Wittgenstein seems to acknowledge a distinction between what exists and what can be said. — Luke

That seems an odd interpretation of that quote. But then, folk often miss the next paragraph, the remainder of §304, in which the apparent paradox is resolved.

Go ahead and explain your reading of it, then. Meanwhile:

305. “But you surely can’t deny that, for example, in remembering, an inner process takes place.” — What gives the impression that we want to deny anything?

306. Why ever should I deny that there is a mental process?

Yet these inner mental processes are just what Wittgenstein claims do not give our words their meanings, as per the private language argument.

307. “Aren’t you nevertheless a behaviourist in disguise? Aren’t you nevertheless basically saying that everything except human behaviour is a fiction?” — If I speak of a fiction, then it is of a grammatical fiction.

Do you think this joker, David Stove, ever heard of the noumena-phenomena distinction in Kant?

And the rest of §306, and on through §308. The error comes from thinking that because we treat mental processes as we do other processes: "We talk of processes and states and leave there nature undecided". This is what has been done with qualia.

Again: it would be absurd to deny that we experience tastes and sights and feelings. But they are not private - we can talk about them. What is absurd is positing another level of experience, qualia, which are private and hence ineffable, and then talking about them by using them to explain consciousness. The illusion is the notion that because folk talk about qualia, there must be something there...

David Stove, ever heard of the noumena-phenomena distinction in Kant? — Olivier5

Stove on Kant:

Kant’s questions are so strange and arresting that no one who has once heard them ever forgets them. It is just the reverse with his answers to them: no one can ever remember what these are! And there is a simple reason for this: the questions never get answered at all. Once they have served as an excuse for the darkening of sufficient acreage of wood-pulp, they just get lost.

And this small glory, with much the same logical structure as was offered by @Wayfarer:

- Three lies between two and four only by a convention which mathematicians have adopted.

- There is an integer between two and four, but it is not three, and its true name and nature are not to be revealed.

- Three is an incomplete object, only now coming into existence.

- The tie which unites the number three to its properties (such as primeness) is inexplicable.

David Stove a joker? Oh, yes, indeed.

I did a couple of semesters under David Stove - David Hume and something else, might have been ‘positivism’. I recall his analogy about philosophical scepticism being like the Uroboros, the snake that eats itself - ‘the hardest part’, he would say, with a wry grin, ‘is the last bite’. And I don’t wish to speak ill of a teacher who was very kind to me, but I really don’t think he got Kant, or Plato.

Sweet. He was a misogynistic reactionary, but entertaining.

Stove on Kant: — Banno

That’s about as funny a joke one can make about Kant. The irony is that Stove remembered Kant’s answer to his own noumena-phenomena question so well that he obsessed about it a great deal and called it the Gem, without ever (apparently) recognizing where that idea originally came from (ie Kant).

. I recall his analogy about philosophical scepticism being like the Uroboros, the snake that eats itself - ‘the hardest part’, he would say, with a wry grin, ‘is the last bite’. — Wayfarer

And that is an excellent philosophical joke for the (cartesian) logical impossibility of doubting the doubter...

Is "We" just you and I? Or a simple majority? Or can we use Hare-Clark? — Banno

Depends on the context.

Nuh. Truth is not a popularity contest.

sure but we never speak in truths. We speak in what we think are truths. Those are popularity contests.

We call the things we think are true our beliefs.

Beliefs can be true, but they also might be false.

great. It's pretty easy to see when they're false, but how do you confirm when they're true?

Also at this point I think it should be renamed to: "General thread"

...how do you confirm when they're true? — khaled

That question is the same as "what should you believe?"

Would you expect there to be one answer to that question? As if the reason you believe the cat is on the mat could be the same as the reason you believe the square root of nine is three?

That question is the same as "what should you believe?" — Banno

How so? Unless you define "true" as "you should believe this".

DO you think we should believe things that are not true?

no but that in itself is a belief. How did you confirm that one?

You get to decide what to believe.

Mostly.

Qualia is the reason functionalism is wrong. So, yes, the concept has use.

You get to decide what to believe. — Banno

So

When we call something “true” or “real” all we’re saying is that we agree on it. — khaled

Mostly — Banno

Wdym mostly?

Well, if it is raining, while you go dancing in the puddles, do you choose to believe that it is raining?

When we call something “true” or “real” all we’re saying is that we agree on it. — khaled

should be...
When we believe something all we’re saying is that we agree on it.

Qualia is the reason functionalism is wrong. — frank

Well, with an argument like that, who could disagree.

Well, if it is raining, while you go dancing in the puddles, do you choose to believe that it is raining? — Banno

Oh that's what you mean. Ok.

should be...
When we believe something all we’re saying is that we agree on it. — Banno

That's all I was saying. But that sort of makes stove's gem not such a bad argument does it? I can't tell if you think it's bad or if you just keep mentioning it here and there.

Well, with an argument like that, who could disagree. — Banno

Plus it's common knowledge that we're conscious of tastes, sights, sounds, etc. That consciousness is qualia.

Since it's common knowledge, you have the burden if proof. There's no qualia? Prove it.

The Gem, an example: "...you cannot have trees-without-the mind in mind, without having them in mind. Therefore, you cannot have trees-without-the-mind in mind."

It's a dreadful argument. But it is common in neophyte philosophers. The idea is that we only know stuff using our mind, so we cannot know stuff for real.

What do you think of it?

Well, this chap, name of Dennett, wrote an article about it. It's worth a read. There's a thread about it somewhere...

Well, this chap, name of Dennett, wrote an article about it. It's worth a read. There's a thread about it somewhere... — Banno

Where? I can't find it.