There must be private experiences?
— TheMadFool
The fear of being empty, not unique, creates the idea there must be some "thing" beyond language which is mine, that I can know. Now it's not that there is nothing there, it's just that experience isn't known, it is expressed or denied (by me)' it's accepted or rejected by you. So to say "It was amazing" is to express our ineffable experience (however poorly). So there are personal experiences but they don't work the way Witt tried to imagine (as the skeptic would like them to). — Antony Nickles
Just because "a community of Wittgenstein interpreters" disagree with what it means for traditional answers to skepticism, doesn't mean they can say that Witt, or Cavell, are outside the analytical tradition and not using "philosophical argument" or that their work is merely "performative". — Antony Nickles
Would you agree that in their hands [calling this work "therapy"] is not meant as condescending and dismissive?
— Joshs
It's bald-face condescension, attempting to pigeon-hole and minimize the impact of the PI (it's not "linguistic" either; it's revolutionary). I think the desire to misinterpret this work comes from a modern (and old) philosophical desire that it is better if philosophy doesn't involve humans at all; that it is supposed to work out like math or science, were it doesn't matter who is doing it. — Antony Nickles
I don't recall ever expressing a fear of being empty. I don't think I ever have. According to you, if I don't express this fear, I don't have this fear. — frank
Maybe it's just that I do have experiences that I tell no one about. I do, actually. Sometimes I do tell people about what I've experienced, so it's not private in the sense Witt uses in the PLA. — frank
Possible but not necessary. — TheMadFool
When I have a headache, I know I have a headache. — TheMadFool
No, what Witt is saying is that the way sensations/emotions/experience work, their grammar, is that they are not they are expressed, or not (suppressed, repressed, kept secret), as much to ourselves as anyone else. — Antony Nickles
When I have a headache, I know I have a headache.
— TheMadFool
In what context would we say "I know I have a headache."? — Antony Nickles
Is your critique based on a thoroughgoing knowledge of the work of the ‘New Wittgensteinian’ authors or is this a knee-jerk reaction to the blurb I quoted? — Joshs
What exactly do you consider worth preserving within the analytic tradition? — Joshs
No, what Witt is saying is that the way sensations/emotions/experience work, their grammar, is that they are not they are expressed, or not (suppressed, repressed, kept secret), as much to ourselves as anyone else.
— Antony Nickles
I don't think he was saying you don't know what you're feeling. — frank
Good catch; that was a test to see if anyone was actually still reading--I only meant that in the sense of the recognition of pain; although Witt does touch on the grammar of our emotions, like sadness (p. 209), and he has a lot to say about feeling as a kind of implicit interpretation or impression — Antony Nickles
When I have a headache, I know I have a headache.
— TheMadFool
In what context would we say "I know I have a headache."?
— Antony Nickles
Err... TPF? (considering TheMadFool just said "I know I have a headache" right here — Olivier5
it's applying the wrong sense of "know". — Antony Nickles
Well if that's not just facetious, it demonstrates Witt's point that we want to strip away any context and take a sentence in isolation to have met the standard we want for knowledge. — Antony Nickles
Mostly, it's giving the concept know, no sense, as opposed to the wrong sense. What I mean is, it has no epistemological sense to say, "I know I have a headache." — Sam26
Basically, epistimology is not the only way things make sense: are meaningful, have conditions, are judged by criteria, have identity, etc. The PI is showing that our relation to the world is not always epistemological (you're missing the third act where all the fun happens). — Antony Nickles
My point was that the sentence was expressed in a certain context: that of a philosophical discussion on TPF. There is no need to look for another context in which it could possibly be said. It arose here and this is the context where it may be meaningful. Look at the post it was replying to. That should be context enough. — Olivier5
The point was, you don't know you're in pain in an epistemological sense, with emphasis on knowing. You might use know in a way that's not epistemological, as StreetlightX pointed out above. — Sam26
Why do we need the term ‘epistemology’ at all after Wittgenstein? — Joshs
can you not know you have a headache?
You can not know in knowing's sense of not being aware, forget about it while doing something else.
— StreetlightX
And if not, then what is 'know' doing when you affirm that you do know it? — StreetlightX
You can of course say, "I know I have a headache" - but are you saying something about knowing? — StreetlightX
The point was, you don't know you're in pain in an epistemological sense... Now if you want to say it has sense in other non-epistemological ways, that's fine, but that's not my point. — Sam26
Was it said as a philosophical conclusion, or as an example of the sort of thing someone might say, when not doing philosophy, that seems to make perfect sense? (Roughly, was it theory or data?) If it's a bit of philosophy, are any of the words there used in a special technical sense that it is not what people ordinarily have in mind when they use those words? And if that's the case, how to connect that usage to ordinary usage, so that our philosophical discussion is relevant? — Srap Tasmaner
You can not know in knowing's sense of not being aware, forget about it while doing something else. — StreetlightX
Questioning why it seems you're not aware you have a headache (your example basically). — Antony Nickles
To ask in response: "in what context would you say that?" appeared to me a disingenuous attempt to change the conversation, to escape the actual context of the sentence, to avoid having to face the sentence itself, because it is obviously true. — Olivier5
'Forgetting a headache' sounds an awful lot like not having a headache. How do you forget a headache?...The grammar of 'forgetting' is not quite right. — StreetlightX
In what context would we say "I know I have a headache."? Maybe when you've made it aware to me that you have a headache, then, when I see you a little while later and you have an ice pack on your knee, and I point to your head and shrug, saying "Don't you have a headache?", you might look at me (like I'm an idiot) and say "I know I have a headache." -- but this is in the sense of "Duh, I know", as in the use (grammatical category) of: I am aware — Antony Nickles
There is no one that would question 'why it seems you're not aware you have a headache' - as if they knew better than you. At best, they might say, 'Don't you have a headache? Why are you exerting yourself like that?", or something similar. — StreetlightX
And if not, then what is 'know' doing when you affirm that you do know it? — StreetlightX
TMF was only stating the obvious. — Olivier5
.He said so... to a post pretending (absurdly)... and it made perfect sense. — Olivier5
Witt would say, is that I do not "know" pain; I have it. — Antony Nickles
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