or it wasn't so binary. More like we'd have to be even more careful about our assumptions than anthropologists.

That's different - an Hegelian critique of Wittgenstein... Curious. — Banno

Technically, Hegelian would be triadic, but my dyadic thesis/antithesis is just me philosophizing in Kantianese.

how you correlate reasoning to grammar....
— Mww

....briefly (...), the OLP....idea of grammar is that each concept, say, knowing, or, an apology, has its own (or multiple)....ways it can make sense, how it works (or fails): e.g., understanding--when can you say someone else understands something? how do you explain it? what is proof for understanding, say, math, a poem, a person? etc., each concept having its own (subject to change and adaptation as we change our judgments, standards, lives, etc: what is justice, these days?). — Antony Nickles

So grammar is the science of application of concepts? Can we say that? If concepts have a plurality of meanings, grammar is the method for picking the better of them? Ok....to what end?

When I pick use a word representing a concept, and indicate some meaning by it, is that word intended to demonstrate my reasoning, or is it chosen to align with your understanding of my reasoning?

“...To say "He alone can know what he intends" is nonsense: to say "He alone can know what he will do", wrong....”
(From your Witt, P.I., p. 223)

Am I suppose to gather from all that, that I can know what he intends, if only I choose the right word for the concepts? So I say...did you intend ____?; he says, nope, not that. So I say, well, did you mean ____?; nope, not that either. I see a serious problem here, don’t you?

On the other hand, I say, did you mean ____, and he says, no, I meant _____, to which I say, oh, cool, I get it now, or I could just as well say, ohfercrissakes, that just doesn’t make any sense at all.

In the immortal words of Strother Martin, what we have heah.....is a failyah......to cuh-MUNicate.

And here’s the kicker. All I wrote just now? All I’ve ever written, actually? I submit, My Good Sir, that it is impossible for you to tell, if I got it right, whether I used my grammar (reasoning) correctly with respect to your understanding, or merely from my own, and they happen to coincide from sheer accident. And, if I got it wrong, it is impossible for you to tell whether I chose my meanings with the intent to make you think I got it wrong, when I understood you perfectly from the get-go. Both of which catastrophically falsify Witt’s prophecy given above.

BOOM!!!!! Mic drop, exit, stage right......
(Kidding. I’m just thinking out loud. No offense. You may rebut as you see fit)

how you correlate reasoning to grammar....
— Mww

....briefly (...), the OLP....idea of grammar is that each concept, say, knowing, or, an apology, has its own (or multiple)....ways it can make sense, how it works (or fails): e.g., understanding--when can you say someone else understands something? how do you explain it? what is proof for understanding, say, math, a poem, a person? etc., each concept having its own (subject to change and adaptation as we change our judgments, standards, lives, etc: what is justice, these days?).
— Antony Nickles

So grammar is the science of application of concepts? Can we say that? If concepts have a plurality of meanings, grammar is the method for picking the better of them? Ok....to what end?

When I pick use a word representing a concept, and indicate some meaning by it, is that word intended to demonstrate my reasoning, or is it chosen to align with your understanding of my reasoning? — Mww

Obviously this needs to be an entirely different thread. Science doesn't come into it. 'Meaning' is like the imagined 'hidden' inner process. A concept's Grammar is not the reasoning we go through, but the (external) possibilities of sense--not a fixed 'meaning' like a definition either. Part of it is the way we judge in reacting (the lines along which it could make sense): "It's a blue day." "Do you mean, we should go surfing? or that the sky is a magnificent color?" "Well, I meant both", or "No, I'm just sad." A little harder to understand as fitting in the field of acceptable Grammar: "Today's the day I wear blue!" But also the limits of sense, as with the failure to apologize by offending instead. These are not determined (fixed by us or decided) beforehand. We don't always 'mean', or 'intend', what we say (say resolutely or casually) because most times those things do not come up until we say something strange. This is all very quickly said and better addressed with Witt's text on Grammar, or OLP in general, which I may get to eventually.[/quote]

“...To say "He alone can know what he intends" is nonsense: to say "He alone can know what he will do", wrong....”
(From your Witt, P.I., p. 223)

Am I suppose to gather from all that, that I can know what he intends, if only I choose the right word for the concepts? So I say...did you intend ____?; he says, nope, not that. So I say, well, did you mean ____?; nope, not that either. I see a serious problem here, don’t you?

On the other hand, I say, did you mean ____, and he says, no, I meant _____, to which I say, oh, cool, I get it now, or I could just as well say, ohfercrissakes, that just doesn’t make any sense at all. — Mww

This has two things going on. Acting and intending, and the knowledge of those. To intend (to do) something, and, to mean (something) have two different ways they work (or don't)--different Grammars. Witt is explaining the Grammar of knowledge in these instances (Grammar, as: let's say, everyday logic, roughly; or: the way in which knowing intentions makes sense or doesn't). Yes, I can know what you are going to do; "look he is going to ask her out!" With intention it is harder, but imagine them both as not a hidden internal causal process--that intention is like an excuse; it only comes up after something gets screwed up; "Did you intend to bring a gun fishing instead of a pole?" "Did you intend to slap her instead of apologize?" Something unexpected happened or outside (the Grammar of) our expectations. What Witt is trying to get at is that, if you want to say there is a hidden internal 'intention' or 'meaning' that you (alone) KNOW (say, beforehand, certainly, specifically), that is not the way knowledge and intending work--if you insist on that (and mean it, say, as a philosopher), you are denying the other; if you say that in normal conversation, it's going to sound like nonsense too (though we could probably imagine a scenario). Now I can intend to do something: "I intended to roll for Sixes, but I'll have to take Chance."(in Yatchze), and we too can know your intention (you only had those two spots left, course you're gonna roll for sixes. If you intended to roll for chance, then there would be questions.).

[H]ere’s the kicker. All I wrote just now? All I’ve ever written, actually? I submit, My Good Sir, that it is impossible for you to tell, if I got it right, whether I used my grammar (reasoning) correctly with respect to your understanding, or merely from my own, and they happen to coincide from sheer accident. And, if I got it wrong, it is impossible for you to tell whether I chose my meanings with the intent to make you think I got it wrong, when I understood you perfectly from the get-go. Both of which catastrophically falsify Witt’s prophecy given above. — Mww

Witt does say its amazing that we can communicate at all. But trust me I can tell when you're reasoning is wrong. : ) Grammar sits apart from us, prior to us--in the language/world. But if we understood each other by coincidence or accident, would it make a difference? But you have hit on the crux of the matter for me, which is that trickery, pretending, lying, charade, joking, trolling (@Banno), etc. look exactly like the real thing (maybe), so: how do we KNOW! And this is when we have to see that 'hidden processes' and 'having a secret', are two different ways of thinking of (viewpoints on) the uncertainty of the other (The "Problem" of Other Minds).

I am having a hard time figuring out if the OP does deal with the issue your cartoon humorously took up. But since the cartoon does — Coben

The cartoon is all most people take from Witt, which is sad (and wrong) as I think he's one of our most important modern thinkers. Also, again (previously addressed to others here), the idea here is to see that the sentence is not an opinion or a claim of some kind (to be answered with an opinion or alternative claim). If there is some confusion, I hope I can help.

I think Wittgenstein was making a joke. Either that, or he was wrong. — Banno

This is philosophy? Troll much?

Troll much? — Antony Nickles

Often as I can.

Sure, the context is important. If that is the whole of your thesis, then we have no disagreement.

If I see a lion writhing in pain with evident cause, do I think: all the same, the lion's feelings are hidden from me? We are embedded in a shared world. We share long grass and antelopes and water holes with the lion. These are the things about which we might talk.

After Davidson, if we are able to recognise that the lion is indeed speaking, then by that very fact we must be able to recognise some of what it is saying. Otherwise we would have no reason to think it was not humming to itself, or the equivalent.

StreetlightX made a thread on this topic a few years back.

Lions and Grammar — Banno

The quote in that thread is taken (mis-taken) as an open-ended call for speculation too. Instead of inner processes, he's fixed 'Grammar' in the place of those, in the same way Forms of Life is used as well, just grabbing the quote for its own reasons. As a discussion of Witt's term Grammar, it misses the mark for that reason and others, but that is a different discussion.

Have a look at the sections around about ∮500.

Have a look at the sections around about ∮500. — Banno

Okay...done. ; )

Sure, the context is important. If that is the whole of your thesis, then we have no disagreement. — Banno

The textual context: the role the sentence plays on this page. Based on Witt's discussion (and my other evidence), the sentence is used as a fact, not as an open question. (I wouldn't put it as a 'disagreement' so much as an inability, or lack of interest, to see, so far.)

Have a look at the sections around about ∮500. — Banno

507. " 'I [the interlocutor] am not merely saying this, I mean something by it.' -- When we consider what is going on in us when we MEAN (and don't merely say) words, it seems to us as if there were something coupled to those words, which otherwise would run idle. --As if they, so to speak, connected with something in us." [With the talics in original, in all CAPS.]

The 'meaning' being the something, connected to words, or connected to some inner process (set apart from our responsibility). But we don't 'mean' what we say, usually--'casually' at all--and we don't have to, in the senses: be careful with it, say it emphatically, for reasons, etc. Yet we can still answer the question (afterwards): What did you mean? (or, "Did you mean to say that?") But that is not usually asked unless we say something strange, etc. These are some of the Grammar of 'meaning' (something).

I just find your thesis somewhat obscure. But not as obscure as Mmw's.

The context is guessing thoughts, and the talk of pictures relating this to his picture theory of meaning; it's the whole picture that we do not understand, as opposed to when some specific utterances are seen as lacking sense (this is dealt with around ∮500). "If a lion could speak we could no understand him" is the expression of a conviction, not a piece of reasoning.

A lion might speak in such a way that we simply do not recognise his behaviour as language. There doesn't seem to be much of worth in considering this possibility.

Or a lion might speak in such a way that we recognise his behaviour as language, but cannot make sense of it. But consider, how could we recognise his behaviour as language, unless there were some aspect of it that we understood as language? SO if we recognise some behaviour as language, by that very fact we have in some way understood it.

Suppose a language that is private to lions. We would either not recognise it as a language; or if we do recognise it as a language, we would at least partially understand it, and hence it would not be private to the lions.

The context is guessing thoughts, and the talk of pictures relating this to his picture theory of meaning; it's the whole picture that we do not understand, as opposed to when some specific utterances are seen as lacking sense (this is dealt with around ∮500). "If a lion could speak we could no understand him" is the expression of a conviction, not a piece of reasoning. — Banno

Well, this is very-much appreciated (someone's been reading--maaaaybe not my post, but it's something). I agree with you that he begins with guessing thoughts and that "it's the whole picture that we do not understand." I would point out the picture is not Witt's, so much as positivism's, but, whatever. But, yes, Witt is trying to investigate: why do philosophers (anyone) hold onto, need, create, this picture (of meaning being internal thought)?

I ask that you look again at my argument that the quote is being USED as a fact (though it is, makes sense as, and can be addressed as--independently--a hypothetical opinion, or questionable claim, whatever--fine; that is not what's happening here/what Witt is doing with it--I'm not sure how to write that any better (it's starting to make me self-conscious); I mean looking at USE is a major point of the PI); He is using it, here, as a fact, for comparison with a conviction (above)--a belief chosen and held onto strongly (and maybe the above back-and-forth with Luke might help). Not (used as) an expression of belief (nor a piece of reasoning). The PICTURE is, in those terms, an (expression of our) denial of the other. I am adding to "the picture"'s motivations, our own (it's our picture anyway), in that it is a human doubt and fear that creates (is expressed into) the picture, but also that its solution--for certainty, rationality, predictability, universality, predetermination--is the same solution that wishes to deny the human in the other (and ourselves); the failing, the responsibility, the unpredictability, irrationality, etc.

I'm not sure how Witt is not seen as looking at "specific utterances" (say every utterance of the Interlocutor?) and sometimes pointing out how they don't "make sense"--yes he can be less than forgiving with this, but it is not a dismissal (insensible idiot!) so much as to bring to light the distinctions between having said one thing as opposed to another, for being judged as falling outside that category, subject to the consequences for that concept, etc. (the Grammar of the concept). He is rather curt and unforgiving though.

That second paragraph is quite beyond my keen.

But, for the other,

The move to thought, and thereafter to language, is perpetrated with the use of Wittgenstein’s famous idea that thoughts, and propositions, are pictures—“the picture is a model of reality” (TLP 2.12). Pictures are made up of elements that together constitute the picture. Each element represents an object, and the combination of elements in the picture represents the combination of objects in a state of affairs. The logical structure of the picture, whether in thought or in language, is isomorphic with the logical structure of the state of affairs which it pictures. More subtle is Wittgenstein’s insight that the possibility of this structure being shared by the picture (the thought, the proposition) and the state of affairs is the pictorial form. “That is how a picture is attached to reality; it reaches right out to it” (TLP 2.1511). This leads to an understanding of what the picture can picture; but also what it cannot—its own pictorial form. — SEP Wittgenstein article

I think the picture theory ran deep enough to carry well into PI, and that this is what he has in mind when he talks about the lion; we have no picture of what would be going on.

And I think that we do have at least something of a picture of what is going on.

“the picture is a model of reality” (TLP 2.12)

I think the picture theory ran deep enough to carry well into PI... — Banno

The SEP article you quote is Wittgenstein as a positivist. In the PI, the positivist is the Interlocutor--he is wondering how he got himself into the gordian knot of the Tractatus. He is diagnosing the creation of the picture theory.

I think the picture theory... this is what he has in mind when he talks about the lion; we have no picture of what would be going on.

And I think that we do have at least something of a picture of what is going on. — Banno

If you want to take a position on the content of that sentence, go ahead. I don't have an argument against this; I am not arguing with that. However, I am arguing that Witt had something else in mind (he is using the sentence in another SENSE): here (with the lion) there is not a choice (it is in its sense as a FACT that he is USING it), but with us (with the conviction; in wanting a picture theory) we have a choice, and, in doing so, we shut our eyes to the other.

That first paragraph is quite beyond my keen. — Banno

Yes, this is ships in the night (the arguments are categorically incompatible--back to the "rough ground" as Witt would say; which I would argue is the text--maybe seeing it a new way). I can understand if you don't care to follow it, but I don't think I'm speaking German ;) Always willing to help, of course. And I do edit some of my responses, like my last one, to try to make them more clear and responsive to where I feel the misunderstanding is.

Wittgenstein was never a positivist.

Wittgenstein was never a positivist. — Banno

Weeeeeeell, I'll grant you that. But (though this is said provisionally, i.e., I don't want to argue it here) he did skirt it and was left with nothing to say, and spent the PI filing in that blank (everything other than word--world, true/false statements). More to what I AM arguing here, in the PI he is wondering what the positivist's desire (need) was, which I will argue he did share (as does his other/former self--the Interlocutor).

...he skirted it... — Antony Nickles

They skirted him.

So, are we going somewhere here?

So, are we going somewhere here? — Banno

I'd rather not here (see the edit above)--maybe another post; his path from TLP to the PI and the "rationality" (rigorousness? ability to be subject to study/criticism?) of everyday life, "ordinary language", I may take up in another post about Ordinary Language Philosophy generally. Here I wanted to focus on the ethical argument Witt is making (and the subtlety of 'use' I guess because everyone can't seem to wrap their head around that).

I have attempted to re-write the OP to address the problems we're having/what I eventually get to (ya only know what you're saying at the end of a paper).

It's been a long time since I read LW but this is certainly not all I got from him. I reread your OP and I think I get what you are saying there. That the point was not to make a statement about the problem of other minds when it comes to animals, but to just use the lion statement as a contrast. But with a human in pain we have to add more assumptions to avoid feeling empathy. My paraphrase obviously. But then, of course, if in the course of an argument you use a statement for some purpose and that statement has problems, people are going to justifiably focus on that. And oddly I think he cut off his nose to spite his face. Reinforcing that non-humanness of animals and the non-animalness of humans actually, in the long run, I think does damage to the very goals you are attributing LW with. We've had a long hallucination that we are radically different from animals (and then also even other races of humans) - though there have always been groups who did not add in these kinds of assumptions - tribal groups, pagans, animists, some pantheists, and many people who worked with animals and nature in general. Empathy even with humans, if that is the goal, is in not assuming differences and distance. Not adding in assumptions - which can be class based also, for example.

If I see someone writhing in pain with evident cause I do not think: all the same, his feelings are hidden from me. — Antony Nickles

In a sense it was the positivists (and in this case their odd bedfellowing with monotheists) and similar thinkers who made it take so long to acknowledge within science that animals had intentions, goals, emotions, desires and the like. That they were experiencers like us and active ones cognitively. Placing a lion in the above quote, one writhin in pain, say with a spear in its gut to me offers no contrast. If we want to make an ethical appeal or an argument with an ethical goal, I think it is problematic to not realize that the animal us is what is being denied when we assume our way away from empathy with other humans and animals. IOW you may be right about his intent and what that sentence about lions is 'doing', but it's still a problem for me.

[Witt] [r]einforcing that non-humanness of animals and the non-animalness of humans actually, in the long run, I think does damage to the very goals you are attributing LW with. We've had a long hallucination that we are radically different from animals (and then also even other races of humans) — Antony Nickles

Yours is a thoughtful response, taking into consideration my effort here; I appreciate it. I will say a bit of clarification for me in another reply, and I understand and share your disappointment with his (repeated) distinguishing our biological differences--which I would only say he is (insensitively) using to contrast our 'humanity' positivism would like to ignore--but I am heartened by your association of seeing (desiring to see) a person in a way (for me, past them to something else more certain, less 'human'--per Witt) with the idea of seeing an animal in a way--say, as meat--without noticing the sympathetic. I would say the "seeing as" or "aspect-seeing" that Witt gets into later (pp. 193-208), ties animals and humans together in our ability for denial of the other, say, their pain. There is a great book of back-and-forth essays (four) called "Philosophy & Animal Life" in which, in response to an essay by Cora Diamond (in response to another), Cavell argues a rational argument for the ethical treatment of animals is impotent because it does not address the human desire to see the other (animal) as, in a sense, "inhuman"--not seeing the (moral) aspect of our similarity as animals: that we are responsible in the face of our separateness and the failing of knowledge to bridge that apart from our response.

This has two things going on. Acting and intending, and the knowledge of those. To intend (to do) something, and, to mean (something) have two different ways they work (or don't)--different grammars. — Antony Nickles

This makes W’s grammar/reasoning synonymy more apparent, in that my philosophical perspective attributes to acting pure practical reasoning, and attributes to meaning pure theoretical reason. And now I see why, in the second paragraph of your first response to me, ethics/morals were its concern, which has to do with acting. I certainly agree that the acting I do and the meaning I impart have different ways they work, for they are each derived from their own ground of reasoning. If I already grant acting and meaning are different in a certain way, I don’t profit significantly in seeing that they are different in some other way as well. That is to say, why acting and meaning are said to have different grammars, when I acknowledge them cum hoc as having different reasoning, still escapes me, but that’s ok.
————-

Yes, I can know what you are going to do; "look he is going to ask her out!" — Antony Nickles

I disagree. “Going to ask” is not asking, so stands as merely a possibility, and any possibility has its immediate negation just as possible. You may know he intends to ask, or that he means to ask, but you can’t know he asks until he actually does. He could be hit by a wayward cyclist (beer bottle, panic attack, ad infinitum) a split second before he gets the words out. Asking is acting, intending to ask is meaning, and because they are different grammars, given the above, the reasoning is different, again, from the above. Therefore, what it is permissible for you to know must be different, if such knowledge comes from the reasoning. Which of course, it must, because it couldn’t come from anywhere else.

Something unexpected happened or outside the grammar of our expectations. — Antony Nickles

Yes, just like that. Outside the grammar, being the same as other than the reasoning, of our expectations. Obviously the second contradicts the first, so what should I make of that?
——————-

Meaning' is like the imagined 'hidden' inner process. A concept's grammar is its possibilities of sense--not a fixed 'meaning' like a definition either. "It's a blue day." — Antony Nickles

Yes, I see that. As a matter of philosophical fact, it is because concepts do have specific meanings, that it is possible to tacitly understand days are not blue, and nonetheless allowance is granted to mischaracterize the meanings of concepts within certain limits given sufficient experience. I suppose the “imagined ‘hidden’ inner process” to indicate the rational arrangement of all the myriad associations contained in the concepts, that is, their schemata, into an order which obtains a meaningful statement coincidental to speaker and listener. As such, your “it’s a blue day” transfers to my “he is exhibiting pathological despondence” if I’m a clinical psychologist, or “sucks to be you” if I’m just a rabid Nietzsche-an cynical nihilist. “Here...have another hit on this” if I’m an old hippie. (Grin)
—————

But trust me I can tell when you've reasoning is wrong. — Antony Nickles

Sure, under certain conditions. That which is tautologically true cannot be reasoned wrong, and if I do, you can certainly tell. Logical fallacies and categorical errors are entirely sufficient for distinguishing wrong reasoning. Other than instances of analytically certain statements, you can only tell what I mean for you to know on the one hand, and I can present any reasoning I want but if you have no experience whatsoever with what I’m talking about, you can tell nothing at all about my reasoning. You may have your conclusions with respect to it, in that you might say I’m so full of crap my eyes are brown, but that is grounded in your reasoning, not mine.

But if we understood each other by coincidence or accident, would it matter? — Antony Nickles

No, but that’s taken out of context. I said....coincidence from accident, you say coincidence or accident. My philosophy denies anything is ever understood by accident, because understanding is a logical procedure in which the objects must align with the subject necessarily in order for there to be understanding in the first place. This is the only way misunderstanding is possible. The difference between yours and mine, is mine has the accident in coincidence, yours has the accident in the understanding.
—————

trickery, pretending, lying, charade, etc. look exactly like the real thing (maybe), so: how do we KNOW! — Antony Nickles

Depends on the degree of “(maybe)”, doesn’t it? An obvious lie is easy to know qua falsehood, a well-disguised lie is not. On the other hand, if reasoning to a lie, or the grammar of the conceptions if you insist, looks EXACTLY like the real thing, which I suppose to be reasoning to a truth.....you can’t know. The real thing can only be as you know that thing, so if what he is saying looks exactly like what you know, nothing new is given to you by which you can make a distinction between them, leaving you with no more than what you already knew.
——————-

Witt does say its amazing that we can communicate at all. — Antony Nickles

Doesn’t that depend on the domain of discourse? In the overall history of mankind in general, isn’t misunderstanding the exception to the rule? It follows that if the misunderstanding is the exception, then the ability to communicate, which is the facilitator of mutual understanding, is not so amazing. I can see, however, that Witt’s detractors might say exactly that, considering they might think Witt made common language use FUBAR because of his very own philosophical investigations. By the way.....did Witt have any peers playing the role of serious detractor?

I’m open to being convinced Witt’s proclamation, “He alone can know what he intends" is nonsense: to say "He alone can know what he will do", wrong....” is possible. Gonna take a powerful argument in its favor, I must say, and while I admire your attempts, illuminating by glimmer as they do, I’m requiring a epiphanic spotlight. An Archimedes lever to move my Enlightenment predispositions, doncha know.

"If a lion could talk, we could not understand him."

I will argue that it is essential to put the above sentence in the textual context in which it was written to see its USE here by Witt--(...) that it is used in its sense as an uncontested FACT (not to be refuted or interpreted, nor an open question, nor a thesis, etc.) — Antony Nickles

I can grant the sentence is being used as an uncontested fact, but if it is not be contested, refuted or interpreted asks the question....why did he say it? Apparently Witt is allowing himself to do something with it, even if only to demonstrate something else, which seems to require some sort of correspondence with an uncontested fact. Doesn’t the fact need to be interpreted in order to determine its correspondence?

Is it the various grammars of the concept “talk” that is under examination? Is this the juxtaposition that is the whole point? Lion-talk/human-talk? Perhaps it is the grammar of the concept “talk” vs the grammar of the concept “understand”. If so, the sentence is either true or false. But it is already very well established that every sentence is either true or false. Which reduces to the grammar of the concepts that makes them one or the other, or, enables us to see they can be one or the other. If grammar of concepts is Witt’s sense of reasoning with concepts, and it is also already well established that reasoning is the condition that makes sentences true or false, what is the sentence, and by association Witt himself, really saying? He isn’t telling us anything we didn’t already know.

Ok....so a different viewpoint. Sorta like, if I’m in the habit of putting on my left shoe before my right, and I for whatever reason decide to put on my right shoe first, I certainly would have a different viewpoint of shoe priority, but in the end, I got shoes on both feet. Gross oversimplification, of course, but isn’t it the same principle?

Would you accept the sentence, “asking forgiveness is easier than asking permission” to be a suitable substitute for the lion sentence?
—————

"I cannot know what is going on in him" is above all a picture. — Antony Nickles

Can you help me out with picture? Picture of what, picture of what kind, how do I know it as such, what am I enabled to do with it, what am I enabled to do because of it......and whatever else may apply as far as this topic is concerned.

Thanks.

After Davidson, if we are able to recognise that the lion is indeed speaking, then by that very fact we must be able to recognise some of what it is saying. Otherwise we would have no reason to think it was not humming to itself, or the equivalent. — Banno

We do have this problem with dolphins. They are clearly communicating, but are they using language? Might we figure it out and be able to say something to them?

Lions just roar and growl, so for one to speak it would actually have to be using human language. But some animals like certain birds and cetaceans have make sophisticated enough sounds to one another that it may be a form of language, or on the border. I saw a video about a year ago where one researcher was convinced dolphins have names (special sound an individual dolphin will recognize itself by).

We do have this problem with dolphins. They are clearly communicating, but are they using language? Might we figure it out and be able to say something to them? — Marchesk

I hate to police, but you might notice (I try to point out many times) that this thread is about the difference between: taking something (a statement) as something (a claim) for yourself, and putting yourself in the position of the other (Witt) to see how it is USED (not its other implications) given a certain context; the above--opinions about understanding lions/dolphins--is to ignore my effort here entirely. So, you're not wrong or have a trivial interest, only maybe, imagining this thread as a different topic--and, maybe, hurting my feelings? ; ) Maybe the other responses might help with the difference between 'meaning' and 'use'?

[Your admitted paraphrase (of me):] with a human in pain we have to add more assumptions to avoid feeling empathy. * * * I think it is problematic to not realize that the animal us is what is being denied when we assume our way away from empathy with other humans and animals. — Coben

This extrapolates from the consequences of what I am proposing Witt is uncovering in a way that shows you understand where I was coming from, so, again, thank you. You are headed in a different direction (a different interest), which is fine, so I would only say that I (and I believe Witt here) am not so much making a case in place of empathy, so much as diagnosing the desire, as philosophers--to side-step the fallibility of others, their separateness, with, say, knowledge--that starts with the human (common) desire for certainty, and the need to respond to, fill in, that gap (to the other). I would say, before that view of ourselves, there is not even the possibility of empathy, that the denial of our 'human condition'--here I mean our relationship to (the limits of) knowledge--is a desire to avoid any other relationship to the other (animal, as you rightly point out we should add; which also brings up our instinct to see the other (their pain) as the same (as ours)--also avoiding any difference in people (and the people of difference), even further negating them--as we do not want to see our separateness because then I must respond to the other, bridge that gap with, in a sense, me--take their expressions as a claim upon me (e.g., my empathy).

Not that a call for empathy is not needed (even, philosophically), but just that I think there is merit in achieving the ethical perspective that Witt is attempting to get us to see--to see our human reaction (denial) to our condition with the lack of knowledge of the other; especially given the still prevalent influence of positivism (although cloaked now), which is a product of the common (cultural/human) desire for fact and evidence to take the place of individual judgment and putting ourselves in a position to (for) the other--letting ourselves (bravely) be called out, without certainty, for the other, rather than shirking that; e.g., to only rely on DNA evidence rather than seeing that circumstantial evidence, judging an unreliable witness, etc., is sufficient to convict (however fallible); also, e.g., we rely only on science to understand other animals, rather than realizing we are in the same position to them as to another human; as I say it in my other response to you: that we are responsible for our response to their expressions (in the face of our separateness and the inability of knowledge to bridge that gap).

SO what counts as language use? my suggestion, from the previous thread already mentioned, is that it contain names, groups of things and connectives; that is, first order predicate logic. And determining this of course involves translation.