I want to say here that it can never be our job to reduce anything to anything, or to explain anything. Philosophy really is 'purely descriptive'.
— "p.18
I was struck by how confident he is about this. He doesn't seem to take into account that a description can be an explanation and can give us a new view of what we are already looking. Nor does he seem to be thinking of the ideas about interpretation (seeing as) that occur in the Brown Book and the PI. Maybe he only came up with those ideas after writing this. — Ludwig V

I’m reminded of the role of explanation with respect to the language game. There can be a language which is organized in such a way that an explanation can be an intelligible move within it. But one can only describe the language game itself, because to explain it is to do no more than to reproduce it. And , like repeating a word over and over again, explaining a form of life devolves into meaningless. To understand what the diviner means when he says he feels the object behind his forehead is to have him describe the language game, not explain it. Perhaps Wittgenstein is taking the proper subject matter of philosophy to be language games rather than the moves within them.

I’m reminded of the role of explanation with respect to the language game. There can be a language which is organized in such a way that an explanation can be an intelligible move within it. But one can only describe the language game itself, because to explain it is to do no more than to rep — Joshs

Yes, that's true. I'm not quite sure what to say.

Charles Lutwidge Dodgson published the best "argument" for this - "What the tortoise said to Achilles" - Mind, Vol. 4, No. 14 (Apr. 1895), 278-280. The form of the argument is a regress. W's discussion of "aspect blindness" is also relevant. The possibility of this "rule refusal" is always present. On the other hand, maybe in practice, cases as simple as that don't come up in real life, and in the complexities we can find the resources to help the tortoise to see the point.

There are two places we might look to understand this. One is how we actually deal with people (e.g. students) who can't "see" a logical argument. In addition, there are - let us call them - informal resources in language, which often get taken up when the standard forms let us down - notably metaphor and analogy.

I had the impression that his explanation of the temptattion is the only answer that I found in the text. I must have missed something. — Ludwig V

It’s not a matter of another general answer he gives as much as the “answer” he claims that the solipsist wants to satisfy that desire for their pure, imposed criteria. That desire causes them to see the issue only as a problem/answer dichotomy (rather than a “muddle” and “temptation”). Many readers take him to be solving (answering) that “problem” just in a different way, or dissolving it, or not taking it seriously (it’s just about language).

He doesn't seem to take into account that a description can be an explanation and can give us a new view of what we are already looking. — Ludwig V

I think people take the idea of not explaining anything a bit too far. He is of course making claims and explaining things all along. The difference between his descriptions of what we say, and the “explaining” that he wants to avoid is tied to the desire for a single criteria and working backwards to ‘explain’ the world in order to fit that goal (thus the creation of a theoretical, metaphysical perfect realm). So in this tight construct, “explanation” is almost a technical term for him, not the loose act of drawing conclusions. An “explanation” for him is driven by the desire for the kind of “answer” we want in looking at skepticism as a “problem” as above.

@Paine @Ludwig V @Joshs @Shawn @Srap Tasmaner

Section 4C (pp. 18-20] Philosophical “Attitude”

To step back just to page 18, he is I believe referring to Socrates when he asks why philosophy is “contemptuous” toward the particular case. On page 20 he says outright “When Socrates asks the question, ‘what is knowledge?’ he does not even regard it as a preliminary answer to enumerate cases of knowledge.” Power (might=right) is someone’s goal of what is good. Is it the most worthy goal? No, but it still exists in the world, and it gets dismissed because it doesn’t meet the standard Socrates wants.

“The contempt for what seems the less general case in logic springs from the idea that it is incomplete.” It wouldn’t seem this equates to the logical necessity Socrates is looking for, but to me “complete” lines up with a solution (answering the “problem” again) that ties up all the loose ends and addresses every contingency before an act. As if we could determine the right thing to do in every angle up front, “completely”.

And this is a matter of method for him. Like Austin, who always investigated how an action failed in order to learn how it worked, Witt implores us to be interested in what distinguishes something rather than search for neat and tidy commonalities. “For after all, there is not one definite class of features which characterize all cases of wishing.” We can draw sharp boundaries to feel we have a complete idea, but “there are many common features overlapping.” as he seemingly first refers to family resemblances, which is important enough to be in the preface of the PI.

An “explanation” for him is driven by the desire for the kind of “answer” we want in looking at skepticism as a “problem” as above. — Antony Nickles

That would work. I suppose it is (or is like) the difference between those who think that "the present king of France is bald" is false and those who think it is unanswerable. The former have on their side the law of excluded middle, so we end up denying that the question is a question which seems absurd.

Power (might=right) is someone’s goal of what is good. Is it the most worthy goal? No, but it still exists in the world, and it gets dismissed because it doesn’t meet the standard Socrates wants. — Antony Nickles

I do not read the Republic to say that the equation of Thrasymachus did not exist. The work does not solve the problem but shows how it is surrounded by other problems. Using the individual soul to measure the body politic is not done by Wittgenstein but his self-imposed limits upon the discussion of ethics suggests he was not assigning the problem of the good to being simply another case of craving generality.

The work does not solve the problem but shows how it is surrounded by other problems. — Paine

True, “dismiss” was strong. It’s not like we don’t learn something along the way. And, in a very real sense, we would not have that knowledge without Socrates’ curiosity, his dissatisfaction with the easy, first impression.

he was not assigning the problem of the good to being simply another case of craving generality. — Paine

He obviously has a bone to pick with Socrates, and I’m not sure I see what else for other than Socrates moves on from each particular case in search of something universal (generality at its highest form).

Using the individual soul to measure the body politic is not done by Wittgenstein — Paine

I agree, he only feebly picks up “politics” in terms of our relation to the other individual—the student, the skeptic—or how we relate to our self (as I believe is in the realm of “governing” oneself in Plato’s analogy).

Two comments on pp.18 - 20

Language games are the forms of language with which a child begins to make use of words. The study of language games is the study of primitive forms of language or primitive languages.

Don't these remarks invite distracting arguments about whether they are factually correct? Do w need to say more than this approach is a useful way of analyzing language and understanding how it works?

Now what makes it difficult for us to take this line of investigation is our craving for generality.This craving for generality is the resultant of a number of tendencies connected with particular philosophical confusions. — p. 17

So we can add the craving for generality to the craving for certainty as examples of the kind of answer that W is looking for. Again, though, this is not a blanket disapproval of generalization as such - the word "craving" clearly says that it is the inappropriate pursuit of generalization that is the problem, not generalization per se.

with the confusion between a mental state, meaning a state of a hypothetical mental mechanism, and a mental state meaning a state of consciousness (toothache, etc.). — p.18

This is quite right and it is, in a sense, due to the craving for generality. But it is a somewhat different form from the Galtonian photograph in the previous paragraph. It depends on adopting what can be said of some cases, as when we know that some mental event occurs in some circumstances and then trying to apply that model universally. As when "we are looking at words as though they all were proper names, and we then confuse the bearer of a name with the meaning of the name." (p. 18)

Philosophers constantly see the method of science before their eyes, and are irresistibly tempted to ask and answer questions in the way science does. This tendency is the real source of metaphysics, and leads the philosopher into complete darkness. — p. 18

Certainly, respect for science is often exaggerated and it may explain some metaphysics. Plato is a particularly clear example. But I think that W may be over-generalizing here.

And after all, there is not one definite class of features which characterize all cases of wishing (at least not as the word is commonly used). If on the other hand you wish to give a definition of wishing, i.e., to draw a sharp boundary, then you are free to draw it as you like; and this boundary will never entirely coincide with the actual usage, as this usage has no sharp boundary. — p.19

We need to show that this is not just a trivial question of notation, where we could simply agree to use our different notations. But I'm not sure how, exactly. W's new philosophy is less decisive, less certain, than the tradition expects. To expect traditional "results" from his investigations is to indulge the cravings for generality and certainty.

Language games are the forms of language with which a child begins to make use of words. The study of language games is the study of primitive forms of language or primitive languages.

Don't these remarks invite distracting arguments about whether they are factually correct? Do w need to say more than this approach is a useful way of analyzing language and understanding how it works? — Ludwig V

It seems to me that the limits to analysis being put forward by Wittgenstein are arguing for a particular set of facts over others. In Philosophical Investigations, he challenges the role of elements which various theories could be reaching for:

“A name signifies only what is an element - of reality a what cannot be destroyed, what remains the same in all changes.” - But what
is that? - Even as we uttered the sentence, that’s what we already had in mind! We already gave expression to a quite specific idea, a particular picture that we wanted to use. For experience certainly does not show us these elements. We see constituent parts of something composite (a chair, for instance). We say that the back is part of the chair, but that it itself is composed of different pieces of wood; whereas a leg is a simple constituent part. We also see a whole which changes (is
destroyed) while its constituent parts remain unchanged. These are the materials from which we construct that picture of reality. — PI, 59

The question of elemental structure is clearly directed toward such as Russell and Whitehead but also to language theorists like Chomsky. Looking for a language underneath the one we use requires employing certain kinds of assumptions. We are being asked to consider an alternative approach to what is "primitive", but it is not being presented as a competing analysis.

Another example of the argument establishing a set of facts is the treatment of solipsism as a mistake. It does not work by offering a competing view of the elements.

Philosophers constantly see the method of science before their eyes, and are irresistibly tempted to ask and answer questions in the way science does. This tendency is the real source of metaphysics, and leads the philosopher into complete darkness.
— p. 18

Certainly, respect for science is often exaggerated and it may explain some metaphysics. Plato is a particularly clear example. But I think that W may be over-generalizing here. — Ludwig V

The scientific method, as we know it, was not a model for Plato. Wittgenstein does not seem interested in Plato's own problems with analysis. There are the many times when the singular essence is sought for and not found. I agree with an observation made by Antonia Soulez:

His reading of the ancient text was unrefined, indifferent to authenticity, careless about the historical distance between the ancient and the contemporary. What then did he look for?

Did he look for a better model of the analysis of meaning? As we know from Baker and Hacker, Wittgenstein would rather attack ‘Plato’s Betrachtungsweise’, including Russell and himself (as expressed in the Tractatus) with Plato, in order to reshape his method of ‘comparison’ with paradigms. To his eyes, Plato’s problem illustrates a misleading model or picture of logical analysis that he wanted to get rid of. This illustration in turn could be addressed to and against Russell’s conception. His contention in §48 is rather constructing a new language game in order to confute logical atomism than, in the spirit of a critical method, trying to discuss Russell’s distinctions one by one. Wittgenstein was as little interested in critical arguments or analytical sorts of discussions with ancient authors as with modern or contemporary ones. — Soulez, How Wittgenstein Refused to Be ‘The Son Of’

I think W leaves a gaping hole in the demonstration that mental objects - in the "occult" sense, drop out of consideration as irrelevant. But what makes the reasons mine, as opposed to justifications after the event? Perhaps the fact that I give them as reasons after the event is what makes them mine. In giving them, I claim them, or perhaps acknowledge them. Either way, they are to be compared to "I am in pain" or "That tastes sweet". There is a complicated hinterland here, which is usually acknowledged only in passing, that one's authority in such cases is defeasible. We may be joking or pretending. But it's time to move on. — Ludwig V

Just reading through the thread (backwards) and wanted to comment on this. Apologies if it is off the current topic and that it probably ignores the context of the preceding discussion.

Mental objects or private sensations are irrelevant to the correct use of language. Whatever private sensations you learned to associate with your uses of the words "pain" or "sweet" are irrelevant to the correct usage of those words because your sensations do no affect or determine the correct usage of those words. To use language correctly, it makes no difference if your private sensations are the same or different to anyone else's. Even if everyone saw the same object as having a different colour, and this applied to all objects, we would still learn to use the same colour language that we do now. We would still call stop signs "red" and grass "green" and the sky "blue", even though we each saw them as having a different colour, because those are the words each of us learned to associate with our private sensations of those coloured objects when we learned the language.

What matters to the correct use of language is how we use those words, not whatever private sensations each of us might associate with those words. That's why our private sensations drop out of consideration as irrelevant. The consideration here relates to correct language use, or grammar.

This has little to do with the one's authority being defeasible (or not). The authority with regards to the correct use of language is not any individual, but the norms and accepted customs/rules of language use within a society.

The authority with regards to the correct use of language is not any individual, but the norms and accepted customs/rules of language use within a society. — Luke

And what does Wittgenstein tell us about the authority of norms, customs and rules of language when it comes to the actual correct USE of language? As Joseph Rouse interests Wittgenstein:

…we cannot appeal to social regularities or collectively presupposed norms within a practice: there are no such things, I have argued, but more important, if there were they would not thereby legitimately bind us. Any regularities in what practitioners have previously done does not thereby have any authority to bind subsequent performances to the same regularities. The familiar Wittgensteinian paradoxes about rule following similarly block any institution of norms merely by invocation of a rule, since no rule can specify its correct application to future instances (Wittgenstein 1953). Practices should instead be understood as comprising performances that are mutually interactive in partially shared circumstances.

Don't these remarks [about family resemblances] invite distracting arguments about whether they are factually correct? — Ludwig V

It seems to me that the limits to analysis being put forward by Wittgenstein are arguing for a particular set of facts over others. — Paine

I think it is important to revisit page 17 when he discusses language games. “These are ways of using signs simpler than those in which we use the signs of our highly complicated everyday language.” I take these to be examples (here), not focused on an argument, but using “general facts” (as he mentions in PI #128, #143, p.230] that he assumes we agree to in order to show a distinction. It is methodological, not a hypothesis about the world (“we are not doing natural history” id). Thus why he can invent imaginary cases (and facts) to show how things might look if we make assumptions before examining what we say when… (his method). He is not trying to explain rule-following in the PI, but looking at it to see why we get confused about it in our hunt for purity. As @Paine says, these facts are not “competing” (but not for any “elemental structure” either), but simply arrogantly presented as self-evident in service of a greater purpose. If he is wrong, then it is of no consequence (that fact just becomes irrelevant, or could be better described), as the purpose is not to get the grammar correct, but to see what it shows us about the skeptical/metaphysical requirement of certainty (generalizing, etc.).

“His contention in §48 is rather constructing a new language game in order to confute logical atomism than, in the spirit of a critical method, trying to discuss Russell’s distinctions one by one. Wittgenstein was as little interested in critical arguments or analytical sorts of discussions with ancient authors as with modern or contemporary ones.” -Soulez

A “language game” is not a (somehow different) explanation of the world, it is an invented case, not to prove Russell wrong, but to show that the criteria comes before any examination. Yes, Witt is reaching back to a deeper level, but it is not a “primitive” (underlying) language or reality, so much as looking at assumptions, fundamental premises, which couldn’t be more “analytical”.

Apologies if it is off the current topic and that it probably ignores the context of the preceding discussion. — Luke

It’s fine, but you and @Joshs maybe should take a look at pages 14-15 as it is a discussion of reasons (vs causes), and it also may help straighten out a few things. First, nowhere is he discussing what is the correct or incorrect use of language, nor any explanation of what gives it any normative force. Also, he is not denying that we each have our sense data (aka feelings), only that they are not “objects”, subject to fixed knowledge (or ‘ownership’). Thus, they are not the “cause” of our language use, but we give reasons for their expression (after the fact), as @Ludwig V points out. We are thus responsible for our acts and speech, not whether they are “correct” or not.

And what does Wittgenstein tell us about the authority of norms, customs and rules of language when it comes to the actual correct USE of language? As Joseph Rouse interests Wittgenstein:

…we cannot appeal to social regularities or collectively presupposed norms within a practice: there are no such things, I have argued, but more important, if there were they would not thereby legitimately bind us. Any regularities in what practitioners have previously done does not thereby have any authority to bind subsequent performances to the same regularities. The familiar Wittgensteinian paradoxes about rule following similarly block any institution of norms merely by invocation of a rule, since no rule can specify its correct application to future instances (Wittgenstein 1953). Practices should instead be understood as comprising performances that are mutually interactive in partially shared circumstances. — Joshs

Is Rouse's point that (i) there are no rules (or social regularities or norms within a practice), or that (ii) nothing compels us to follow them?

The assertion that there are no rules or norms within a practice seems obviously false. It is easy to observe that many people do follow the rules more often than not - in driving, chess, sports, language, and much more. Many people have followed the same rules of classical chess for more than a day, at least. Also, any social practice involves norms, so it is redundant to refer to the norms within it. It would not be possible to learn how to play chess unless there was an everyday practice of playing it. The everyday practice is the rule, the custom, the correct application to future instances.

If we assume that there are such rules, then perhaps Rouse is right that there is nothing that compels people to follow them. But so what? People do follow rules. Clearly, you can drive through a red light or move your rook diagonally or say a meaningless string of random words if you so choose, but then you are no longer playing the same game as everyone else; no longer following the custom; no longer following the rule. Nothing forces you to play chess but you aren't playing chess (correctly) unless you follow the established rules/customs/practice of playing chess.

As for the "familiar Wittgensteinian paradoxes", I find these to be little more than a (mostly Kripke's) misreading.

197. [...] Where is the connection effected between the sense of the words
“Let’s play a game of chess” and all the rules of the game? — Well, in
the list of rules of the game, in the teaching of it, in the everyday practice
of playing.

198. [...] “So is whatever I do compatible with the rule?” — Let me ask this:
what has the expression of a rule — say a signpost — got to do with
my actions? What sort of connection obtains here? — Well, this one,
for example: I have been trained to react in a particular way to this
sign, and now I do so react to it.
But with this you have pointed out only a causal connection; only
explained how it has come about that we now go by the signpost; not
what this following-the-sign really consists in. Not so; I have further
indicated that a person goes by a signpost only in so far as there is an
established usage, a custom.

199. [...] To follow a rule, to make a report, to give an order, to play a game of
chess, are customs (usages, institutions).
To understand a sentence means to understand a language. To understand
a language means to have mastered a technique.

201. [...] 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”.

202. That’s why ‘following a rule’ is a practice. And to think one is
following a rule is not to follow a rule. And that’s why it’s not possible to
follow a rule ‘privately’; otherwise, thinking one was following a rule
would be the same thing as following it. — Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations

It’s fine, but you and Joshs maybe should take a look at pages 14-15 as it is a discussion of reasons (vs causes), and it also may help straighten out a few things. First, nowhere is he discussing what is the correct or incorrect use of language, nor any explanation of what gives it any normative force. Also, he is not denying that we each have our sense data (aka feelings), only that they are not “objects”, subject to fixed knowledge (or ‘ownership’). Thus, they are not the “cause” of our language use, but we give reasons for their expression (after the fact), as @Ludwig V points out. We are thus responsible for our acts and speech, not whether they are “correct” or not. — Antony Nickles

Yes, apologies for jumping ahead (to PI). I was just trying to shed some light on Ludwig V's accusation that Wittgenstein had a "gaping hole" and a "complicated hinterland" with respect to mental objects dropping out of consideration as irrelevant.

many people do follow the rules more often than not — Luke

In our discussion, this illustrates Witt’s insight that reasons get mixed up by the skeptic/metaphysician with causes (p. 14). People will do things that people do or have done, but they may only do them because of rules at times (when a practice even has “rules”); but there are other reasons for doing things (or none at all). We can of course judge whether they followed a practice, thus why it is then (after an act) that they would give reasons (including that “I was just following the rules”). We of course don’t usually judge anyone when they are conforming to our practices and norms, as Austin would say we don’t bring up ‘intention’ unless something goes wrong, rather than it being pictured as a cause for every act.

Is Rouse's point that (i) there are no rules (or social regularities or norms within a practice), or that (ii) nothing compels us to follow them?

The assertion that there are no rules or norms within a practice seems obviously false. It is easy to observe that many people do follow the rules more often than not - in driving, chess, sports, language, and much more. Many people have followed the same rules of classical chess for more than a day, at least. Also, any social practice involves norms, so it is redundant to refer to the norms within it. It would not be possible to learn how to play chess unless there was an everyday practice of playing it. The everyday practice is the rule, the custom, the correct application to future instances.

If we assume that there are such rules, then perhaps Rouse is right that there is nothing that compels people to follow them. But so what? People do follow rules. Clearly, you can drive through a red light or move your rook diagonally or say a meaningless string of random words if you so choose, but then you are no longer playing the same game as everyone else; no longer following the custom; no longer following the rule. Nothing forces you to play chess but you aren't playing chess (correctly) unless you follow the established rules/customs/practice of playing chess. — Luke

As Antony pointed out , issues concerning the normativity and correctness of rule following are outside the scope of the reading, but let me just offer that the grammatical distinction Wittgenstein makes between causes and reasons, or causes and motivation, is relevant here in the way it points to his later analysis of the situation when I exhaust my reasons and simply declare that my spade is turned. In this book, he says “When the chain of reasons has come to an end and still the question "why?" is asked, one is inclined to give a cause instead of a reason.” He calls the grammar of causal explanation a kind of hypothesis or conjecture rather than knowing. By the time of P.I., he seems to treat conjecturing of cause in terms of the bedrock of a language game. “ If I have exhausted the justifications I have reached bedrock, and my spade is turned. Then I am inclined to say: "This is simply what I do."
We may then try to come up with a causal explanation.
With regard to Roise on rule following, as Wittgenstein say, a rule, when followed, is never followed “ at a distance”, but when its symbols can be directly used as a guide. And even here, Rkise’s larger point is that rules and social norms underdetermine how we actually follow them.

And, in a very real sense, we would not have that knowledge without Socrates’ curiosity, his dissatisfaction with the easy, first impression. — Antony Nickles

Quite so. Curiosity may have killed the cat, but it certainly keeps philosophy alive. Perhaps the good side of scepticism?

The question of elemental structure is clearly directed toward such as Russell and Whitehead but also to language theorists like Chomsky. Looking for a language underneath the one we use requires employing certain kinds of assumptions. We are being asked to consider an alternative approach to what is "primitive", but it is not being presented as a competing analysis. — Paine

I may be misreading this.
The argument (comments on) the idea of elements certainly includes logical atomism but is based on an alternative view - roughly that an atomic view of them is misleading because it tries to think of the elements independently of the overall structure that gives them their meaning. It is very reminiscent of Gestalt theory. The structure which they make up is the context in which they exist as elements. It enables us to define them to. Braver (if I have understood him) calls this "holism". I think that's right.

The scientific method, as we know it, was not a model for Plato. Wittgenstein does not seem interested in Plato's own problems with analysis. There are the many times when the singular essence is sought for and not found. — Paine

Of course, the method of physics was not a model for Plato. But I was referring to his use of mathematics as a paradigm for his metaphysics. (Aristotle treats biology as his model.) But I wouldn't claim that the same is true of every philosopher since then.
I agree that W is not interested in Plato's problems, except insofar as they can be seen as intersecting with his own.

Did he look for a better model of the analysis of meaning? As we know from Baker and Hacker, Wittgenstein would rather attack ‘Plato’s Betrachtungsweise’, including Russell and himself (as expressed in the Tractatus) with Plato, in order to reshape his method of ‘comparison’ with paradigms. To his eyes, Plato’s problem illustrates a misleading model or picture of logical analysis that he wanted to get rid of. This illustration in turn could be addressed to and against Russell’s conception. His contention in §48 is rather constructing a new language game in order to confute logical atomism than, in the spirit of a critical method, trying to discuss Russell’s distinctions one by one. Wittgenstein was as little interested in critical arguments or analytical sorts of discussions with ancient authors as with modern or contemporary ones. — Soulez, How Wittgenstein Refused to Be ‘The Son Of’

Could you explain to me, please, what ‘Plato’s Betrachtungsweise’ is. (Google Translate was foxed as well!)
I agree that for W Plato is just another illustration of the method he wanted to get rid of and that he was not trying to get rid of it by further analysis, and so it is not a mistake to say that he was not offering a competing analysis. He wants to go deeper and so uses very different tactics.

To use language correctly, it makes no difference if your private sensations are the same or different to anyone else's. Even if everyone saw the same object as having a different colour, and this applied to all objects, we would still learn to use the same colour language that we do now. We would still call stop signs "red" and grass "green" and the sky "blue", even though we each saw them as having a different colour, because those are the words each of us learned to associate with our private sensations of those coloured objects when we learned the language. — Luke

This was of putting it seems to allow that we might experience private sensations even if they are irrelevant to our interpersonal communication. But the argument goes deeper than that - or so it seems to me. The point is that there is no way of comparing private sensations in a way that would allow us to classify a given sensation as either they same or different from another. It is not as if we could learn what label to stick on whatever beetle happens to be in our boxes, since there's no way of identifying the beetle; if there were a box, we could stick the label on that, but the box is only a metaphor.

He is not trying to explain rule-following in the PI, but looking at it to see why we get confused about it in our hunt for purity. As Paine says, these facts are not “competing” (but not for any “elemental structure” either), but simply arrogantly presented as self-evident in service of a greater purpose. — Antony Nickles

I agree that his style can seem arrogant. But, as he says in the preface to PI, he doesn't want to save hi readers the trouble of thinking for themselves - which again can seem arrogant. But the point of the example (language games) is to get us to see things in a different context and so differently. It's not really an exercise in logic at all.

The assertion that there are no rules or norms within a practice seems obviously false. — Luke

In one way, of course it is. But surely the point is to get us to see that common ideas about rules are confused- a rule can't reach out into the future and determine all its applications We have to learn how to apply them, and in that exercise we are learning what is right and what is wrong.

Nothing forces you to play chess but you aren't playing chess (correctly) unless you follow the established rules/customs/practice of playing chess. — Luke

Yes. But there is a penalty for not following the rules as everyone else doesn. If you don't, no-one will want to (or be able to, unless they adopt your rules) play chess with you. What is a game of chess without an opponent? Not a game of chess.

Yes, apologies for jumping ahead (to PI). I was just trying to shed some light on Ludwig V's accusation that Wittgenstein had a "gaping hole" and a "complicated hinterland" with respect to mental objects dropping out of consideration as irrelevant. — Luke

I think I put my point rather badly. I seem to have conflated two different issues.
One is about notations. If W's version of solipsism is really just a different notation, it leaves the solipsist just where they were. My answer is tht the solipsist's notation is not a notation; it can't be used. There is something they are trying to express, but it is better expressed in another way.
The other is about reasons vs causes, which was the focus at that moment. There, I did offer, tentatively a criterion - me giving reasons after the event is not a report of anything that happened before the event, but a rational reconstruction, which becomes mine when I give it. I probably confused the issue by then admitting that such reports are not criteria, but symptoms - we may find them inadequate or implausible on various grounds.

I think Ludvig V's question about facts is germane. If the beginning of PI and the talk of live versus dead signs in the Blue Book puts a certain understanding of learning language in doubt, that has consequences for attempts to form scientific theories about such activities. I offered Chomsky as an example but there are many other areas of human development which are implicated by the question.

I may be misreading this.
The argument (comments on) the idea of elements certainly includes logical atomism but is based on an alternative view - roughly that an atomic view of them is misleading because it tries to think of the elements independently of the overall structure that gives them their meaning. — Ludwig V

I read the problem as more about priority than independence from circumstances. W does not care about Aristotle's objections to a separate world of forms. What is being questioned is whether analysis breaking down one set of terms into simpler sets will reveal a more fundamental set of conditions. The matter is directly addressed in Philosophical Investigations:

62. Suppose, for example, that the person who is given the orders in (a) and (b) has to look up a table coordinating names and pictures before bringing what is required. Does he do the same when he carries out an order in (a) and the corresponding one in (b)? - Yes and no. You may say: “The point of the two orders is the same.” I would say so too. - But it is not clear everywhere what should be called the ‘point’ of an order. (Similarly, one may say of certain objects that they have this or that purpose. The essential thing is that this is a lamp, that it serves to give light —– what is not essential is that it is an ornament to the room, fills an empty space, and so on. But there is not always a clear boundary between essential and inessential.)

63. To say, however, that a sentence in (b) is an ‘analysed’ form of one in (a) readily seduces us into thinking that the former is the more fundamental form, that it alone shows what is meant by the other, and so on. We may think: someone who has only the unanalysed form lacks the analysis; but he who knows the analysed form has got it all. - But can’t I say that an aspect of the matter is lost to the latter no less than to the former?

64. Let’s imagine language-game (48) altered so that names signify not monochrome squares but rectangles each consisting of two such squares. Let such a rectangle which is half red, half green, be called “U”; a half green, half white one “V”; and so on. Could we not imagine people who had names for such combinations of colour, but not for the individual colours? Think of cases where we say, “This arrangement of colours (say the French tricolor) has a quite special character”.

In what way do the symbols of this language-game stand in need of analysis? How far is it even possible to replace this game by (48)? - It is just a different language-game; even though it is related to (48).

65. Here we come up against the great question that lies behind all these considerations. For someone might object against me: “You make things easy for yourself! You talk about all sorts of language-games, but have nowhere said what is essential to a language-game, and so to language: what is common to all these activities, and makes them into language or parts of language. So you let yourself off the very part of the investigation that once gave you the most headache, the part about the general form of the proposition and of language.”

And this is true. - Instead of pointing out something common to all that we call language, I’m saying that these phenomena have no one thing in common in virtue of which we use the same word for all - but there are many different kinds of affinity between them. And on
account of this affinity, or these affinities, we call them all “languages”.
I’ll try to explain this — ibid.

Your comparison with Gestalt psychology is interesting. Will ponder.

Could you explain to me, please, what ‘Plato’s Betrachtungsweise’ is. (Google Translate was foxed as well!) — Ludwig V

It just means a point of view. In this case, a general assignment of Plato to being the champion of the "ideal" versus whatever is assigned to what that is not. Soulez is not faulting either for that, just putting it into a context of what concerned Wittgenstein.

The scientific method, as we know it, was not a model for Plato. Wittgenstein does not seem interested in Plato's own problems with analysis. There are the many times when the singular essence is sought for and not found. — Paine

I think this is a confusion of Witt’s making. When he says the “method of science”, he might seem to be talking about comparing methods, but, based on all other evidence in the discussion, he means to be saying the results of the method: predictable, repeatable, and not relying on who is doing it, not compromised of/by the human. And Witt is trying to understand how and why Plato had problems (of his own creation) in that what he wanted could not be found because he started by looking only for a “singular” “essence”. In fact, Witt’s method is based on the start of Socrates’ inquiry into what is commonly said in a situation.

But I wouldn't claim that the same is true of every philosopher since then. — Ludwig V

Descartes equally has his requirement of inability to doubt within the first paragraph, and he too starts talking math as an ideal for knowledge. Kant seems to take away the issue (the: wanting the thing-in-itself), only to start by looking for imperatives. “Science” is the umbrella term Wittgenstein is using for this desire for logical purity (a math-like order).

The point is that there is no way of comparing private sensations in a way that would allow us to classify a given sensation as either they same or different from another. — Ludwig V

“A given sensation” is creating the picture of feelings as objects (specific ones). And we do compare our feelings all the time and do classify them as different or the same. “I have a headache.” “Me too!” “No, but mine is throbbing in my neck” “Me too!”

. But the point of the example (language games) is to get us to see things in a different context and so differently. It's not really an exercise in logic at all. — Ludwig V

We must be in agreement about the facts and context of his examples, but not the conclusion. There is a logical force to the clarity gained by the description. Witt is making a subtle shift but his method is able to show an actual distinction, which cuts across the issue. We’ve seen logical mistakes here exposed by comparison to the evidence of simply what we say when doing a thing.

There is something [skeptics] are trying to express, but it is better expressed in another way. — Ludwig V

Yes he does sometimes change the way an expression is recorded (“changing the notation”), removing the familiarity that blinds us, maybe adding a larger context of implications which makes certain unseen distinctions now clear. But yes “changing the notation” is merely a tool for perspective, not an argument that there is something wrong with words, nor for a new or better language.

If the beginning of PI and the talk of live versus dead signs in the Blue Book puts a certain understanding of learning language in doubt, that has consequences for attempts to form scientific theories about such activities. — Paine

You could say that he was changing the subject - dropping the pursuit of language as a abstract structure in favour of language as an activity (or a collection of them). The idea of a game has a similar ambiguity in it; there is a systematic structure defined by the rules, but the structure is only realized in terms of human activities. But the colour-exclusion argument (which I understand W took a particular interest in) does something else; it seems to show that the proposed structure has a flaw - the building won't stand up.

I read the problem as more about priority than independence from circumstances. W does not care about Aristotle's objections to a separate world of forms. What is being questioned is whether analysis breaking down one set of terms into simpler sets will reveal a more fundamental set of conditions. — Paine

The language is really difficult here. The meanings of "priority" and "indendence" have to be understood in the relevant context. As it happens, I wouldn't want to argue the breaking down one set of terms into simpler sets can never improve our understanding of them. W's point, for me, is that applying that approach to a general understanding of descriptive (true or false) language not only doesn't help, but throws up further problems. Hence the need to change the subject.

In this case, a general assignment of Plato to being the champion of the "ideal" versus whatever is assigned to what that is not. Soulez is not faulting either for that, just putting it into a context of what concerned Wittgenstein. — Paine

I take the point. There's always a tension between arguing about a particular version of some philosophical doctrine and arguing about something that's fundamental and in common between all versions of that doctrine. (If only there was an essence of idealism or scepticism, so that one could nail it down for good and all")
Sometimes, I think that philosophers should be encourage to think in more nuanced terms about philosophical theories. It should not be a matter of refutation or proof - black and white, win or lose - but in terms of a more judicious system of balanced judgements.

In fact, Witt’s method is based on the start of Socrates’ inquiry into what is commonly said in a situation. — Antony Nickles

Yes, Socrates does assume that we all understand what courage or piety is. His refutations wouldn't work if that was not the case. But the aporia at the end of the process seems to show that assumption is wrong, and I think Socrates takes those failures to show that he is wiser than any other Athenian because he knows he doesn't know, and they think they do. In the end, he rejects the common understanding and gives Plato the starting-point for his more technical philosophy. Aristotle, on the other hand, treats the common understand with respect, and accepts it unless he has reason not to.

“Science” is the umbrella term Wittgenstein is using for this desire for logical purity (a math-like order). — Antony Nickles

Yes. My lack of a clear, unified conception of science is based on what has happened since his time. That may be unfair.

“A given sensation” is creating the picture of feelings as objects (specific ones). And we do compare our feelings all the time and do classify them as different or the same. “I have a headache.” “Me too!” “No, but mine is throbbing in my neck” “Me too!” — Antony Nickles

Yes, you are right. So I should represent Wittgenstein not arguing that we cannot compare feelings and sensations, but that we cannot compare them in the way(s) that we can compare public objects.

We’ve seen logical mistakes here exposed by comparison to the evidence of simply what we say when doing a thing. — Antony Nickles

Yes, his examples are materpieces. But it looks as if he is just appealing to ordinary language and I'm reluctant to assume that ordinary language is always in order.