You have to convince yourself before you can even try to convince an other. — TheMadFool

But if there are no others, what does convincing oneself mean? If I'm alone and there is no world outside me, it doesn't matter what I believe. It's all equally real or unreal. Even reaching for a proof enacts a concern with getting it right. The standards driving the process are social.

Descartes? — TheMadFool

Yeah. Good example. So the skeptic starts with this framework of being a voice and an eye trapped behind a screen, a fairly detailed and wild assumption, and takes it utterly for granted. 'I don't believe anything, except that there's a screen between me and everything.'

The skeptic doesn't know he has a hand but is sure he has a voice, that he ought not believe without proof, that he understands correctly what the voice (which must be his is saying). This proximity of the 'inner' voice is a massive assumption. It's 'me.' Those words in my head are 'me.' Why is the skeptic sure that he is a singular consciousness? That words imply some kind of consciousness or 'mind stuff' opposed to 'non-mind stuff.'?

The general point is that to be intelligible at all is to presuppose all kinds of things, which function as background to our foregrounded concerns.

Why does the skeptic not doubt the existence of the mental, of the inner? Perhaps because the skeptic assumes without proof that language/thought is 'inside.' — path

Well, call it mental, subjective, inner or whatever, the skeptic has doubt because of issues with perception, memory, equally good arguments for and against whatever, and the like. But it doesn't have to be solipsistic. It could be an inter-subjective kind of skepticism where we agree on human experience, but getting from there to claims about the external world are seen as problematic.

It could be an inter-subjective kind of skepticism where we agree on human experience, but getting from there to claims about the external world are seen as problematic. — Marchesk

That kind makes sense. I think much of it boils down to how we use the word 'real' in various ways. I doubt that our skill at using this word can be converted to some explicit, exhaustive theory.

I doubt that our skill at using this word can be converted to some explicit, exhaustive theory. — path

Yeah, probably not.

By the way, I like the spirit of skepticism. I like instrumentalism as a philosophy of science. I somewhat object to saying that a table, for instance, is 'really' atoms, etc. Or that the table is 'really' sensations. This is like trying to pin down a network of interdependent meanings by making some of them fundamental. The world and language function as a glob.

There's something like a 'constructivist' paradigm that can be taken for granted where philosophers are tempted to build up the world as experienced from 'matter' or 'sensation' or whatever. I don't think that it's wrong. It squares with certain other intellectual achievements. It's just limited, and I like becoming aware of strategies that we never consciously chose but just absorbed from the conversation around us. The apparently necessary thereby becomes contingent and the conversation is enlarged.

Well said. I'm not a skeptic, but I think their arguments are meaningful, and can't be as easily dismissed as waving one's hands about.

I agree, with the exception of the solipsism --if we even want to count that as skepticism. And even solipsism was/is a great goad for thinking about language.

On Certainty Post 5

"My life shews that I know or am certain that there is a chair over there, or a door, and so on.--I tell a friend e.g. "Take that chair over there", "Shut the door", etc, etc. (OC, 7)"

Our lives show that we have certain beliefs, and many of these beliefs are shown by our actions. The very act of sitting at a computer and typing shows my belief that there is a keyboard; that I have hands; that I am controlling my fingers; that what I type is saved to a hard drive, etc, etc. I don't even think about it, i.e., I don't think to myself and say, "Is this really a keyboard?" After all there is no reason to doubt it, and even if I did doubt it, would that doubt really amount to anything? That I am certain of these beliefs is reflected in what I do. We all act in ways that show our certainty of the world around us. Occasionally things do cause us to doubt our surroundings, but usually these things are out of the ordinary. I am referring to our sensory experiences, i.e., generally we can trust our senses even if occasionally we draw the wrong conclusion based on what we see, hear, smell, etc.

The backdrop of reality grounds us, if this wasn't the case, then the skeptic would have an argument. However, the skeptic tends to doubt things that shouldn't be doubted. They doubt that which is outside the language-game of doubting; and they violate the rules of doubting within the language-game of doubting. Similarly, Moore is extending the use of the word know beyond its normal use, beyond the grammar associated with the word.

Our lives show that we have certain beliefs, and many of these beliefs are shown by our actions. — Sam26

So the discussion between Moore and the skeptic, and the one here to which you have not much responded are in a sense, fake. One cannot have a discussion about whether or not one is having a discussion. Having the discussion at all is showing the certain belief, which one is then purporting to prove or doubt.

But if there are no others, what does convincing oneself mean? If I'm alone and there is no world outside me, it doesn't matter what I believe. It's all equally real or unreal. Even reaching for a proof enacts a concern with getting it right. The standards driving the process are social. — path

Firstly, there is no necessity that others should not exist for the idea of convincing yourself to fly. I'm certain that many people engage in the activity of proving/trying to prove a proposition to themselves without the urge to share the proof with others.

Yeah. Good example. So the skeptic starts with this framework of being a voice and an eye trapped behind a screen, a fairly detailed and wild assumption, and takes it utterly for granted. 'I don't believe anything, except that there's a screen between me and everything.'

The skeptic doesn't know he has a hand but is sure he has a voice, that he ought not believe without proof, that he understands correctly what the voice (which must be his is saying). This proximity of the 'inner' voice is a massive assumption. It's 'me.' Those words in my head are 'me.' Why is the skeptic sure that he is a singular consciousness? That words imply some kind of consciousness or 'mind stuff' opposed to 'non-mind stuff.'?

The general point is that to be intelligible at all is to presuppose all kinds of things, which function as background to our foregrounded concerns. — path

I guess the only inference that can be made from thinking is a thinker and while you're of the opinion that no more is possible, I'm looking at the glass half-full and say no less too.

I guess the only inference that can be made from thinking is a thinker and while you're of the opinion that no more is possible, I'm looking at the glass half-full and say no less too. — TheMadFool

I don't think you grasp what I'm gesturing at, which is admittedly a strange thing. What is thinking? Does this involve 'mental' stuff? Why believe in mental stuff is something as equally obvious as the external world is doubt-worthy? Don't all these 'concepts' live together?

The move from thinking to a thinker is substantial. But we can consider a more basic move: the move from a sequence of words into a cohesive voice that is mine. The skeptic starts not from zero but from a complicated assumption of selfhood and some 'mental' realm that acts as kind of screen between this self and an 'outer' world that may or may not 'really' be there.

Do you see this massive framework that is utterly taken for granted? Just taking the 'I' for granted as some unity of a voice that is assumed to be 'interior'? The (pseudo-) skeptic starts with an inherited situating paradigm as if it were necessary. He walks across the floor to check whether the wall is real, not noticing his trust in the floor.

I'm trying to point out a massive enactment of faith or trust that makes any particular doubt intelligible. Our skeptic doubts the 'outside' but not that the inside-outside thing might itself be a radical misunderstanding, etc. He takes the 'I' utterly for granted.

Finally, if some of you want to learn how Wittgenstein examines words using the methods in the Philosophical Investigations - I believe On Certainty puts Wittgenstein's methods (the methods of the PI) to use, i.e., we can learn how to apply his methods by a close examination of his notes. — Sam26

Yep. Indeed, the method of OC is far more important and interesting than any conclusions that it might be thought to draw.

It's important to realise that OC is an unfinished work. Any consideration made therein ought be treated as tentative.

Trite.

The idea that was start in some kind of private mental space and have to somehow construct or justify the world from there is massive and misleading assumption. — path

:up:

Descartes' very bad idea.

Descartes' very bad idea. — Banno

Right. It's fascinating how something inherited like this old bad idea can become the 'ground zero' of a game of doubt. I remember being stuck in this framework myself once. It's the glasses we don't know we are wearing that get us.

What did you understand by "thinker" in my last reply to you?

On Certainty Post 6

"The difference between the concept of 'knowing' and the concept of 'being certain' isn't of any great importance at all except where "I know" is meant to mean: I can't be wrong. In a law-court, for example, "I am certain" could replace "I know" in every piece of testimony. We might even imagine its being forbidden to say "I know" there. [A passage in Wilhelm Meister, where "You know" or "You knew" is used in the sense "You were certain", the fact being different from what he knew.] (OC, 8)."

This passage seems to be straight forward, i.e., in many instances we can use the two words know and certain interchangeably; and this is probably where some confusion occurs. Except, as Wittgenstein says where it's "...meant to mean: I can't be wrong." - this seems to be a reference to Moore's propositions. Moore seems to be saying that here is a hand, and I can't be wrong about this, or many of the other propositions Moore uses. There seems to be something special about Moore's propositions, and Wittgenstein picks up on this. It's probably why Wittgenstein has some sympathy for Moore's argument.

It seems to be the case that Wittgenstein uses the word certain in both the subjective sense and the objective sense. The latter is akin to knowing, the former is reflective of my inner state of subjectivity.

What did you understand by "thinker" in my last reply to you? — TheMadFool

I may never know. We've been talking about language in Bedrock Beliefs. One of the themes is how automatic it is. If I try to tell you what I understood by 'thinker,' that will be a fresh speech act on my part. And then you can ask me what I meant by some word in that speech act.

This is connected to using words 'under erasure.' Even as we criticize them, they must retain a certain legibility that makes such criticism possible. And it's never about a simple denial that there is a unified consciousness or that there is a thinker. Philosophers can't legislate the ordinary intelligibility of these words. They are radically dependent on their blind skill, and theoretical discourse cannot be self-founded or 'purified' of this 'thrown-ness.' It can and does move against such 'throwness' by articulating and otherwise blindly enacted paradigm that only then becomes optional. As I see it, such an 'escape' is always only partial and near the surface. The thinker (singular) is always mostly the plural 'we' among whom these tokens signify in an enacted, social form of life.

I may never know. We've been talking about language in Bedrock Beliefs. One of the themes is how automatic it is. If I try to tell you what I understood by 'thinker,' that will be a fresh speech act on my part. And then you can ask me what I meant by some word in that speech act. — path

Well, you were basically objecting to Descartes before in the context of his cogito argument. I did a climb down and agreed with you that an "I" is, perhaps, too complex an entity to be inferred merely from thought. In what sense is my "thinker", here merely an entity whose function is thought, inappropriate?

Well, you were basically objecting to Descartes before in the context of his cogito argument. I did a climb down and agreed with you that an "I" is, perhaps, too complex an entity to be inferred merely from thought. In what sense is my "thinker", here merely an entity whose function is thought, inappropriate? — TheMadFool

It's not that there's something wrong with postulating a thinker. If I were to gripe, I might say that concepts are interdependent, that our understanding of thinking is entangled with a general understanding of the world. But the original issue is that radical skepticism is 'impossible' in that it needs to presuppose some thinker who experiences representations. In that sense it's not radical enough. It takes an old-school philosophical set up for granted. I'm suggesting that we can't intelligibly get behind some kind of setup like this. Why is taking a stream of words as a unified 'I' acceptable to our radical skeptic when the external world is not? How are reality and doubt intelligible apart from others?

But the original issue is that radical skepticism is 'impossible' in that it needs to presuppose some thinker who experiences representations. In that sense it's not radical enough — path

So, your conception of radical doubt would be to doubt everything. If memory serves, Descartes did exactly that but came to realize he couldn't doubt the doubter for he couldn't deny the truth of experiencing doubt and neither can anyone else in my opinion.

So, your conception of radical doubt would be to doubt everything. If memory serves, Descartes did exactly that but came to realize he couldn't doubt the doubter for he couldn't deny the truth of experiencing doubt and neither can anyone else in my opinion. — TheMadFool

Well I guess I agree that we can't doubt the doubter in some sense. But why can we doubt the world if we can't doubt the doubter? What can doubt mean without a world? What's the difference between a dream and reality if there are no other people? I guess I'm saying that the doubter is only intelligible against the background of a shared world, that all of this is built-in to language in some sense.

In what sense is my "thinker", here merely an entity whose function is thought, inappropriate? — TheMadFool

I don't think W. goes into Descartes at all. But it makes an interesting contrast. firstly, Descartes is explicitly looking for a foundation for knowledge about which he cannot be wrong.

in many instances we can use the two words know and certain interchangeably; and this is probably where some confusion occurs. Except, as Wittgenstein says where it's "...meant to mean: I can't be wrong." — Sam26

Descartes finds, or thinks he finds his justified belief that cannot be wrong. But because he does it on his own, in a 'meditation', his knowledge is not of the external world, but of a purported internal world. I suspect W. found it beneath his dignity to even consider such nonsense - or else he never bothered to read Descartes. He wasn't a great reader of the canon.

Moore at least tries to start in the world, by waving his hands and addressing his fellows. but his project is Descartes' project.

Wittgenstein rejects the whole project to find a foundation for knowledge. Whatever is knowable is doubtable and knowing and doubting are activities in the world, that is to say in a context. so one can always imagine a context - waking up in hospital strapped to a gurney, where one might reasonably doubt that one has a hand,. So one sees that both knowledge and doubt are both equally justified or unjustified by the context and this context is the world within which knowledge and doubt can exist.

So the picture one might choose to replace the idea of knowledge as a building with foundations is perhaps more of a boat that floats on the Sea of Circumstance.

all of this is built-in to language in some sense. — path

Are you suggesting language is more than what people think it is - nothing but a mode of communication. Do you feel that language isn't just a passive medium of exchanging information but actively modifies the information itself? I couldn't word it better so you'll have to make do with that.

So one sees that both knowledge and doubt are both equally justified or unjustified by the context and this context is the world within which knowledge and doubt can exist. — unenlightened

I'm tempted to call you out on what you said which prima facie looks like a contradiction. Do you mind elaborating? I may have missed the point.

So the picture one might choose to replace the idea of knowledge as a building with foundations is perhaps more of a boat that floats on the Sea of Circumstance. — unenlightened

I see. What other way to build knowledge on is there?

On Certainty Post 7

"Now do I, in the course of my life, make sure I know that here is a hand-my own hands, that is (OC 9)?"

The fact that we don't doubt that we have hands, at least in most cases, tells us something important about Moorean propositions. It tells us that they have a grounding that makes them exempt from doubt, at least in the contexts we are describing. This is also true of most of our sensory experiences, viz., those experiences with the world around us. Moreover, it is these experiences that seem to all fit Wittgenstein's bedrock propositions.

Descartes' very bad idea. — Banno

Ya, I think it is poor philosophy.

So the picture one might choose — unenlightened

This one?

On Certainty Post 8

"I know that a sick man is lying here? Nonsense! I am sitting at his bedside, I am looking attentively into his face.-So I don't know, then, that there is a sick man lying here? Neither the question nor the assertion makes sense. Any more than the assertion "I am here", which I might yet use at any moment, if suitable occasion presented itself.---Then is 2 x 2 = 4" nonsense in the same way, and not a proposition of arithmetic, apart from particular occasions? "2 x 2 = 4" is a true proposition of arithmetic-not "on particular occasions" nor "always"--but the spoken or written sentence "2 x 2 = 4" in Chinese might have a different meaning or be out and out nonsense, and from this is seen that it is only in use that the proposition has its sense. And "I know that there's a sick man lying here", used in an unsuitable situation, seems not to be nonsense but rather seems matter-of-course, only because one can fairly easily imagine a situation to fit it, and one thinks that the words "I know that..." are always in place where there is doubt, and hence even where the expression of doubt would be unintelligible (OC 10)."

Consider the following: We are sitting together visiting a friend in the hospital. We are in a well lit room, and we are not under the influence of drugs or anything that would alter our perceptions, so there is no reason to doubt that we are looking at a sick friend. I say, "There's a sick man lying here. In fact, I know there is a sick man lying here. It's our friend Bob." You respond, "What's your point? Obviously there is a sick man lying here. Did you have any doubts?" Notice how out of place the proposition sounds. It is important to realize that if there was a reason to doubt the statement, then it would not be out of place. For example, if we were standing outside Bob's room, and it was not well lit, and you asked, "Is that Bob in there?" And I replied, "Yes, it's Bob." You ask, "Are you sure (the doubt), it's hard to see in here?" I respond, "I know that's Bob, because a few minutes before you arrived, I was in there talking with him." In this last example note how the use of "I know..." fits together with the doubt, and the resolving of the doubt. In the former example, where a doubt does not arise, the use of "I know..." seems like nonsense or silliness.

The problem it seems, is that because we can imagine a situation that fits Moore's propositions, then it follows from that Moore's propositions are good examples of what we know. But the problem may be that some of these propositions will work within the language-game, and some will not. One needs to understand the context. Therefore, is it proper to say, as Moore did, "I know I have hands." One cannot answer the doubts of the skeptic by simply using the word know, as if the utterance of the word conveys that you really do know. In fact, the statement that one knows is no more intelligible in this situation, than the statement that one doubts that one has hands. Both people are making the same mistake, viz., using the words out of the language-game that make them intelligible.

Wittgenstein seems to be making the same point about the mathematical proposition 2 + 2 = 4, i.e., when it is used outside of its normal range of use (outside the language-game in which it resides), it too, is out of place.

Consider how we use the word know in our everyday lives. We take a course in algebra, history, ethics, or physics, and the teacher wants to know if you know the subject. Is it enough to say to the teacher "I know algebra." Is that enough to alleviate the doubts of your teacher? Obviously not, we have to demonstrate our knowledge? We take quizzes, we take tests, and we answer questions in class, this is what convinces others that we have knowledge. Once the doubts are eliminated, then the question of knowing does not generally arise. If we say in a court of law that so-and-so is guilty of murder, then hopefully the evidence will convince us, so that very little doubt, or even no doubt remains. A claim to knowledge is a special kind of claim that requires an objective standard, so that we generally have no doubts that we have such knowledge. Moreover, the claim to knowledge is not a claim of absolute certainty. We do not need absolute certainty to say that we know that a proposition is true or false, but we do need a high degree of certainty. This is often seen in courts of law when the jury is told to disregard doubts that are not reasonable.

What possible doubt could there be in the examples above? Doubting has to have a context beyond the expression of the word doubt. Just as knowledge must have a context beyond simply expressing the word know. Just because someone is able to use the words know and doubt in a proposition, that does not mean that the proposition has sense.

Using the word know as Moore used it, is senseless, in fact, it creates bogus philosophical problems. Many so-called philosophical problems are just as senseless. The way we talk about free will and determinism, time, knowledge, and a whole panoply of other philosophical ideas, propositions, and words are also just as problematic. Once you come to understand what Wittgenstein is saying, or trying to do via his method, then many of the problems of philosophy simply vanish as pseudo-problems - many, but not all.

Are you suggesting language is more than what people think it is - nothing but a mode of communication. Do you feel that language isn't just a passive medium of exchanging information but actively modifies the information itself? I couldn't word it better so you'll have to make do with that. — TheMadFool

The idea that language is a medium is something I'm trying to put in question (following and paraphrasing my influences.) Is riding a bike with no hands a medium? Is chopping a carrot a medium? Why are we so quick to think of humans making noises and marks as a medium?

How sure are we that there is such a thing as meaning or information? Obviously these exist as tokens in human doings, but do we really know what we are talking about? Or do we use these words in the same way that we ride a bike? With a certain skill that we can't get clear about. (This also applies to words like 'know' and 'doubt' and 'really.')