All this seems to be straying from what it is to exist. What does it matter to my existence what mode of expression best expresses the truth? When I am sharing an experience with a friend, the last thing on my mind is the mode through which we are directly able to relate, I am too busy relating

All this seems to be straying from what it is to exist. What does it matter to my existence what mode of expression best expresses the truth? When I am sharing an experience with a friend, the last thing on my mind is the mode through which we are directly able to relate, I am too busy relating — Merkwurdichliebe

I don't think the conversation between @Banno, @StreetlightX, @csalisbury, @unenlightened and myself was ever about questions of existence, they're all questions of meaning/significance/sense. Specifically I believe we're talking about schemes or habits of interpretation adapting themselves to expressions, and the relationship between this adaptation and the context or 'background' of the interpreted expression.

oh, sorry for over stepping the bounds, and thanks for the clarity

No need to apologise. I still think your Wittgenstein quote was appropriate. We have to take a lot of stuff for granted in order to express anything.

I still think your Wittgenstein quote was appropriate. — fdrake

I always thought that quote to alluded to the notion that induction is impossible to determine with any certainty. That there is no reason a man couldn't transform into a tree. And if that happened, what implications would that have concerning identity?

In the context of the discussion in 508->516 in On Certainty, knowing is situated in a context alongside other things rather than standing apart/alone from linguistic contexts as a judgement which can be made of an isolated proposition. This is a recalibration of knowing as something other than deliberate judgement in the court of reason, exercising norms of language use comes equipped with knowledge of how they work, and this 'knowing' is much different from, say, judging whether a scientific hypothesis is true or well supported.

If suddenly a house turned into steam, the know-how of house identification (what counts as a house) changes, along with all the things that would lead to that identification - including the web of linguistic norms and concepts which allow us to identify a house as a house or to say 'I know that's a house.'. Wittgenstein looks at this as a perturbation of context which allows us to doubt things which before made no sense to doubt. He gives another similar example in 515:

515. If my name is not L.W., how can I rely on what is meant by "true" and "false"?

This kind of hard-hitting perturbation of interpretive habits is exactly the kind of thing mapped out in Street's original post.

It is easy to imagine and work out in full detail events which, if they actually came about, would throw us out in all our judgments [...] then I should say something like "I have gone mad; but that would merely be an expression of giving up the attempt to know my way about. And the same thing might befall me in mathematics. It might, e.g., seem as if I kept on making mistakes in calculating, so that no answer seems reliable to me.

But the important thing about this for me is that there isn't any sharp line between such a condition and the normal one (393). — Wittgenstein, Zettel

Do I want to say, then, that certain facts are favorable to the formation of certain concepts; or again unfavorable? And does experience teach us this? It is a fact of experience that human beings alter their concepts, exchange them for others when they learn new facts; when in this way what was formerly important to them becomes unimportant, and vice versa. (It is discovered e.g. that what formerly counted as a difference in kind, is really only a difference in degree. (352) — Zettel

The same proposition may get treated at one time as something to test by experience, at others as a rule of testing. (98) — On Certainty

Another quote that I think is relevent:

What should interest us is the question: how do we compare these experiences [i.e. houses turn into flowers versus houses don't turn into flowers]; what criterion of experience do we fix for their occurrence? — Wittgenstein, PI, p89, ~322

Just to be clear, the context of Cavell's discussion - which I see you've found - is in relation to the problem of scepticism: do we need philosophy to come up with a guarantee that 'houses will not turn into flowers'? — StreetlightX

Maybe not philosophy but I'd say we need science to determine that the molecules that make up a house can't feasibly rearrange into the molecules that make up a flower.

It's impossibility is a fact about physics/chemistry/biology, not a fact about grammar.

Maybe not philosophy but I'd say we need science to determine that the molecules that make up a house can't feasibly rearrange into the molecules that make up a flower. — Michael

I don't think science can provide such a guaranteed. Science can give us a near infallible degree of certainty regarding the occurence of particular phenomena under fixed conditions, but it is incapable of determining the necessity of any fixed condition in nature, unless predicated on another fixed condition. But this just leads into an infinite regress, and never a guarantee.

Sure, I didn't mean to say that it is impossible. We can transmute mercury into gold, and things like that happen naturally in nuclear fusion. The case of houses into flowers is no different in kind; just different in complexity. It may be impossible, but if so it's impossible because of the way matter behaves, not because the rules of grammar say so.

It may be impossible, but if so it's impossible because of the way matter behaves, not because the rules of grammar say so. — Michael

Is it possible to put it another way?

What if nothing changed physically, but everyone on earth began calling houses flowers, and flowers houses? How would that affect the landscape of meaning?

It is only in normal cases that the use of a word is clearly laid out in advance for us; we know, are in no doubt, what we have to say in this or that case. The more abnormal the case, the more doubtful it becomes what we are to say. And if things were quite different from what they actually are —– if there were, for instance, no characteristic expression of pain, of fear, of joy; if rule became exception, and exception rule; or if both became phenomena of roughly equal frequency —– our normal language-games would thereby lose their point. — The procedure of putting a lump of cheese on a balance and fixing the price by the turn of the scale would lose its point if it frequently happened that such lumps suddenly grew or shrank with no obvious cause. — PI 142

We need to understand before we assign truth, but we need to assign truth in order to understand.

Provisional belief that P is different from belief that P, P iff ("P" is true) has no bearing on that. — fdrake

Provisional belief?

Certainty is a specific form of belief, yes. Beyond that...

Wittgenstein's example sits between discussions of Moore's two hands and of knowing. And he draws a link to knowing someone else is in pain.

I can know what someone else is thinking, not what I am thinking. It is correct to say ‘I know what you are thinking’, and wrong to say ‘I know what I am thinking.’
(A whole cloud of philosophy condensed into a drop of grammar.)

What is peculiar about (3) in the OP is that we don't as yet know what to do with it.

Provisional belief? — Banno

Yeah. There are times when you entertain a position without assenting to it.

OK, so we "entertain" sentence (3).

But how to do so without knowing what it means? How to you believe sentence (3) without knowing what it means?

I think need something else here.

Davidson would say that we take it to be true, then look around for a translation in English that makes sense...

But it is already in English.

Note that Davidson would treat this search for a suitable translation as an anthropological quest. That is, he would have us look holistically for the meaning within the culture in which it is used.

Wittgenstein might disregard such complexity and simply ask what the speaker is doing.

Because insofar what we call houses and flowers are concerned, one cannot possibly be talking about houses and flowers as we know them, even if to reject the idea that houses cannot turn into flowers. — StreetlightX

Huh? Why?

Cavell's claim is something like: if you're affirming or denying that houses can turn into flowers, then you're not 'merely' adding a new fact to the store of known facts; meaning must also be revised. Because insofar what we call houses and flowers are concerned, one cannot possibly be talking about houses and flowers as we know them, even if to reject the idea that houses cannot turn into flowers. — StreetlightX

People once thought the moon was divine and that it could help them if they prayed to it. Once we discovered that it's just a big rock, were we talking about a different object? If so, then there's no way to express that ancients were wrong about the moon.

So it's the laws of the universe as we know them that's in play regarding whether houses can turn into flowers. We would say it's physically impossible, but it remains metaphysically possible as long as we can imagine a world where the laws of the universe are different such that houses can change into flowers.

Suppose we're actually wrong about the mutability of objects. Suppose everything around us is more holographic than we realize. Maybe it's actually possible for me to turn into a flower, it's just than I haven't realized how to do it yet. This is one of the values of metaphysical possibility. It allows us to ponder the possibility that we're wrong in fundamental ways. If reference is bound to description, then my imagination is hobbled.

So a few people now have mentioned 'physics' - as though 'physics' could tell us what we call houses and what we call flowers; but this of course is a silly idea, as though one could read our language 'off' the physical characteristics of the world. As though a kind of pre-established harmony existed between word and thing. How ironic that those who speak of physics are theologians in disguise. What is missed is language - human language, and what we do with it.

So a few people now have mentioned 'physics' - as though 'physics' could tell us what we call houses and what we call flowers; but this of course is a silly idea, as though one could read our language 'off' the physical characteristics of the world. As though a kind of pre-established harmony existed between word and thing. How ironic that those who speak of physics are theologians in disguise. What is missed is language - human language, and what we do with it. — StreetlightX

Hey, I'm on of those people, and I don't think I'm being theological! (though if I am, I guess there are worse things to be)

I mentioned physics because I think that's the only level on which the example comes close to doing what you're saying it's supposed to do. So, again, we can imagine an architect working with biological materials, creating a house that, literally, becomes a flower. This would be a novelty, and a lot people would 'gram themselves in front of it, but more or less everything we understand 'house' and 'flower' to mean would remain intact. It's not difficult at all to integrate the phrase 'houses turn into flowers' into our current understanding. What would be difficult, for us, our language-community, is to imagine a house not designed to become a flower, spontaneously coming a flower. But why is that hard, for us?

It's a matter - or at least, this is how I read what you're bringing up - of bringing history and 'materiality' back into the fold: what are the singularities of the situation that we need to pay attention to; the inflexion points, the points of instablity or opportunity or pain (in this time and in this space) which can be exploited or brought into play such that something new (= new meaning, new significance) can be introduced (in the most pragmatic(?) way). — Sx

Our understanding of physics is part of our situation, part of our singularity. So, double-ironically, you seem to be treating physics, theologically, as some pre-given reservoir from which 'our' language ought to be separated. But of course, our understanding of physics is, itself, part of our language, our situation. And it's that part of our language, our common understanding, which could be shaken by the example. Otherwise, all you have is the grammable flower-house, which is cool, but doesn't really change much.

I'd forgotten you'd mentioned physics. In any case you weren't who I had in mind.

So, again, we can imagine an architect working with biological materials, creating a house that, literally, becomes a flower. — csalisbury

All I'll say is that I what I'm arguing for can accommodate this (as I've already acknowledged!), and, that this is not an example of reading meaning off physics.

All I'll say is that I what I'm arguing for can accommodate this (as I've already acknowledged!), and, that this is not an example of reading meaning off physics. — StreetlightX

Oh, Iagree, I didn't mean that as an example of reading meaning off physics.

What I mean is that our understanding of what makes something something is very bound up with physics. By that, I'm not making any metaphysical claim, where physics would be the ultimate, or most literal, description of what is. I just mean the process by whichwe determine the disruptiveness of a certain claim often relies very heavily on physical possibility/impossibility. Even if our concepts of houses and flowers weren't read off the physical, we've since read the physical back into them. Since most people today are working with a background idea of a kind of physical univocity, most people have no problem with houses becoming flowers, provided everything checks out on a physical level. I think I understand the point of the OP, but I also think the example literally doesn't do what it's supposed to (by relying on an outdated man-made vs organic dichotomy)

What I mean is that our singular situation is one in which many categories (especially ones involving physical objects)are treated much more fluidly than in older societies, because there is an underlying sense of ultimate physical equivalence. Anything can be something else, or both, with a little help

Which is why i think the people discussing physical reality both are and aren't missing the point. I think it does matter that the example has to force itself to work, it needs a lot of intepretive scaffolding.

When you say "house" you could be specifying something that can't change into a flower. That would be Kripke's essence.

My only point was that where "houses" works as a rigid designator, you don't have to be talking about different ones (from regular ones) to talk about them turning into flowers.

How ironic that those who speak of physics are theologians in disguise. — StreetlightX

Why ironic? We replaced The Good Book with The Book of Nature; we didn't stop reading, (or writing). Of course the authority of physics replaced the authority of God, and of course it pretends otherwise. But we love Big Brother and we love the Bomb because serotonin is nature, as god is love, or something.

I kinda think the otherness of science wrt religion is no more absolute than the otherness of flowers wrt houses. But maybe that's my brain turning to mush?

For the purposes of the point being made, the deconstruction of the distinction - while perfectly valid - is simply not relevant. — StreetlightX

Was thinking about this. What was your original point? "Facts are given against a background of meaning and significance by which they count as facts of a certain sort." Confronted with a certain challenge to this background, "we would have to revise not only our facts (what we say), but also how we say. "

So the point is to point out the normative conventionality of facts. What would make a deconstruction of the distinction relevant? It could be relevant if a specifically Heideggerian destruction or Derridean deconstruction questioned the justification of the distinction, in the dialectically oppositional way it is presented by Cavell, in the first place. There are certainly regions, modalities, groupings to be pointed to, with associated normative features, but when it comes to the 'between regions' , I don't Heidegger or Derrida as wanting to accord any special relevance to this in-between such as to imply a centeredness to normative conventions. This is what fascinates me most about their work. Perhaps it isn't specifically relevant to your point in that it doesn't contradict what has been uncovered about normativity and factuality, it just turns Cavell and Lacan against themselves to extend the economy of the between' to the 'within'. .

I don't know much about Kripke but it seems weird to talk about 'houses' as a rigid designator. don't those only apply to individuals or natural kinds?

I don't know much about Kripke but it seems weird to talk about 'houses' as a rigid designator. don't those only apply to individuals or natural kinds? — csalisbury

It would have to be "The houses are..." We could change the metaphysical background of the statement and still be picking out the same objects by "the houses."

Are there cases where we can extend the concept of a rigid designator to talk about a general term?

I don't think the OP is saying the concept of a house changes if its metaphysical backdrop changes. Was it?

. There are certainly regions, modalities, groupings to be pointed to, with associated normative features, but when it comes to the 'between regions' , I don't Heidegger or Derrida as wanting to accord any special relevance to this in-between such as to imply a centeredness to normative conventions. — Joshs

But in talking about the triplet of examples (in cavell, or wittgenstein) there's clearly a felt, intuitive, difference between the first two and the third. Maybe there's no ultimate metaphysical difference, but then you have to explain how the indifferent background creates the felt, intutive, difference between the first two and the third. So, ultimately, the long derridean detour brings you right back to where you already were.

there's clearly a felt, intuitive, difference between the first two and the third. — csalisbury

Do you mean a felt, intuitive difference between inhabiting and making one's way through a normative sphere vs making the transition from one normative sphere to another? What I find radical in Heidegger and Derrida is their deconstruction of the idea of structure, state, pattern, norm. Whereas for authors from Hegel and Sartre to Nietzsche and Wittgenstein, structures are defined in terms of a center that determines them in opposition to other structures, Heidegger and Derrida find movement and transformation WITHIN the idea of structure itself. Heidegger discuses what is 'felt' in terms of Befindlichkeit, attunement, affect, emotoin, mood. He understands these as the way in which I find myself affected by what I am involved with. Affectivity for Heidegger is inseparable from his notion of understanding and temporality. They point to the 'in betweenness' of experiencing the world at every moment, the fact that I am myself by being absent to myself, being beyond and ahead of myself, existing by exiting from myself. This is a radically mobile notion of being, which begins prior to any thinking of normative structures. One could argue that for Heidegger and Derrida there is more or less accelerated thinking, for instance the difference between a text that clings to metaphysical assumptions which Derrida deconstructs, vs a text that overtly recognizes itself as deconstructive.. But here there is not a difference in kind between one form of thinking and another.

I 'm not sure about all of that.

I know that in regard to this:

(1) Unwatered seeds do not turn into flowers.
(2) Acorns do not turn into flowers.
(3) Houses do not turn into flowers

you were gesturing toward the possibility of deconstructing the difference, so that there was no real difference in kind.

But - there is a factual difference in kind. Namely, the understanding of them as different, by english speakers. That has to be accounted for. As does any distinction between center and margins. We couldn't deconstruct the opposition between center and margin if we didn't already understand the distinction. Maybe the distinction is grounded in this or that; still the difference is there, as a fact of distinction.. So deconstruct away, but you'll need to reconstruct in order to explain the fact of the distinction itself.