Nice. This plays well into my dislike of "objective" and "subjective", a dichotomy I think causes far more problems than it solves. Part of the problem is that folk think in terms of objective and subjective objects, a nonsense that might be partially replaced by thinking in terms of objects and processes.

Is reading The Blue Book necessary for this?

Yes, but, importantly (though not in disagreement), not a physical process, or a conceptual process structured on the criteria for an object, but the process of the logic of a practice to judge (afterwards): what qualifies as understanding something; how we have a conversation about what is meaningful about what I said; or the difference between what we determine to be thought compared to just the voice inside your head, slogans, being polite, etc.

I mean… it’s not gonna hurt (it is a dense 70 pages though). I hope it would help and be easier to scan through the discussion for the posts labeled Section___ that dig into the text of every 3-5 pages, as the above is a summary of those 20 posts, though those are still only what caught my eye. If there is anything of particular interest, I can point to my notes and the section of text.

The motivation for an “answer” is a desire for “reliability, and solidity”. To picture “what I mean” (p.65) as “information” is to need it to be in the framework only of knowledge. Our personal experience is pictured as an internal object 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) The skeptic really wants to be “inhabited” by the exceptional, in a way that “others can’t see”. Thus the creation of the object, that is a 'mind' or 'subject', is to make me inherently important and unique; as if within me would be “that which really lives”. — Antony Nickles

Looking through what your thread has focused upon, and what we have discussed as differences of method by different thinkers, I resist the idea that thoughts about "the object" come down merely to a psychological motivation.

I resist the idea that thoughts about "the object" come down merely to a psychological motivation. — Paine

Is this to say you think I’ve made a mistake in reading? or that you disagree with him? And, to try to say this again, I’m not arguing this is the only thing to be learned, but I wouldn’t say it is insignificant (“merely”). And I still don’t understand what a “psychological motivation” is meant to distinguish, and differentiate from what. I mean, does pointing out that they are logical errors as well (generalization, forced analogy, abstracting criteria, etc.) make it seem less… personal, individual… ethical? And not to mince words, but I take him to be investigating why we take a particular framework of how we think about objects and impose it on how to think about thought, meaning, and understanding. I just need a little more, or to understand what I’m supposed to justify/explain if that’s the case.

One starting place is to ask why W wants to separate psychology from thinking. The separation is a stumbling block to explanation.

I take your point that we often impose one set of meanings to replace others. That does not explain why W does not reduce one set of signs into another.

One starting place is to ask why W wants to separate psychology from thinking. — Paine

Well, without a further explanation of what “psychology” means, I’ll assume we are talking about the kind of thing the skeptic pictures as a “thought” in us (as an object), or when they imagine thinking as a mechanism in a “queer kind of medium” that would “explain the action of the mind” (p.6). I take the method here is to show how (and why) the skeptic pictures thinking this way by contrasting it with (and perhaps in this way “separating” it from) the logic and reasons of our ordinary ways of judging what is a thought and what is considered thinking (as I mention above). I would conjecture that other reasons for differentiating these two versions of thought would be to show that our ordinary criteria are more varied, substantial, and illuminating than we had considered (been blind to). But I’m interested to hear what you take thinking to consist of, and why psychology would be a part of it (or thought to be), one that needed to be separated, and for what reason.

that we often impose one set of meanings to replace others… does not explain why W does not reduce one set of signs into another. — Paine

I’m not sure what the “set of signs” are, that they would be different (irreducible). The things he has us say are the same. “I can’t feel your pain.” etc. He just shows there are multiples senses of such a phrase which apply different (types of) criteria—allowing us to see the demands of the skeptic. He does say we can “construct new notations, in order to break the spell of those which we are accustomed to” but that is just an exercise to highlight the distinctions we make or could make.

Part of the problem is that folk think in terms of objective and subjective objects, a nonsense that might be partially replaced by thinking in terms of objects and processes. — Banno

Yes. It's almost as if objective and subjective have become nouns. I always thought that the ellipsis in "objective" and "subjective" was "propositions". i.e, it was primarily about truth-conditions, where subjective propositions had, essentially, just one truth-condition - the assertion of the subject.

.... the process of the logic of a practice to judge (afterwards): what qualifies as understanding something; how we have a conversation about what is meaningful about what I said; or the difference between what we determine to be thought compared to just the voice inside your head, slogans, being polite, etc. — Antony Nickles

Quite so.

I resist the idea that thoughts about "the object" come down merely to a psychological motivation. — Paine

I'm not sure, but I think the object here is the meaning of a word. Given the understanding of meaning as intention that makes some sense, I think. The other interpretation is the the object, the meaning of a word, is a "mental object".

I resist the idea that thoughts about "the object" come down merely to a psychological motivation.
— Paine
Is this to say you think I’ve made a mistake in reading? or that you disagree with him? — Antony Nickles

I have to say, I think that W did not, for some reason, feel the need to draw a clear distinction. It may be that he had in mind the earlier (before Frege) idea that the laws of logic are the laws of thought.

I mean, does pointing out that they are logical errors as well (generalization, forced analogy, abstracting criteria, etc.) make it seem less… personal, individual… ethical? — Antony Nickles

Put it this way, Seeing these errors as logical makes them seem more appropriate for philosophy.

I take him to be investigating why we take a particular framework of how we think about objects and impose it on how to think about thought, meaning, and understanding. — Antony Nickles

Yes, But, from memory, what he offers us is things like an irresistible temptation. But this is not a temptation like the temptation offered by the bakery counter. That is, the temptation is not the temptation of pleasure. It's more like the temptation of taking the first offer for you car because you have better things to do than hang about selling it or putting on yesterday's clothes because that's what you have at hand.

One starting place is to ask why W wants to separate psychology from thinking. The separation is a stumbling block to explanation. — Paine

There is an issue here. I'll venture that what W is interested in is not how we actually think, but how we should think - logic justifies its conclusions, psychology merely reports them.

That does not explain why W does not reduce one set of signs into another. — Paine

Sorry, I'm not sure what you are getting at here.

I take the method here is to show how (and why) the skeptic pictures thinking this way by contrasting it with (and perhaps in this way “separating” it from) the logic and reasons of our ordinary ways of judging what is a thought and what is considered thinking (as I mention above). — Antony Nickles

the skeptic pictures thinking this way by contrasting it with (and perhaps in this way “separating” it from) the logic and reasons of our ordinary ways of judging what is a thought and what is considered thinking (as I mention above). — Antony Nickles

There is a similarity to be found there in at least some versions of scepticism. I mean that a sceptic might say - and I have heard sceptics saying - that the sceptical argument is applying more rigourous standards because he is doing philosophy and philosophy demands something better than the sloppy ways of ordinary thinking. W, on the other hand, wants to show that ordinary thought has, or can have, more depth and complexity to it than the sceptic recognizes.

But I’m interested to hear what you take thinking to consist of, and why psychology would be a part of it (or thought to be), one that needed to be separated, and for what reason. — Antony Nickles

Since, as you know, I'm a bit obsessed with this question, I'll also offer an answer. If I make a mistake fixing one of those old-fashioned petrol engines by fitting the wrong kind of spark plug or failing to adjust the timing (of the valves) properly, there are certain kinds of explanation within the scope of engineering, that could be offered - failure to realize what kind of spark plug the engine needs or failure to understand why the correct timing is important. That kind of explanation is quite different from the explanation that made those mistakes because I had not slept properly or was arguing with the boss or seeking revenge on the owner for over-charging me for accountancy services.