First, it seems that there are beliefs that arise apart from language, and a belief, whether linguistic or not, is simply a state-of-mind. — Sam26

Can you see why I suspect saying a belief is "simply a state of mind" runs against Wittgenstein? Where have I gone wrong?

X-) Cheers. It's a matter of great personal pride.

I must say, it is a great pleasure to talk to someone with a decent understanding of Wittgenstein.

Whether it's irrelevant depends on many factors. I'm not saying that it's relevant to Wittgenstein's ideas, even though there is overlap. I'm talking prelinguistics, at least partly, and Wittgenstein is staying within language. Relevant in explaining Wittgenstein's ideas in On Certainty, obviously not. However, it's relevant to the explanation of what I mean by prelinguistic beliefs. Moreover, I don't think any of this contradicts or hurts Wittgenstein's thinking.

You're going wrong by isolating this statement apart from my other statements, that point to actions that reflect these beliefs.

Thanks Banno, I enjoy it too.

it's relevant to the explanation of what I mean by prelinguistic beliefs. — Sam26

I am understanding you as meaning what I would call an unstated belief.

Interesting, again - I agree that statements must be considered in their place, amongst the statements and other behaviours; I can't agree that these behaviours reflect a belief that is itself private.

Yes, a belief as reflected in one's actions, apart from any linguistic response. They exist, as any belief does, as a state-of-mind, but the belief presents itself publicly in the actions of those who have the belief.

The belief is made up of two distinct things, the private nature of the mind state, coupled with the public acts. The belief is not private, without the public part we would not know that there was a belief. So don't separate the two.

The belief is made up of two distinct things, the private nature of the mind state, coupled with the public acts. — Sam26

This would seem to imply that the mind is a solipsistic universe where these prelinguistic and private ideas or concepts form, and from there, their meaning and content resides wrt. to the world. Is that something you would agree with?

Solipsism implies that the self is the only thing that can be known. I would disagree with this idea. However, I do not deny the mysteries of the self, which is probably one of the great mysteries of the universe.

Yes, but Wittgenstein did profess a solipsistic view of the self in the Tractatus. I never got the feeling that this was repudiated in his later works. Even the private language argument still allows for private content in the form of what you have been referring to about prelinguistic content. The fact that there's so much diversity among people, based on a personal trait like intelligence, which seems to be a measure of one's prelinguistic capability or versatility, seems to support this notion.

In my studies of Wittgenstein, both early and late, I never got the idea that Wittgenstein believed in a solipsist view of the self. However, there are many interpretations of Wittgenstein, so I'm sure there are people putting forth such ideas. I believe it's erroneous, but that's my view after studying and reading his primary works, and after reading some of the most regarded works on Wittgenstein.

Start a thread on the Tractatus and spell out the argument.

Yes, but:

The world is my world: this is manifest in the fact that the limits of language (of that language which alone I understand) mean the limits of my world. (5.62, TLP)

That has always sounded solipsist to me and can be considered a bedrock belief.

Just quickly, I should offer an alternative definition of a belief. Just putting it out.

A belief is a statement upon which the believer is willing to act.

Such acts, of course, include asserting that statement.

But that the cat cannot state the belief does not imply he has no such belief.

Further, a statement is not a thing-in-the-head. The private object is avoided.

Start a thread on the Tractatus and spell out the argument. — Sam26

I don't have the idea in front of me, or at least I can't express it better than simply referring to proposition 5.62 in the TLP.

It will take much more than quoting a couple of passages, such an argument would be long and involved, which is why I say start a thread. Understanding the Tractatus is a daunting task, it's not easy, and it's easily misinterpreted.

OK, I'll see what I can do. It'll be a clutter of confusion though, which I try and avoid by professing quietism, heh.

I've spent years studying Wittgenstein, in fact, my thread in the other philosophy forum went on for years, and I still don't consider myself an expert. Still a novice.

Here is a pretty strong case for at least presenting the truth of solipsism:

Wittgenstein makes some very strong claims about the self. For example:

5.631 There is no such thing as the subject that thinks or entertains ideas.
If I wrote a book called The World As I Found It, I should have to
include a report on my body, and should have to say which parts were
subordinate to my will, and which were not, etc., this being a method
of isolating the subject, or rather showing that in an important sense
there is no subject . . .

Why does Wittgenstein think that in an important sense there is no such thing as the
self? This seems to be denying the one thing we can be most sure of.
To understand this, we have to return to Wittgenstein’s views about objects and states
of affairs. Suppose that the self were an object in the world. Then there would be an
object that pictures facts using propositional signs. But what is the connection between
the subject and the propositional sign on the one hand, and the fact which is represented,
on the other? It seems that this relationship is necessary, not contingent. Once we
have the projective relation supplied by the subject, it is a necessary truth that a given
propositional sign represents the fact that it does. But this would mean that, if the subject
were an object in the world, there would be a necessary truth about the relationship
between objects. But, as we know, Wittgenstein denies that there are any necessary facts
of this sort.


On this interpretation (defended by Fogelin), the denial of the subject’s being part of the
world is of a piece with the denial of the claim that there are facts about logical form,
and about representation.

2 The truth in solipsism

This can help us make some sense of Wittgenstein’s remarks about solipsism. On the face
of it, it is odd for someone who denies the existence of the self to say things like

5.63 I am my world.

However, a view about how this sort of thing can be combined with the foregoing is
suggested by the following remark:

5.64 Here it can be seen that solipsism, when its implications are followed
out strictly, coincides with pure realism. The self of solipsism
shrinks to a point without extension, and there remains the reality
co-ordinated with it.

In the light of this, §5.63 should not be read as suggesting that in the end there is no
world other than me and my mental states, but rather that there is no me other than the
world. The sense in which what solipsism means is correct is that these ultimately come
to the same thing: the existence of a world of states of affairs.

Available here.

I posted a half ass take on my reading of the self from the Tractatus below:

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/2614/on-solipsism#Item_1

it seems that there are beliefs that arise apart from language, and a belief, whether linguistic or not, is simply a state-of-mind. — Sam26

So I don't agree with this, because I do not think that beliefs are a state of mind.

Let's follow a variation of Moore's two hands, but using Jack, my cat, who has only a limited vocabulary.

Jack will come and collect me when his bowl is empty, herding me to the bowl and insisting I fill it.

So do we say Jack believes his bowl is empty?

I think so, since it is easy to explain his behaviour as the result of such a belief.

Do we say Jack knows his bowl is empty?

If we understand knowledge as inherently justified, then no. A justification is a statement, after all, and Jack cannot state anything.

Can Jack be certain that the bowl is empty?

For him to be certain must there be room for doubt? Could a cat doubt?

I'm not sure I follow your point. I understand that you don't believe that beliefs are states-of-mind, but I'm not sure how the rest of what you're arguing supports the idea that beliefs are not states.

I do believe that animals can express beliefs, so I think we agree on this point. I also believe animals can express doubts. A doubt can be a state reflected in one's action.

So you don't think that a mind is in any particular belief state, and that that state is reflected in action? What about the mind reflecting a state of happiness, or the state of being in pain, all of these states have a public and a private side. Wittgenstein dealt mainly with the public side of this in terms of language.

It's as though you're removing the mind from the picture altogether. I don't follow your thinking. What do you think a state-of-mind is?

Sam26, do you mind letting me know what you think of the thread I posted?

If it's utter crap, that's fine too.

When I get some time Posty. I've been distracted with New Years.

Thanks! Looking forward to what you have to say.

Happy New Years!

Further, a statement is not a thing-in-the-head. The private object is avoided. — Banno

But isn't it a thing-in-the-heart according to you? Don't pretend to doubt what you believe in your heart, etc.

The belief is made up of two distinct things, the private nature of the mind state, coupled with the public acts. The belief is not private, without the public part, we would not know that there was a belief. So don't separate the two. — Sam26

The issue here, as I see it, is that the mind side of the equation is the personal. The dichotomy of private vs public presumes a basic dualism - a strict divide between mind and world. But a dispositional and semiotic approach to knowledge would stress that even "access to the private self" is in fact a development of a personal stance. We form "ourselves" in a meta-representational sense by the very act of inquiring "what is going on inside me?".

So the mental is just as much part of the construct as the noumenal. The beetle in a box metaphor is seductive but badly wrong. Well, at least it rides roughshod over the fact that introspective self-awareness is a culturally-taught and linguistically-structured skill. The interior nature of consciousness - the idea that it is another "world" - is rather an illusion on this score. Its truths seem secure, but they too depend on habits of interpretance.

The self becomes what we have to produce to make the world real. And then saying there is a beetle in the box, a state of mind that "the self" privately perceives, is a recursive linguistic act. It is using the semiotic technology of language to isolate the "true self" from the public self.

We are public creatures first in being social creatures. And then within the reality of that public language game, we are meant to discover our psychologically individuated "real selves". The possibility of private truths at odds with the public truths becomes a live issue as we develop a "modern Western rational attitude" to the nature of "our" phenomenal existence.

So yes. There seem to be inward feelings and outward actions. And each appears to speak to its "other" in some crucial relational fashion.

But you have to be able to credit a society or culture with a "mind", a dispositional attitude embodied in its language games, to see what gives our public acts their semantic truth or facticity. Our actions can be judged.

And in counter fashion, we have to take the personal "mind" a whole lot less seriously. It is not some private reservoir of feelings or facts - the objects of a self-perception that then begs the question of, well, who now is this observing self?

The private~public dichotomy implies a hard division - a metaphysical-strength one - between the psychological self and the social self. But really, selfhood is always emergent - the bit that has to be produced to make its counterpart of "a world" real.

So language anchors social selfhood. And it anchors personal selfhood. On both levels, it is producing its beetles in their boxes.

We can see how this does then create a distinction between public truths and personal truths. As Peirce argued, our best truth is the communal one - ie: the beliefs that a community of rational inquirers will arrive at as being the least doubtable in the end. But there is also the possibility of our local personal truths. To the degree that we might fruitfully be possessed by some individual goal or disposition, then we get to see the world "in our way".

Well, something has to explain artists, poets and other entrepreneurs. There is a reason why now - as a society - a personal vision has become something to encourage. :)

What do you think a state-of-mind is? — Sam26

I think it a philosophical construction.

The pain in my foot is not the same as the pain in my throat. The sensation in my back - is it a pain, or just a twinge?

These "states-of-mind" share little more than that we use much the same words for them.

Yu might consider the series of articles commended by Wayfarer:

http://www.nybooks.com/daily/2017/12/27/consciousness-where-are-words/

The pain in my foot is not the same as the pain in my throat. The sensation in my back - is it a pain, or just a twinge?

These "states-of-mind" share little more than that we use much the same words for them. — Banno

Yup. Either that or the same ontic categorisation of reality into self and world.

My foot, my throat, my back ... and my pain.

Things only get confused when I see you slice open your foot and feel something of your pain.