is use".. — Luke

Well if I understand you to say that: an expression is used, as in meant, by me, somehow related to the action or practice, and that the 'sense of the words' above is just another way of saying 'meaning', then I would say this misses Wittgenstein's radical re-conception of the way meaning works, and that the part that "use" plays is twisted because of that picture, but, no, I don't want to argue that with you.

I can wield/use the words "Pass the salt" as a command/request, for example. — Luke

Ergh, this seems so close, I can't help it. Yes. Here, the sense/use of what you are saying is closest to "I can [ say ] 'Pass the salt' as a command/request", but then what you call "using the words" is just, "saying". But this can also be seen as a grammatical claim: "The words 'Pass the salt' [ can be used ] as a command/request" You are here (almost**) making a claim about commanding and requesting (a difference or similarity); but the point being that it doesn't have anything to do with "you". (**I'm not sure what the grammatical point could be here with this example; maybe that they both involve influencing, here, the act of another.)

Moore's paradox can be put like this: the expression "I believe that this is the case" is used like the assertion "This is the case"; and yet the hypothesis that I believe this is the case is not used like the hypothesis that this is the case. — Wittgenstein PI Sec X emphasis added

The focus on "is used like" is on whether it is: as an assertion, or, as a hypothesis; not on the person "using" a word, but on the possibilities of the expression (the possible uses); you could call these different senses, but it is not the "sense" (meaning) of the expression. Here, part of the grammar of "belief" is its potential to be an assertion, here compared to the (grammatical) fact--or claim, here, really--that part of its makeup is that it can be a hypothesis. Now you can say: "I used belief as a hypothesis" but the focus is on differentiating between the uses that belief has, not that "your use" gave it, or related it to, the "meaning" that it has--you are merely clarifying among the limited options.

So, can you say "I used the word..."? sssuuuure, but that adds nothing to your merely expressing (saying) them (maybe not even choosing them). The uses, those senses, were already there and their meaningfulness doesn't have anything (much) to do with you (not to say they may not be important to you, you may have reasons, clarifications, etc.). Of course if there is confusion we can ask: "What did you mean?", but the answer to this falls (usually) within a concept's grammar (its possible senses). Now this is different than saying there are rules and I "used the word" in accordance with its rules.

That's the discussion I'm trying to have — schopenhauer1

Well we are definitely backing into this, and I still don't think we understand the subject we are actually talking about. The way I was taught to do philosophy is from the ground up, not setting conclusions, or terms, or conditions first. Now, I use examples, even imagined ones, but they have to be in the service of a claim to show something, not just a demand that it must mean something to us. As I said before, if we are talking about the concept of choosing, there are much better examples that tell us more about how that works. I would also think that if we were looking at how having no choice impacts justice, I would go with other examples also.

But if we are actually talking about how justice would function in terms of bringing a child into the world, I would think it is backwards to insist on highlighting the child's lack of choice, rather then simply starting with the parent's responsibility for bringing the child into this world--let's even call it: the willful act of forcing the child to come here, now. Does that exclude the fact that the child does not have a choice? To say it a different way, isn't the fact, that the child has no choice, already, in a sense, in there? and that specifically pointing it out adds, nothing? It, as it were, is not a moral consideration itself, but only a mere fact of the situation--part of what creates the context. Or maybe it is better to say that in a situation of responsibility, one upon which we can be judged (even later by the baby), there are particular moral considerations. Is this one of them? Not: the state of the world, our finances, the possibility of passing on an illness, that the baby may resent what is seen as a selfish act given our simple desire for a baby compared to the eventual impact on them, etc? A category of consideration for what it would mean to be just in this case seems to be: weighing having the child against our situation (including our desires and opinions). That someone asks the parents (or they ask themselves) "Why would you want to bring a child into this world?" Taking into consideration all that and more, if we say to the parents "But the baby has no choice!", what difference would it make? i.e., why say that?

The conditions of having choice (as any other condition, PERIOD), is from being born, so not sure about that underlined emphasis there — schopenhauer1

You are mixing together "condition" and "causality". We would say birth puts us in a condition, or position, but not that it determines or forces anything (or whatever you imagine causality to do).

So here's my big takeaway — schopenhauer1

You appear to be attempting to critique an imagined situation where people somehow see this unremarkable (everyday) event as an actual consideration (in what is unclear) and then "change the debate" and "glaringly skip over" a fact that sheds almost no light on either the concept of choice or the human condition.

If you actually wanted to make the case, say: how parents are responsible for the choice they make in bringing a child into the world, this world, their inadequate world, and the possible justifications and qualifications, this is currently not that discussion.

But your birth could never have been a choice you made. Is it just that that choice is made for you. There was no choice to opt out, and here is something more important possibly than any other decision and you could never have made it for yourself.

It brings up another question, just because all choices X are due to the condition of being born B. Does having choices X as a consequence of B, justify B which itself was a condition that did not even allow for choice? Is simply having the ability to make choices X override the first (possible) injustice of B (never having a choice for the whole course of life itself, which granted have subsequent choices one can make)? — schopenhauer1

Categorically, Kant would say; Grammatically, Wittgenstein would say: something you have no say in is simply not a choice. Can not BE a choice, considered as a part of a moral action, nor as part of what in our lives anyone would call or recognize as a choice--none of why it is a choice apply: there is no responsibility, there are no options, I have no authority, no one can rightly accuse me of the act (or not being able to act). There is force, oppression, servitude, etc., any number of things that make it so there is no possibility of it being a choice, including any number of fantasy situations which you want to create, say, I am completely paralyzed and no one knows, the entire world does not register my acts or speech, including "not being born".

Thus, your imposition (and continuing) idea of causality is manufactured as a backwards version of the part that responsibility plays in choice. If we take you seriously, the condition of being alive makes you responsible, as anyone is, but your choices are not caused by your birth. You are in the condition of answering for yourself (even if you do not choose); you may want to abdicate that responsibility, but then are you alive? are you (being) human?

the possibility of meaning something by a sign is dependent on the existence of a practice external to the individual meaner, and that what this individual means by a sign on any given occasion depends, at least in part, on this external practice. — frank

The answer to your question is that there is a desire for knowledge to take the place of acknowledging the other person. But the above explanation takes the same desire for looking inside someone to create a picture of how we express ourselves only moving "meaning" to something external.

"Behaviorism.. emphasized the outward behavioral aspects of thought and dismissed the inward experiential."

I could go down a rabbit-hole to try to correct everything wrong with these pictures of our relationship with language, only to say that Wittgenstein was trying to remove our fixation with "meaning" being a thing either inside or outside--our desire to know that; internally, to actually salvage our ability to be individual, personal, secret; and outside, to show how we are responsible for what we say and do.

I think this brand of externalism leads to behaviorism and a pending collapse in meaning of any kind anywhere. How can this be avoided? — frank

I think the sense of loss is the continuing desire for knowledge to contain our entire relationship to the other. The most powerful image I've come across is that we do not know the other person's pain, their pain makes a claim on us that we either accept or ignore. Our relationship to the world is more than (just) knowledge.

this methodological challenge to the scientific bona fides of consciousness (on behalf of empiricism) — frank

So we continue to search for a way (as it were into, or past, the other) that does not involve our actually engaging the other, and, in doing so, turn their actions into movements, their words into sounds. We are entirely separate, but still capable of expression, response; though our impulse is to find something to take our place.

This is the criteria that Cavell is describing as "mathematical", which he believes Kripke is aspiring to impose on the grammar of all concepts, any action.
— Antony Nickles

Grammar applies only to language use, not to "any action" - unless you have a reason to think otherwise? — Luke

Yes, that is literally the kind of claims he is making. That the structure of our language and that of our lives are (usually, for the most part) them same—this is carried from the Tractatus but a different kind of form for each thing, each type of act; and we are looking for its “logic” (on its terms) rather than imposing a fixed criteria. A grammar for excuses (Austin), for apologies, for a threat, for acknowledging pain, for treating someone as if they have a soul, for raising one's arm, for justifying or disagreeing. Grammatical comments highlight the criteria of a thing—what is essential for it to be that thing: learning, mistaking, reading, talking, lying, seeing, etc.

We are taught both how to wield words and how they are meaningful in our lives. — Luke

Our lives are meaningful, and we learn words (moreover, concepts) in coming into our culture, acting, failing, interacting, becoming part of everything everyone does. Again this picture of "meaning" is getting in the way. Our expressions, as our lives, don't have a "meaning" attached to them; part of the confusion Witt recognizes is that we believe that since we can give a definition ("meaning") for ever word, that this is how all language works (reference/correspondence).

...and that right and wrong are simply a matter of obeying the rules or not...
— Antony Nickles

But they are. Otherwise, there is no rule. — Luke

To obey a rule is to obey it correctly (do it right) or wrong (fail to obey it). Justifications can differ as to why we obeyed it, and we can argue about what it means to have (rightly) obeyed a particular rule, but what is right and what is wrong are not contained/decided by rules (unless they are set by us--laws, commandments, etc.). To have correctly apologized is not determined by the application of a rule, it is judged by those accepting the apology (at least most importantly), depending on the injustice and other criteria (sometimes or not, depending on the situation; though if it's threshold grammar is broken, I may not accept it as an apology at all).

So we do not have to be answerable for the action; we can point to the rule as the answer of why we did the action, abdicating our responsibility to be intelligible to the other, respond to their claims on us about what we have done.
— Antony Nickles

I do not understand how we "abdicat[e] our responsibility to be intelligible to the other" by following rules. — Luke

If I am following the rule, I may only have, "I was following the rule." And so cannot explain, detail, qualify, defend, make explicit, distinguish, or justify myself, except as to how I believe following the rule is done and that I did it.

Aren't we responsible both for following rules and for not following rules (that is, once we know the rules)? — Luke

You can hold me responsible for the act, and for my choice to follow the rule (though, in following the rule, if I judge the rule as irresponsible, I am not obeying it (#222)). And I can claim I was following the rule as an excuse from the guilt/wrong, but Kripke's society is judging my having followed the rule or not, not whether the rule itself is right/wrong (judged even for following it). But, again, the point is that the desire and temptation (the aspiration Cavell says) for a purity in our language/acts, is just the wish (particularly in philosophy) to remove ourselves (have action based on abstract universal reason or knowledge or rules, not on me).

In terms of intelligibility, I would say that following the rules (e.g. in chess) is what allows us to make ourselves (our moves) intelligible to our opponent — Luke

If I am behaving as expected there is no need to make myself intelligible (as we don’t ask after intention unless something phishy happens). If you have broken the rules of chess and I tell you, and you claim you did not, you must explain yourself if we are to go forward, together. For you to explain in what sense you intended, or so that you know what is at stake and have a chance to qualify what seems inexplicable from my position. This may come to our being unable to reconcile, however, as Cavell will say elsewhere about it: though we are endlessly separate, there is no depth to which langauge can not reach, and we are answerable for everything that comes between us.

You cannot select the option for no option. — schopenhauer1

If I take this seriously (not just as a trick question simply setting its own rules), literally (to mean what it is saying), as: a claim about how options work, how working with options works, what it means to choose between them, when we are free and when constrained, what context makes something an option, a choice, I feel it misses that, ordinarily, selecting no option is just part of what a choice involves. Depending what the options are (for whose judgment, under what authority, i.e., how optional), and, more importantly, why we are being given options, what is our goal? on this, and more, choosing no option may be the best option, or we can be in a place where there is no option, as when we have no choice (which can be an excuse).

But this could be said to try to capture the sense that, even if we do not choose an option, if we do nothing, we may still be subject to judgment. Now to ask if it is just when we are forced to make choices, I feel we would mostly say no (I'm sure there are), but whether it is just to be held responsible for the options we choose, even responsible for not choosing, is a matter of our being answerable to the other, which I would say we would almost always see as at least a possibility (except perhaps the personal, secret). Of course, judgment on options on a menu are different than those which reflect who you are and/or what someone else might think of you/do to you. We could say unjust judgment here ranges from rude to guilty without proof. We may not have consented to be answerable, or at least to you. The judgment may be moralized; decided before the choice. But injustice may also be done by the chooser even in not choosing, if only to oneself.

I will say that we are born into a world of already-existing options, history, judgments, freedoms, consequences. There is no option out of this other than to abandon human responsibility entirely (which is all too human).

I have a question which has puzzled me for a long time. Why does Nietszche dislike Socrates so much. He criticizes him for setting Western thought on the wrong path. Nietszche preferred the presocratics. Isn't there a little bit of similarity between the two of them in the sense that both are skeptical of system and theory building in philosophy and neither are propounding any doctrine. I think Socrates method is a very good one , the idea that philosophy should be lived, that it takes place in the discourse between people, not an academic pursuit — Ross Campbell

I don't remember in reading Nietszche of any specific animus, but the ways in which Socrates questioned a person to have them characterize, say, the good, led to drawing out what ordinary ways we consider it, the criteria that count in judging it. This investigation and its goal of our betterment would be what Nietszche admired about Socrates. Walter Kaufmann claims that Nietszche held Socrates in so high regard he had to differentiate himself. I can conjecture based on his reacting to Kant that Nietszche put, at least Plato, in the same category of desiring a foundational certainty for our claims of knowledge. And this goal was what caused Socrates to ultimately discount, in most cases, the answers given, as they did not meet his criteria. Nietszche would take this dismissive attitude toward our ordinary criteria as a rejection of the human in preference to something that does not include our interests, our possibility of failure, our history, the circumstances. His examples and imagined histories give something like Socrates' universal generalized forms, a context in our lives. Now Nietszche's style is to inject a motive and personalize an intellectual disagreement, I suppose in the same way he wants to humanize our epistimology with a greater sense of knowledge than what is true or false; to include our interests and our temptations and hopes and fears into our approach to morality. So he would admire Socrates' method but not the effect of his prejudice for a certain goal.

In the extension of non-mathematical concepts we do not have the ability to say " 'and so on', in order to reach infinity."
— Antony Nickles

what does it mean for rules to be "all-encompassing" and "justified to begin with"? — Luke

This is the criteria that Cavell is describing as "mathematical", which he believes Kripke is aspiring to impose on the grammar of all concepts, any action. As if rules are all that matter; that every application (of a concept) is already taken into consideration (into infinity--as in math). That we learn rules, instead of having lives, and that right and wrong are simply a matter of obeying the rules or not (what is right is worked out ahead of time; this is similar to Nietszche's critique of Kant's deontological morals).

Wittgenstein's intent with these remarks is not to demonstrate that it is impossible to "nail everything down for all time", although this kind of "preconception of crystalline purity" is one of his targets in the book. §143 deals with understanding, rule following, being guided by a rule, and normal/abnormal reactions. — Luke

It is this purity (what Cavell is calling "mathematical") that is the pivot-point between the two views of what happens when we get stuck. Cavell takes Kripke's view of rules as "more skeptical than the skeptic", meaning that the desire for purity (certainty, pre-determination, simple enforcement) is satisfied by making rules central to our agreement (then we can teach the rule, rather than the student, rather than agree in our lives). The rule removes us: the partial (our partiality), fallible, limited, separate, finite, impure (of the flesh; feet of clay).

you say we teach how to "use" words, but that seems different than Witt's point that, in teaching meaning, we teach the use of a word in the language
— Antony Nickles

I say that we teach how to use words, but [you say] Witt's point is that we teach how to use words in the language? — Luke

I said "we teach the use of a word in the language" (and by "language" here, the difference between our language and our lives only comes up before we reach the point where we are stuck--we ask questions and seek justifications to align our words with our lives). A word (expression) has a use(s). The distinction hinges on the difference between words as used (as if, by rules) and seeing that there are different things an expression, for example, can do: be a threat, an invitation, etc. That it would not be an accusation (except in Kripke's world): "You used that word wrong!" but a question: "What use (variety of sense) of "I know" are you talking about?"

I don't know what you mean by "I give over my responsibility to the rule". What responsibility? — Luke

Obeying a rule is not a matter of "confidence" or "assurance". It is, categorically, to obey the rule rather than follow your inclination (something internal as you say). So we do not have to be answerable for the action; we can point to the rule as the answer of why we did the action, abdicating our responsibility to be intelligible to the other, respond to their claims on us about what we have done.

The larger point, of Wittgenstein's, is that concepts are still "usable" (and, thereforefter mistaken , teachable) even if they have "blurred edges" (see §69). W's point at §77 seems to me to be that some concepts are simply resistant to sharper definition. — Luke

Maybe it helps to point out the difference here is that Kripke takes rules to be fundamental to the point of PI, and Cavell wants to claim that criteria shape the grammar of every act separately--the grammar of math (which happens to be rules), the grammar of obeying rules (which is not judged by rules), and the grammar of other concepts, such as apologies, justice, knowing, etc.

[quote="Luke;578536"And the way we measure whether a concept's grammar has been met is through criteria for having done them, not rules
— Antony Nickles

When are criteria not rules?[/quote]

Criteria are our means of judgment, not grounds of certainty (as rules are, thus merely judging if you followed the rule). Criteria outline what will count toward a thing's having a particular status or value (along with context, history, etc.) Certain criteria will be already articulated (dog shows) some more organic and loose (what counts as a game), some closed (chess) some open for further specification/rationale--part of the investigation is what will count as evidence, partly we find out what type of thing something is through explicating its criteria, partly what distinguishes this from that. Cavell’s claim is that Witt is comparing rules to ordinary (not instituted) criteria (see the PI index: having a dream, remembering right, mistaking, talking to oneself), so we are not just deciding true or false compared to something we have found certain (or which aspires to a mathematical rule).

This is where Cavell's student and teacher begin.
— Antony Nickles

But this is where Wittgenstein's student and teacher end. Likewise, Wittgenstein's turned spade is not an invitation for further explanation (see §87 again). — Luke

Well here we are back at the beginning with Cavell's claim that when the teacher is inclined to give up, they do not have to. Our judgment of the other (their act) is not based on a rule they either obeyed or not (except when it is, say, the law), but a matter for us to find out how this type of action (each its own) is justified, how those justifications fail, and how they rmay be brought back to matter for us, where new justifications may come from. All this after mistaken claims, contingencies of circumstances, and all the myriad things that in all instances are not covered by rules. And, yes, justifications run out, come to an end; we no longer can speak for each other, are enigmas to the other (p. 223); we are different, separate. But at least in learning about ourselves in making our criteria explicit, we rationally understand our differences; must account for/to the other before coming to an end with them (or be held responsible for having not). In Wittgenstein's world, the rule is not broken, the community is; we becomes us and them.

It's just that in the TLP Witt is limiting the breadth of the world to what meets a certain criteria of logic
— Antony Nickles

What needs to be understood is... why he is attempting to draw the limits of what can be thought. He wants to point to what is beyond those limits, to what can be seen but not said. — Fooloso4

I agree the most interesting parts are when he comes to a point where he feels something can only be, or is, shown. The question I'm attempting to answer is why he draws this line (as Kant has a reason to draw a line). I find this unspeakable structure, mirrored in the logic of the form, exhibited by propositions (4.121) and shown in their application (3.262), to be the edge of the work itself; the stepping-off point for his later work. But what is it about the limits he sees that makes them possible to go beyond?

I would say he realized two things: that the sense of "cannot" here is drawn by the criteria he has for a form of expression being "logical" only in the sense that it is a proposition that is either true or false. Anything past that is subject to dispute or disagreement and so cannot be a part of the "logical form" of what he is defining as "reality".

Also, he claims that the "logical form" "which mirrors itself in language, language cannot represent". The form of representation (2.172), how things stand (4.022), the logical form (4.12), what is not expressed (3.262) all seem to refer to the implications of our language (or its negation); what criteria apply to decide how/when a particular thing is expressed, what counts as something being the form of the thing it is. We see this in asking about the application of the sign (its use) (3.262), exhibited in the form of the expression (4.121)("what we mean [imply]when we say X", Austin will say).

I would argue there is a sense where "That which expresses itself in language, we cannot express by language." does not exclude us from discussing the form, or sense, or the picture, or what is concealed, i.e., "What can be shown" (4.1212). Witt takes the need for us out of the equation by only considering true/false propositions--what is "said" is only that which is certain. Everything else is either nonsense or individual. "In fact what solipsism means, is quite correct...That the world is my world, shows itself in the fact that the limits of the language (the language which only I understand) mean the limits of my world." (5.62) We just do not regularly need to discuss these things because "my world" and your world are the same--for the most part our words agree with each other's lives. Only sometimes do we ask "Did you intend to do that?", "Do you know what you did?", "Why do you call this modern art; it does not appear self-referential at all?" I do not need to discuss logical propositions with you because their criteria involve neither you nor I. If I wish to make a claim about (my understanding of) the ordinary criteria for the form or standing of our shared lives (or what is concealed by it, for me, personally) than I am without the authority, justification, and necessity of the propositions of the TLP, but I am not without the ability, the possibility. And so Witt's "cannot" here is basically categorical; you can speak of these things, but you cannot say you speak with the authority and certainty of logic, and so, in that world, you do not speak at all.

That is an interesting description. — Valentinus

I should note that the idea is from Stanley Cavell in The Availability of the Later Wittgenstein.

why is it that Socrates gets so much credit for this approach to philosophy, ie The Socratic method is named after him. — Ross Campbell

I think Socrates rightly deserves credit for the method. I think the modern philosophy that builds on that is just less well known. Also, the connection is methodological but not reflected in exactly the same style. The fact that Nietzsche and Austin and Heidegger are relying on the answers from the reader make it hard to see it as the same investigation where we see where the other (us) goes (in conversation with Socrates). And, even with his "Interlocutor" Wittgenstein seems to be talking to himself. Socrates is, in a sense, both playing the other side (the other side is part of his own thoughts) and involving the reader to question the discussion themselves.

You were saying that Socrates knew the answer to the questions he asked , is that really true. He called himself a metaphorical midwife , because he was "giving birth" to new ideas, then I don't see how he could already have known the answer. Didn't Socrates famously say "I don't know anything". — Ross Campbell

It is a good point to bring up the midwife analogy. He does say he is "barren", but also too old to conceive; not pregnant with the desire of those he engages. In other words, he has nothing to tell--to add as new or better than the other--and that he has no dog in the hunt (both of which Plato hedges). He is not trying to convince you of anything he feels strongly about, but only claims that examining a subject will make you a better person. This goes hand-in-hand with the oracle's answer (which is not Socrates' statement of himself) in the Apology, which begins “ 'not mine is the story' that I will tell; rather, I will refer it to a speaker trustworthy to you. Of my wisdom, if indeed it is wisdom of any kind, and what sort of thing it is, I will offer for you as witness the god in Delphi... Chaerephon.. asked [the oracle] whether there was anyone wiser than I. The Pythia replied that no one was wiser."

I take the point to be (as does Cavell), that no one is in a better position than Socrates. That the philosopher is not wiser than the ordinary person (he does not even claim or tell us this himself). Socrates does not know anything that anyone else cannot see for themselves; that in fact the point is that we must all see for ourselves whether a claim has merit; come to it ourselves. That we all have equal authority to make and accept claims.

Socrates will say we already have the answer in that we were born with the idea of the forms; that acquiring knowledge is simply remembering them (as will Heidegger). In Austin and Wittgenstein's terms, we can each provide examples that shed light on our practices. In one example, Witt points out that we can all walk, but we would have to bring up what counts as walking, compared to other things we do on two human legs. That we already have an intuition of how, say, an apology or an excuse works, and that we just need to make it explicit (Emerson will say into tuition). We can each remember the implications of saying "I know" or correct another when making that claim. That I know my phone number; I know New York; I know you are in pain; each are different claims with different types of justifications. This makes us a better person in the way Socrates promises in that if we are aware of the terms upon which we speak, we, in a sense, know ourselves better, can better understand what we are getting ourselves into, how it will reflect who we will become.

"4.023...The proposition constructs a world with the help of a logical scaffolding, and therefore one can actually see in the proposition all the logical features possessed by reality if it is true. One can draw conclusions from a false proposition."

Whether a proposition is true or false is determined by reality, by what is the case, a state of affairs, the facts. — Fooloso4

I'm not arguing that the TLP is logically inconsistent. Or arguing that language does not work (at all) by correspondence or representation, but that, if a proposition is simply true or false, we only see the features that are logical. The structure of truth and falsity determines the extent of our world.

The structure of language is also the structure of the world:

What every picture, of whatever form, must have in common with reality in order to be able to represent it at all—rightly or falsely—is the logical form, that is, the form of reality. (2.18) — Fooloso4

Again, I don't disagree that the world has form. It's just that in the TLP Witt is limiting the breadth of the world to what meets a certain criteria of logic. But to watch him write only what he knows to be absolutely true with such knowing restraint; you can feel his reaching but also never stepping beyond that discipline, so every statement captures his mind frame perfectly.

The sense of "reality" is created by Witt's imposed criteria of logic.
— Antony Nickles

It is not imposed criteria, logic is what he took to be the underlying structure of language and the world. — Fooloso4

Imposed is too intentional; expected, desired; "what he took to be", not that it was something other than what he took it for, but that was all he took; narrowing our world to only a logic that could allay our fear of uncertainty.

@Banno (your thoughts as well, please)

For a particular meaning/use of the word [justice], yes. It is both possible for the teacher to know "all there is about justice" and for the definition that is taught to contain "all there is". See §75, for instance. — Luke

The concept of justice was picked as an example of when sometimes we don't/won't know how a concept will matter, what criteria will have what importance and to whom--its criteria make its grammar a different type than concepts with mathematical criteria. When the (grammatical) edges are so blurred that "Anything--and nothing--is right. This is the position you are in if you look for a definition corresponding to our concepts in aesthetics and ethics." #77. That this is different then the certainty (lack of disagreement) we have in math. p. 192. And asking if my knowledge is completely expressed by the explanations I could give (#75), describes that my unconscious familiarity can be made exhaustively explicit, but does not say that a concept is finite, complete in advance, learned by saying X (#75 is not about definitions, but explanations); and there is no limit to the explanations that I might have to give (to the student), and it is I who might become exhausted, our relation break down, rather than we have tidy all-encompassing rules justified to begin with, and the student is either right or wrong.

A concept can also be brought into new, unexpected contexts, extended Witt will say at #67, or he uses the analogy of continuing a series. As in "being inclined" in our beginning quote, when making a mistake in continuing a series, we are tempted to say that the student has understood wrong #143, as Kripke's society would judge, as if we have a complete list of how things can go wrong. But we say only that the student has "mastered the system" (#145) "followed the series as I do" But "we cannot state a limit" on when we have a right to say that. "Our pupil's capacity to learn may come to an end." #143. This is my claim that it is "impossible" to nail everything down for all time in any situation. In the extension of non-mathematical concepts we do not have the ability to say " 'and so on', in order to reach infinity." #229 But "we expect this, and are surprised by that. But the chain of reasons has an end." This is where Cavell's student and teacher begin.

[="Luke;576556"]Yes, obviously we teach how to use words. How else do we learn their meanings?
Its sense is its meaning, and "the meaning of a word is its use in the language" (§43).[/quote]

Well, I don't want to get lost in the weeds on a sub-topic, but you say we teach how to "use" words, but that seems different than Witt's point that, in teaching meaning, we teach the use of a word in the language (it's sense/place in a concept)--we "teach" how to apologize (mostly indirectly, in living--just through seeing examples and taking correction) and than an expression can be an apology, though it can also be (at the same) in its use as self-aggrandizing, claiming to be a victim. We don't show how to, say, wield the word, but show the word's place(s) in our world, how it is meaningful in our lives. So teaching is not about conveying a fixed "meaning" (which vanishes; Cavell p. 80; PI #118) through definitions and explanations, but connecting our world, in all its distinctions and patterns, with the senses in which a word is used e.g.: knowing as facts, knowing as acknowledging the other, knowing as having a skill--the uses of "I know", which are the possibilities of how concepts (their expressions) can be meaningful.

[="Luke;576556"]We do follow the rule blindly, in the sense that we follow it with complete confidence and without reflection.

‘I am bound in my judgement about what is in accord with the rule and what not’ (RFM 328f.). Hence, if I want to follow the rule, ‘then only doing this will correspond to it’ (RFM 332). So I follow the rule blindly: not like a machine, but with the blindness of complete assurance."
— Baker and Hacker[/quote]

This idea of blindness as being completely "assured" or "confident" of being right harkens back to pp. 69-70 of the Cavell essay, where Kripke says we follow our "confident inclination". I was trying to point out that, if we are to have been said to have obeyed a rule, then not choosing any further and continuing blindly is a logical distinction of how it plays out once we have chosen to submit ourselves to the rule. Cavell, p. 71.

[="Luke;576556"]§223 is not about learning the rule, but assumes the rule has already been learnt.[/quote]

Sure, but learning the rule does not ensure correctness, nor that, even if correct, that there would be the same justification (if any need for one). I am not unreflectively "confident" or "assured" of following the rule correctly (granting myself authority); I give over my responsibility to the rule, no longer needing to make anymore decisions (further steps--a myth is not a lie or wrong; the picture, though not literal, still strikes: see p. 180). In obeying the rule (not myself) I can be "blind" to the consequences, not responsible. I do not "judge" as Hacker claims (#222). The justifications for obeying the rule are different than the explanation (afterwards) for having followed it incorrectly.

[="Luke;576556"]the line does not nod, or whisper, or tell us (#223); that we do not follow along it as a path "on tenterhooks", anxious each second about society's moral judgment (our intention, what we "mean").
— Antony Nickles

I don't know why you bring "society's moral judgment" into it. This is simply another description to reinforce the point that rules are not privately determined.[/quote]

Cavell is claiming Witt goes farther than enforcing the public nature of our lives which inform our grammar, their criteria; to ask why (see below). Additionally, if an actor's "confidence" is part of their act, as Hacker claims, they can be anxious; their "complete assurance" is subject to uncertainty. And if they are acting from an internal/individual assessment (their "judgment") of what is in accord ("right")(even if that was as you claim, only in learning it), they are subject to the correction of society when they are wrong--their fear of exclusion is their desire for criteria (a rule I can know, be assured of) that will ensure that does not happen.

[="Luke;576556"]This is simply another description to reinforce the point that rules are not privately determined.
— Luke

-can't we even grant that Witt learns why we want them to be? - Atony Nickles

"Witt learns why we want" what to be what?[/quote]

He is investigating why we want "obeying rules" (meaning; knowledge of the other) to be "privately determined", reliant on us individually (say, our confidence). Why he keeps trying to make sense of the interlocutor's obsession, fixation. This is not just an argument for a different picture (or a confusion to be alleviated), it is an investigation into the human condition, our desire to not have to rely on the human.

[="Luke;576556"]I still don't know what you mean by the "grammar" of (or "for") these things. (The grammar for sitting in a chair?) It remains to be shown that there can be grammar without rules.[/quote]

Well I got confused saying an example was sitting in a chair (I think I was thinking of Cavell's discussion of sitting at a table, p. 93; part of the criteria of a table is that we sit at it in certain ways). Anyway, the type of grammar of an action/concept will differ depending on the concept. And the way we measure whether a concept's grammar has been met is through criteria for having done them, not rules--though, as I said before, some criteria involve being said to have followed rules; math being one. Sometimes the criteria are categorical, definitive of identity, as to whether you have an opinion #573; some are looser, such as having been said to remember right #56 or having offered an excuse (Austin)--the criteria for a game being all over the place, the criteria for justice being subject to disagreement; these are the ways (the grammar) in which we see what matters to us in each concept. Thus the criteria is the expression of what is important to us (essential) for a concept to be a certain type of thing. #371 #373 Mathematical criteria makes the grammar (rules) of those concepts categorically different than the grammar of concepts with ordinary (non-mathematical) criteria.

Noted. — Cheshire

Thank you.

In fairness if I was claiming to possess important insight that defies summary I'd be laughed out of the room. — Cheshire

Philosophy has to resort to defiance of convention sometimes. I would put Plato's images, Witt's examples in the PI, Nietszche whole bravado, Emerson's sacrilege, and Heidegger in general in this column. Sometimes philosophy is about changing your mind, not about knowledge, but, thinking in an entirely different way--that's hard to tell someone to do, or get there by just saying things that are right.

It appears as if some one thought they could be vague enough they would overcome the unattended baggage sold with a lexicon, but instead of realizing this wasn't the case; it was concluded that things can't be communicated. — Cheshire

I've said elsewhere in this discussion that if you look at it right you can see that he was starting with a hope that he could have a standard of logical structure that corresponded to the world, only to find out that a lot of the world doesn't fit into that kind of logic. This does not make us unable to talk about the rest, just that the discussion doesn't meet his standards. It is a very earnest example of trying to force things to be certain, predictable, predetermined, complete, abstract, etc.

Talk to yourself anyway you like, but not to me like that.

take the criteria of logic and create a "world" from just that
— Antony Nickles
— Fooloso4

His argument... is about the transcendental conditions and a priori structure of the world and language and what is beyond them. — Fooloso4

"4.023...The proposition constructs a world with the help of a logical scaffolding"

But he is not stating the "structure of the world" (a priori or otherwise), he is dictating the terms for the structure of language. "The world is the totality of facts, not of things." (1.1; Ogden) This is not to make a statement that is either true or false; it is setting the bar of what he wants the criteria of "the world" to be--not "things" (in themselves), but only the totality of what he sees as a fact. He does not consider anything we do not find to be logical, to be. The world "is"=X. This is not a finding; it is a forced definition, in the second line; he starts there, it is not a conclusion.

The sense of "reality" is created by Witt's imposed criteria of logic. Like Kant, with the imposition of a standard as part of his "a priori" structure, we lose the "thing-in-itself". We are distanced from "reality" with picturing (4.06) a model (2.12) reaching out for a link (2.1511) applying a scale (2.1512) just touching (2.1515) as the logical form of a picture (2.17-18) a depiction of possibility (2.201) a sense of reality (2.222) made to agree (4.023) compared to (2.223; 4.05) an expression (4.121) bound from, limited (5.5561).

"4.023... one can actually see in the proposition all the logical features possessed by reality if it is true."

But this sense of truth is a phantasm. As he will say later in PI, what we say is true or false, but this is not an opinion (knowledge) of the world (#244). Witt in a sense pulls back his ambition as he sees that his criteria for logic is folding in on itself and limiting more and more what he can talk about that will meet that criteria. It is not that we only act or show after that, but that he can not talk about it because of his standard for what he will listen to.

As with "exist"; something like: that you are not aware of, that does not/can not matter to you.
— Antony Nickles

Do you mean that it does not "exist" if you are not aware of it or it does not matter to you, that what exists is what does matter to you, what you are aware of? In that case, as I said, the baby's world does exist, even though it is pre-linguistic and more limited. Its hunger matters, the fact that its hunger can be satisfied matters. — Fooloso4

I was saying that in the sense that it does not register, as, say, knowledge. Now you can hang on tight to the idea that "existence" and "reality" are qualities; that there is an "outside" world. But in the TLP, Witt has no way to get at it; no way to make it exist for us, as in: in any meaningful way, except that it meets his logical criteria. His requirement for language kills the world before we can get to it.

being "seen" does not make the world "exist" in the way that Wittgenstein is talking about here
— Antony Nickles

It is not clear to me what way you think he is talking about. It is not that being seen makes the world exist but that the world must exist to be seen. — Fooloso4

Again, this is not about competing opinions, between you and Witt or you and me. Your assertion that the "world must exist" is not "wrong"; it is just different in kind (scientific, empirical, etc.) then what Witt is doing in trying to take the criteria of logic and create a "world" from just that, as Kant did in a sense. To see what philosophical world we have when we start with those assumptions. I'm not saying he is right in doing that, but he would never have gotten to where he does in PI if he didn't develop this vision from this desire.

So this is not an "argument" about what "the" world and existence "are", it is a fantasy, a picturing to find what we can be certain of. All of these "statements" are only what he is certain he can say within the constraints he imposes on himself--taking a requirement and pushing it around to see how it fills out. Your definitions of "the world" and "existence" are stopping you from trying to learn anything before you even begin.

I asked if someone could explain the statement and present a view that would invalidate my examples, which show that at least as it is, this statement cannot stand in real life. — Alkis Piskas

I just tried to explain to Foloso4 above that this is not an assertion of empirical knowledge. That "Witt is not "explaining"--he is not doing science here; these are not statements of fact--not statements."

all those who (correctly mentioned the need of "context") have not such a context ready but... This is not how it works, though. If the words themselves in a statement or even a short and direct explanation of it cannot show its truth then, wouldn't Wittgenstein himself say, "Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent"? — Alkis Piskas

I would suggest this is a confusion that "meaning" is assigned to a word, so when we put words together, it is easy for you to see how they are supposed to be important, the point in saying them. But "this is not how it works". What this expression is doing is only able to be deciphered from the context of the text, the evidence of how it relates to the rest. This is the process of reading--it is not accomplished immediately, nor can it be simply explained, nor maybe told at all. So in a way, Witt had to write the whole book in order to write that sentence. There is no shortcut in philosophy or you end up with useless pithy meaningless statements. That being said, there is always the attempt; however, your ability to comprehend what anyone is telling you about this, presupposes that you already have some familiarity (even if mistaken) not simply taken from common sense, science, or your thoughts about it. And the last sentence you quote belies that we can speak about quite a bit, just not simply or just in statements. And, in the PI, Witt removes the logical criteria, and we find we can speak precisely about even more topics.

TW, what's your relation with Socrates? — Alkis Piskas

Right method, but, as with Witt in the TLP, the criteria pushed Plato to a forced conclusion.

Yes, that is what Witt is working from; the world does not exist for [ babies ] as yet.
— Antony Nickles

What can be said does not limit what can be seen. Language represents or pictures the world, it cannot do so if it is not seen. It does not begin to be seen only when one begins to say things. — Fooloso4

I would grant that you are right that what can be expressed does not limit what can be seen; that is not the point. Witt is not "explaining"--he is not doing science here; these are not statements of fact--not statements. So, being "seen" does not make the world "exist" in the way that Wittgenstein is talking about here--you are assuming what is meaningful in saying something "exists", or is "seen" (think of them as terms you do not understand right away). As an example, you may not exist to the extent you have not expressed anything to differentiate yourself--categorically (in the logic of living) you are "not alive" (living your life), to yourself or to us. To be expressed in the relevant logical way, limits what meets the criteria of existing: in the sense of being meaningful to us, worth our notice; "seen", not in an empirical way, but in a way that reflects our interests and cares. This desire/compulsion for this criteria is investigated in his later work. As is the theory that language "represents or pictures" or references the world. Again, this is not a matter of competing opinions for someone to be right about.

Why is it impossible for the teacher to know "all there is about justice"? Surely they can know enough to teach a student what the word "justice" means (i.e. how to use the word "justice"). After all, didn't someone teach you what "justice" means? And couldn't you teach the meaning of the word to someone else? — Luke

I can give a definition of justice, which I take as what you are referring to when you say "teach a student what the word 'justice' means", but does a definition contain "all there is"? You've also fallen back on teaching "how to use the word" justice, but do we teach how to use words? I will claim again that this a misunderstanding; that Witt would say there is a use of a concept, as in its sense (one among possible others). "What use of justice are we talking about?" morally right? lawful judgment? fairness? to appreciate properly? And that these are not "teachable" with a definition in the sense Witt is getting at with our aligned lives. We see examples of being fair, we experience injustice, we know the law, we do justice to our father's memory... Again, the "meaning" of a word is taken apart in PI, as a bit of knowledge, and turned about towards the grammar of a concept which shows us what is meaningful about one use compared to another, why we make such a distinction, yada yada.

I don't believe that #426 is typically regarded to be in the rule-following section of PI, but we could look at 218-221 instead.
* * *
That's all very possible; it's just not what I see as being the point of Wittgenstein's remarks on rule-following, or anything he's actually talking about. — Luke

I think maybe I need more than not "typically regarded" or "just not what [you] see" to feel this is a rational critique rather than just feeling you've only gone as far as you want into the text.

You seem to think that Wittgenstein genuinely holds that "All the steps are really already taken" (219). I read him, instead, as saying that we should not become captivated by, or fear, this misleading picture. As he says at 221, this is "really a mythological description of the use of a rule." — Luke

To say that he should have said it strikes him that the "steps are taken" is not to say it's not true (nor saying that it is "mythological") that they are already taken, but just that they are not "steps", we don't "follow" the line the rule "traces". All of this stepping, following traces, is how things look (from our desire to be caused along the way) against the way we (logically) "blindly" follow a rule; we do not have our eyes open, looking, intending, choosing each step.

Even with all that, I think we agree that it is not an internal determination of the rule, which is all I mean to say: that rules are (logically, i.e., that's what they're for; they function) to be obeyed, but not all grammar functions in that way. Rules take "us" out of the equation (math pun intended), but our ordinary, non-mathematical, grammar for learning, justice, sitting in a chair, are not based on, to be understood as, rules.

that the line does not nod, or whisper, or tell us (#223); that we do not follow along it as a path "on tenterhooks", anxious each second about society's moral judgment (our intention, what we "mean").
— Antony Nickles

I don't know why you bring "society's moral judgment" into it. This is simply another description to reinforce the point that rules are not privately determined. — Luke

That's a small take-away; can't we even grant that Witt learns why we want them to be? Much less that if we imagine ourselves, as Kripke does, just confidently acting on rules we've been "taught", the only possibility is for correction because you didn't follow the rule (thus the anxiety).

I see [ #217 ] more in accordance with his remark at #1: "Explanations come to an end somewhere." — Luke

Yes, everything breaks down in the first paragraph, hmm. But maybe this statement is not easily-understood, is unclear, not straightforward, ambiguous; maybe we need the rest of the book to understand why? where do they end? where do they come from? does something else happen that may not end?

"[ No explanation ] stands in need of another — unless we require it to avoid a misunderstanding. One might say: an explanation serves to remove or to prevent a misunderstanding —– one, that is, that would arise if not for the explanation, but not every misunderstanding that I can imagine." #87

Explanations avoid, remove, or prevent a certain type of misunderstanding. But there are other misunderstandings we could imagine, perhaps as examples in a book, that explanations cannot avoid, remove, or prevent. There are some misunderstanding we must face, stay with, allow, encourage, that we must resist our inclination to give up on.

I have recently been presented with Wittgenstein's statement-quote, "The limits of my language mean the limits of my world". — Alkis Piskas

Well, first, we cannot take one line out of context and imagine that we can understand it without projecting our own concerns. As Wittgenstein says, "We find certain things about seeing puzzling, because we do not find the whole business of seeing puzzling enough." (PI, p. 212; 3rd 1958)

From the Ogden translation, starting on p. 229 of the PDF from the link:

5.556
There cannot be a hierarchy of the forms of the elementary propositions. Only that which we ourselves construct can we foresee.
5.5561
Empirical reality is limited by the totality of objects. The boundary appears again in the totality of elementary propositions. The hierarchies are and must be independent of reality.
* * *
5.6
The limits of my language mean the limits of my world.
5.61
Logic fills the world: the limits of the world are also its limits. We cannot therefore say in logic: This and this there is in the world, that there is not. For that would apparently presuppose that we exclude certain possibilities, and this cannot be the case since otherwise logic must get outside the limits of the world: that is, if it could consider these limits from the other side also. What we cannot think, that we cannot think: we cannot therefore say what we cannot think.
5.62
This remark provides a key to the question, to what extent solipsism is a truth. In fact what solipsism means, is quite correct, only it cannot be said, but it shows itself. That the world is my world, shows itself in the fact that the limits of the language (the language which I understand) mean the limits of my world.
5.621
The world and life are one.
5.63
I am my world. (The microcosm.)
6.43
If good or bad willing changes the world, it can only change the limits of the world, not the facts; not the things that can be expressed in language. In brief, the world must thereby become quite another, it must so to speak wax or wane as a whole. The world of the happy is quite another than that of the unhappy. — Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico Philosophicus

one's reality (world) consists of much more than words (language). It also contains images, sounds, feelings, experiences — Alkis Piskas

I'm guessing when you say "much more than words", you would agree that Wittgenstein is not saying that there are ONLY words, but just that the limits are what can be EXPRESSED in language ("logic" here). I think we can also agree that the sense of the word "world" that you are using includes your claim that even what cannot be expressed in words is part of the "world" (more "exists"); some people call this non-verbal, or pre-linguistic, or even objective.

In the TLP, I don't take Witt as making statements, but that this is all a speculation, a thought-experiment, an imagining of a world if we set certain threshold criteria. So your sense is not the sense of "world" (or "existence") that Witt is using. I take Witt to be postulating that, if something cannot be expressed (further, in logic), it is not part of the "world" (does not "exist") for us. So "world" is a term for him--defined by this requirement, limitation. As with "exist"; something like: that you are not aware of, that does not/can not matter to you. If you do not have a way of expressing something in words, it can not be thought of by you. If you have a terrible vocabulary, then the delicacy and intricateness of the "diaphanous" nature of something is lost on you, to you.

1) Does it mean that a baby, for whom language does not even exist at all, has no world, i.e. nothing exists for him/her? No pleasure in sucking milk? No sense of the warmth of his/her mother hug? No intimate connection with her? No recognition of objects? And so on ... — Alkis Piskas

Yes, that is what Witt is working from; the world does not exist for them as yet. Witt is not discussing feelings or experiences, but facts "1.1 The world is the totality of facts, not of things." This is to also to close off "thoughts" as an internal state of affairs. He is requiring a criteria of logic--everything else is off the table, e.g. ethics, aesthetics, poetry, etc.

2) If I see an object for the first time and I don't know how it is called, does this mean that I have no reality at all about that object, i.e., the object doesn't exist for me? — Alkis Piskas

Sort of, yes--you would be able to express something about it, yes? This is not a claim about objects or making a claim to a fact about everything ("the world" as you are taking it)--that the object does not "exist" in the sense that it is nothing. So, yes, the inner workings of a computer or car also do not exist for that person. This is not to say that the world is dependent on the subject, but that he is pushing a different idea of the "world" and its "existence". Now, why? and do we disagree with that cause? are deeper questions than to fight with a philosopher from your own terms and understanding (beliefs/opinions).

I would argue, as I take Witt to turnabout in the PI, that the criteria he sets in the TLP of only what is logical, strips our language of its ordinary criteria (different for each thing), which is more precise and limber than his requirement here--thus, we are able to see more, deeper, with greater distinction and, in a sense, reason, particularly in the vast areas that Witt is ruling out in the TLP. He investigates the desire for that criteria, along with the desire for an internal "meaning" or mental states, in the PI.

I don't see why you view the rules of chess or the rules of mathematics differently to rules of grammar or road rules. — Luke

The point of all the examples of the different types of practices/concepts is to show that there is a different grammar for each one. There are not "rules of grammar" (that sounds like a sillogism) because each grammar is different, the criteria for their employment are different. Every practice is not bound by "rules" (not all grammar is rule-like) though there is a grammar to rules, and a different kind of grammar for different kinds of rules.

Do you believe that all moves (or all movements of a knight) in chess are circumscribed and predetermined? — Luke

Well, I think so... aren't they? I'm mean, strategically unexpected, but the criteria for the rules are complete, exact; this is the category of "mathematical" criteria. There is no creativity in the application of the rules of chess, that's part of the grammar of its rules, as there are extenuating circumstances (not all the possibilities foreseeable ahead of time) in the application of criminal law. (Though predetermined is the wrong word, especially in a philosophy discussion.)

Why is it impossible for the teacher to know "all there is about justice"? Surely they can know enough to teach a student what the word "justice" means (i.e. how to use the word "justice"). After all, didn't someone teach you what "justice" means? And couldn't you teach the meaning of the word to someone else? I don't believe that #426 is typically regarded to be in the rule-following section of PI, but we could look at 218-221 instead. — Luke

In the history of Western philosophy Socrates and Plato are amongst the few thinkers who conducted philosophy through dialogue. — Ross Campbell

I would point out that Plato laid out his theories (or not) after a fictionalized dialogue (with examples and mythological stories) between Socrates and whomever he was interrogating. We could take Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations as a modern version of that fictionalized (mythologized, example-ridden) back-and-forth. There are at least three voices in that dialogue. The Interlocutor (as he is commonly referred to), who asks questions and makes statements (confessions) basically from a metaphysical standpoint or as Witt's stand-in from the perspective of his younger self who was driven by the desire to find one theory of meaning in the Tractatus--the voice of temptation in reaction to skepticism; next would be the voice of correctness, which is commonly taken as common sense or as a solution to skepticism, but is only pointing out the grammar of our concepts for contrast; and Wittgenstein himself, only rarely (say #426; p. 192), with the attempts to learn the lessons in threading the needle between.

Where Socrates in a sense knew the answer to the question he was asking, I have found that Wittgenstein posed his questions to, say, these parts of himself, but sometimes left the questions unanswered, I think so that we might answer them for ourselves, that his description would hold no weight unless we could see it for ourselves. And if that is the case, then the lectures by Heidegger ("What is Called Thinking?") and J.L. Austin ("How to Do Things With Words") are also in the vein of open questions/questioning, at least to the extent they are asking us if we can see what they see, along with Stanley Cavell, who almost seems to be musing out loud, following his interest, allowing you to follow yours (to finish off an enquiry in a different direction). Also Nietszche writes is a style that is not telling or explaining but more storytelling, examples, analogies, mythologies (as Plato famously pictured with caves and chariots), that we must shift our perspective to/from.

Thanks, I tagged you and @Luke of course out of respect for your skill at noticing any need to clarify/correct, which would be appreciated.

I cannot be bothered with the concept of race — NOS4A2

After Kant we can say to refuse to consider race as a valid category is to deny the concept any rationality at all. How are we to address this? I can only understand this (mostly because of ignorance) through analytical philosophy, rather than as a social commentary. After Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations, we can see that the "concept of race" has its own "grammar" as he calls it: the way it does what it does, the criteria for its identity, what counts in assessing it, what matters about it to us (here there seems at least two of "us"), the terms of its judgment--our criteria for race, and, of course, racism (separately, I think, perhaps even from "racist").

The point here is that the concept does not have anything to do with you (personally, individually) and your cares or refusals; it stands apart, like langauge, or culture. Our concepts: thinking, believing, knowing, apologizing, threatening, subjugating--all the whirl of human activity and expression--were here before you.

You do not "mean"--as if: intend or cause or control--your words and expressions. You say something (maybe choose to say it even, what to say) but then in a sense it is no longer yours (except to clarify after). How expressions have meaning to us was already there, existing before you, and whatever "reference" you believe you want (to outside/or from inside) is not for you to now decide. Now you can say you misspoke, offer excuses, apologize, but to say: "that is not what I meant" is limited to very specific distinctions, already built into the senses/uses an expression provides for (unless an extraordinary context, or poetry, etc).

So, categorically (to be part of the concept), the grammar of racism--the, in a sense, logic of it, based on the history of our lives--is not based on how you feel or your opinions (this is not a decision); this is to conflate "racism" or "racist" with the concept of prejudice. Racism does not care about your idea of yourself. And so your desire to be beyond judging (thus judgment), your sense of being just, your hopeful idealism--none of that matters (is weighed in). You want to claim (dictate) criteria of character and affirmation of the other. These are neither yours to grant, assume, nor impose. To believe you are doing right, what you are convinced is good, is to imagine you can will justice (righteously) into the world. Desire, feeling, belief, imagination--I'm sure the intention is well-meant, but your intention, as your meaning, disappears from the calculation of a concept. What you mean or intend from your act or expression are nothing to us unless there is something phishy, as in: "What did you intend here"? (Austin) To strip away the criteria of a concept--here overlaying equality, neutrality; to put everything, as it were, on a level field--is to turn from the "bumpy" ground (Wittgenstein) of the manners of our practices, toward an abstract, general, pre-decided ideal. But imposing a standard, abstract from any context, provides privilege to those favored by the current situation.

To see the problem as generalized (and yet within you) comes from a desire to solve the truth of your separateness from others, the possibility of your moral failure, with an intellectual solution. However, despite your desire for a certain, universal answer or rule of action, you are responsible for your response (or lack thereof--what you find is your duty is your own); it forms your character (higher than knowledge, Nietszche and Emerson will agree). The Other makes a claim on us (Wittgenstein says we do not know another's pain, we react to it (or ignore it); that we are not of the opinion that another has a (individual) soul, we see them as if they do, or not). Wittgenstein would call imposing requirements for our moral acts the sublimation of our concepts--the stripping away of our ordinary criteria and any context--our active avoidance of the Other with our convictions (PI, p. 191); not letting them come to us on their terms (Heidegger).

All of this choosing and willing and intention begs the question of what it is that might be hidden--maybe "behind" your morality, what you feel you act from--in controlling the terms of the conversation. An analogy is our blindness of the Other by our selves. Then your action is violence (a distinction always pushing away something else), your speech is suppression (of all that is unsaid), your vision (your picture) for yourself and for the just world is your ignorance--your opinion/knowledge ignores our shared criteria; how you want to treat people ignores the Other. Cavell writes in the Claim of Reason that the horror of slavery was not seeing slaves as inhuman, but, in your words "affirming another as an [equal] individual" while they are in chains.

Much as language functions on grammar already in place in our lives, so racism (by its grammar) is in the structure of our society, our culture. So what is the grammar of racism? (An honest question for investigation by all of us, each to see for themselves.) What counts towards it, what are the criteria: for identity, judgment, excuses, pardons, reconciliation? The picture of its grammar as overt and individual acts directed at the race of the Other (judged as bad) limits and allows me to control my exposure (I'm not a racist!). In addition, economic opportunity, education, enforcement of justice, and other fabric of our society are embedded with consequences for the race of the Other. The individual act subsumed into the institution (its policies, its goals, its measures of success). The overt act became unseen, implicit, ignoring the implications for the Other, from us (our shared unconscious as it were). We are compromised by those implications and culpable to them as we are for our picturing of the criteria of the concept. Our "self"-knowledge is our understanding these implications and consequences of our acts and expressions and institutions and culture. To make intuition into tuition as Emerson would say.

Why are we teaching kids to be conscious of another’s race, and to factor it into their judgements and treatment of others? ...racializing people and being overly conscious of their race and skin-color... — NOS4A2

Teaching being "conscious of", the "factor [ s in ]... judgement", the "treatment of"--simply--"others", is to universalize our concepts, generalize them until they are abstract from any context, such as the Other's--not their situation, nor yours, nor ours. None. But making explicit the grammar of race is learning about ourselves, becoming aware, accounting for our part (Cavell calls it, the education of adults). A claim to the implications of race are subject to discussion, reasons, evidence, flushing out contexts, etc., for you to see for yourself, to know the self you publicly bind yourself to, or when you claim different implications, criteria. So your characterization of the racializing of people and that classifications based on race are dubious, are legitimate, at least as claims, as are the claims you take issue with. Unfortunately, that we can disagree (maybe without resolution--after your spade is turned, I argue that Wittgenstein means to @Banno @Luke), does not justify your skeptical reaction that there is no rationality to the concept of race and to strip all criteria and context away. This negation of the concept at all, in a sense, kills the conversation about those claims--the conversation of justice--before it even begins.

@Banno

I've just finished reading the second chapter of Cavell's Conditions Handsome and Unhandsome; the chapter on Wittgenstein and Kripke. — Luke

Great, I appreciate the effort. I hope it was worth the time. I find the Introduction and defense of Nietszche/Emerson moral perfectionism in the first essay worthwhile. This is Cavell's later work, which assumes a lot of arguments built from his first book and The Claim of Reason, which are more detailed analytical arguments, especially closer readings of Wittgenstein.

I note that Cavell says PI is not meant to refute skepticism; but that's not the same as saying that Wittgenstein attempts to resolve skepticism. — Luke

Well taken, I agree with this clarification. Cavell reads Witt as breaking philosophy's penchant to take its problems as generalized and singular (e.g., a universal theory of meaning), and abstract (without any responsibility on our part). In looking at the criteria for each concept individually--what is meaningful to us in their various ways--and considering the context of the issue, but there is no generalized solution.

So it becomes a philosophical moment: how do we continue, put our concepts and the world back together in this crisis. This cannot be accomplished ahead of time, but, in remembering our ordinary criteria, we have the rational, rough ground to possibly, as you say, resolve this (skeptical) instance, but only in this case/context, our differences there, to continue our relationship, even if we only end in rational disagreement, with the possibility of giving up.

the interlocutor could alternatively be viewed as a mere literary device which allows Wittgenstein to express these typical philosophical concerns — Luke

Witt's previous attempt to overcome skepticism (in the Tractatus) is his inner skeptic, embodied in the interlocutor in PI--Cavell takes this that we all have two "voices" within us, so that the “style” of PI must be taken seriously (as “confessions” or "compulsions", he says in The Availability of the Later Wittgenstein--a good intro his approach to PI); and that Witt is trying to find a space between those two voices (our human voice and our desire to negate that voice--our "corrective" voice).

Do you view [the exhaustion of justifications] as Wittgenstein conceding to the sceptic? The quotes from 198-199 in my previous post include his reply to the sceptic (that following a rule is a custom, a practice, a usage, an institution). — Luke

Yes, our justifications of how we practice a custom may run out; we may concede to our exhaustion. And knowledge (what I can tell you) has a limit, and then I am left with you. How/why I am following a custom/practice/usage/rule the way I am may be, at a certain point, impossible to reconcile with you, so yes, Wittgenstein keeps alive the possibility of groundlessness that the skeptic fears.

we can go over these examples and see if the context matches ours, whether it is an example, etc. And that grammar, even that of obeying a rule, is different than rules--even leaves us in a different place in the end.
— Antony Nickles

Cavell references Wittgenstein's PI 199 regarding the grammar of obeying a rule. I don't know what you mean by the rest, starting from: "see if the context matches ours, whether it is an example, etc." — Luke

The grammar of obeying a rule is drawn out through examples (the OLP philosopher, like Witt, makes a "claim" to the grammar in answering: what do we imply when we say X? e.g., "I obeyed the rule". So this is what Witt does in #199--asking us to imagine someone following a rule only once. Now the claim--about what it is about the way rules work that the activity has to recur, have some regularity, etc.--is on you to see for yourself (thus so many unanswered questions in the PI). If we disagree about the implications, we can do so rationally, productively, by, for example, seeing if my understanding of the relevant context is the same as yours, how this example is representative of my claim about the grammar for obeying rules.

Witt's realization is that our grammar/criteria for obeying a rule are not rules, so that the grammar of the custom and technique, our mastery--not knowledge--of the grammar, structurally puts us in a place where our discussion of the justification of the grammar of obeying a rule starts at the end of where Kripke's action is taken and judgment is made of whether you did or did not "obey a rule" (rules playing too large a part, as if in every action). If that is not clear, I would need more than "[ you ] don't know what [ I ] mean"--say, questions, what you take me to say, logical errors, an differing example, etc.

The idea is that things are not straightforward like rules (#426), that our criteria (our lives) are open-ended, unpredictable, etc.
— Antony Nickles

What has this got to do with rule following? — Luke

Cavell's take is that this is about more than following rules. Witt's example of an action is obeying a rule (looking at its grammar--the custom of it); but the investigation is of how action, meaning, etc. works (in each case): that even in obeying a rule the grammar is not bound by rules. We only want our forms of expression/action to be as "designed for a god"--in the sense of a mathematical rule. (#426)

I don't see Wittgenstein or Cavell as talking about "the moral realm" with regard to rules, so I don't see that as being "the further point of the passage of the turned spade". But I invite you to make a case for it. — Luke

Cavell refers to "the moral realm" as the places in PI where Witt examines how we do not know how to continue with our customs, after the limit of our knowledge of the Other, that our separateness is unbroachable by our desire for mathematical rules, at the end of our justifications for our actions (that they are right). When we are left in further ethical response to the Other: the "conviction" on p. 192, seeing an aspect of the other, what is different than an opinion of the other's soul (our reacting to them as if they have a soul) p. 152; and of course when our spade is turned. Cavell's argument is that Wittgenstein's investigation of the limitations of epistemology (its inability to substitute for us at a point) leads to the realization of our ethical relation to each other (beyond rules or grammar).

On p. 192, Witt calls this a "conviction".
— Antony Nickles

In which edition? The word "conviction" does not appear on p. 192 of my copy. — Luke

I was in the 2001 50th Anniversary 3rd edition, which is German on the left and English on the right (actually on 190-192). In the 1953 3rd Ed., it is on 191. This is the page I read in my discussion of the Lion Quote. The "conviction" there is expressed in the desire for the (referential) picture (requiring "mathematical" certainty) to "know" the Other (that their pain is the "same" as mine); that the certainty has shut our eyes (p. 192) to our responsibility to acknowledge the other (or the consequences of dismissing them)--their claim on us (there, the claim of their pain; in our discussion, the possibility of the end of our moral relationship).

240. Disputes do not break out (among mathematicians, say) over the question of whether or not a rule has been followed. People don’t come to blows over it, for example."
— LW

I would say #240 clarifies our need to be able to know how to fight well (keep open the possibility for reasonable moral debate),
— Antony Nickles

You might need to expand on why you think that. I don't see that at all. 240 is simply describing the wide (world-wide) consensus that exists among language users and among mathematicians. — Luke

Sorry, yes, cryptic. I was reacting to the (I would say conscious by Witt) contrast to what is set out by Plato between the mathematical, which Witt is describing here, and everything else.

If we disagree, you and I, about quantity, over which of two groups is greater, would our disagreement over this make us enemies and angry with each other, or wouldn't we quickly resolve the issue by resorting to counting?
Euth: Certainly.
* * *
So: Then what topic, exactly, would divide us and what decision would we be unable to reach such that we would be enemies and angry with one another? Perhaps you don't have an answer at hand, so see while I'm talking whether it's the just and the unjust, and the noble and shameful, and the good and the bad. Isn't it these things that divide us and about which we're not able to come to a satisfactory decision and so become enemies of one another, whenever that happens, whether it's me and you, or any other men? — Plato - Euthyphro Sec. 7

Cavell's point being that, rather than Kripke's (pre-)judgment and exclusion, Witt is asking us to remember our lives and their ordinary criteria, and, at their end, the beginning of our moral relation to each other, its possibilities (if only for rational disagreement).

I think your assumption that Wittgenstein intends 240 or 241 to be about a "moral debate", or about a solution to it, still requires justification... I take 241 only to be clarifying the type of agreement/consensus Wittgenstein is referring to at 240. — Luke

If we are discussing how to obey a rule (as with: how to apologize, how to judge justice)--if we are discussing the grammar of an act (not "a rule")--and we come to a place where I cannot offer a motivation for you/justification to you, then we can not agree on what is the "right" or "correct" or "felicitous" example of such an act (and/or its justification). The discussion of what is right is a moral discussion. So this is a conversation about politics/justice; the relationship between society and the individual. The breakdown of the discussion of the justification of how to obey a rule--is a moral moment.

That we do not come to "agreement in opinions but in form of life" is a grammatical description of the difference between Kripke's understanding of social agreement (in knowledge, explicitly, beforehand, with certainty, as a written contract--a rule) and our "agreement" in our living (Witt next says" in "judgments" #242). This is not to substitute "forms of life" for our opinions/knowledge--that our lives have all the mathematical criteria Kripke assumes---but that Cavell takes Witt to be saying that, yes, our separate judgments come to the same result (most times), but not because the criteria/justifications are certain (rule-like; followed), but because we have similar lives (as it were, coincidently). So when I act, and there is a question of why my judgment differed, this is where justification begins, or continues, not that we have decided ahead of time, and that all that is left is to act, then be judged (as Kripke pictures it).

Pointing to the existing practice that constitutes the rule. "You're not allowed to move your knight like that!" (in chess) because that's not the practice or the way it's done.
— Luke

This is to justify the judgment of not obeying a rule by pointing to our practice. We (teacher-student) are actually at the moment where there is an attempt to convey what it is to obey a rule, how it is that we obey a rule. That this has an ordinary (non-"mathematical") grammar that is not just pointing to a rule (Kripke as it were, generalizes this practice/picture).
— Antony Nickles

Sorry, I don't understand. How can you convey what it is to obey a rule without pointing to our practice? Are you referring to the student's (and/or teacher's) thought processes or something? And what do you mean by "grammar" here? — Luke

So this would be easier if we were talking (I tried to highlight above the emphasis to show the difference). I am not saying we are not conveying something about our practices, but that, to start with, you are talking about a different practice (or only one part of it). You are describing a way of judging the student--"You're not allowed"--not our practice of justifying our claim about how we obey rules (not what we do when you haven't); our justification of what we think it looks like to obey a rule, disobey a rule, how we justify (what counts as justifying) our claim to have obeyed a rule, etc. (the grammar of "justifying obeying a rule"). So you are providing an example of how judgment of obeying a rule works, but, your teacher is merely "pointing" and, in sense, saying, "No". Your example is Kripke's casting-out of the other based on the (fixed, predetermined) practice--the "way it's done". So we have not yet even started to discuss what constitutes the grammar of "movement" of a knight.

(Confusingly in this case, the grammar for movement of a knight in chess is based on rules--it falls into the category of mathematical criteria: that all the applications are circumscribed, predetermined, etc. Witt is showing this to take up the exceptions, in investigating what grammar would look like for everything else, not based on rules).

And the other might claim his is an example, but responsive to a new context. "This is justice, but here we must do harm in this case."
— Antony Nickles

That would require that the student/trainee already understands what "justice" means; that they are not being taught the rule for how to use the word. — Luke

Again, your formation takes rules as "encompassing" concepts other than math and chess, like justice (like everything not mathematical). And, although the teacher has authority over the student, that does not mean the teacher knows all there is about justice (which, my point here, is impossible--seeing the whole of each infinite series #426), that the teacher could concede that: not only has the student applied (justified) the concept of justice appropriately (within its grammar--not the "meaning", but what is meaningful to us about it), but that the student has taught the teacher something, in this instance by extending the concept into a new context (my example doesn't really fit), something about justice in a new world (say, what is just in reconciling our past incorporation of our reaction to race into our continuing institutions).

Not to open a new can of worms, but saying that justice "means" something (rather than has grammar/criteria) is going to get in the way, as the question begs Kripke's society to "know" what the thing is that is justice (and to the slippery slope: with certainty, universality, ahead of time, definitively, entirely). Also, the formation of being taught how to use a word, is different than being taught what counts as (the criteria that makes this) a particular use of the word (one of its possible senses--say the four (or more) uses/senses of "I know"), and that the concept maintains unforeseen possibilities/justifications, which is analogous to the ever-possible continuation of, answering for, our moral relationship to each other.

The student and teacher can "resist philosophy's anxiety" in order to "make themselves intelligible"? — Luke

The fear of skepticism (groundlessness) is what causes Kripke's society to work out everything head of time, almost as if they(we) don't want to have a conversation later (one that may fall apart), to be then responsible to make themselves intelligible (explicit, understood).

if the student does not know the rule.. [they are] in no position to claim that they did obey the rule... Unless they already know the rule, then the student would not have a "blind obedience" to it. — Luke

I may have mucked this up. What the student is being taught is what counts as--the grammar, or criteria of--"obeying a rule" (later, the grammar of justifying that one obeyed a rule), not learning "the rule"; but the criteria for having been said, or being able to say, that: "I obeyed the rule"--one of which would be it can be used as an excuse: "Hey, I obeyed the rule; it's not my fault it didn't turn out how you expected!" (Our desire for deontological morality--"I'm a good person! I obeyed the rule!".) But also, obeying a rule is different in different contexts--the rules of chess, like those of math, are not like a rule of thumb, the rule of law.

Again, the student is (as, analogously, we are, to society) in exactly the position of making a claim of having "obeyed the rule" without either their or our "knowing" they have (for certain), after the act, before the justifying (even without opening the moral discussion.) It is in a sense a provisional claim ("beyond" knowing, Nietszche will say), but we are not (the human condition is not) in a position to make any other type of claim--without the tyranny of mathematical criteria: its foregone judgment.

And 222 neither states nor implies that "normally we do not follow rules". — Luke

Cryptic, sorry; I meant in the sense that normally we obey rules, we do not "follow" them, as we do not "doubt" someone else's pain (#303). "Following" is grammatically not a part of obeying rules (with exceptions). I meant to point to the entire section from #218-#232 (after the passage #217 under discussion), which, following the grammatical claim that "When I obey a rule, I do not choose," (#219) in the sense that: part of the criteria for "obeying" a rule is that I do not obey "my inspiration" (#232), as it were, at each moment, like my "eye travel [ ing ] along a line" Id--as if always tracking it/myself--that, if I do that, then I am, categorically, not "obeying" the rule. At #222, Witt sees this fantasy of ours is only a picture of the line intimating to us (absolving us of being "irresponsible"--or the one who taught us being so); that the line does not nod, or whisper, or tell us (#223); that we do not follow along it as a path "on tenterhooks", anxious each second about society's moral judgment (our intention, what we "mean"). And that such a grammatical study can show us the flip side of a concept's logic: say, as grammatically we ignore someone's pain, not doubt it, and when we do not "obey" a rule, we might not necessarily simply "disobey" it.

Wittgenstein is only talking about the teaching and learning of existing rules. I don't see him as talking about morality, justifying choices or changing rules. — Luke

Well again I take #217 as about teaching someone how to be able to obey rules, presenting my justifications (say, even: myself as justification by example) for how it is that obeying rules is justified (in justifying how I have obeyed one). So, again, not teaching the rule itself, but the justification for the grammar of how a/the rule is obeyed--which are not rules (neither the justification nor the grammar (except when they are: in math, chess, or when my justification is simply to enforce a rule (we have set), say, with the threat of judgment).

Where does he insist "not to treat our practices mathematically"? Perhaps you could provide an example or two? — Luke

The "tendency to sublime the logic of our language" calling anything else "an inexact, approximate sense." #38; "Here [ in thinking something is queer about propositions ] we have in germ the subliming of our whole account of logic. The tendency to assume a pure intermediary... to try to purify, to sublime, the signs themselves."; being "seduced into using a super-expression" #192; that giving someone a number (in association with a mathematical series) is like telling what a (symbolic) machine will do because all the movements are already there, pre-determined (though even a machine can actually move in other ways) #193; turning around the "preconceived idea of crystalline purity" to still have rigor in our ordinary language without "formal unity" #108; and basically in drawing out our ordinary criteria for any other action except math (or chess).

@Luke @Banno I hope adding some direct language of Cavell's, may provide more grist than my attempts to paraphrase.

The rule for addition extends to all its possible applications. (As does the rule for quaddition...otherwise it would not be known to us as a mathematical function.) But our ordinary concepts are not thus mathematical in their application: we do not intuitively, within the ordinary, know in advance... a right first instance... know whether to say an instance counts... no concept is "bound" by ordinary criteria....

When the child starts to walk, they walk, [ though ] tentatively, as I do; we agree in walking; but we have not achieved this agreement, come to agree... If chairs ceased to exist... then something would happen to our concept of a table. I do not insist that one agree that the concept would change, but the role of the concept of a table [ would be different ] because the role of tables in our lives would be different.

In reaching the gesture expressed as, "This is simply what I do"... I say I cannot then say I am right [ as Kripke's society does ]; and in going on to say that the repudiation of deviance is a stance, a voice taken in disapproval, betokening social repression; and in remarking further that the violence in claiming to be right where there is no right repudiates the ordinary (the ordinary criteria for the application of everyday [ nonmathematical ] concepts, e.g... of "this"--since it counts on criteria that are already rejected--of "I"--since it seeks to represent a community that does not exist — Stanley Cavell, Conditions Handsome and Unhandsome, p. 89, 94, 95

.

Witt's example is meant to show us something about philosophy; its powerlessness, and hope. — Antony Nickles

And its recurring, thematic, archetypal problems, which he is attempting to resolve. — Luke

Both Kripke and Cavell take Witt as pointedly not trying to resolve skepticism (the "orthodox" view I described earlier), but take it seriously, investigate it, see what it shows about us.

The issue that Wittgenstein identifies (or forecasts) is that philosophers such as Kripke are sceptical or dissatisfied with any and all justifications of behaving in accordance with, or obeying, a rule. — Luke

In the passage starting this OP, Witt acknowledges the possibility of the exhaustion of justifications.

There is no middle ground in obeying the rule for how the knight moves in chess, only conflict or accord. — Luke

And this would be Kripke's stance. But Cavell is attempting to draw out that there is grammar (not just judgment) in obeying a rule; that there are cases that exhibit what these criteria are (#201); that we can go over these examples and see if the context matches ours, whether it is an example, etc. And that grammar, even that of obeying a rule, is different than rules--even leaves us in a different place in the end.

For the sake of clarity, let's use the example of a very straightforward rule instead, such as a rule of chess or a signpost. — Luke

It gets even more straightforward, let's use the example of math. The idea is that things are not straightforward like rules (#426), that our criteria (our lives) are open-ended, unpredictable, etc.

I disagree that Wittgenstein is inviting a moral discussion at all, nor any further justification in general terms, although he might consider a place for philosophy or justification to intervene in relation to some specific issue. Generally speaking, the matter is fairly black and white: people do manage to follow rules and are able to be judged as following them or not. As W says: "there is a way of grasping a rule which is not an interpretation, but which, from case to case of application, is exhibited in what we call “following the rule” and “going against it” (201). See also 240-241. I view 232 as a continuation of the thread that brings into relief the impossibility of privately determining a rule (see 202). — Luke

The further point of the passage of the turned spade is that, though I can wield rules the way you point to (as Kripke grabs onto them as finalizing), we do not have to, there is nothing necessary in treating the other on black and white terms--unless you don't want to address the Other (open the moral realm), that you just want, as it were, to apply the rule. On p. 192, Witt calls this a "conviction". I would say #240 clarifies our need to be able to know how to fight well (keep open the possibility for reasonable moral debate), and that #241 does not solve those issues, by pointing to our way of life in the way Kripe takes it as a contractual (enforceable) agreement.

Pointing to the existing practice that constitutes the rule. "You're not allowed to move your knight like that!" (in chess) because that's not the practice or the way it's done. — Luke

This is to justify the judgment of not obeying a rule by pointing to our practice. We (teacher-student) are at the moment where I claim there is an attempt to convey what it is to obey a rule, how it is that we obey a rule. That this has an ordinary (non-"mathematical") grammar that is not just pointing to a rule (Kripke as it were, generalizes this practice/picture).

It's an odd reading to think that Kripke is attempting to resolve this worry, when, by design or by folly, he exacerbates it. — Luke

Cavell is trying to examine how and why Kripke ends up there.

Cavell takes Witt as leaving that possibility of failure open, but also continuing a conversation beyond our pre-determined judgment. An ongoing conversation about, say, what constitutes an example (#223)--rationalizing our relationship instead of it relying on, say, violence (understanding rather than just change). — Antony Nickles

I'm not sure what you mean here [the discussion of what constitutes an example], but I don't see 223 as questioning what constitutes an example. — Luke

One might say to the person one was training: "Look, I always do the same thing: I . . . . . — Witt, PI #223

And the other might claim his is an example, but responsive to a new context. "This is justice, but here we must do harm in this case."

To make themselves intelligible. They might claim they did obey the rule; or explain their aversion to conformity--examine their "blind" obedience (#219); as normally we do not "follow" rules (#222). — Antony Nickles

This is not my reading of 219 or 222. — Luke

When I obey a rule, I do not choose.
I obey the rule blindly. — Wiit, PI # 219

This is in contrast to the "mythological" description (#221) of "all the steps already being taken". But it is not that we cannot choose to obey a rule (its all about rules), only that when (grammatically) I (choose to) obey a rule (am to be said (judged) to have obeyed), I do not (thereafter) make (further) choices. I do not then "follow" the rule, as in watch it go on ahead of me (#232). Kripke takes it that our justifications end (I act blindly) when I obey the rule, and then as if this is how we are said to act at all, with no space for discussing (justifying) that choice afterwards, for rescission if your suggestion to obey the rule was irresponsible, that I would no longer (morally) say I obeyed the rule, but that I obeyed your intimation (#222).

I don't see Wittgenstein as talking about ethics or about "what is right" in general (in life) in PI. Or at least, not in relation to his discussion on rule following. — Luke

It is peppered throughout, in his insistence not to treat our practices mathematically, singularly, but also (albeit cryptically), in Part II, with his discussion of attitudes, seeing aspects.

I remain at a loss to understand the difference between - taking from the thread title - a rule's end for mathematics and an ordinary rule's end; that is, while I understand the difference between mathematics and ordinary language, there is something here that I do not understand. — Banno

Yeah that was maybe being more poetic than informative. I guess I should have said this is the imposition of the standards for math in place of (sublimizing) those of the rest of language. The desire for our actions to meet the criteria we have for math (or rules) when each action has its own grammar (including that of obeying rules). That math is circumscribed by rules, but that grammar is not.

You or Cavell seem to want there to be a difference between the spade being turned at the end of an analysis of mathematics, and a spade being turned in ordinary language or something along those lines. Or is that such a distinction might be made the topic here? — Banno

Perhaps; it is two reactions to the ("mathematical") desire in the face of a skepticism--for some rule or other foundation--that divides the readings to the Witt passage; that for Kripke the criteria is decided (learned or not) before I make my final/initial claim (without further justification) that is then correct, or not. For Cavell, Witt leaves our response open, that we do not point to rules (or not always)--creating a space between skepticism and foundationalism.

I would have thought that the spade was turned, in either case, when there was nothing more to be said, and only the "exhibition of what we call obeying the rule" as in §210; the point at which every interpretation is no more than the "substitution of one expression of the rule for another". — Banno

Just that Kripke takes it that an action would be held to judgment of whether the rule was followed, and Cavell reads it that, yes, I can not tell you anything more, that we cannot just explain something (a rule, even its grammar) and you will/must continue. But we can wait; for a response, an inquiry. That we continue to be (exhibit) an example. That to continue a concept into a new context will require more than rules (Cavell refers to this as "the human voice", echoing Niestzche); that in contrast, what it is to be mathematical does not require me (it could be anyone adding).

Are we really aware of what matters to considering it part of/not part of, the game?
— Antony Nickles

I've bolded the bit that is bothersome. — Banno

Yikes, caught me; red-handed. I'm burning all my Austin--shameful.

Are we aware of what matters to considering it part of/not part of, the game?
Well, yes, we are. — Banno

The word I was looking for (maybe) was: are we always aware? aware of every consideration? (not that we can't be, but that the questions sometimes come after the act; the questions can be without end).

There is a difference between plus and quus. — Banno

Oh, this looks like a rabbit-hole. I'm not entirely versed in this scenario, but Cavell would acknowledge with Kripke that there is no fact to you/me obeying a rule, or meaning a sentence; nothing in me or about our world. But Cavell takes Kripke to read #201 as a paradox that must be solved--that our relationship with rules must/can be fixed. Maybe too simply, Cavell argues that rules have grammar, and they are (and obeying them is) not more fundamental than the grammar for other actions, and that the "fact" is the requirement (creation) of the skeptic.

But we fear that I may become, or be seen as, the deviant--that I might mistake plus-ing for quus-ing. The skeptic sees this as eminent tragedy, and scrambles to ward it off. Cavell "wants to say" there is the fact of "me", here, ready to be responsible for my act, or not; to apologize, rescind it, defy your law (ironically, subversively), explain these differing circumstances; stand as an example, waiting...

Cavell [is] differentiating between mathematical rules and grammatical rules. How is this distinction to be made?

I gather we are talking in terms of the broad notion of "grammar" Wittgenstein used, roughly the way appropriate to a given language game... but isn't mathematics a language game? — Banno

This is a good thing to have clarified. You are already aware that Austin provided a lot of examples to show that there are more types of statements than just ones that are true or false (also, this harkens to Kripke's black-or-white treatment of the Other). And that Wittgenstein spent a lot of time showing us that there is not one theory of meaning; that there are many other "games", as you say (he also calls them "concepts"), within which to mean something, then just reference. They showed that we can not think in just one way. They also both showed how each concept--like, pointing, meaning, intending, playing chess, apologizing, marrying, etc--was differentiated from others, what counted for identity, felicity, how we judge, why a distinction here is important, etc. with each concept, and even differences (sense, uses) within one concept in different contexts. Cavell calls these our criteria, Witt calls them the grammar of a thing.

I gather we are talking in terms of the broad notion of "grammar" Wittgenstein used, roughly the way appropriate to a given language game... but isn't mathematics a language game? If so, there is no prima facie distinction to be made here. — Banno

What Witt shows is that there is a desire to impose grammar (criteria) on the concepts of which we are skeptical, the criteria/grammar which here Cavell refers to as "mathematical". The term is not meant to imply math is categorically different than a concept (not a "language game"); just that "the way appropriate to" math, its grammar/criteria--certainty, repeatability, universality, predictability, etc.--are similar to the skeptic's requirements for morality, rationality, aesthetics, etc. The "mathematical" is also analogous to the criteria Plato's metaphysical forms have, or Kant's conditions for rationality, or positivism's logic. So in contrast to that are the "ordinary" different, unpredictable, specific grammar of each concept. Now there may not be certainty, or universality, but Cavell's point is that we are left with a rational path when certainty runs out, when we are unsure if our concepts can be, if not universal, at least aligned. Though our actions can not be made predictable, they can be understood as reasonable, taken as good enough (fair, just).

Seems you might set out in some detail what you think is Wittgenstein's orthodoxy, Kripke's variant, and Cavell's reply. — Banno

This is well-taken; the OP does jump past some groundwork. Broadly, I would say there is the traditional skeptic, who sees that our actions are groundless, and thus "aspires to mathematical rules rather than" what Witt would call a concept's grammar; what Cavell refers to as our "ordinary" criteria, framed as the opposite of the skeptic's imposed criteria of ("mathematical"-like) certainty (also referred to as "metaphysical").

Then there is the superficial (the "orthodox" perhaps) reading of Witt as solving (or dissolving) the problem the skeptic is reacting to with our forms of life, which they take as grounding meaning, actions, etc. in the same framework, or by calling skepticism nonsense, or a trick of language.

Cavell and Kripke share the desire not to dismiss or solve the problem the skeptic sees; to acknowledge that there does come a point at which our justifications come to an end. (Here I may get stuck in the same problems I appear to have in the initial reading.) Kripke pictures that we have already (ahead of time) agreed on what the rules are (or practices/criteria/justifications); then I act instinctively yet correctly (without reference to the rules--"as I am inclined to", in his reading), and then I am judged on whether I followed the (circumscribing) rule or not--in or off the island.

Cavell takes the passage not to be the moment of judgment, but the (at least possible) beginning (at the end) of a discussion of our continuing together in the same moral realm, my understanding of your action without society's pre-arranged consent (our immoral act as Nietszche might say), our furthering justification(s) into un-ventured contexts, etc. He sees this as possible because the type of "agreement" we have is not in rules, as to a contract (though we can), but in the way our lives have (so far) been aligned, the possibilities that affords for development.

This would be why Witt words it as training, as we are not teaching (telling) rules, but the practice or skill of, here, how to obey a rule (which Austin would say we could further understand in examining how to disobey, how to be seen as obeying, how it differs from being forced, ordered, etc.--Kripke has this all worked out in advance, Cavell is continuing after Austin). Cavell might add indoctrinating (accepted without justification) because we have yet to imagine all the justifications we might have, and thus where we might go (together, alone) once we feel we are at the end of them.

When, for example, Metaphysician Undercover repeatedly misunderstands certain notions in mathematics, there is a point at which one concludes that he is simply not participating in the game. One might then either turn away or attempt to follow the path of the eccentric. The question becomes one of what is to be gained in going one way or the other. — Banno

And this is perhaps an example of such a (moral) moment. There are many examples in Philosophical Investigations that verge on insane, alien, strange reactions or responses. If we "conclude that he is simply not participating in the game", we have reached the bedrock--if we follow Kripke, this is the point of judgment, conclusion. But, conclude how? Are we really aware of what matters to considering it part of/not part of, the game? Even granted we have rules for inclusion, do we have answers about their desire to be excluded from those rules? What does it mean for who I am if I measure the other by my gain or loss? These questions can continue or stop. We might then "turn away", but, if we don't, do we only follow another path, having already judged an "eccentric" from without? This is at least possibilities (grounds?) for a discussion, where the skeptic and their nemesis fight over grounds (before) to avoid having the discussion at all (in the future).

But even the notion of addition was expanded in 1801 when Gauss introduced the modern concept of modular arithmetic. — jgill

This actually helps to clarify, so thank you. It is not that math cannot change, or be expanded, but there is a structure/conditions to math (as there is a method for what we consider science, why it produces a certain kind of "fact"). We count (pun intended) something as math because it is predictable, universal, eternal, etc., which is unlike our ordinary criteria for how/when something counts as a justification for obeying a rule.

Calling it language philosophy implies it has a corner it ought stay in which it resents — Cheshire

This is reserving judgment? What you see as resentment is perhaps a projection of jealousy (enough to want to trivialize OLP as only about words). Not being interested does not make you right.

Can't I say something without having to imagine 360 degrees of qualifications any given term might entail. I rather be misunderstood than difficult to understand. — Cheshire

I might put it that, in making a claim about what the implications are of the expressions of our concepts (how we qualify knowledge, intention, meaning), we are saying something; something important to the problems of philosophy. Calling it "language" philosophy is to assume that there is (always) a space between our words and our lives.

We can point to rules, we can give examples, we can threaten consequences; at a certain point sometimes they run out, you don't continue as expected--it is meant to be a situation which summons skepticism.
— Antony Nickles

Is it meant to "summon skepticism", though? Maybe from Kripke's overly philosophical perspective, but I doubt it would summon skepticism from the average person. This is a very alien way of looking at obeying a rule. — Luke

Summon the specter of skepticism for the philosopher (reader), yes; the fear that leads to our need to have a foundational bedrock to justify our acts. An average person might feel an inability to communicate, that words/fact/truth lack power, discouraged at the prospect of (or empowered by) not having anything else to say... but, yes, Witt's example is meant to show us something about philosophy; its powerlessness, and hope.

Kripke's take on the passage is that this leaves us with only the options of following the rule, change the rule, or be excluded--that it is conformity to a rule.
— Antony Nickles

So the exhaustion of justifications for how you should obey a rule, make a wish, apologize, mean what you say, etc. can be that you refuse to follow the rules, but it can also be that we have not yet imagined all the implications, shown you how our interests are aligned, etc.--that there is not only force and defiance
— Antony Nickles

This seems to fit into the three options cited above. — Luke

Maybe not my best work trying to show a distinction (part of the problem is Witt is discussing justification for how we follow a rule; and Kripke is reading that as we act from inclination ("inspiration" #232) and then are judged as right or wrong based on if we follow the rule, conform to the rule (before there is any justifying why/how you did or didn't follow the rule)). Cavell takes Witt as leaving open the judgment/exclusion to begin a conversation about what it means to have followed a rule (what counts, what matters, etc.). One view ends the relationship, the other begins a moral discussion.

The fear is of the inability to justify obeying a rule or justify how we obey rules.
— Antony Nickles

I get that, but you (or Cavell) were instructing someone about what constitutes obeying a rule. — Luke

What constitutes justifying that I obeyed a rule. And Kripke wants to resolve the worry that we may not be able to justify how we obey a rule or what constitutes obeying a rule, just between our impulse to act and your judgment and exclusion; Cavell takes Witt as leaving that possibility of failure open, but also continuing a conversation beyond our pre-determined judgment. An ongoing conversation about, say, what constitutes an example (#223)--rationalizing our relationship instead of it relying on, say, violence (understanding rather than just change).

You say that the teacher is unable to provide sufficient justification to the student about what constitutes obeying a rule. Then you say - crucially - that the teacher does not have to give up on the student because both teacher and student can "resist philosophy's anxiety". I guess I'm asking: what is it that allows the student to "resist philosophy's anxiety"? — Luke

To make themselves intelligible. They might claim they did obey the rule; or explain their aversion to conformity--examine their "blind" obedience (#219); as normally we do not "follow" rules (#222). Not to take the position that their actions are unable to be communicated--to feel there is something private, unknowable (not just personal). But really this is an examination of the teacher, and the limitation/impotence of our knowledge (what comes after it).

But teaching (indoctrinating into society) sometimes runs out of ways to convey, in this example: what constitutes obeying a rule (justifies saying how/that we obey/have obeyed).
— Antony Nickles

Teaching/indoctrination is training someone how to obey the rules or how to "go on" (or behave) in a particular way(s). You cannot first teach/train someone what it means to obey a rule in order for them to then go on and obey a rule; otherwise, you would not be able to teach them what it means to obey a rule in the first place. — Luke

I agree with framing it as training, but I am trying to show two "particular ways" we can be seen as going on--that maybe it isn't (as in teaching math), that we behave (obey) or not, but that we are learning the skill of how to continue, to be able to justify our actions at all--to move forward rather than not be able to "conflict" or "accord" at all (#201) @Banno.

You cannot first teach/train someone what it means to obey a rule in order for them to then go on and obey a rule; otherwise, you would not be able to teach them what it means to obey a rule in the first place. — Luke

Maybe it helps that Witt notices that we learn our whole lives in learning something new (or something like that). That we already: follow, explain ourselves, disobey, judge, defend, etc. So we are not teaching "what it means", as if providing the correct directions, delineating ahead of time what it is to "obey", all other actions being judged as incorrect. I may ask why you didn't obey, say, the golden rule, and you may claim that you did, and then go on to try to justify how what you did was still an instance of obeying the rule. If Kripke's reading is correct, the discussion of what is right happens before my personal action, upon which I am judged. If we take Witt to be reserving judgment, then we begin a dialogue of what it is to, say, treat the other as having a soul (p, 152; 3rd 2001), or convince ourselves we can not know them (p. 192).