Who is he talking to in the Philosophical Investigations? — Joshs


Himself — frank

I thought he was addressing the analytics. He had grown discontent towards this movement.

I thought he was addressing the analytics. He had grown discontent towards this movement. — L'éléphant

He was also talking to those he was more positively inclined toward, such as Kierkegaard and James.

What does your list look like? — Joshs

I'd have to spend some time on Baseball Reference to give a good answer, but my first pick would probably be Greg Maddux. He's currently only #28 on the all-time leaderboard, but I love the way he pitched.

He was also talking to those he was more positively inclined toward, such as Kierkegaard and James. — Joshs

Okay. :up:

He was also talking to those he was more positively inclined toward, such as Kierkegaard and James. — Joshs

Philosophy is usually a response to an opposing idea, or an attempt at synthesis. Philosophers don't usually write at length to express agreement.

For both Wittgenstein and the phenomenologists, feelings are not inner data but world-directed engagements. — Joshs

Wittgenstein's and the Phenomenologist’s approaches are quite different.

For Wittgenstein, he starts from the viewpoint of a public community and asks the question, how can a community communicate private subjective experiences whilst at the same time “bracketing” any understanding of a private internal world.

For the Phenomenologists, they start from the viewpoint of the individual and ask the question, how can an individual make sense of their private subjective experiences whilst at the same time “bracketing” any understanding of a public external world.

Whilst Wittgenstein is concerned with what is happening in the public external world, the Phenomenologists are concerned with what is happening in the private internal world.

I'll go further than that. The tragedy of Wittgenstein is what was missing from his toolbox.

For instance, an awful lot of Wittgenstein's puzzling over rules and grammar cries out for the sort of game-theoretic analysis David Lewis does later — but Wittgenstein didn't have game theory.

A lot of what he says about concepts and seeing as, the whole midcentury recognition of theory-laden observation and the repudiation of the myth of the given — he's not unique in that, and all of it is stumbling toward what only becomes clear in the Bayesian framework, that evidence is the basis upon which a prior belief is updated, but it is not the basis of belief as such. Ramsey would have gotten there, as "Truth and Probability" shows, but whether he could have dragged Wittgenstein along, who knows?

Wittgenstein turns away from certain old ways of doing philosophy, and he seems to point—so tantalizingly!—toward a destination he never really gets near. It's why he is undeniably vague, inconclusive, difficult to interpret, why he goes over the same issues in subtly different ways for years on end. Having cut loose from the mainland of existing philosophy, he was at sea, and never made landfall. Heroic, in his own way, but tragic.

Pretty sure I'm the only one around here who thinks this. — Srap Tasmaner

Lewis style game theory and Bayesian updating are tools for modeling coordination and belief revision, but Wittgenstein isn’t trying to build a better model. He’s trying to dissolve conceptual tangles that arise when we misuse words like rule, meaning, and evidence assuming that they've got some single theoretical support that explains them.

I’d flip the dependence. Game theory and Bayes don’t get off the ground unless we already know what counts as following a rule, what counts as evidence, what counts as the same claim, and what it even means to “update.” Those are grammar questions in Wittgenstein’s sense. Bayesian methods only work if Wittgenstein's conceptual clarity is in place.

I don’t buy the “tragic, lost at sea” line at all. The repetition is part of the method; he keeps returning to cases until the grip of a picture loosens and you can see for yourself. He looks inconclusive only if you expect theses/theories and some final destination. He isn’t steering toward Bayesianism, he’s steering back toward ordinary use, where many philosophical problems dissolve.

I should probably start a thread on where I part ways with Witt, because some people assume that if I cite him (and I do a lot), I’m signing on to everything he ever said.

Wittgenstein is asking how all this "thinking" got started: — Paine

======================================================================

32. Someone coming into a strange country will sometimes learn the language of the inhabitants from ostensive definitions that they give him; and he will often have to guess the meaning of these definitions; and will guess sometimes right, sometimes wrong. — PI, 32, translated by Anscombe

We can only understand language extra-linguistically. When someone tells me “bring me a xyz”, how do I know what action I should take?
=======================================================================

The essential thing about private experience is really not that each person possesses his own exemplar, but that nobody knows whether other people also have this or something else. — PI, 272

No one knows what another person is thinking or feeling. No one knows another person’s private language, but even so people are able to communicate using a public language.
=================================================================

One thinks that one is tracing the outline of the thing's nature over and over again, and one is merely tracing round the frame through which we look at it. — ibid. 114

The meaning of a proposition cannot be understood within language itself.

The meaning of “bring me a xyz” within the language game cannot be understood by the language game itself, but can only be discovered extra-linguistically. For example, by observing a person’s behaviour, using bedrock hinge propositions, saying “xyz” and pointing to an xyz, using a meta-language or understanding the logical framework of the language game within which are contained propositions.
==============================================================

Here we see that solipsism, taken to its conclusion, coincides with pure realism. — Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, 5.64

There is the private self and the public language game. Solipsism is the theory that we can only know the self. But the public language game only exists because the self exists, in that the public language game is a creation of the self.

The public language game allows one user to communicate to another user that they are in pain by saying “I am in pain” even though no one user knows the private pain of another user. If the self consists of thoughts, ideas and feelings, such as that of pain, the language game may be able to refer to some one’s private pain, but is not able to describe, define or explain that private pain.

This is because language is a system of representation which can only represent a person’s private pain using the symbol “pain”. Language cannot describe, define or explain that pain.
=====================================================================

The move from "general explanations" in PI does not seem to have weakened Wittgenstein's view of the limited role of the "psychological" or "scientism" while looking at thought and language. — Paine

As science is founded on axioms, self-evident or universally recognized truths, language is founded on hinge propositions, statements that serve as foundational beliefs, or in JL Austin’s terms, performative utterances.

But I don't see how inner feelings can be the only essential condition for language. They are necessary, perhaps, but not sufficient. If we were not social beings, there would be no language. Our form of life would be unrecognizable without inner feelings, social living, and language. — Ludwig V

There are inner feelings, language and social life.

But we would not have any language if we did not have inner feelings and we would not have any social life if we did not have inner feelings. Both language and a social life are creations of our inner feelings.

I agree that there can be feedback between language and inner feelings and social life and inner feelings. "Feedback occurs when outputs of a system are routed back as inputs as part of a chain of cause and effect that forms a circuit or loop" (Wikipedia).

As inner feelings created both language and social life, and there can be feedback between them, inner feelings can be both necessary and sufficient to both language and social life.

If today “I’m in pain” and tomorrow “I’m hungry” were random noises with no stable pattern, the practice would collapse. But that point is about the conditions under which the practice is usable, not about the meaning being fixed by a private inner object.

If I say “I’m in pain” alone, it’s often pointless, but it isn’t meaningless. The meaning is still what it is because the expression belongs to a language I already speak.

Where your argument goes off is when you say the language game is founded on a rulebook that asserts a consistency between feeling and saying. That “rulebook” isn’t an extra layer behind the practice. It just is the practice as it’s lived,

So, the relationship is the following: inner life is necessary for these language games to exist at all, but inner life doesn’t fix meaning privately, by itself. Meaning is stabilized publicly, by the norms of use that make it possible to distinguish correct use, misuse, pretense, and error. — Sam26

As I see it, your approach leads into the problem of circularity, whereby the meaning of the statement “I am in pain” is fixed by the language game, and the language game is fixed by the statement “I am in pain”.

There is the question of what makes language possible, what makes the statement “I am in pain” have meaning within the language game and there is the question of what fixes the meaning of the statement “I am in pain”.

A circular solution would be that the meaning of the statement “I am in pain” is fixed by it having a meaning within the language game.

Such a circularity is avoided if the meaning of the statement “I am in pain” is fixed by the extra-linguistic being in pain.

This is the same problem of circularity with the rules of language, where you say that the rules of language are built into the language itself. But we know that the rules of language cannot be internal to the language, they must be external. This is why words such as “pain” cannot be defined within the language itself. This is why Wittgenstein proposes the extra-linguistic hinge proposition, in other words, a performative utterance as described by JL Austin or axioms in science.

This is also the same problem with the Form of Life, whereby an inner life is necessary for there to be a Form of Life, and it is the Form of Life that determines one’s inner life.

There needs to be a way out of this circularity. One way is that statement such as “I am in pain” is fixed by the extra-linguistic being in pain rather than being fixed by a language game that already includes the statement “I am in pain”.

I think it may be that some circularity is unavoidable. On the one hand, language may influence the way we think. So as a child's brain is developing, patterns of thought that are prevalent in the culture might become cemented in the language comprehension areas if the brain.

On the other, it may be that some aspects of the way we think are innate so that pattern recognition isn't starting from a blank slate.

So maybe the idea of pain is innate, but whether it belongs to a psychological interior or is part of the world around me is something I learn from my culture. The basic building blocks would be innate, but the arrangement comes from thousands of years of cultural evolution.

But it doesn’t follow that inner feelings are the ultimate foundation in the sense of what fixes meaning, normativity, or rule following. — Sam26

In our Form of Life is going to the theatre, but we only go because of our inner feelings, not because other people are going to the theatre, or because someone says “you must go to the theatre”.
=========================================================================

The foundation Wittgenstein is talking about, when he talks about bedrock or what stands fast, isn’t a hidden inner item that guarantees correctness. It’s the public practice itself, viz., training, shared responses, correction, agreement in judgement, the whole web in which “right and wrong use” has a place. — Sam26

Wittgenstein talks about the bedrock, about hinge propositions, which found a language.

For example, if I say “I know a hot stove causes pain”, this can be a hinge proposition, a performative utterance and not an empirical observation. We can then talk about “I was in pain yesterday”, “avoid hot stoves if you don’t like pain” and “they ought not manufacture hot stoves”.

I am saying that I say “a hot stove causes pain” because a hot stove causes the inner feeling of pain. You are saying that “a hot stove causes pain” because it is part of a coherent set of linguistic statements.

Yet there can be an enormous number of sets of coherent statements, none of which may relate to the human condition. However, in order for a coherent set of statements to be part of a language game they must relate to the human condition, and they can only relate to the human condition because when I say “a hot stove causes pain” I feel pain when touching a hot stove.
=====================================================

Their inner feeling might be identical, but the meaning of “excited” vs “anxious” isn’t fixed by that inner feeling. It’s fixed by the public grammar, again what counts as appropriate use, what follows from it, what kinds of reasons support it, what responses you might get, what counts as correction (“No, you’re not excited, you’re worried”), and how we learn the words. — Sam26

One person says “I’m anxious”. Another says “Je suis anxieuse” and yet another says “Ich bin ängstlich”.

I agree that within a particular language game, certain words are appropriate and some are not. What is appropriate is something we have to learn about correct usage, but that does not take away from the fact that the words anxious, anxieuse and ängstlich mean the same thing, which is an inner feeling.

In Frege’s terms, they have the same sense, the same referent and the same truth value.

In Tarski’s terms, who also requires a metalanguage, the truth values of the T-sentences are the same. “I’m anxious” is true in the English language IFF I’m anxious. “Je suis anxieuse” is true in the French language IFF I’m anxious. “Ich bin ängstlich” is true in the German language iFF I’m anxious.

Truth is determined within the metalanguage of inner feelings, it cannot be determined within the language itself as you suggest.

As I see it, your approach leads into the problem of circularity, whereby the meaning of the statement “I am in pain” is fixed by the language game, and the language game is fixed by the statement “I am in pain”.

There is the question of what makes language possible, what makes the statement “I am in pain” have meaning within the language game and there is the question of what fixes the meaning of the statement “I am in pain”.

A circular solution would be that the meaning of the statement “I am in pain” is fixed by it having a meaning within the language game.

Such a circularity is avoided if the meaning of the statement “I am in pain” is fixed by the extra-linguistic being in pain.

This is the same problem of circularity with the rules of language, where you say that the rules of language are built into the language itself. But we know that the rules of language cannot be internal to the language, they must be external. This is why words such as “pain” cannot be defined within the language itself. This is why Wittgenstein proposes the extra-linguistic hinge proposition, in other words, a performative utterance as described by JL Austin or axioms in science.

This is also the same problem with the Form of Life, whereby an inner life is necessary for there to be a Form of Life, and it is the Form of Life that determines one’s inner life.

There needs to be a way out of this circularity. One way is that statement such as “I am in pain” is fixed by the extra-linguistic being in pain rather than being fixed by a language game that already includes the statement “I am in pain”. — RussellA

Circularity isn't a problem, you’re treating Witt as if he’s offering a foundation argument, as if meaning is a theorem is grounded in axioms. But a lot of what you’re calling circularity isn’t an argument at all. People hear circularity and assume fallacious argument, but unless someone is trying to prove a conclusion by smuggling it into the premises, there’s nothing automatically wrong. You see it in this forum all the time. For example, people will often accuse someone of the ad hominem fallacy merely because they say something that attacks them personally. However, unless it's part of the argument itself, it's not a fallacy.

First, the claim “the language game is fixed by the statement ‘I’m in pain’” isn’t right. A language game isn’t defined by one statement. It’s a practice with many moves, learning the word, using it, responding to it, correcting misuse, withdrawing claims, giving help, etc. “I’m in pain” is one move inside a wider pattern. So, there’s no tight circle where “this sentence fixes the game, and the game fixes the sentence.” The sentence has meaning because it belongs to a practice that already exists, and the practice exists because it’s lived and taught across time, not because a single sentence generates it.

Second, “fixing meaning by extra-linguistic being in pain” doesn’t actually solve what you want it to solve. Pain can be the occasion for saying “I’m in pain,” but it can’t be itself the standard for correct use. We still need to know what counts as applying pain rather than itch, numbness, panic, or metaphorical uses, and that’s exactly what the grammar of the practice gives us. Extra-linguistic facts don’t automatically generate normativity.

Third, the idea that “rules must be external” is too quick. Wittgenstein’s point is that rules aren’t hidden rails behind language, and they aren’t external foundations either. They’re exhibited in how we go on, in training, correction, and settled practice. That’s why definitions eventually run out and we reach bedrock, not as a set of axioms that ground a system, but as what stands fast in our doing. Hinges in On Certainty aren’t Austinian performatives, and they aren’t scientific axioms. They’re the background hinge certainties that show up in how inquiry and doubt operate.

I’d put it like the followoing: there’s no vicious circle to escape, because Wittgenstein isn’t trying to ground language in something outside it. He’s describing how meaning is shaped in a form of life. Pain matters, of course, but it doesn’t replace the role of Witt's grammar. It’s part of the human background that makes the language game possible, while the norms of use are what make “I’m in pain” intelligible.

I think it may be that some circularity is unavoidable. On the one hand, language may influence the way we think.........................On the other, it may be that some aspects of the way we think are innate so that pattern recognition isn't starting from a blank slate. — frank

That is how I see it. Part of our thinking is innate and part of our thinking derives from language and society, meaning that some circularity is unavoidable.

But what I am against is the idea that some interpret Wittgenstein's “meaning is use” as being that 100% of our thinking derives from language and society.

“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.” Sect 43 of Philosophical Investigations.

As Wittgenstein pointed out, I am also against the idea that 100% of our thinking derives from innateness.

IEP - Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889—1951)
The main rival views that Wittgenstein warns against are that the meaning of a word is some object that it names–in which case the meaning of a word could be destroyed, stolen or locked away, which is nonsense–and that the meaning of a word is some psychological feeling–in which case each user of a word could mean something different by it, having a different feeling, and communication would be difficult if not impossible.

The expression “meaning is use” should not be taken literally.

Third, the idea that “rules must be external” is too quick. — Sam26

For Wittgenstein, as stated in PI, rules are necessarily external. This is 'the essence of a rule' and it provides the basis for the distinction between "what seems right and what is right". It's a key premise to the so-called private language argument. If you allow the premise that a person could have a private internal rule, and judge oneself to be following that rule, the entire explanatory system of PI would be demolished.

In fact, I would say that this characterization of "rule" is a principal "tool" of Wittgenstein's. This is the means by which concepts, which are constructed with rules, are described as external instead of internal.

For Wittgenstein, as stated in PI, rules are necessarily external. This is 'the essence of a rule' and it provides the basis for the distinction between "what seems right and what is right". It's a key premise to the so-called private language argument. If you allow the premise that a person could have a private internal rule, and judge oneself to be following that rule, the entire explanatory system of PI would be demolished.

In fact, I would say that this characterization of "rule" is a principal "tool" of Wittgenstein's. This is the means by which concepts, which are constructed with rules, are described as external instead of internal. — Metaphysician Undercover

Your point isn't right, and I think it smuggles in exactly the picture Wittgenstein is trying to undo.

Wittgenstein doesn't say that rules are “necessarily external” in the sense of being outside a practice, outside a speaker, or imposed from above. What he denies is that a rule can be a private, inner object that fixes what counts as following a rule. The contrast isn’t “internal rule versus external rule.” The contrast, is a rule that has standards of right and wrong versus a rule that collapses into “whatever seems right to me.” And those standards aren’t “external” in the sense of a law hovering over us. They’re internal to the practice, exhibited in training, correction, agreement in judgment, and the ability to distinguish correct use from incorrect use.

That’s also why the private language doesn’t need the premise “rules are external.” It needs the point that correctness requires more than a private impression of correctness. If you allow a “private rule” that has no criteria for correct reapplication, you haven’t saved rule following, you’ve emptied it. You can’t even make sense of “I’m following the rule” versus “I only think I am,” because there is no difference.

And the claim that “concepts are constructed with rules, therefore external” is too rigid. Language is full of normativity without explicit rules, and many concepts have family resemblance structure with flexibility. There are rules in the sense that some moves are correct and others aren’t, but that doesn’t mean the concept is a construction laid down by an external authority. The normativity is carried by the practice itself.

If you want to call “rule” a tool in his toolbox, fine, but say it accurately. Wittgenstein’s tool is to block the fantasy that rules are private inner things/objects that determine their own application. He relocates rule following into the lived practice where “right and wrong” has a home, not into an “external” rulebook.

For example, how can a person know whether it is correct to say “I am in pain” or “I am not in pain” if they don't know whether they are in pain or not? — RussellA

That's true. I shows how language games are not in separate compartments, but interact. Indeed, I'm sometimes inclinced to think that Wittgenstein did not think of language games as actual distinct structures in language, but a thought experiment designed to high-light and focus on specific uses to enable a clearer view.
For example, how can a person know whether it is correct to say “I am in pain". First they must know whether they are in pain or not and then they can correctly say whether “I am in pain” or “I am not in pain”.[/quote]
This is not quite right. It is an important part of language that when we are in pain, we do not - and do not need to - apply the usual processes of deciding on the truth of "I am in pain". As Wittgenstein says, what seems to me to be so, is so. It is only when pain is seen in the public world - that is, in the context of p;ublic language - that we can separate truth from appearance. That's why I think that "I am in pain" is not exactly synonymous with "Ouch!".

He is demonstrating that the recurrence of the inner sensation is not the recurrence of an object which can be named, as we name an external object. In this way he takes "object" out of the picture, but he leaves "the inner" as still central, but consisting of something other than objects. — Metaphysician Undercover

I'm inclined to think that Wittgenstein was not concerned to refute the specific idea that pain is an object. He was concerned with the idea that a (logically) private rule was an incoherent idea. What kind of objects sensations are. His arguments apply whether pain is seen as an event or process or whatever.

I am not arguing that this is the case, only that "sufficient conditions" lack the necessity required to draw certain conclusions. — Metaphysician Undercover

I was impressed by the thought that if language is a system of communication, it is hard to see how it could not presuppose the existence of some sort of social relationship. So, at most, I was suggesting that a social context was a necessary condition for language. It obviously isn't a sufficient condition, since there are societies of non-language using creatures. On the other, people do think of the various communication systems used by those societies as a language, so it is not entirely clear what is going on.

As inner feelings created both language and social life, and there can be feedback between them, inner feelings can be both necessary and sufficient to both language and social life. — RussellA

I don't see how "inner feelings" could create anything unless they interact with outer facts. It seems to me obvious that neither human motivations not society could create language on their own. It's the interaction that makes things happen.

But what I am against is the idea that some interpret Wittgenstein's “meaning is use” as being that 100% of our thinking derives from language and society. — RussellA

Yes, people too often think of language and society as fixed, complete structures. Nothing could be further from the truth. They are elastic, capable of being adapted to new situations and new applications.

People hear circularity and assume fallacious argument — Sam26

P1 - “The meaning of a word is its use in the language”
P2 - Language is a set of words having meanings.
C1 - The meaning of a word is its use in a set of words having meanings.

This still seems a fallacious circular argument.
========================================

A language game isn’t defined by one statement. It’s a practice with many moves, learning the word, using it, responding to it, correcting misuse, withdrawing claims, giving help, etc. — Sam26

I agree. A language game is a complex and coherent set of words and expressions.
=================================================================

Pain can be the occasion for saying “I’m in pain,” but it can’t be itself the standard for correct use. — Sam26

I agree that pain can be the occasion for saying “I am in pain”, but being in pain does not tell us anything about the correct use of language.
====================================

Wittgenstein isn’t trying to ground language in something outside it. He’s describing how meaning is shaped in a form of life — Sam26

I agree that I may go to the theatre because of my inner feelings, and the experience may then change my inner feelings.

But it cannot be the case that having no inner feelings I decide to go to the theatre, and the experience then gives inner feelings within me.
================================

Third, the idea that “rules must be external” is too quick. Wittgenstein’s point is that rules aren’t hidden rails behind language, and they aren’t external foundations either. They’re exhibited in how we go on, in training, correction, and settled practice. That’s why definitions eventually run out and we reach bedrock, not as a set of axioms that ground a system, but as what stands fast in our doing. Hinges in On Certainty aren’t Austinian performatives, and they aren’t scientific axioms. They’re the background hinge certainties that show up in how inquiry and doubt operate. — Sam26

There are innumerable possible coherent language games each with their own hinge propositions. For example, in language game A the hinge proposition could be “god does not exist” and in language game B the hinge proposition could be “god exists”.

Within each language game there can be innumerable statements logically connected to the hinge proposition. For example, in language game A, “humans have to develop their own ethical system”, “souls don’t exist”, “morality is determined by mutual agreement”, etc.

It would be possible to develop a coherent language game independent of all inner feelings. For example, “here is one xyz”, “and here is another”, “there are at least two xyz in abc”, “therefore, abc exists”. Such a coherent language game fulfils many requirements, including each statement within it has been correctly used and it has a hinge proposition, “here is one xyz”. But even so, each statement is meaningless.

Something else is needed to give each statement a meaning. If meaning does not of necessity come from the language game itself, then it must come from outside the language game, extra-linguistically.

It is the case that if there were no inner feelings then there would be no language games, meaning that each statement within a language game must take into account inner feelings. Inner feelings are extra-linguistic to the language game, but give each statement meaning. For example, “here is one hand” is true IFF here is one hand. Meaning comes from a correspondence between language and the world.

It is true that a statement must be used correctly within its language game, but even if used correctly, the statement may still be meaningless. A language game cannot give itself meaning. Only something extra-linguistic to the language game can give the statements within it any meaning.

People hear circularity and assume fallacious argument
— Sam26

P1 - “The meaning of a word is its use in the language”
P2 - Language is a set of words having meanings.
C1 - The meaning of a word is its use in a set of words having meanings.

This still seems a fallacious circular argument. — RussellA

That “P1, P2, C1” framing is manufacturing a proof where Witt isn’t offering one, and it also smuggles in a bad premise.

First, P2 is not Wittgenstein’s view. “Language is a set of words having meanings” treats meaning as something already attached to words prior to use, and then you get your circle for free. Witt’s point is closer to the reverse, what we call meaning is shown in use, in explaining, correcting, applying, learning, and so forth.

Second, P1 isn’t a premise in any Wittgensteinian argument, it’s a grammatical reminder. It’s not meant to be combined with a metaphysical definition of language to yield a conclusion. It’s like saying “don’t look for a hidden essence, look at how the word works.”

If you want a non-circular way to put it, drop the “language = set of words with meanings” picture and replace it with something closer to what we actually do, i.e., language is a practice of using signs as part of activities where some moves are treated as correct and others as mistakes. We say a word has meaning insofar as it can be learned, applied, explained, corrected, and understood. That’s not a fallacious proof; it’s a description of how the notion of meaning functions in our lives.