Wittgenstein returns to the question. "What is the object of a thought?" (e.g. when we say, "I think that King's College is on fire"). (Page 34)
This is, he says, typically metaphysical, because “an unclarity about the grammar of words” is expressed “in the form of a scientific (he has physics in mind) question”.

He identifies four “origins” of the question, which I think are intended to be confusions expressed in it. (Page 35)

1.. ‘One of the origins of our question is the use of "I think/expect" and “I think/expect” in two distinct ways. “I expect him” and “I expect that he will come”. We then compare “I expect him” to “I shoot him”.
He turns his attention to the shadows:-
2 a) Two different sentences can have the same sense, which becomes a shadowy being (unless perhaps it is a material object).
2 b) Shadowy sense to “be a picture” that “cannot be questioned”; it doesn’t need any interpretation.
3) Sometimes a sentence brings images before our mind's eye. These images are “translations” into pictorial language. But they must be similar to, copies of, what they are pictures of.

i) A map of all or part of our planet, he says, is not a picture by similarity or a copy in this sense. (Page 36)
ii) A picture of someone’s face projected it “in such a way that no one would normally call the projection ‘a good portrait of so-and-so’ because it would not look a bit like him”. This is, let us say, a bit complicated.

This gets him to where he wants to be. The sentence itself can do the work of the shadow, and so no shadow is needed. We can explain what the sentence means, perhaps, by an ostensive definition. That’s how words and things can be connected.

He can now go back and correct the path that he started down. (Page 37) The idea of the shadow is deeply rooted, but it is not what we really want to say. What we want to say is that “the fact which we wish for must be present in our wish”. Well, the answer just above cited ostensive definition to explain what “King’s College is on fire”. That works for expectation and wishing, too – after the event. But I could have given a similar explanation before it, as well.

At this point, a summary. How do our thoughts “connect” with the things they are about? The connection is made by means of ostensive definition. Ordinary language makes it seem that the connection must have been made during the act of thinking. But that’s not the case.
He gives us examples that could be taken to mean that thinking or meaning can be regarded as a mental activity, and so leading us to feel that something has been explained and no further questions are appropriate.

Now he returns to imagining and King’s College (Page 38) and subjects this to a cross-examination. I take it that links back to the rather unsatisfactory discussion of imagining earlier. But here, he concludes that our mistake is to think that images and experiences of all sorts, must be present in our mind at the same time.

Finally, a metaphor (Page 39) , - pulling a string of beads being pulled out of a box through a hole in the lid, to persuade us that “We easily overlook the distinction between stating a conscious mental event, and making a hypothesis about what one might call the mechanism of the mind.”

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. — Joshs

I get your point. But eventually realized that the peculiarity of this discussion is precisely that it is conducted, to put it this way, de re and not de dicto. If he asked whether we could abolish the concept of redness, that would have been one question. But he doesn't. He asks whether we could abolish redness, and compares it to destroying a watch. That comparison is a nonsense, to start with.

I keeping reaching for a key that will make all this fall in to place. But it still elude me. The discussion later on page 38 is all very well, but I don't see it clarifies this passage.

@Joshs

Sec 11 Our words’ connection to the world (p. 35-39)

The sentence itself can do the work of the shadow, and so no shadow is needed. We can explain what the sentence means, perhaps, by an ostensive definition. That’s how words and things can be connected. — Ludwig V

Nice work; my thoughts are along the same lines. He is showing us examples** of how we can correct the connection of word and world, as you say, by ostensive definition, or, alternatively, by explanation, demonstration, being an example, by force, etc., but words and the world don’t (usually) need to be (re-)connected because, by default, they just are connected (as you say, “no shadow is needed”). “…the interpolation of a shadow between the sentence and “reality” loses all point” (p.37) [my quote marks]. In the PI he will talk of this as there being no space “to get between pain and its expression”. (#245)

Philosophy imagines we make that connection every time (say, to “our understanding”). But there are events (in time, place) where “language” and the world actually do have a disconnect (along our criteria for judgment), but philosophy interprets the sheer possibility of disconnection, and the difficulty of reconnecting, as if the “problem” is in the activity of (always) connecting which is then just a puzzle to “know”, like a “a queer mechanism” (cue some neuroscience).

But in practice we fall back on the many separate ways we have for straightening things out. Philosophy needs to be shown any of these examples of means of reconnection—shown that language and the world “can be” reconnected—to realize the exception means that the word and world are not always mitigated by some object like “perception” or data, or other “shadow” But it then also follows that there is no “object” for there to be a “fact” of it to communicate. There are not certain, fixed, ever-present objects, as if part of “me”, like, “my understanding”, that I simply put into words.

The best juxtaposition is the difference between “…a thing I am thinking about, not 'that [thing] which I am thinking'.” (P.38) In the first, we are perhaps in a discussion (with ourselves even) considering, remarking on, analyzing, etc. a thing/object. Thinking in the second case is just the description of a thing/object which I have, “my thought”, which I take as a fact (as complete and without any need for context). But, like with the Napoleon example, there is no singular fact that is a certain, unique criteria (there, for identification).

Most importantly, understanding is not “present” during communication. Understanding happens after expression, in coming back to it, e.g., when you have demonstrated that you haven’t understood how to do something, or how to continue a series as expected, or that your expression makes it clear that you do not understand what I was trying to say (apart from disagreeing, etc.). We mostly say things that have already been said in situations similar enough to ours that it doesn’t need more elaboration (mostly). This public nature of language is because it is a record of our history, that “The connection between these words and [the world] was, perhaps, made at another time.” (P. 39)


**Sometimes I feel like his examples here are just terrible. I mean is it just me or waaaaay too unnecessarily esoteric for the point he is trying to make, except that he seems to feel he needs to chase the rabbit all the way down the hole to cover as many senses/analogies in which philosophy might frame our thinking as objects, etc.

Sometimes I feel like his examples here are just terrible. I mean is it just me or waaaaay too unnecessarily esoteric for the point he is trying to make, except that he seems to feel he needs to chase the rabbit all the way down the hole to cover as many senses/analogies in which philosophy might frame our thinking as objects, etc. — Antony Nickles

I'm glad you mention that. I agree with you, and there should not be a problem about recognizing that Homer sometimes nods. I still have no way of shifting my feeling that something has gone wrong in the discussion of imagination and the question whether we can imagine the abolition of redness.

Most importantly, understanding is not “present” during communication. Understanding happens after expression, in coming back to it, .... — Antony Nickles

Yes. I think that W is right to point to the importance of explanations after the event. But it seems odd to say that understanding is not "present" during communication. Surely understanding is expressed in communication and in even in non-communicative action. In any normal action, there is a huge amount of complexity and we may be unable to resolve various ambiguities simply of the basis of a single action. Then we need to clarify after the event. But a great deal of that complexity can be expressed in the processes of planning and preparation, before the action.

philosophy interprets the sheer possibility of disconnection, and the difficulty of reconnecting, as if the “problem” is in the activity of (always) connecting which is then just a puzzle to “know”, like a “a queer mechanism” (cue some neuroscience). — Antony Nickles

Philosophy wants to construct a logical structure of the action and then turn it into an actual structure "in the mind". It's like insisting that all arguments be expressed in formal logical format, even when we actually utter a short version, trading on shared assumptions and attitudes.

. I think that W is right to point to the importance of explanations after the event. But it seems odd to say that understanding is not "present" during communication. Surely understanding is expressed in communication and in even in non-communicative action. In any normal action, there is a huge amount of complexity and we may be unable to resolve various ambiguities simply of the basis of a single action. Then we need to clarify after the event. But a great deal of that complexity can be expressed in the processes of planning and preparation, before the action. — Ludwig V

I read W as making a distinction between what phenomenologists call the mode of givenness of an object and the object taken in a theoretical sense. It’s not that a mode of givenness doesn’t give us to understand a thing, but that what we are given to understand is a contextual sense of an object that cannot be swallowed up within a more general categorical definition on it. The particular givenness doesn’t imply the more general concept. On the contrary, the general meaning is secondary to and derivative of the particular sense.

But it seems odd to say that understanding is not "present" during communication. — Ludwig V

I believe he would say that understanding is not a quality or thing—that is present or not; it is that picture/analogy which leads to the feeling of oddness. I think understanding is more appropriately thought of as a process (not a mental mechanism, but: clarification, explication, distinction, etc.) I only mentioned the “after” version, but of course there is the “before” process as well; e.g., “Tell me your understanding?” or: trying to understand.

Yes, there can be a multiplicity of meaning and complexity “in” communication (the wording here is also misleading), but we are only aware of the need to explain or clarify before or after the expression. Sometimes there is no “understanding”; we don’t speak of it when I ask you to pass the salt, as you say, “trading on shared assumptions and attitudes.”

what we are given to understand is a contextual sense of an object that cannot be swallowed up within a more general categorical definition on it. — Joshs

Broadly, that's ok with me.

The particular givenness doesn’t imply the more general concept. On the contrary, the general meaning is secondary to and derivative of the particular sense. — Joshs

I'm a bit puzzled about what "swallowed up" means here. We only ever encounter particular houses and particular people. Even though they are particular, they can be described in terms of generalities.

we are only aware of the need to explain or clarify before or after the expression. Sometimes there is no “understanding”; we don’t speak of it when I ask you to pass the salt, as you say, “trading on shared assumptions and attitudes.” — Antony Nickles

Yes. There's an interplay between what we are aware of, what W calls a mechanism of the mind - I think of it as the unconscious. Understanding seems to occur in both ways. But perhaps we need a third category - our ability to explain ourselves, to answer questions. A disposition is odd. It manifests in certain circumstances and not in others. In between manifestations, there's nothing - except counter-factuals about what I would do or what might manifest itself in a different context.

There's an interplay between what we are aware of, what W calls a mechanism of the mind - I think of it as the unconscious. — Ludwig V

I take his point to be that we create the idea of a mechanism. We try to internalize the processes of thinking, understanding, and meaning to imagine we control what the words that we say do (or do not) mean, as if we could avoid the responsibility to make ourselves understood, or not have to answer for what we say.

And the “unconscious” aspect of meaning I would offer is that words have a history and are subject to circumstances, which are either so pedestrian that they operate without our doing (being conscious of) anything, or that at times their possibilities of meaning outstrip our ability to encompass and/or control (be conscious of) how they will come off in a particular (even novel) context.

@Joshs @Ludwig V

Sec. 12 Expression and its accompaniments—memory, judgment, thinking (p. 40-43)

the experience of thinking may just be the experience of saying, or may consist of this experience plus others which accompany it. — After “Let us sum up”, p. 43

And so we are adding layers back in, and I think we’re left to contemplate rather than being told, what “others”? Obviously we do many things along with saying things (Austin would even say “in” saying them), and it is just a matter of not getting caught in the old traps while looking into them.

At p. 40 I take him to be differentiating my “expression”, in the sense of “by me”, from me describing a mental object that I have. The analogous “tune”, which he divorces from the mechanism of the phonograph, is from the world (before us) and is not “kept, stored, before we express it”. We perform the tune, as we go. Now beforehand, or when that retelling is interrupted, we may search our memory, but not necessarily, as we may just start off (or continue).

We might exhibit pain or describe a vision because these are actual—though not necessarily unique—physical states. But I would venture that expecting is just the label for a judgment we make from the evidence of our response to anticipation (fear of the past, in the case of a gunshot). The answer to: “Why are you tense, steadying yourself, holding your breath?” is not: “I have an expectation.”

As well, I see “groping for a word” not as putting a word to something “already expressed” internally (p. 41), but as an activity (though perhaps just passive waiting). In this sense, the expression is only in having found the word, in the saying of it (to you or myself).

I see his use of “expression” as meant to capture the event of that initial introduction of a thought, hope, or wish to the world, to, as he says, “existence” (p. 40), without the need for any “independent” process or thing in a “peculiar medium” (p. 43). The “sentence” is “reality”. (p. 37, 41)

This, of course, doesn't mean that we have shown that peculiar acts of consciousness do not accompany the expressions of our thoughts! Only we no longer say that they must accompany them. — p. 42

(The power of this “must” I take as very important to why all the forced analogies and “fixed standards” (p.43), but so far he only goes so far as to blame our forms of speech—not yet seeing the need driving it).

I think it is worth noting that he wants to add back in a sense of “private” thinking and experiences, as I take all this here (and in the PI) to be for much more than just a conclusion about “private language”. Here he acknowledges certain senses of privacy, such as being hidden from others, like a secret we tell to ourselves in an aside; as we could reveal (and thus hide) the “muscular, visual, tactile sensations” of my body, in the sense of bringing attention to (like admitting) the fact that I have them.

His method allows us perspective on thinking as the assumption that we just speak our “thoughts” (not in the sense of voicing our inner dialogue), by asking “what do we say if we have no thought?” and then pointing out the sense of speaking thoughtlessly as simply not considering beforehand the consequences of saying something in a particular context.

Next, personal experiences, I think.

The particular givenness doesn’t imply the more general concept. On the contrary, the general meaning is secondary to and derivative of the particular sense.
— Joshs
I'm a bit puzzled about what "swallowed up" means here. We only ever encounter particular houses and particular people. Even though they are particular, they can be described in terms of generalities — Ludwig V

Yes, but each time we invoke the same generality we mean a particular sense that wasn’t already present in the generality. So it’s never the ‘same’ generality being used each time.

The answer to: “Why are you tense, steadying yourself, holding your breath?” is not: “I have an expectation.” — Antony Nickles

The answer to idealism, in a nutshell.

As well, I see “groping for a word” not as putting a word to something “already expressed” internally (p. 41), but as an activity (though perhaps just passive waiting). In this sense, the expression is only in having found the word, in the saying of it (to you or myself). — Antony Nickles

I think of it, not as a repetition of something stored, but as a recreation, in which each element is added because it "fits" with the previous one. Or, the metaphor of the pearls being drawn out of a box, but are not stored in the box, but (re-)created at the moment that it is needed.

(The power of this “must” I take as very important to why all the forced analogies and “fixed standards” (p.43), but so far he only goes so far as to blame our forms of speech—not yet seeing the need driving it). — Antony Nickles

That's a nice example of how a new position can generate the next question.

I think it is worth noting that he wants to add back in a sense of “private” thinking and experiences, — Antony Nickles

Perhaps this passage should be quoted more often in debates about the PLA.

I have been trying in all this to remove the temptation to think that there 'must be' what is called a mental process of thinking, hoping, wishing, believing, etc., independent of the process of expressing a thought, a hope, a wish, etc. — p. 41

It is striking, at least to me, that what he means by a mental process is a conscious process, which we can become aware of if we pay attention what we are conscious of from moment to moment. It's an effective tactic, even if it smacks more of phenomenology than logic. But I am puzzled about the mental processes posited by congitive science. I have the impression that these writing do not pay attention to the difference between conscious and unconscious processes. That allows the argument that the must be certain processes going on that we are not aware of - i.e. unconscious processes. (No doubt this is not intended in a dualistic sense, but is based on the assumption that a physical substrate will be identified in due course.

Yes, but each time we invoke the same generality we mean a particular sense that wasn’t already present in the generality. So it’s never the ‘same’ generality being used each time. — Joshs

Yes, you get that result if you think of same in the light of the logical axiom that A=A is the paradigm of sameness. Actually, for me, it is the limiting case of sameness and is the point at which it is deprived of all real meaniing. Obviously, any generalization must be applicable to a range of particular cases, which may will likely not be identical in all respects, as required by our paradigm. But the concept of a paradigm allows for differences. In short, your argument suggests that generality is, strictly speaking, impossible. That may not be a reductio ad absurdum but it is certainly a reduction to pointlessness.

Yes, but each time we invoke the same generality we mean a particular sense that wasn’t already present in the generality. So it’s never the ‘same’ generality being used each time.
— Joshs
Yes, you get that result if you think of same in the light of the logical axiom that A=A is the paradigm of sameness. Actually, for me, it is the limiting case of sameness and is the point at which it is deprived of all real meaniing. Obviously, any generalization must be applicable to a range of particular cases, which may will likely not be identical in all respects, as required by our paradigm. But the concept of a paradigm allows for differences. In short, your argument suggests that generality is, strictly speaking, impossible. That may not be a reductio ad absurdum but it is certainly a reduction to pointlessness — Ludwig V

Generality is possible whenever we use that word. But what is the difference in what we are doing when we think the endless possibilities of grammatical use of a word like paradigm, general or game, and the uses of a word like particular? Is Wittgenstein invoking a theory of generality (“the concept of a paradigm allows for differences”), or would he eschew the search for the essence of generality and instead look at the various ways we use words like “same,” “general,” and “particular”? Would you agree that if there is no essence of meaning of any word , then there is no essence of meaning of ‘particular’, and likewise no essence of meaning of ‘general’, paradigm, game, category, etc?

Would you agree that if there is no essence of meaning of any word , then there is no essence of meaning of ‘particular’, and likewise no essence of meaning of ‘general’, paradigm, game, category, etc? — Joshs

Yes. But you seem to me to be laying down an essence of "same" and using that as a rule which outlaws the ways in which we actually use "general" and "generality".

Yes. But you seem to me to be laying down an essence of "same" and using that as a rule which outlaws the ways in which we actually use "general" and "generality". — Ludwig V

Do you mean that I am using “same” as a rule which outlaws beforehand certain ways among others that we may use general and generality, or that general and generality are exclusively associated with specific ways of use (“the” ways we actually use them, versus a potential infinity of possible uses)?

What I was trying to do was not outlaw any particular use of “same” , but to point to a use of same which relies on the consultation of a picture. If we say that two photos of an object depict the same object, or we stare repeatedly at an object and report that our perception continues to be of the same object, should we say that the sense of ‘object’ here is unique to the specific context and instant of use, or that what we mean by object here is something (i.e. general category) whose sense transcends the instant and context of its use? If the latter, then it would seem to tie ‘same’ to the consultation of a categorical picture.

I have the impression that these writing do not pay attention to the difference between conscious and unconscious processes. That allows the argument that there must be certain processes going on that we are not aware of - i.e. unconscious processes. — Ludwig V

I don’t take this work as an argument for a conclusion, such as that there are no processes of the brain of which we are not conscious. He implicitly acknowledges (p.6) that our brain is, of course, unconsciously doing all the things it does do (remembering, focusing, deciding, using language) while we are thinking or understanding. But I take him to be examining thinking, understanding, and meaning because these are examples that are just not independent mental mechanisms of the brain (but activities we work through; judgments we come to). The point of drawing out how they work is not to prove that (or prove that there are no unconscious brain processes), but to learn why we nevertheless want to force that framework on them, why we want to require the issue be a problem.

Similarly, his consideration of the possibility of a private language in the PI is superficially taken as just an argument against it (that the point, elsewhere, is that there are simply no “beetles” in us). As here, I take that section as an investigation of why we would want a private language (and that he finds reasons).

@Joshs@Ludwig V

Sec. 13 Personal experience and skepticism (p. 45-48]

At a certain point in the next section (“It seems to us… p. 47 ), he lands on the question of whether it is possible for a machine to think, and he submits that it is “not really that we don’t yet know”, because the question is mistakenly framed from our desire for personal experience to be “the very basis of all that we say with any sense about [being a human]” (p. 48). He also says we are “tempted to say that these personal experiences are the material of which reality consists.” (p. 45)

Of course Descartes will want to rely on our certainty in ourselves to justify the world, but, with Wittgenstein’s ordering, we seem to put ourselves first, perhaps out of self-preservation; that if anything needs to be certain, it’s “me”, even as a product of our doubt about others. “There is a temptation for me to say that only my own experience is real: ‘I know that I see, hear, feel pains, etc., but not that anyone else does. I can't know this, because I am I and they are they.’” (p. 46)

Ironically, our confidence in our personal experience leaves us without a shared world, only “a lot of separate personal experiences of different individuals”, which gives us a sense of “general uncertainty” (radical skepticism), and a belief that we need a “firm hold”, e.g., “How could I even have come by the idea of another's experience if there is no possibility of any evidence for it?” (My emphasis) I take this desire for “reliability, and solidity” to be the motivation for a (certain) solution to this “problem”, analogous to an object or biological mechanism.

If we are right to say we have been looking for a why to our forcing the analogy of objects, this seems to be the start of an answer.

Do you mean that I am using “same” as a rule which outlaws beforehand certain ways among others that we may use general and generality, — Joshs

That is what I was suggesting.

or that general and generality are exclusively associated with specific ways of use (“the” ways we actually use them, versus a potential infinity of possible uses)? — Joshs

Not quite that. It would be incautious of me to deny the possibiity of non-standard uses of "general" and "generality". All I was saying was the standard logical definition of "same" (A=A) makes standard uses of "general" and "generality" pointless or reduces standard uses to sloppy versions of the strict or pure use that logicians prefer. For me, it is A=A that is non-standard - not wrong, exactly, but a limiting case.

What I was trying to do was not outlaw any particular use of “same” , but to point to a use of same which relies on the consultation of a picture. — Joshs

That is very helpful.

If we say that two photos of an object depict the same object, or we stare repeatedly at an object and report that our perception continues to be of the same object, should we say that the sense of ‘object’ here is unique to the specific context and instant of use, or that what we mean by object here is something (i.e. general category) whose sense transcends the instant and context of its use? If the latter, then it would seem to tie ‘same’ to the consultation of a categorical picture. — Joshs

Two pictures of my car - one in London and one in Edinburgh, say - are two pictures of the same object. Clearly that object transcends the instant and context of each picture - in some sense of "transcend". (Actually, the idea of an object that exists only at an instant or in a specific context is - let's say - a bit odd, or perhaps specialized. I mean that part of the point of the concept of an object is that it persists through a variety of contexts.)

If the latter, (sc. "what we mean by object here is something (i.e. general category) whose sense transcends the instant and context of its use?") then it would seem to tie ‘same’ to the consultation of a categorical picture. — Joshs

I'm not sure whether you are talking about the picture as a shadow-object (the illusion that W is trying to show is superfluous), or about the relevant sentence (which he compares to a picture). I think that, in your example of the two photographs, the photographs are doing the job of the sentence, and that this is consonant with what he is trying to say.

I mean that part of the point of the concept of an object is that it persists through a variety of contexts. — Ludwig V

If that's right, then, what is happening with the two photographs is a question of how we interpret the photographs, rather than of the photographs themselves.
A side-note - a important curiosity here is that some differences between the two images may be crucial in our deciding that it is the same car in both pictures. The car will have aged and maybe undergone events that leave traces in the photographs - a dent, a patch of rust, a sticker. When we say it is the same car, we take that in to account and actually rely on those changes as evidence that it is the same car.


I haven't much to say about these pages. They are splendid examples of his method and I think they are very clear and work well. Hi remarks about method are also very helpful. But I do have some comments.

Ironically, our confidence in our personal experience leaves us without a shared world, only “a lot of separate personal experiences of different individuals”, — Antony Nickles

It is ironic that the search for certainty ends up by removing, or making problematic, so much of what we want to be certain of. The supreme irony here is that W's account of "I have a pain" as an "expression" as opposed to a description, trades on the absolute certainty of our experiences, but turns it into a problem, rather than a secure foundation. The price of certainty is the inability to say anything.
(There's a similarity here with the parallel issue about analytic statements, which cannot tell us anything just because they are so "secure")

Our investigation tried to remove this bias, which forces us to think that the facts must conform to certain pictures embedded in our language. — p.43

This expresses an ambivalence about our (ordinary) language which is perhaps rather glossed over, not only in some of W's own remarks, but also in "ordinary language philosophy. Ordinary language is sometimes "all right as it is", but sometimes it is not. The trick is to tell the difference.

But the trouble with the realist is always that he does not solve but skip the difficulties which his adversaries see, though they too don't succeed in solving them. — p.48

It is very hard to persuade people to accept W's stance, for example, that neither realism not ant-realism are correct or incorrect and that what is necessary is to understand both in order, one might say, to transcend them.

I added this example as an after-though:-

the expression of belief, thought, etc., is just a sentence;--and the sentence has sense only as a member of a system of language; as one expression within a calculus. Now we are tempted to imagine this calculus, as it were, as a permanent background to every sentence which we say, and to think that, although the sentence as written on a piece of paper or spoken stands isolated, in the mental act of thinking the calculus is there--all in a lump. The mental act seems to perform in a miraculous way what could not be performed by any act of manipulating symbols. Now when the temptation to think that in some sense the whole calculus must be present at the same time vanishes, there is no more point in postulating the existence of a peculiar kind of mental act alongside of our expression. — p. 42

W makes clear, admittedly without saying so, that, in a sense, the calculus is present whenever we speak or write. But in a lump, and not in the sense required by the idea of a mental act of thinking - not that that idea could contain the whole of language "in a lump" without magical properties.

His method allows us perspective on thinking as the assumption that we just speak our “thoughts” (not in the sense of voicing our inner dialogue), by asking “what do we say if we have no thought?” and then pointing out the sense of speaking thoughtlessly as simply not considering beforehand the consequences of saying something in a particular context. — Antony Nickles

Now here's a difficulty. The trick here is to juxtapose a sense in which one can speak thoughtlessly with the philosophical doctrine, in such a way that the emptiness of the doctrine stands out. But much depends here on the reaction of the audience, who, I find, are a bit liable to object that they did not mean that, so that the two sides are speaking past each other.

@Joshs

W's account of "I have a pain" as an "expression" as opposed to a description — Ludwig V

This is the most-succinct, elucidating summary I’ve come across (of course needing to know what he is getting at with “expression”, and what the description would be presumed to be of, but still, well put).

Ordinary language is sometimes "all right as it is", but sometimes it is not. The trick is to tell the difference. — Ludwig V

I would offer that the method of “Ordinary Language Philosophy” does not give privilege to our common sayings, nor is the point that they are true (“common sense”). What we say in a situation is merely evidence of the criteria for a particular practice (our interests in it) to compare to the imposed, generalized, metaphysical criteria of objectivity, certainty, universality, completeness, etc. “Ordinary” criteria allow us to see the workings of a practice. That method of insight also allows us to create “imagined” cases (and simplified ones), and to clarify a common phrase in showing its sense/usage despite its not being worded well, forcing analogies, etc. Conversely, Cavell will work very hard creating fantastical scenarios (as Witt does with beetles and private language) to give as much sense to the skeptic’s words in order to understand what they want them to do.

The trick here is to juxtapose a sense in which one can speak thoughtlessly with the philosophical doctrine, in such a way that the emptiness of the doctrine stands out. But much depends here on the reaction of the audience, who, I find, are a bit liable to object that they did not mean that, so that the two sides are speaking past each other. — Ludwig V

Well you’ve hit the nail on the head again. The initial relevance of bringing up examples seems to just be to point out how our practices (feelings, etc.) work differently than in a metaphysical framework. But the examples of our ordinary criteria also show us that philosophy’s imposed criteria are not required, “that it is not necessary”(p.12). But not “not necessary in order to still have certainty” like philosophy wanted (which is a classic misunderstanding of his project), but just not needed to have an option to proceed at all, which is what skepticism seems to take away (in not getting the justification it requires).

He is showing what is important, even essential, to our practices, without resorting to certainty. “When I say: ‘we can only conjecture the cause but we know the motive’ this statement will be seen later on to be a grammatical one. The "can" refers to a logical possibility.” (P.15) The “logic”, however, is unfortunately not undeniable; if one does not see the distinction for oneself (the “cannot” of knowing causes), there is no force to it. Even worse, it does not satisfy philosophy’s desire for power from truth, but unravels it (here, the picture of causality).

But the goal is not to prove the skeptic wrong (to be right about the grammar of a practice), but to find out why we wanted to impose the criteria for certainty, universality, etc. in the first place. He calls it a “temptation” (p. 1). Thus we constantly remain able to supplant our ordinary criteria, tempted only to see the world the way we want, to try to make it answer to our desires. I agree that part of what needs answering is the question of how and why to fight against this temptation.

I would say that, so far, I don’t see it as an argument meant to convince us of a conclusion (say, sense data don’t exist, or, there is no such thing as a private language), but as ethical suggestions of methods to combat the desire to impose ourselves on the world, in order to discover our “real need” (PI #108). Thus the abundance of his examples is to see how we are “interested in a phenomenon in a variety of ways” id.

This is the most-succinct, elucidating summary I’ve come across (of course needing to know what he is getting at with “expression”, and what the description would be presumed to be of, but still, well put). — Antony Nickles

I'm glad you think so. I'm acutely aware that further explanation is needed. One issue is to sort out the difference between his use of "expression" in the context of propositions and sentences to mean something like a way of putting something or articulating something. (There might be a translation issue there.) The other is to say a little more about the relationship between "Ouch" and "I am in pain". I feel that Wittgenstein stops short at saying that "I am in pain" replaces "Ouch" and does not describe it, or the cause of it. However, "I am in pain" is actually part of language and one needs to see how "I am in pain" relates to "S/he is in pain", given that the latter follows from the former.

I would offer that the method of “Ordinary Language Philosophy” does not give privilege to our common sayings, nor is the point that they are true (“common sense”). — Antony Nickles

Well, it shouldn't, but is often discussed as if that is the idea. Wittgenstein doesn't involve himself in those issues, but seems rather to just take ordinary language for granted; I'm not at all sure what he would have said about the Oxford School. Ryle has a good account of this in "Dilemmas", in which he maintains that the importance of our untechnical discourse is that it is where important concepts that underpin all technical discourses are found. I think his argument with conventional philosophy would be that those theories distort and bowdlerize them, depriving them of the proper sense. But he (and Austin) do rather give the impression of thinking they can be some sort of conceptual police.

The initial relevance of bringing up examples seems to just be to point out how our practices (feelings, etc.) work differently than in a metaphysical framework. — Antony Nickles

Yes. I often feel that his primary concern is to open our eyes to differences, and this does make his writing very different from many other philosophers, who seem primarily concerned to sweep differences away, or at least under the carpet. He seems quite happy to make his points and leave us to draw our own conclusions. One thinks of that remark in his preface that he would not like his work to save others the trouble of thinking for themselves. But it does make him rather more elusive that most commentators seem able to cope with. Everything gets formulated into arguments and conclusions. But without that, perhaps we feel we can't "find our way about", as he puts it.

Wittgenstein stops short at saying that "I am in pain" replaces "Ouch" and does not describe it — Ludwig V

They are the same, as my expressions, and of me. This is partly that it sets me apart, as the individual that is doing it, who is thus responsible for it, and to it. And that it reveals me—is telling about me—that I am a person in pain. If I call you a liar, I am putting myself out there as judge. In parallel, when I say “I am in pain”, I am making a claim on your compassion in the sense it is (in its usage of) expressing my need to you. “They are in pain” is either: just an observation, or me acknowledging them, as a person who is in pain, who may need help. This is one place where he and Austin almost touch, in that such a statement does something, even more than being a proposition (to be true or not), or a description (to be understood or measured), or just the way (as if style) something is said.

he (and Austin) do rather give the impression of thinking they can be some sort of conceptual police. — Ludwig V

Part of that I think comes from the feeling of arrogance; that his insights from what we say and do in a situation must be correct. But it is both less and more. The common misconception is that we are just talking about what we say, or the way we say something, which is not only missing their use as evidence, but also imagines that what we say and the world are not connected. They are made as provisional claims to “trouble” thinking through and approve for ourselves; and also presumed to be so obvious no one would disagree. But they are not about being right. They are drawn from examples to bring to awareness something we had not considered. If we don’t agree, it would not be important that he is wrong, but that his description does not capture a distinction, or have the importance he claims, or some other rational difference which may be accounted for. They are not meaningful in themselves, but for their contrast to something, or as evidence for a further claim. So finding our way is always beyond his investigating examples, building to an as yet unrecognized insight that is left to us, for us to see.