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. — TheMadFool

I can say more stuff, I don't know if it will help. I'm not entirely certain I have understood Wittgenstein aright. And I'm not sure what you think is a contradiction in what I have said.

A recap. You cannot disagree with me, without presuming that there is someone, or at least something said, to disagree with. I contradict myself, therefore I am. But as you formulate it: "un contradicts himself, therefore he is."

The reality of our discussion cannot be a matter of dispute in our discussion. Our discussion thus forms an indisputable context within which other things can be known and/or doubted.

Of course tomorrow, you might be down the pub discussing with the barman, and doubting whether you had a discussion about Wittgenstein, with some weirdo called unenlightened. And in the context of your discussion down the pub, this discussion becomes doubtable, or knowable.

The context is the sea of circumstance, ever changing, but always the support

can say more stuff, I don't know if it will help. I'm not entirely certain I have understood Wittgenstein aright. And I'm not sure what you think is a contradiction in what I have said.

A recap. You cannot disagree with me, without presuming that there is someone, or at least something said, to disagree with. I contradict myself, therefore I am. But as you formulate it: "un contradicts himself, therefore he is."

The reality of our discussion cannot be a matter of dispute in our discussion. Our discussion thus forms an indisputable context within which other things can be known and/or doubted.

Of course tomorrow, you might be down the pub discussing with the barman, and doubting whether you had a discussion about Wittgenstein, with some weirdo called unenlightened. And in the context of your discussion down the pub, this discussion becomes doubtable, or knowable.

The context is the sea of circumstance, ever changing, but always the support — unenlightened

What exactly do you mean by "sea of circumstance"?

I can imagine a setting of circumstances A, B and C, etc. In A, we doubt B and C; In B, we doubt A and C; in C we doubt A and B, and so on. Noting that while in A, we're certain of A, while in B, we're certain of B and so on, it follows that we're both certain of each circumstance (A, B, C,...) and also in doubt about them.

To my reckoning, each circumstance presents a dilemma. Should I in a circumstance A, be certain of A or should I preemptively doubt it? (For) I most certainly will when I've left A and entered another circumstance, say, B? Which of, either certainty or doubt, is true of the circumstances we find ourselves in? Should I be certain, as I am when in the thick of a given circumstance or should I doubt, as I will, when I view a given circumstance experienced from the vantage point of another circumstance?

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.') — path

Well, how do you wish to go about putting into question the general conception that language is a medium?

What exactly do you mean by "sea of circumstance"? — TheMadFool

The circumstances of your question are that you and I are connected via the internet and communicating via some electronic device through a website dedicated to philosophy. Am in the UK and you are ... Well I don't know, but you do. So there is a whole physics of electricity and a whole network of interconnection that is unquestionable, because it is the condition for your question to appear on my screen. That is the sea of circumstance on which your question floats. It's not that you cannot question any of that, or wonder if I am not some program in your computer or on the website, but there's no point asking me about that, is there? "Are you real?" is not a sensible question.

Incidentally, I see elsewhere that the op has left the site for political reasons, so I think I will leave the discussion here. It's 'posed to be about W. not my theory, and needs an expertise I don't have.

:up:

Well, how do you wish to go about putting into question the general conception that language is a medium? — TheMadFool

Since this thread has been abandoned by the OP, I'll just refer you to some of my other posts. Perhaps you can jump in on some of those other threads. Or, if you start one on the issue, I'd enjoy participating.

:ok:

11. We just do not see how very specialized the use of "I know" is.
12. - For "I know" seems to describe a state of affairs which guarantees what is known, guarantees it as a fact. One always forgets the expression "I thought I knew".

Since they flow on, best treat them together.

Note seems.

"I know I have two hands" does not provide the certainty Moore seeks.

I once had this conversation with an Afghani man who had both legs blown off by an American fragment bomb. He assured me that Moore was wrong, and that he did indeed need on occasion to check that, in his case, he really did not have his legs.

And I think it here important to go back to the following:

"2x2=4" is a true proposition of arithmetic - not "on particular occasions" nor "always" - but the spoken or written sentence "2x2=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.

What we know depends on use; and hence, as you see from the case of my friend Soraj, on our circumstances.

13. For it is not as though the proposition "It is so" could be inferred from someone else's utterance: "I know it is so". Nor from the utterance together with its not being a lie. - But can't I infer "It is so" from my own utterance "I know etc."? Yes; and also "There is a hand there" follows from the proposition "He knows that there's a hand there". But from his utterance "I know..." it does not follow that he does know it.

There's some beautiful analysis of first, second and third person accounts here.

Anyone care to unpack this?

14. That he does know remains to be shown.

Shown, not said.

15. It needs to be shown that no mistake was possible. Giving the assurance "I know" doesn't suffice. For it is after all only an assurance that I can't be making a mistake, and it needs to be objectively established that I am not making a mistake about that.

The emphasis on showing is in the original.

If we are thinking of knowing in terms of justification - a misleading term - then the justification here is a showing. "Here is my hand - no mistake is possible".

Here, to know is to be certain.

As I understand it, we can never get outside of our blind skill and finally say what 'I know' means. We can and sometimes do use this blind skill to imperfectly articulate what's going on. I think Wittgenstein is doing that in the quotes above. And you are analyzing a use of 'I know' in context and doing a translation, a fresh creative act that relies on your blind skill with English.

At the core of all well-founded belief lies belief that is unfounded.
...
Does a child believe that milk exists? Or does it know that milk exists? Does a cat know that a mouse exists?
...
Are we to say that the knowledge that there are physical objects comes very early or very late?” — Wittgenstein

First of all, we learn language by interacting with others, and thus we can refer our private feelings to ourselves only after we have learned how to refer and how to distinguish between "private" and "public" in the first place. Thus the sense of what is private is derivative upon non-private communication, and there is, then, a holistic connection between any so-called private language and language's ordinary uses. Braver links this with Heidegger's holism in his description of tools in Being and Time, where the use of a tool, such as a hammer, presupposes a non-thematic understanding of an entire world of references within which the hammer functions, and this includes involvements with other human beings (other Dasein). In this regard, our existential being-in-the-world is our primary experience of everything, and it must simply be described rather than theoretically reconstructed, for such reconstruction would be a falsification. — link

https://ndpr.nd.edu/news/groundless-grounds-a-study-of-wittgenstein-and-heidegger/

I'm still not sure how to interpret 'showing.'

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. — unenlightened

I'm dumbfounded that this was not remarked upon...

we can never get outside of our blind skill and finally say what 'I know' means. — path

That implies there is something "outside of our blind skill ". There isn't. We can't say what cannot be said...

Which is a problem with those systematisers, Heidegger for one, who would say despite this.

...hence, "shown".

That implies there is something "outside of our blind skill ". There isn't. We can't say what cannot be said... — Banno

I'm tempted to agree with you. The thought of blind skill threatens the philosophical project. The fantasy is that we can take some position on the outside and legislate. The insight, if we want to call it that, is that metaphysics (including theory of knowledge) is impossible. But all of these words are caught up in that same blind skill, in conventions and slippage that can't be controlled from the outside, some dry room from which we peep down on the storm.

Which is a problem with those systematisers, Heidegger for one, who would say despite this — Banno

Heidegger is easy to hate, and I hate him half of the time. But he's also great at times. I guess he is systematic during some phases, but at other times he's highly anti-systematic. I like him as a critic, as a destroyer of metaphysics based on the subject. What Braver does to connect Heidegger and Wittgenstein in Groundless Grounds is pretty great.

...hence, "shown". — Banno

Do you mean something like lived?

16. "If I know something, then I also know that I know it, etc." amounts to: "I know that" means "I am incapable of being wrong about that." But whether I am so must admit of being established objectively.

I know that I know that I know that I know... implies I am incapable of being wrong... that doubt has no place here. Juxtaposed to objectively...

I'm reading this as preparing the ground for the contention that knowledge cannot be private.

18. "I know" often means: I have the proper grounds for my statement. So if the other person is acquainted with the language-game, he would admit that I know. The other, if he is acquainted with the language-game, must be able to imagine how one may know something of the kind.

More preparation. Knowing as part of a language game, with all that this implies.

19. The statement "I know that here is a hand" may then be continued: "for it's my hand that I'm looking at." Then a reasonable man will not doubt that I know. - Nor will the idealist; rather he will say that he was not dealing with the practical doubt which is being dismissed, but there is a further doubt behind that one. - That this is an illusion has to be shown in a different way.

20. "Doubting the existence of the external world" does not mean for example doubting the existence of a planet, which later observations proved to exist. - Or does Moore want to say that knowing that here is his hand is different in kind from knowing the existence of the planet Saturn? Otherwise it would be possible to point out the discovery of the planet Saturn to the doubters and say that its existence has been proved, and hence the existence of the external world as well.

"Here is a hand", if it is to count against the idealist, cannot be part of the same sort of language game as "Here is Saturn". Rather it needs to be part of the setting up or explaining how that language game works. It's showing how the game is played.

blind skill — path

What's blind about it? The term's an odd choice.

21. Moore's view really comes down to this: the concept 'know' is analogous to the concepts 'believe', 'surmise', 'doubt', 'be convinced' in that the statement "I know..." can't be a mistake. And if that is so, then there can be an inference from such an utterance to the truth of an assertion. And here the form "I thought I knew" is being overlooked. - But if this latter is inadmissible, then a mistake in the assertion must be logically impossible too. And anyone who is acquainted with the language-game must realize this - an assurance from a reliable man that he knows cannot contribute anything.

So here is the core criticism of Moore: If his argument is to work he must be using "I know that..." to mean "I am certain that..."; and then the inference "it is true that..." will follow. But we do say "I thought I knew that..."; and hence, certainty need not follow.

But then Witti adds: "an assurance from a reliable man that he knows cannot contribute anything." And further,

22. It would surely be remarkable if we had to believe the reliable person who says "I can't be wrong"; or who says "I am not wrong".

Which seems odd; then qualifies that with

23. If I don't know whether someone has two hands (say, whether they have been amputated or not) I shall believe his assurance that he has two hands, if he is trustworthy. And if he says he knows it, that can only signify to me that he has been able to make sure, and hence that his arms are e.g. not still concealed by coverings and bandages, etc.etc . My believing the trustworthy man stems from my admitting that it is possible for him to make sure. But someone who says that perhaps there are no physical objects makes no such admission.

All this seems to be playing with the notion of justification, looking at how the language of the game "I know..." works. Methodologically he is employing his own admonition from PI 66, where he talks about defining "game": "Don't think, Look!".

SO to the methodological point: don't start a philosophical conversation with "First let us define our terms".

24. The idealist's question would be something like: "What right have I not to doubt the existence of my hands?" (And to that the answer can't be: I know that they exist.) But someone who asks such a question is overlooking the fact that a doubt about existence only works in a language-game. Hence, that we should first have to ask: what would such a doubt be like?, and don't understand this straight off.

Moore's "I know I have a hand" needs to remove all doubt; but "I know" is not strong enough to do this. "I am certain" suffers a similar fate. But "It is certain..." does not. You might agree that I think I know, and still maintain that I am wrong; but if you agree that it is certain, then you cannot then say that I am wrong. (probably needs unpacking... complicity is achieved in the move from first person to third person).

25. One may be wrong even about "there being a hand here". Only in particular circumstances is it impossible. - "Even in a calculation one can be wrong - only in certain circumstances one can't."

Here he leaves Moore for a while, looking instead at rule following. Why?

There is a way of following a rule that is shown in implementing it, as opposed to merely stating it.

28. What is 'learning a rule'? - This.

What is 'making a mistake in applying it'? - This. And what is pointed to here is something indeterminate.

This... shown, not said. We can recognise when the rule has been followed, or not. It does not follow that we can state all the circumstances in which the rule might be broken.

Certainty is as it were a tone of voice in which one declares how things are, but one does not infer from the tone of voice that one is justified.

What's blind about it? The term's an odd choice. — Banno

It's the way that words just pour out of us in situations. We react appropriately, like we are riding a bike. I think of someone writing a dictionary as looking around at what happens and squeezing out the least wrong summary that he can, and I understand as like a work of translation.

Along these lines, the same word used in a million different instances has a million different 'meanings.' You and I could look at these individual cases and perhaps agree on some further elaboration. We could talk about what the word means in exactly that context (ignoring that fact that we're never in exactly that context but only imagining). As we did so we'd be using the same blind skill. The words would pour out from nowhere, with more or less hesitation or rewriting. So the skill is blind as taste is blind, though of course we do create fresh words to articulate/elaborate aesthetic reactions.

31. The propositions which one comes back to again and again as if bewitched - these I should like to expunge from philosophical language.

A further reflection on method; the picture has us enthralled. We need to see the rabbit as a duck - better, to see that we can see it either way.

Along these lines, the same word used in a million different instances has a million different 'meanings.' — path

...as if there were such as thing as "the meaning of..."

That picture has us enthralled.

...as if there were such as thing as "the meaning of..."

That picture has us enthralled. — Banno

Indeed! And we can only talk about that picture from within that picture. We can only bring down the house with the stuff we find inside. We are always thrown into a way of talking. We don't control it. We inherit it. We can only question it in terms that it has forced on us.

As I said before, I am tempted to put all of my terms in quotes, but that would annoy people. Along the same lines, it's just part of my blind skill to use 'I' and other mentalistic words as I try to criticize this mentalistic picture. Note that Rorty also stresses the dominance of pictures. In our haughty rationalism we don't notice that our framework is nothing but a picture...that language is a mirror or an eye...as opposed to a hand or something else. We think in metaphors, and flies in bottles and disposable ladders are doing the work for us.

We need to see the rabbit as a duck - better, to see that we can see it either way. — Banno

I totally agree with this. We make dominant pictures optional. But to do so requires that we make them visible in the first place. Perhaps the primary force in philosophy is dragging such pictures from the darkness in which they operate.

...we can only talk about that picture from within that picture. — path

If there is no outside, there is no inside. I suspect you would agree, but given your sympathy for Heidegger...

If there is no outside, there is no inside. I suspect you would agree, but given your sympathy for Heidegger... — Banno

I do agree, but so does Heidegger. That's kind of his deal. Existence is being-in-the-world. The inside/outside talk is Cartesian confusion, Cartesian oblivion. FWIW, I find lots of Heidegger almost impossible to enjoy. But check out the first draft of B&T ('the Dilthey review').

Or look into Braver's fusion of Witt & Heid in Groundless Grounds. I'm not saying you need it. You'll probably agree and not be much moved.

To me it's hard to understand how someone can like later Witt and hate early Heid.

Of course Heidegger had such things right. That makes the obscurity of his writing more culpable. "Existence is being-in-the-world" is itself senseless, but he pretends otherwise.

In absentia,

Of course Heidegger had such things right. That makes the obscurity of his writing more culpable. "Existence is being-in-the-world" is itself senseless, but he pretends otherwise. — Banno

I agree that the phrase you mentioned is senseless out of context. As Hegel stressed, you can't offer summarized results in philosophy. The meaning isn't there in the words. It's distributed in everything that lead up to such a summary and in the form of life that makes the book intelligible in the first place. I know that Hegel is a pain in the ass too, by the way.

I do think English translations of Heidegger are often obscure and ugly. I don't know if it's the fault of the German. Probably to some degree. At the same time, lots of philosophers may be anti-poetic enough to prioritize accuracy over a new living book in English.