That's perfectly clear. Thank you.

Come to think of it, it's an example of his recommended tactic of replacing a proposed mental object with an actual object in order to see how the language game would work out.

derp

@Banno @Sam26 @Paine @Ludwig V @Jamal @Manuel @Astrophel @Joshs @Kurt Keefner @Shawn @Luke

I’m tagging those who participated (or had any interest) in this thread previously, though I won’t going forward without further participation. I am going to try to finish going through the Blue Book (even if just for myself). I was daunted by the upcoming investigation of the example of the “owner” of a toothache (which I preliminarily take as examining the desire to identify the self metaphysically). Nevertheless…

Sec 6 Coinciding Criteria (pp. 24-25)

First, another note on his method. When he asks “what do we call ‘getting to know’” (p.24), by “call” he means what “counts as” or matters in determining, in this case, that we “know”. He uses the term “criteria” for what matters and counts in getting to it (for judging we have). Now these judgments are not like decisions, because we normally just employ them (unreflectively) as part of the practices we learn (when not examining them philosophically).

Also, all of this is just trying to draw the text out more, and so stated speculatively and provisionally (strongly held loose opinions)—open to clarification and correction of course.

But when he says our judgments (“A has a toothache”) have “always coincided” with our criteria for them (the “red patch”) it seems to open a can of (skeptical) worms, i.e., like it is a coincidence (that could disconnect at any moment). But I take it to be the sense of “coincide” that they “correspond in nature”; or, “are in accord” (Merriam-Webster) So when the skeptic keeps asking their foundational questions (past even the traditional argument for other minds), there is a point where we are “at a loss” (prescient of PI #217). But what exactly are we at a loss to answer? Even the other’s report that they have a toothache is considered “conventional” (just “saying certain words”), and that is only because it is under the scrutiny of “How do you know…?”, and there are no criteria for knowing (for certain) if the other actually has a toothache (and is not just saying the words). I specifically do not take the point to be that other criteria do justify our claims about toothaches, nor that the correspondence or accord between our criteria and our judgments is “natural” or unbreakable.

The seemingly “arbitrary” (p. 25) nature as to which of our criteria are “defining” is not because of a “deplorable lack of clarity”, but because it is not something that is decided ahead of time for a particular purpose (ad hoc), such as, in this case, with the predetermined desire to know without any doubt. In each case we may highlight one criteria over another depending on our interest (or just arbitrarily), and that gets sorted out after, as we noted previously how reasons do (compared to motives). He will go on to say the biggest ad hoc desire philosophy has, is for “strict rules”, which comes next.

But when he says our judgments (“A has a toothache”) have “always coincided” with our criteria for them (the “red patch”) it seems to open a can of (skeptical) worms, i.e., like it is a coincidence (that could disconnect at any moment). But I take it to be the sense of “coincide” that they “correspond in nature”; or, “are in accord” (Merriam-Webster) — Antony Nickles

But the specter of skepticism remains, because a referential relation is implied between judgement and criteria. And this implication is deliberate on Wittgenstein’s part. As he elaborates later, what grounds the meaning of a phrase, its use, is not determined by a comparison between judgment and criteria.

Thanks for this. I can see the difficulty. You adopt a possible interpretation of "coincide", but I'm not convinced that it is valid in this context.

Now one may go on and ask: "How do you know that he has got toothache when he holds his cheek?" The answer to this might be, "I say, he has toothache when he holds his cheek because I hold my cheek when I have toothache". But what if we went on asking:--"And why do you suppose that toothache corresponds to his holding his cheek just because your toothache corresponds to your holding your cheek?" You will be at a loss to answer this question, and find that here we strike rock bottom, that is we have come down to conventions. (If you suggest as an answer to the last question that, whenever we've seen people holding their cheeks and asked them what's the matter, they have answered, "I have toothache",-remember that this experience only co-ordinates holding your cheek with saying certain words.) — pp. 24/25

I don't see how anyone who has not undergone even an introductory course in philosophy could not see this as a rehearsal of the sceptical attack on, in this case, other minds.
There is an opportunity, I would have said, for Wittgenstein to respond by saying that the conventions he refers to are definitions of meaning. But, for many people, this is a behaviourist/verificationist solution, which arbitrarily changes the meaning of a term that refers to inner experience. So he does well to avoid it. But the problem remains. With our knowledge of the future, we can see that this is where the private language argument is required. But I can see no hint of it. He seems to be offering only his discussion of criteria and symptoms in response. I don't think this really resolves the problem.

Wittgenstein seldom or never directly addresses orthodox philosophy, so it may be that he is simply thinking outside the box. But that won't help us here now. The only "solution" I have is to say that this is a work in progress and we need to swallow our doubts and allow Wittgenstein to pursue the argument further, as he does in the Phil. Inv.

PS. As and when you continue your reading, I would welcome the opportunity to see your thoughts and discuss them. Naturally, I shall base that on reading the text.

But the specter of skepticism remains, because a referential relation is implied between judgement and criteria. And this implication is deliberate on Wittgenstein’s part. As he elaborates later, what grounds the meaning of a phrase, its use, is not determined by a comparison between judgment and criteria. — Joshs

I don't understand your diagnosis here. I thought that criteria are what guides judgement in the application of linguistic rules. The "criteria vs symptoms" argument complicates that, but I can't see that it negates it. There is also the argument about rules, and this is what is recalled by the reference to "rock bottom", but I don't see any reference here to the discussion of rules that we find in the Phil. Inv.. Could you elaborate a bit?

the specter of skepticism remains, — Joshs

Yes, though not that it is always about grounding, and here just not determined somehow. In this toothache example there is a desire for knowledge (certainty) in a situation where it has no place (I would say driven by our fear of the other, in our limitation to judge them). The comparison shows that our shared interests (criteria) are overlooked, rejected, and replaced because we want to define the relation (to deny our human fallibility).

You adopt a possible interpretation of "coincide", but I'm not convinced that it is valid in this context. — Ludwig V

I thought it was interesting (clever?) because philosophers see “always coinciding” and think either: here is a “form of life” that justifies the knowledge! or think: it is uncertain because the “always” could have until now been a coincidence! My point perhaps not being “validity” but just to shed light on the unrelenting nature of the desire for this to be a matter of knowledge (that mere accord wouldn’t stop anyway).

this as a rehearsal of the sceptical attack on, in this case, other minds. — Ludwig V

Yes, and clearly he is not where he gets to in the PI—that the issue is not a matter of knowledge (but treating the other as a person in pain, or not)—but he is honest enough at this point to leave it that: if we wanted a bottom of “rock”-like justification, we are only left with “this is how things are usually done” (a sense of convention).

And, seemingly in response to this, you say “The problem remains... [unresolved]” But, as he discussed previously, “Our problem [what is difficult to understand about thinking]… was… a muddle felt as a [scientific] problem.” P. 6, which I get into here. We formulate someone’s pain as a “problem” because we want it to be an object, so that it will have an “answer” we can know (here, so we don’t have to address the person). But, as you say, my main concern here is just to follow the process of his thought.

I thought it was interesting (clever?) because philosophers see “always coinciding” and think either: here is a “form of life” that justifies the knowledge! or think: it is uncertain because the “always” could have until now been a coincidence! — Antony Nickles

I thought it was interesting and clever because, with a dictionary and a flick of the wrist, you turn the conventional trope (conventions as arbitrary) upside-down.

My point perhaps not being “validity” but just to shed light on the unrelenting nature of the desire for this to be a matter of knowledge (that mere accord wouldn’t stop anyway). — Antony Nickles

Yes. It is still floating about - and likely always will be. I thought when I read "You will be at a loss to answer this question, and find that here we strike rock bottom, that is we have come down to conventions." that Wittgenstein turns this conventional rock bottom into something real, almost foundational.

if we wanted a bottom of “rock”-like justification, we are only left with “this is how things are usually done” (a sense of convention). — Antony Nickles

There is a sense of being abandoned.

But, as you say, my main concern here is just to follow the process of his thought. — Antony Nickles

There is a good deal to be learnt from doing that.

I thought… that Wittgenstein turns this conventional rock bottom into something real, almost foundational. — Ludwig V

But this doesn’t square with framing it as distinctly not foundational (“loose”, “conventional”, “only co-ordinates… with”, being “unable to answer” what is the defining criteria), despite the desire to know (for sure); and so the (philosophical) point is about the (inappropriate, out-of-context, ad hoc) desire, “particular purpose” (next, for strict rules).

But this doesn’t square with framing it as distinctly not foundational (“loose”, “conventional”, “only co-ordinates… with”, being “unable to answer” what is the defining criteria), despite the desire to know (for sure); and so the (philosophical) point is about the (inappropriate, out-of-context, ad hoc) desire, “particular purpose” (next, for strict rules). — Antony Nickles

OK. I see what you are saying. The discussion of the toothache is set in the context of practical use, and Wittgenstein's point is that the doubt is created by shifting (silently, unconsciously) to the context of strict use. It is not that either is wrong, but that the silent change is inappropriate. It looks as if the decision which context to adopt is pragmatic.
So we have another philosophical tactic to set alongside the discussion of the "meaning object".
As you say - on to strict rules.

@Ludwig V @Joshs

Sec 7 Puzzling Rules (pp. 25-28)

“…the puzzles which [philosophers] try to remove always spring from this attitude towards language [compar[ing] our use of words with one following exact rules]”. (p. 26) — Witt.

If philosophy’s puzzles “spring” from this desire for exactness, that makes its own expectation the creator of the issues it thinks it sees in the world and wants to solve. I don’t think we yet have a good sense of why it has this desire, but perhaps it helps to listen when he says “We are unable to circumscribe… concepts….” (p. 25), as if we wanted to, but cannot, draw a limit around them that is complete enough, covering or predicting all possible outcomes (and here “concept” is a practice, like identifying or following a rule).

If we are starting from “unclarity” and “mental discomfort”, perhaps we thought (assumed) we knew a thing, and then there was something that happened which made us stop and say “Hmmmm, what is time?” And if we then want to define it in a way to have something definite that will circumscribe all cases, perhaps the “something that happened” was unexpected, unpredictable, surprising, e.g., turns out we were wrong when we thought we were right (where Descartes starts in the 1st Meditations). So then we will want the (form of) answer to be able to never be wrong again.

Now it is ironic that he wants to clear up the puzzle created by trying to define what is measuring time by first wanting to apparently define “measure”, but his method is to look closer at how measuring works, and in multiple different cases, because he realizes that our concepts have “different usages”, as in options and possibilities (that cannot be circumscribed, and may even be “contradictions”).

Previously we saw the framework for objects was forced onto trying to understand feelings because of the desire for a similar direct connection (like when we see/know objects). He called this an “analogy” and here says that “forms of expression” exert a force that “fascinates” us (“the analogy between two similar forms of expression in our language”). I take this as the germ of how people think the PI is just about “language” creating problems. But it is the instinctive need for “consisten[cy]” (p. 27], generality, that forces us to apply something analogously across multiple or all cases. We choose a framework of sense that fits our desire for strictness, but we analogize it because that leverages our craving for simplicity to fill in the blanks of the disparate parts between the two cases with the likes of “sense data”, “appearance”, “reality”, “mind”, “forms”, or telling time using a tape measure.

We choose a framework of sense that fits our desire for strictness, but we analogize it because that leverages our craving for simplicity to fill in the blanks of the disparate parts between the two cases with the likes of “sense data”, “appearance”, “reality”, “mind”, “forms”, or telling time using a tape measure. — Antony Nickles

That's about right. Though what counts as simplicity can be complicated. I mean that once you have learnt to drive a car it seems quite simple. But when you first sat in the driving seat, it was a different story.
It seems a pity, though, that we get so addicted to our analogies that we find them very hard to shake off. That's why we stick to our sense data etc. even though they create hideous complications. No-one, surely, can think that a table as the sum of all its possible appearances is simple. Can they?
I think that there is another motive at work here - the desire to find something surprising and interesting to say, the need to emerge from one's library with a trophy from all those explorations.

But let's not forget that a word hasn't got a meaning given to it, as it were, by a power independent of us, so that there could be a kind of scientific investigation into what the word really means. A word has the meaning someone has given to it. — p. 28

This is one of my hobby-horses. It is a well-established figure of speech, and everyone knows it. Perhaps it does not harm. But we learn to speak a language that already exists, from people who did not invent it. There is a sense in which there is a kind of scientific investigation into what the word really means - how people actually use it. Whether that information is likely to help with any philosophical question is not clear - empirical philosophy does, apparently, exist. (Did Austin invent it?) On the other hand, it is perfectly clear that language is maintained in existence by people who use it, and those users do change the language by introducing new uses. But what does not happen is a confabulation and decision. Except in countries like France and Sweden, introductions - even when they are invented by a known individual, as sometimes happens, - are taken up and spread almost unawares by the anonymous mass of users. "A word has the meaning someone has given it." is a misleading way of putting this.

... ordinary language is all right. Whenever we make up 'ideal languages' it is not in order to replace our ordinary language by them; but just to remove some trouble caused in someone's mind by thinking that he has got hold of the exact use of a common word. That is also why our method is not merely to enumerate actual usages of words, but rather deliberately to invent new ones, some of them because of their absurd appearance. — p. 28

All true. The difference between enumerating actual usages and Wittgenstein's therapy is I think at least close to getting at what it means to understand the meaning of a word.

If philosophy’s puzzles “spring” from this desire for exactness, that makes its own expectation the creator of the issues it thinks it sees in the world and wants to solve. I don’t think we yet have a good sense of why it has this desire, but perhaps it helps to listen when he says “We are unable to circumscribe… concepts….” (p. 25), as if we wanted to, but cannot, draw a limit around them that is complete enough, covering or predicting all possible outcomes (and here “concept” is a practice, like identifying or following a rule — Antony Nickles

If we ask Wittgenstein where linguistic meaning comes from, he directs us to a focus on WHAT we do with it in the context of ongoing social practices. We must immerse ourselves in actual historical processes to gain clarity and avoid confusion concerning the use of language. But if we ask him where desire for exactness, certainty, generality, consistency and completeness come from, he seems to depart from his emphasis on historical embeddedness , and instead attributes this desire to some trans-historical ‘instinct’. Why the difference in description of the use of words vs the desire to use them in certain ways? This just speculation only part, but I’m inclined to link his departure from history with regard to desire to his own craving for ethical transcendence.

In the Investigations, “forms of life” are the background practices that make language intelligible. Witt insists they are not grounded in theory, but in “what we do.”
At first glance this sounds close to historicism or relativism (since forms of life can differ). But Wittgenstein doesn’t historicize them in Nietzsche’s or Foucault’s sense (as contingent, power-saturated events in a genealogy).
He doesn’t valorize becoming.

In ethics, this restraint coexists with a longing for the absolute. From the Tractatus through the 1929 Lecture on Ethics, Wittgenstein consistently implies that ethical seriousness involves a transcendent demand, even if it cannot be stated in propositions. There remains a hope that what ethics gestures toward is not merely contingent, but somehow absolute and non-relative, even though it can never be said in language. Wittgenstein refuses to explain the ground of ethics or truth in terms of history, power, or metaphysics. Unlike the post-Nietzscheans, he seems haunted by transcendence. Ethics, for him, is not just a historical formation but a necessity of the human spirit.
Where Nietzsche embraces difference as the essence of truth, Wittgenstein says: ethics is what lies beyond the limits of language, a demand we cannot shake.This is why some readers (e.g. Cavell, Diamond) see Wittgenstein as still religious, in contrast to the radical immanence of Nietzsche or Deleuze.

Wittgenstein’s admiration for Kierkegaard testifies to this religious longing. Wittgenstein’s biographer Ray Monk said this about him:
“Wittgenstein did not wish to see God or to find reasons for His existence. He thought that if he could overcome himself - if a day came when his whole nature 'bowed down in humble resignation in the dust' - then God would, as it were, come to him; he would then be saved.”

It is clear from remarks he wrote elsewhere, that he thought that if he could come to believe in God and the Resurrection - if he could even come to attach some meaning to the expression of those beliefs - then it would not be because he had found any evidence, but rather because he had been redeemed.”

If ethical desire can transcend historical contingency, then perhaps this is why for Witt other kinds of desires as well (desire for certainty, generality, completeness) are not simply ‘what we do’ in the historical sense of
contingent discursive practices, but confused expressions of a transcendent feeling.

@Joshs

I think that there is another motive at work here - the desire to find something surprising and interesting to say, the need to emerge from one's library with a trophy from all those explorations. — Ludwig V

Fair point; after “problematizing” discrepancies (as described early on), we want to find the answer, and not just come to people and say, “Look, it’s more nuanced than we thought”, even if the “answer” is way more complicated, maybe even because it is, and then philosophers can know better than everyone else, be clever.

But we learn to speak a language that already exists, from people who did not invent it…. "A word has the meaning someone has given it." is a misleading way of putting this. — Ludwig V

Absolutely agree; it is very hard to slip out of the picture of “the meaning that I have” that I then (each time) “give” in language, that you then “interpret”, and then your “understanding” may (or may not) equate with “my meaning”—all pictured as “objects”. And, when I saw this part, I immediately thought the “someone” in this situation should be our culture, or the whole of human history, which would be the “us” or “we” like, humanity, from which meaning is not given independently. And an investigation I think can be rigorous like science, but just careful not to assume that, if a tidy definition does not fit, the process is to find what it “really” means—the “exact” use—as when we postulate “appearance” so we can look behind it for a solution, in “unheard-of ways” PI #113.

I did snag on the thought that, basically, we may not be “ready” to give an explanation, which I take to mean we can but we are not always prepared (without reflection, looking at cases), or it is not always necessary (as when we rely on habit when picking flowers), and not that there are things we can’t get into, draw out, intelligibly discuss, such as…

If ethical desire can transcend historical contingency, then perhaps this is why for Witt other kinds of desires as well (desire for certainty, generality, completeness) are not simply ‘what we do’ in the historical sense of contingent discursive practices, but confused expressions of a transcendent feeling. — Joshs

Yes I think he is claiming the confused (metaphysical, theoretical) expressions (driven by a forced analogy) come from a desire, but maybe the desire to transcend is the same as or comes from the desire for, let’s call it, exactness, so it would be to take an ethical situation and abstract from it (transcend it) in order to “solve” it as a (theoretical) “problem” to try to, for example, ensure (justify) agreement rather then accepting that rational disagreement is part of the way ethics works/can end up.

All that to say, we have a sense of what the desire is for, but maybe not yet why we have it, but I think leaving it as a “feeling” is to jump to a conclusion for which we are, as yet, not “ready” (as stated above), and not that we can’t dig into it (that we are only left with the irrational, unintelligible, but not as opposed to, or included in, the theoretical). Based on my story above of how we get to where we want an exact definition (in framing it as “what really is…?), perhaps it is a matter of control, and so anxiety (of being wrong, being judged).

I do believe we have as yet scratched the surface, but that he may not (does not) here explicitly ever get past how we do it and what it is for (its goal)—not that extrapolation is not possible—but I think that next step of why, and the conclusions from that, is leftover and the driving force of the second half of the Investigations, so I will try to keep my comments to the matter (text) at hand, as that is handful enough.

In the Investigations, “forms of life” are the background practices that make language intelligible. Witt insists they are not grounded in theory, but in “what we do.”
At first glance this sounds close to historicism or relativism (since forms of life can differ). But Wittgenstein doesn’t historicize them in Nietzsche’s or Foucault’s sense (as contingent, power-saturated events in a genealogy). — Joshs

I've always been a bit puzzled why he didn't take the obvious step from forms or life to historicism, relativism, or even perhaps naturalism. It's always been obvious to me that this was aching to be explored and developed. I just assumed that it was just where he stopped, leaving further development to the next generation. It sorted of fitted with how he does philosophy and he would have been justified in feeling that he had achieved his aims. There could have been plans that were never fulfilled.

It is clear from remarks he wrote elsewhere, that he thought that if he could come to believe in God and the Resurrection - if he could even come to attach some meaning to the expression of those beliefs - then it would not be because he had found any evidence, but rather because he had been redeemed.” — Joshs

I don't know if we are allowed to feel sorry for him. It seems somehow impertinent. Now I'm even more puzzled about his "wonderful life".

If ethical desire can transcend historical contingency, then perhaps this is why for Witt other kinds of desires as well (desire for certainty, generality, completeness) are not simply ‘what we do’ in the historical sense of contingent discursive practices, but confused expressions of a transcendent feeling. — Joshs

If he stuck with ethics as transcendent, is it possible that his ahistorical "form of life" was actually some sort of transcendent idea? One might feel that he doesn't seem to regard language as defined in the TLP as transcendent, but if the truths of logic cannot be said, but only shown, then it looks as if logic is also transcendent.

And, when I saw this part, I immediately thought the “someone” in this situation should be our culture, or the whole of human history, which would be the “us” or “we” like, humanity, from which meaning is not given independently. — Antony Nickles

In my book, culture and history come back to people, so, while I wouldn't disagree with you, I don't feel that there's a significant difference between us.

I've always been a bit puzzled why he didn't take the obvious step from forms or life to historicism, relativism, or even perhaps naturalism. — Ludwig V

This seems to assume this is about justification, and not an investigation of other examples to see why we insist on certain prerequisites (and what we miss in requiring them), instead of just taking them as just different answers to the same issue.

In my book, culture and history come back to people, so, while I wouldn't disagree with you, I don't feel that there's a significant difference between us. — Ludwig V

I only wanted to head off the presumption that this was about individuals, and not a matter, as you say, of our (people’s) culture (our language) coming before us.

@Joshs @Ludwig V

Sec 8 Purpose of Possibilities and Grammar (pp. 28-30)

His hope in pointing out multiple variations of “know” or “longing” (p. 29) is that being aware of “[an]other possibility of expression” (p. 28) would break the hold of projecting the expectations from an analogy.

In their being different possibilities in an expression, we may pick a form of expression to “stress” one part, to bring attention to looking at it a certain way, but he also says we may not even care (don’t always decide, pick), and that mostly we express ourselves along “deeply-rooted tendencies” (p. 30). I wouldn’t say these are necessarily personal tendencies, so much as habitual, conforming to culture, our common phrasings (for a context). I do find it interesting that our form of expression “betrays” us, as if it reveals more than we might want, that others can see more of us in what we express (not meant as just non-verbally).

He spends a minute talking about the nature of a “grammatical” statement. In doing so he says questioning our certainty about what we wish makes “no sense”. I think it is important that this is not in the sense of foolish or absurd, but that there is no context in which we would ask about knowledge because of the way we judge wishing, i.e., what is important to us about wishing is not justification for it, say, against doubt (of course there are the senses of “Are you sure that it is this you wish?” where we are asking for clarity about “this” or whether they have considered the consequences).

I think the importance of the grammatical statement for Wittgenstein will need more work (and text) to draw out, nevertheless, I think saying he is just trying to find a substitute for rules (to enforce), or is simply justifying how our practices work, is to miss the point, which I would preliminarily take, here, as something like being “aware” of our desire to overlay a framework (like knowledge) where it does not belong. In this sense we should think of their claim to be grammatical (provisionally, for us to concur with of course) as just the fact of the matter, e.g. rooms have length (as he looks at “facts of nature” p. 230), and moving on to it being evidence for other purposes, such as highlighting what is important to us (and not) about a practice (PI #143).

I am tempted to skip the discussion “what is not the case” and shadows, etc., and move to the mention of “intention” on p. 32, but if anyone else wants to take up or comment on that section, please do (as anyone can lead the charge at any time).

This seems to assume this is about justification, and not an investigation of other examples to see why we insist on certain prerequisites (and what we miss in requiring them), instead of just taking them as just different answers to the same issue. — Antony Nickles

I'm not at all sure that historicism etc. are about justification, though I suppose it might be. That is, sosmeone might take a historical account of our form of life to be a justification. But if what Wittgenstein is interested in clarifying what our justification practices are, how we justify ourselves, then, in this context that is inappropriate. The attempt to justify our justification practices inevitably begs the question. Just as, in the end, there can't be an argument to the conclusion that logic justifies our arguments. That sets up an infinite regress or a circle of arguments. In the end, one simply has to "get" the point - a bit like a joke.

I only wanted to head off the presumption that this was about individuals, and not a matter, as you say, of our (people’s) culture (our language) coming before us. — Antony Nickles

No, no, I wasn't going there. Though, as individuals, we are deeply embedded in our culture and history. We are, in a sense, our culture and history -- to the point where our sense of our individuality is itself the product of them.

I am tempted to skip the discussion “what is not the case” and shadows, etc., and move to the mention of “intention” on p. 32, but if anyone else wants to take up or comment on that section, please do (as anyone can lead the charge at any time). — Antony Nickles

|I'll do something on that.

The topic opens on p. 30. “How can one think what it is not the case?” The discussion of this will go on for the next 9 pages. This is too big a chunk for us, now. I shall cover what might be seen as the first phase, and identify the main stages in the argument after that.

There is “nothing easier” than to think what is not the case. In a sense, Wittgenstein needs not merely to announce his problem, but also to get us to see it as a problem He reminds of the the problem about measuring time, which he discussed earlier. (Ref. needed)

Wittgenstein comments that this is a “beautiful” example of a philosophical question. It is also a beautiful example of his method. It wanders through allied topics as it goes along and ends up with a different view of our starting-point, rather than unveiling a Solution.

His first diagnosis (p.31) is that we are misled by "object of thought", "fact", “and by the different meanings of the word "exist". His response is a discussion of imagining something and a critique of the idea that one can only reconstitute existing elements in a new configuration. I think this is because we can think something that doesn’t exist (such as a ‘false fact’) by imagining it. His critique of this is not fully developed, as he admits. He promises to return to it, but announces, in a sense, his first target. - “it is not the fact which we think". He points out that this depends on how one uses the word “fact”. I think he means that one could use the word fact in such a way that what I wish for is the fact of Mr. Smith arriving. That would evade, rather than resolve, the problem.

His next step (p. 32) introduces the familiar notion of propositions – “the sense of a the sentence” but presents them as “shadows” of facts. This presents the concept in an entirely new context, in which they can be treated as problems in a way that orthodox philosophy doesn’t. So a wholly new critique of the concept can be developed. It is not as if the concept of a proposition is not problematic, but this approach takes us out of the box.

Two transformations of the issue follow rapidly (still p. 32). "How can we know what the shadow is a shadow of?"-- "What makes a portrait a portrait of Mr. N?" and there’s a first answer "The similarity between the portrait and Mr. N". He rejects this answer “for it is in the essence of this idea that it should make sense to talk of a good or a bad portrait” The shadow cannot be treated in this way because, to put it this way, there is no Mr. N to compare it to. This is the essence of the problem, not a solution.

And he wanders off into a discussion of meaning, returning on p. 35, where we find a helpful diagnosis. Hie identifies two different uses of “I think x”. We have "I think that so-and-so will happen" or "that so-and-so is the case", but also "I think just the same thing as he". He also cites "I expect him", and "I expect that he will come" and compares "I shoot him".

This is followed by a discussion of shadows, pictures, and similarity. He is seeking to establish the paradoxical idea that a correct picture of something need have no similarity with its object. (I’m reminded of the picture theory of meaning.) On that basis, positing a shadow between “the sentence and reality” loses all point. The sentence itself can play the required role. (p. 37).

The topic seems to be finally closed when, on p. 38, he reminds us that the connection between thinking about a man and the man himself is established by an ordinary ostensive definition.

@Joshs

Sec 9 Non-existence and Statements without Facts (pp. 30-32)

I shall cover what might be seen as the first phase, — Ludwig V

Thanks for cracking this, well done; I was at a loss (and maybe still am) as to why we imagine a difficulty in picturing what is not. Obviously he points out that part of the difficulty is because of the forced analogy of thought as an object, but I take the confusion that follows to be that: if we are thinking of the absence of something, then how can there be an object that is (not) the thought.

I wanted to offer that Wittgenstein says that imagining it is "easy" perhaps because of the form of the question (not that the answering of it is). Asking "How can one...?" (p. 30, 1965 Harper's Ed.) “beautifully” plays right into his method of drawing out the means for doing a practice—its workings, how we can…. i.e., the “grammar” of thinking, facts, and "existing", etc. He looks at different cases to see that there is not only one way these each work (there are different usages/options/senses, with different possibilities, also qualified by the situation and interest).

If a watch is seen to "exist" because, say, it is completely put together, or functioning, then we might let go of identification by correspondence with an internal object, like an “idea” or visual “sense-data”, and realize it is just meeting the criteria of what is important to us (society) about a watch (tells time; is small, portable, operates by a vibrating mainspring compared to a clock, etc.)

The feeling of “difficulty” in first identifying red I would think comes from the desire to identify color by equating that color, as a “quality”, with an internal “object” of our vision, say, an “appearance” as part of “perception”, from which philosophy would ask: “how could we have that object of red before encountering it?” But I take it the way color works (it’s grammar) is like a pain (PI #235]; it is the “same” for us to the extent we align in a particular case, e.g., “What color would you say that is?” “Red”. “Well, isn’t it more of a rose color.” “Maybe, but all the client cares about is that it’s not blue.” “Yeah right, okay.”

In saying “it is not the fact we think”, I would offer that he is showing that, though something is a fact, like a house is on fire, its “fact-ness” is not an object (of thought, always there), because its expression may not be used as a fact; we are not (necessarily) making the point that, “it is a fact that the house is on fire” (unless of course there is the need for confirmation, some doubt, etc.). The statement might just be to raise alarm, as an expression of realization, shock, etc.

I am at a bit of a loss on the “shadow fact”, but I imagine it plays the same role as “appearance” or “impression”; inserted in between the ordinary process of vision and identification, etc. in order to mitigate all our statements in order to explain (and control) the possibility of error.

I'm sorry I shan't have time to respond to this until tomorrow. :sad:

Thanks for cracking this, well done; — Antony Nickles

I was at a loss (and maybe still am) as to why we imagine a difficulty in picturing what is not. ….I take the confusion that follows to be that: if we are thinking of the absence of something, than how can there then be an object that is the thought. — Antony Nickles

I think you are right. I think that Wittgenstein must have recognized this. That’s why I emphasized the way the problem is presented. It seems to me to be quite carefully set up so as to make the problem clear.
There’s room here for a discussion of how philosophical problems arise. We don’t just stumble onto or into them. So Descartes initial reflections in the Meditations are not just an ancillary to the project. Nor, to be fair, does he present them as such. The difference is that Descartes thinks that he is recognizing the problem. We (or at least I) think that he is creating it.)

Asking "How can one...?" (p. 30, 1965 Harper's Ed.) “beautifully” plays right into his method of drawing out the means for doing a practice—its workings (grammar), how we can…. i.e., the “grammar” of thinking, facts, and "existing", etc. — Antony Nickles

Yes. That’s not an accident, of course. It’s part of the project.

If a watch is seen to "exist" because, say, it is completely put together, or functioning, then we might let go of identification by correspondence with an internal object. — Antony Nickles

Yes. Or rather, it should. It does rather raise questions about what it means to say that something exists, since the broken or toy watch does, nonetheless, exist - it's just that the description "watch" doesn't apply.
I’m always a bit saddened by the persistence of mental or internal objects in philosophical discourse. Many people don’t seem to be impressed by or don’t understand the private language argument. It’s not easy.

The feeling of difficulty in first identifying red I would think comes from the desire to identify color by equating that color, as a “quality”, with an internal “object” of our vision, say, an “appearance” as part of “perception”, which philosophy would ask: “how could we have that object of red before encountering it?” But I take it the way color works (it’s grammar) is like a pain (PI #235) In saying “it is not the fact we think”, I would offer that he is showing that, though something is a fact, like a house is on fire, its “fact-ness” is not an object (of thought, always there), because its expression may not be used as a fact. — Antony Nickles

Yes, I found this part very difficult. I’m not sure I really understand what he was getting at. The business about seeing redness when one presses one’s own eyeball didn’t impress me. The need to learn from others what redness is makes this possibility dubiously relevant – unless everyone has the same experience, which is, I suppose, possible.
But the idea that one could somehow abolish redness, I think, is based on a misunderstanding of how colour works. Colour words are a system; they segment the colour spectrum, so abolishing redness sounds as if it would leave a gap in the spectrum, which is hard to understand, or just restrict the spectrum. That is possible. Dogs, for example, can’t see red. As I understand it, they see red objects as black, so the abolition is a substitution. But the ability to see red is, for us, a physiological capacity – are we to imagine some feat of genetic engineering?
I think you may be right in comparing colour with pain – in the sense that W is thinking of redness as (grammatically) like pain. Perhaps this is possible if one doesn’t understand the colour spectrum, but we do. That makes a huge difference, because if there is a spectrum of pain, it is a spectrum of intensity, not of quality. We do have qualities of pain – stabbing, aching, throbbing etc. – but they are not on a spectrum.
The question is “what do you mean by ‘redness exists’? I’m wondering whether this may not be about the limits of thought as compared with the limits of the imagination and the distinction between meaningful and meaningless sentences/thoughts. After all, one of the classic tests of meaningfulness is whether one can imagine – the sun not rising tomorrow morning, for example, or a round square. I’m not all sure that the non-existence of redness, as opposed to red things, is conceivable, whereas the non-existence of red things is. The reason is that colours are a system, and the space for redness is guaranteed by the system.
If that’s what he’s getting at, thinking what is not is not necessarily imagining what is not.

I am at a bit of a loss on the “shadow fact”, but I imagine it plays the same role as “appearance” or “impression”; inserted in between the ordinary process of vision and identification, etc. in order to mitigate all our statements in order to explain (and control) the possibility of error. — Antony Nickles

You are right about the role of the shadow fact. It does indeed fit with “proposition” and sense of a sentence”. Appearances and impressions are tangled up with experiences, so he may have wished to set them aside.
In a sense these terms do explain the possibility of error. But in another sense, they do less and more than that. They articulate the possibility of error. The essence of a hallucination is that Macbeth is acting as if there was a dagger before him, but there isn’t. To describe the situation in that way (Macbeth is acting as if ... but there isn't) has a sharp edge of paradox about it. The concept of a hallucination enables us to get through that. Perhaps it includes the idea of a visual image. That may seem to help, but doesn’t really add anything.

@Ludwig V

Sec 10 Intending and Meaning (pp. 32-34)

“To intend a picture to be the portrait of so-and-so (on the part of the painter, e.g.) is neither a particular state of mind nor a particular mental process.” (P.32)

This harkens back to looking at understanding or thinking as a “queer mechanism” (p.3) that happens in the brain. We decided this was an “answer” to what was turned into a “problem” in trying to head off misunderstanding, instead of seeing it as an ongoing situation to understand someone. To imagine intention as a mechanism of the brain seems to mean it is always present, as if it would serve a purpose, such as causality (for action perhaps). But if we use the method, as before, of making the process external, public, as in the case of copying, it turns out the judgment of whether we are copying is based on a number of possible criteria, and we may be judged to have copied something even when we set out [intended] not to, as in “It looks like you copied that.” “Oh, I wasn’t trying [intending] to.” So he concludes that a process, i.e., an action, “can never be the intention itself.” (P.33) Thus we can conclude there is no agent (needed) that intends, as there was not one for thinking.

“…consider what it is that really happens when we say a thing and mean what we say.” (P.34)

He says he wants to take apart the picture of a process accompanying or “run[ning] alongside these words”, as if there is a mechanism to “mean the arrow one way or another”; as if “We mean (our internal object)”. But he points out that to mean what we say is actually a matter of tone and feeling, “expression”. I would also offer that when we claim we mean what we say, we are committed to it, to the consequences; we are making a promise not to go back on having said it.

I take the purpose of the examples to be to show that we don’t “mean” or “intend” what we say “as a rule”, i.e., with everything we say, so it is not a mechanism or process, and so not a part of speaking or the way language works or the determination of what matters in something being said.

It does rather raise questions about what it means to say that something exists, since the broken or toy watch does, nonetheless, exist - it's just that the description "watch" doesn't apply. — Ludwig V

Yes it doesn’t mean metaphysical “existence”, but I don’t think we should trivialize what it does mean, even in the sense of not being here. Before a watch is put together, it is just watch parts. But it is, decidedly, not a watch. Broken, it is not a watch, it is a broken watch. Now if, in this example, we are simply applying a description (which I don’t know how to take other than as pointing something out), as if labeling it broken is ancillary to it still being a watch, then perhaps we are referring to it as a watch for another reason, perhaps in differentiating it from a clock.

I take it as a re-figuring, but still about what is fundamental, essential, without being metaphysical—what we find essential—for example, about, say, a chair. If it doesn’t have a back, it is not a chair; it does not exist as a chair, which has the meaning, or affect that, if you call it a chair, I am right to correct you in pointing out it is a stool (however didactic that is; however lazy we allow ourselves to be). As well, if you don’t know to (know how to) differentiate sleet from snow, sleet does not exist for you in the world.

The reason I think the private language argument (as with the argument here) is hard to accept is when it is only seen as the negation of mental objects (which here we realize is the analogizing of the framework of “objects”) as it will seem to ignore (he says “deny”): me, thought, meaning, experience; instead of ending with something positive, about what it says about me thinking (through something), me meaning (having a point in saying something), me as someone who can experience something (of note, even unique). This is why he is seen as a negative philosopher. He went straight at tearing done the house of cards and is never seen as building it back up from the rubble that still remained, I would say because he turns to why we (he did) fight so hard against it.

Again, good work; I’ll wait for your continuation of the reading.

He went straight at tearing done the house of cards and is never seen as building it back up from the rubble that still remained, I would say because he turns to why we (he did) fight so hard against it. — Antony Nickles

Yes. It seems to me that Descartes and Hume both receive similar treatment - they are known as sceptical philosophers, when actually, the point of their work was to deal with scepticism.

I've got a bit confused about where we are. It doesn't help that the page numbering in my copy (from Gutenberg Press) seems not to have a page 33!

I shall go from p. 32/33

Then if this scheme is to serve our purpose at all, it must show us which of the three levels is the level of meaning. I can, e.g., make a scheme with three levels, the bottom level always being the level of meaning. But adopt whatever model or scheme you may, it will have a bottom level, and there will be no such thing as an interpretation of that. To say in this case that every arrow can still be interpreted would only mean that I could always make a different model of saying and meaning which had one more level than the one I am using.

to p.36/35

Another source of the idea of a shadow being the object of our thought is this: We imagine the shadow to be a picture the intention of which cannot be questioned, that is, a picture which we don't interpret in order to understand it, but which we understand without interpreting it.

Tomorrow.

The business about seeing redness when one presses one’s own eyeball didn’t impress me. The need to learn from others what redness is makes this possibility dubiously relevant – unless everyone has the same experience, which is, I suppose, possible.
But the idea that one could somehow abolish redness, I think, is based on a misunderstanding of how colour works. Colour words are a system; they segment the colour spectrum, so abolishing redness sounds as if it would leave a gap in the spectrum, which is hard to understand, or just restrict the spectrum. That is possible. Dogs, for example, can’t see red. As I understand it, they see red objects as black, so the abolition is a substitution. But the ability to see red is, for us, a physiological capacity – are we to imagine some feat of genetic engineering?
I think you may be right in comparing colour with pain – in the sense that W is thinking of redness as (grammatically) like pain. Perhaps this is possible if one doesn’t understand the colour spectrum, but we do. That makes a huge difference, because if there is a spectrum of pain, it is a spectrum of intensity, not of quality. We do have qualities of pain – stabbing, aching, throbbing etc. – but they are not on a spectrum. — Ludwig V

You suggest Wittgenstein’s “pressing the eyeball” example is irrelevant because color concepts are socially learned.
Then you shift the discussion toward physiology (dogs can’t see red; genetic engineering). Wittgenstein would say this is sliding back into an explanatory, scientific register (physiology, genetics), which is not the issue. He isn’t denying the biological basis of vision; he’s showing that philosophy generates pseudo-problems by treating “redness” as if it were an inner object. The “pressing the eyeball” example is a reminder that even when we report “seeing red,” the grammar of “red” is not that of an inner sensation, but part of a learned practice. Dismissing the example as irrelevant misses Wittgenstein’s therapeutic poin. He’s not offering data but undermining a picture, the picture of color as an inner object. You also treat “abolishing redness” as a problem of spectrum physics, but Wittgenstein might say “abolishing redness” looks nonsensical not because of biology but because of how the grammar of color words works in our language.


On comparing color with pain, you say that pain has a spectrum of intensity, while color has a spectrum of quality. I think Wittgenstein’s point isn’t that colors and pains are the same kind of phenomenon but that the grammar of the words is comparable. With both, the temptation is to treat them as inner objects we directly access. But Wittgenstein shows that meaning is in the use. “I have a toothache” works like “This is red” not by pointing to a private inner object but by participating in a practice with public criteria. You speak as if “the color system” guarantees a metaphysical space for redness, as though the system enforces an ontological necessity. But the necessity is grammatical, not metaphysical. It comes from how we use color words, not from a hidden structure of reality.

I've got a bit confused about where we are — Ludwig V

I had already written something up on the section about intention and meaning (which I posted above). I had assumed you were going to pick up the question again on what I have as page 35 with “let us revert to our question” which looks like it goes to page 40.

But, feel free to offer a reading of page 32 to 35 of course as well.

Thanks. That's clear enough. I'll pick up from where you left off and go to p. 40.

I don't think I have much to say about pp 32 - 35.

The page numbering problem is a nuisance. But I'll work out what's going on quite soon.

You suggest Wittgenstein’s “pressing the eyeball” example is irrelevant because color concepts are socially learned. — Joshs

Well, yes. Pressing one's eyeball and noticing a new colour is not enough. We have to see how other people describe the phenomenon. So I'm very puzzled, except that, perhaps, he hasn't yet constructed the private language argument. BTW, I pressed my own eyeball to see what would happen. Nothing - only darkness and the usual display from my retina. As I pressed harder, I experienced pain. Not that it matters.

He isn’t denying the biological basis of vision; he’s showing that philosophy generates pseudo-problems by treating “redness” as if it were an inner object. — Joshs

Yes, that's the general context. The specific context is the question how we can think of something that does not exist, and he is considering the answer that we just imagine it. But if imagination is just combining elements that do exist in new ways, imagination cannot play the role of shadow facts. Yet he presses the argument further, and seems to want to find a way of saying that we can imagine something that does not exist.

Wittgenstein might say “abolishing redness” looks nonsensical not because of biology but because of how the grammar of color words works in our language. — Joshs

What puzzles me is that he seems to conclude that abolishing redness is not nonsensical. He seems to be grasping for a sense in which it can make sense.

Suppose I said "Exerting a pressure on your eye-ball produces a red image". Couldn't the way by which you first became acquainted with red have been this?
And why shouldn't it have been just imagining a red patch?

I think he also acknowledges that this does not resolve the problem, because he promises to deal with the "reservations" we "may be feeling here at a later occasion."

I'm finding this point very confusing.