With regard to a surveyable representation, consider the following from Culture and Value:

What a Copernicus or a Darwin really achieved was not the discovery of a new true theory but a fertile point of view.

Thanks again. While trying to get a better understanding, I came across an article by Hans Sluga which gives a detailed account of Wittgenstein's 'surveyable representation':

Wittgenstein’s crucial difficulty was that “our grammar lacks surveyability.” (PI, 122) In order to appreciate that thought we must understand that “grammar” is meant to be in this context not merely a system of abstract grammatical rules but the organized pattern of linguistic uses and practices. Wittgenstein’s claim is that the actual structure or order of our language game proves to be unsurveyable. He is thinking, in fact, not only about language in the narrow sense. It is the “grammar” of the human form of life, which includes society, culture, and history, that lacks surveyability. Wittgenstein draws our attention, in fact, to this broad phenomenon when he writes in section 122 of the Philosophical Investigations (in my translation) that “we do not survey the use of our words” and that “our grammar lacks surveyability.” Since he considers language central to the entire human form of life, it follows that our form of life must also be unsurveyable. No wonder then that unsurveyable wholes raise for him issues “of fundamental importance.” That we do not survey the use of our words, our grammar, language, and form of life he declares to be, indeed, “a main source of our lack of understanding.” He goes on to suggest in PI 122 that we need “a surveyable representation” that can generate “the comprehension that consists in ‘seeing connections’.” The concept of a surveyable representation, he adds, “signifies our form of representation, how we see things.” And he closes the section with the somewhat puzzling question: “Is this a ‘worldview’?”

The full article can be found here, for those interested.

Thanks Luke. Always nice to see that someone agrees with you.

With regard to connections, I think there is a connection between what Wittgenstein says in the draft of Philosophical Remarks about writing only for the few, the key to the lock, and the importance of seeing connections. There are connections made in the text that are not made explicit, connections that we have to make if we are to unlock the door.

One suggestion is to pay attention to where there is a paragraph or two that seems out of place, disconnected with the issue that seems to be under discussion.

Thanks Luke. Always nice to see that someone agrees with you. — Fooloso4

I trust that you are using the generic "you" here, as I was only trying to get a better handle on the section. I thought the article might be helpful to anyone else who might have had difficulty with the section.

If one is entangled in the rules and the rules prevent one from saying what he means, then the meaning is not the rules. — Fooloso4

Just to return to this, would you agree that meaning can be found in the rules (perhaps even typically)? That is, unless one is entangled in the rules or interpreting them perversely? As I said initially, I did not want to take your comment out of context.

I need to catch up to and for @Banno:

§89

§89 marks the beginning of a whole new line of discussion which deals with what Witty calls 'philosophy', and some of its methods, in this particular case, logic. The remarks from here on out can be thought of as something like 'applications' of the big discussions of simples and complexes and so on that have come before.

The crucial distinction that §89 institutes is that between logic, 'essences', and foundations on the one hand, and 'facts' and 'the empirical' on the other. This distinction will be crucial to Witty's understanding of philosophy's role and significance. What seems important to Witty is that in the realm of logic, no new facts can be learnt, at least, not in the way that one learns that, say, this fruit is round. Instead of new facts, a logical investigation, or an investigation into 'essences' reveals a new 'understanding'. So:

Logic : Understanding :: Empirical : New Facts

§90

§90 continues to trade on the distinction between facts and logic introduced in §89, and firmly situates Witty's 'grammatical' investigations on the side of logic: "Our inquiry is therefore a grammatical one. And this inquiry sheds light on our problem by clearing misunderstandings away". Based on the remarks here we can expand the analogy I wrote for §89:

Logic : Understanding : 'Possibilities' of phenomena : Grammar : kinds of statement

::

Empirical : New Facts : Phenomena

§91

§91 aims to head off a possible misunderstanding that §89 and §90 might foster: the idea that the 'understanding' gained by grammatical investigation might ever 'come to an end' - as though an exhaustive grammatical investigation might disabuse us our misunderstandings once and for all. Witty doesn't come right out and say it, but the obvious implication is that this is not at all the case.

One should relate this to the discussion of simples and complexes in the previous section: there, to recall, Witty notes that what counts as a simple and what counts as a complex is never absolute but always relative to a particular use of language: one can never exhaustively build-up the complexity of language from some given units/simples of language. If this is so, then no grammatical investigation - such as Witty's - would similarly be able to exhaustively 'analyse' language once and for all: the analysis itself would be parasitic upon the use.

§92

§92 deals, somewhat, with the metaphorics associated with the misunderstanding detailed in §91, contrasting 'depth' and 'surface', and associating the desire for reaching a final, exahustive, understanding with the desire to uncover a hidden 'depth'. Key here, I think, is the idea that the depth is fixed, unshifting - or as Witty says: "given once for all, and independently of any future experience."

In contrast, one imagines, the 'surface' - what grammatical investigation really deals with - is not given and fixed, but shifting, open to change. Note that this means that the following correlation is not correct:

logic (grammar) : fact :: depth : surface

Grammar itself already lies on the 'surface'. In any case, the attempt to fix, either in advance or 'after' an exhaustive investigation (they amount to the same), 'what a proposition is' or 'what language is' (Platonic questions, both), is an error.

Quick personal note: to say that an exhaustive analysis of grammar would not yield a 'final account' of propositions, of language, etc, amounts also to saying that grammatical errors - what Witty calls language on holiday - can also never be eliminated once and for all. One might call these grammatical errors - as I am want to do - transcendental, in the vein of Kant's ineliminable transcendental illusions of Reason. No coincidence that Witty refers to the misunderstandings he speaks of as 'chimeras' (§94) and also 'illusions' (§96). This in keeping with his early remark in §36 about 'spirits':

§36: "Where our language suggests a body and there is none: there, we should like to say, is a spirit."

I trust that you are using the generic "you" here, as I was only trying to get a better handle on the section. I thought the article might be helpful to anyone else who might have had difficulty with the section. — Luke

"You" in this case meant me and "someone" is Sluga.

Just to return to this, would you agree that meaning can be found in the rules (perhaps even typically)? — Luke

If one understands the rules then one knows what to do, but a set of rules is meaningless if one does not understand them. The meaning is not in the rules but in some larger activity. If, for example, the rules for how a knight or bishop moves in chess cannot be understood without knowing what these pieces are, that they are moved on a chess board, etc. The meaning of a word is found in its use. Rules or grammar determine proper and improper use.

§93-§97

I'm sure it's been mentioned (I know @Banno has), but the next few sections cannot be understood outside of the context of a self-critqiue of the Tractatus. It's this which helps understand the full import of §93 and §94, which otherwise come across - indeed, came across to me on first reading - as a rather thin effort to do nothing more than shift the rhetoric and poetics associated with propositions from 'remarkable' to 'ordinary'.

Yet while this effort to shift the language takes up most of the written real estate, the key term which explains what motivates Witty to argue for this shift is that of is that of 'uniqueness' (also found in §95, §96 and §97): the proposition as 'unique', as doing something that nothing else in the world does. Specifically - as that which allows language to be correlative of the world (§96: "Thought, language, now appear to us as the unique correlate, picture, of the world.").

It's precisely in the Tractatus that the proposition has exactly this 'unique' role attributed to it by Witty, in which the proposition 'pictures' reality by sharing the same 'logical form': this being the proposition's 'unique' characteristic which makes it 'remarkable' (hence the summary of Tractatus, not yet named in §96: "These concepts: proposition, language, thought, world, stand in line one behind the other, each equivalent to each.")

Compare, Tractatus:

2.026: There must be objects, if the world is to have unalterable form.
2.0271: Objects are what is unalterable and subsistent; their configuration is what is unchanging and unstable.
2.15: The fact that the elements of a picture are related to one another in a determinate way represents that things are related to one another in the same way.
2.1514: the pictorial relationship consists of the correlations of the picture's elements with things.
2.1515: These correlations are, as it were, the feelers with which the picture touches reality.

As such the nincompoop who, in §93 and §94, remarks upon the 'remarkableness' of propositions is of course Witty himself. Of course this becomes absolutely clear in §97 where the Tractatus is mentioned by name, with the language even mirroring, and hence subverting, a passage that Witty himself cites 5.5563).

One of the really interesting things that happens in these PI sections is then to realize just how explosive the 'relativization' of the simple and the complex undertaken in the sections before (§48-§7xx) are to the Tractatus, which instead treats their relation as 'absolute', or, as Witty says in §97: "The order... which the world and thinking must have in common ... must be utterly simple. It is prior to all experience". Lots more to say about all these, but will stop for space's sake. Will only remark that the distinction between 'concepts' and 'super-concepts' at the end of §97 is lovely, and @Bannos reading of §95 is exactly what'd I'd mention, so I simply refer to that.

§98

So, beyond the critique of the Tractatus that looms over this section (§89 onward), another unwavering thematic thread here is a critique of ideality. Witty's skepticism about the ideality and purity that certain views accord to language are on display all throughout the previous paragraphs, all generally invoked in a cynical rhetorical mood:

§97: "purest crystal"; §95: "purity" [of propositons]; §92: "essence"; §91: "final analysis" [of linguistic expressions], "complete exactness" [as a goal of investigation]; §89: Logic as "sublime", etc.

§98 takes up this theme explicitly, or rather, returns to §91, where Witty already voiced his dissatisfaction with ideas that analysis could lead to a state of "complete exactness" and finality. Here his skepticism is reiterated and affirmed: "we are not striving after an ideal". Yet despite all this, he wants to affirm a certain notion of perfection: "every sentence in our language ‘is in order as it is’. ... So there must be perfect order even in the vaguest sentence."

So the question here is: what is the index or measure of Witty's renovated understanding perfection? One thing is clear: it does not have to do with perfection with respect to some a fixed/given/essence of language. One wants to say - although Witty does not yet at this point - that a proposition is instead perfect with respect to its use - and that uses are unfixed, not given/not grounded in 'essences'. Recall §87: "The signpost is in order a if, under normal circumstances, it fulfils its purpose." More to say about this 'positive' sense of perfection in the next paragraph.

I can certainly imagine a "perfect circle", an "infinite extension", an "ideal body" and so on.

But "perfect", "ideal" and "infinite" aren't passive and objective descriptions of my observations, rather they are expressions of active speech-acts I commit (including cravings I may have) in relation to my observations. For example, If I am hungry then A Big Mac might seem the "perfect" burger.

Presumably, this is how the later Wittgenstein understood ideality. Any advice he gives is therapeutic advice whose objective is to prevent cravings for cravings sake.

An image is ideal if it is the image of one's striving.

For example, this imagined polygon doesn't satisfy my striving for symmetry and smoothness. So i imagine a "limiting polygon" that I call a "perfect circle", where "limiting polygon" is my vague imagination of the Sun which is sufficiently vague and unstable that I cannot make sense of counting its sides. The image satisfies my craving, but not the striving.

I can certainly imagine a "perfect circle", an "infinite extension", an "ideal body" and so on. — sime

Suppose "pi" defines the perfect circle. Do you think that striving to resolve the exact mathematical value of pi would be a case of striving after the ideal? We all think that pi has no end, and to prove that it has no end is a fruitless task, like proving infinite has no end. But what if someone found the end?

126. The name “philosophy” might also be given to what is possible before all new discoveries and inventions.

There is a connection here with 90:

… our investigation is directed not towards phenomena, but rather, as one might say, towards the ‘possibilities’ of phenomena.

The possibility of new discoveries and inventions is the possibility of new phenomena. An abuse of language stands in the way of such possibilities.

Our inquiry is therefore a grammatical one. And this inquiry sheds light on our problem by clearing misunderstandings away. (90)

This inquiry is preliminary, clearing away misunderstanding by:

... call[ing] to mind the kinds of statement that we make about phenomena. (90)

Wittgenstein makes a connection between the kinds of statements we make about phenomena, how we represent phenomena, and the possibilities of phenomena. Overcoming conceptual confusion engendered by an entanglement in grammatical rules requires seeing things from the perspective of a representative overview. A representative overview is not simply a matter of what is seen from this vantage point but via representing, picturing, conceiving, imagining.

The "fertile point of view" of "a Copernicus or a Darwin" is a conceptual revolution, the displacement of the Earth as the center or the rejection of kinds in favor of variations. We do not simply see things as the are but according to the way we represent or picture them.

With regard to himself, Wittgenstein says:

Sow a seed in my soil and it will grow differently than it would in any other soil. (CV42)

This is another way in which phenomena are made possible. Another way in which connections are made. Another way of seeing things.

One’s way of seeing things was of central importance to Wittgenstein:

Working in philosophy -- like work in architecture in many respects -- is really more a working on oneself. On one's interpretation. On one's way of seeing things. (And what one expects of them.) (CV 16)

I saw you and thought of this:

Seeing comes before words. The child looks and recognizes before it can speak.
But there is also another sense in which seeing conies before words. It is seeing which establishes our place in the surrounding world; we explain that world with words, but words can never undo the fact that we are surrounded by it. The relation between what we see and what we know is never settled. Each evening we see the sun set. We know that the earth is turning away from it. Yet the knowledge, the explanation, never quite fits the sight. The Surrealist painter Magritte commented on this always-present gap between words and seeing in a painting called The Key of Dreams.

http://waysofseeingwaysofseeing.com/ways-of-seeing-john-berger-15.7.pdf

§99

If §98 tried to rescue a sense of perfection divorced from an ideal (where an ideal has the sense of a fixed 'essence' of langauge), §99 tries to specify in what way there may be a 'perfect order' of sense without that sense having to be what Witty calls 'determinate'. It harkens back to previous discussions about boundaries (§68-§88) and exactness (§88 in particular), where Witty says that words need neither in order to 'work. Recall:

§88: "If I tell someone “Stay roughly here” - may this explanation not work perfectly?"

In particular, §99 tries to head-off the objection that an 'indeterminate' sense - one without a strict boundary, like 'stay roughly there', is not 'good enough' to have, as it were, its own measure of perfection. In terms of §98, one can say that 'stay roughly here' 'is in order as it is'. It needs no further specification to be 'perfect' ... but not ideal.

§100-§103

More attempts to shore up how Witty's sense of perfection can quite easily abide by indeterminancy and vagueness. Strong theme of how the idea 'dazzles' us (§100), 'absorbs' us (§101), appear as 'something in the background' (§102), and seems 'unshakeable' (§103). I wonder how much of this is Witty again reacting against his former self. The glasses metaphor makes it all feel like a matter of trying to induce a gestalt shift, where either one's whole view (on the ideality of language) changes, or not at all.

Another theme that makes a reappearance here are rules (§100, §102), which also work perfectly fine when they are 'vague', and not 'strict and clear'.

If one understands the rules then one knows what to do, but a set of rules is meaningless if one does not understand them. The meaning is not in the rules but in some larger activity. If, for example, the rules for how a knight or bishop moves in chess cannot be understood without knowing what these pieces are, that they are moved on a chess board, etc. — Fooloso4

Fair enough, and it's a caveat worth noting. However, I had already adopted this Wittgensteinian viewpoint when asking the question, so I had already assumed that our rules are embedded in "some larger activity". This leaves me to question the idea of a rule that you appear to be referring to which is somehow removed from this "larger activity".

The meaning of a word is found in its use. Rules or grammar determine proper and improper use. — Fooloso4

Right. Therefore, rules or grammar determine proper and improper meaning. In some sense, then, doesn't this indicate that meaning can be found in the rules?

doesn't this indicate that meaning can be found in the rules? — Luke

<Wales| |England>


There might be a rule for signposts that a pointed end is used for direction indicators, and a flat end for boundary markers (along with the rule about how the point works). Equivalent to '<' = 'this way to' & '|' = 'This is".

|Wales| |England|


So these would have different meanings. But neither would mean the rule, and neither would mean anything much without the writing.

There might be a rule for signposts that a pointed end is used for direction indicators, and a flat end for boundary markers (along with the rule about how the point works). Equivalent to '<' = 'this way to' & '|' = 'This is". — unenlightened

Sorry if I'm being dense, but it appears that the rule for the signposts is also what the signposts mean. For example, 'England>' means 'this way to England'.

and neither would mean anything much without the writing. — unenlightened

That's kind of my point. Language is a part of the 'larger activity' into which rules (and signposts) are woven, taught and shared. It would be difficult to teach someone to play chess or the meaning of signposts if they did not speak the language.

Sorry if I'm being dense, but it appears that the rule for the signposts is also what the signposts mean. For example, 'England>' means 'this way to England'. — Luke

This is the rule: '<' = 'this way to' & '|' = 'This is".
And it is nothing like what the signpost means. The rule is the thing you need to understand the signpost, and it is the thing, therefore, that the signpost cannot tell you.

" the rule for the signposts is also what the signposts mean". I know you are not dense, so I know you did not mean what this exactly says, so I hope you will excuse my lack of charity as an attempt to tease out something rather difficult to express, and avoid leading anyone else astray.

Incidentally, if folks will excuse the excess of reflexivity, look at the different uses in my previous post.

Punctuation used as elements in a picture (of a signpost)
Punctuation used in a semi-algebraic defining formula.
'Conventional' writing.

Amazingly, I never even thought about the complexity of this, and I just assumed that the intelligent reader would immediately pick up these three different systems, with entirely different rules and transpose between them with no difficulty, even though nowhere, I would imagine, is there any exposition of the rules of the 'unconventional' usages.

It also occurs to me to mention, in case it has escaped attention, that as with music theory, grammar is extracted by pedants from pre-existing communication. It starts as description and becomes prescription - we convene, and from there comes convention.

This is the rule: '<' = 'this way to' & '|' = 'This is". — unenlightened

Perhaps this is different to what I was saying in my previous post, or different to what you took me to be saying, but couldn't you substitute "means" for "=" in your above explanation to maintain virtually the same meaning? i.e. This is the rule: '<' means 'this way to' & '|' means 'This is'.

Doesn't this indicate that there can be meaning in the rules?

In particular, §99 tries to head-off the objection that an 'indeterminate' sense - one without a strict boundary, like 'stay roughly there', is not 'good enough' to have, as it were, its own measure of perfection. In terms of §98, one can say that 'stay roughly here' 'is in order as it is'. It needs no further specification to be 'perfect' ... but not ideal. — StreetlightX

This is where I believe Wittgenstein has gone off track. It appears like "stay roughly here" serves the purpose, but it really does not. if someone said that to me, I'd ask "What do you mean? Where are my boundaries? How long must I stay roughly here? Can I stray to the right, can I stray to the left? Can I go get lunch? What do you want from me? How do I know if I've complied with what you want? Is what you want something that I am willing to give?"

So, back at 68-69 he describes how we "we can draw a boundary—for a special purpose". I believe that each particular instance of use involves a special purpose, that's what defines a particular instance of use, its special purpose. And, each instance of use requires boundaries designed for that purpose. Therefore it is implied that boundaries are inherently necessary for each instance of use, and it is those boundaries which make the language useful.

Wittgenstein's attempt to remove the necessity of boundaries would render language completely useless. So boundaries are necessary and they are tailored to the circumstances. In the process of tailoring the boundaries we always seek the ideal. We seek the boundaries which are ideal for the particular situation.

This leaves me to question the idea of a rule that you appear to be referring to which is somehow removed from this "larger activity". — Luke

That might be the case when someone who is unfamiliar with the larger activity comes across the rule, an anthropologist, for example, studying a tribe.

Therefore, rules or grammar determine proper and improper meaning. — Luke

The syntactical rules determine word order or structure of a sentence but the understanding of the those rules do not tell us what it means to put the cat on the mat. If I do not know the grammar I might say: "Put you out the cat". You may understand each of the words but not the combination. If, on the other hand, the direction was grammatical you will not understand what you are to do unless you understand the meaning of each of the words. Then again, you might understand the words but still not understand what you are to do. What does it mean to put the cat out? Out of the room? Out of the house? Anesthetize? Are you to put the cat out just now or every time the cat is in?

That might be the case when someone who is unfamiliar with the larger activity comes across the rule, an anthropologist, for example, studying a tribe. — Fooloso4

What sort of rule might this be?

The syntactical rules determine word order or structure of a sentence but the understanding of the those rules do not tell us what it means to put the cat on the mat. — Fooloso4

Then how can it be that:

The meaning of a word is found in its use. Rules or grammar determine proper and improper use. — Fooloso4

If the meaning of a word is found in its (proper?) use, and if the rules determine proper use, then understanding the rules should lead to proper use/meaning...?

If I do not know the grammar I might say: "Put you out the cat". You may understand each of the words but not the combination. — Fooloso4

Is this proper or improper use? On the one hand I understand each of the words (proper use?), but not the combination (improper use?).

If, on the other hand, the direction was grammatical you will not understand what you are to do unless you understand the meaning of each of the words. — Fooloso4

Is this proper or improper use? On the one hand the direction is grammatical (proper use), but I do not understand the meaning of each of the words (improper use?).

Then again, you might understand the words but still not understand what you are to do. — Fooloso4

Is this proper or improper use? On the one hand I understand the words (proper use?), but not what I am to do (improper use?).

You appear to be saying that rules and meaning come apart in the exceptions, in improper use, but we should expect to lose meaning (misunderstand) with improper use. My claim was minimally that there can be meaning in the rules. This appears to be so in cases of proper use: If rules determine proper use and if (proper?) use determines meaning, then one's proper use/meaning would demonstrate that one understands the rule(s).

I would also like to repeat unenlightened's insight which (I think) assists my claim, by blurring the distinction between the rules/grammar and "the larger activity" in which they find their home:

grammar is extracted by pedants from pre-existing communication. It starts as description and becomes prescription - we convene, and from there comes convention. — unenlightened

A just-so story that may have some basis in fact, or may be a misremembered nonsense.
Edit: might have been this.

A troupe of monkeys has two alarm calls, one for raptors - a sky alarm - and one for ground predators. So a 2 word language - there's probably more, but never mind. So 2 sounds are differentiated, and used according to circumstances, and the use creates the association, and the association gives the meaning such that 'eek!' means 'beware above!', and 'ook!' means 'beware below!'. And understanding is shown by individuals' differentiated behaviour in response, moving down in response to 'eek!' and up in response to 'ook!'

And the functionality of this language allows an exploitation by an anti-social individual, who spots something tasty on the forest floor, and calls "Ook!". Everyone else climbs up and the liar has first dibs on whatever treat is on the ground. But if this becomes at all common, then the meaning of 'ook!' changes from 'beware below!' to 'something interesting below!' (might be a tiger, might be a pineapple).

Just as a path is made by walking on it, so a rule is made by following it. If breaking the rule becomes the rule rather than the exception, then the rule has changed. And the rage of grammarians is largely impotent.

So, for example, whenever I hear someone say "I genuinely believe..." I now expect whatever follows to be a fully conscious, deliberate lie, intended to deceive.

That might be the case when someone who is unfamiliar with the larger activity comes across the rule, an anthropologist, for example, studying a tribe.
— Fooloso4

What sort of rule might this be? — Luke

Any of the innumerable things the anthropologist observes the people doing that she does not understand the reason for or purpose of. Why does everyone turn in a counterclockwise circle three times before entering?

If the meaning of a word is found in its (proper?) use, and if the rules determine proper use, then understanding the rules should lead to proper use/meaning...? — Luke

"Drive the nail with a screwdriver" is grammatically correct, but the grammar does not tell us what a nail or screwdriver or drive means. Correct grammatical usage is not the same as the use of the words nail, screwdriver, and drive. Correct grammatical usage does not tell us that hammers are used to drive nails. Grammar is structural, form without content. Without content there can be no meaning.

I would also like to repeat unenlightened's insight which (I think) assists my claim, by blurring the distinction between the rules/grammar and "the larger activity" in which they find their home:

grammar is extracted by pedants from pre-existing communication. It starts as description and becomes prescription - we convene, and from there comes convention.
— unenlightened — Luke

I do not see how this blurs the distinction. When we learn to speak we do not learn grammatical rules explicitly. And this may be sufficient. We do what others around us do, put words in the same order as others do, and are corrected when we don't. The grammatical convention already exists as part of the "pre-existing communication". Prescriptively, the study of grammar standardizes different conventions.

Grammar is structural, form without content. — Fooloso4

This is not Wittgenstein's idea of grammar.