But is it just a difference in matters? Why do scientific facts obtain so well? You can say that it is similar to how a carpenter creates a masterpiece furniture, but is that the same? A man-made object created by someone, or a social convention, can be arbitrarily changed, and is contingent, varied. Any decision on it would be the freedom of the carpenter, or the architect. Perhaps the language of the woordworker is real in that community, but they are contingent conventions. This is not so with the science language game. There are constraints that nature is imposing, making the findings a necessity. It is nature forcing our hand. It moves away from contingency and hits on necessity. Wittgenstein's "forms of life" and "use" may not fit this scenario of science. You, in a really superficial way, can make an argument that humans are interested in pursuing scientific ideas, so in that sense is "for us", but the evidence gets more refined over time, more precise, more accurate, and leads to powerful results. — schopenhauer1
Then youre saying that language games have an ontology themselves, no? An ontology of being in the mind and being on an internet forum.Where are language games played - out in the world, or on one's mind? Is the internet posts and the forum out in the world or in your mind?
— Harry Hindu
Both :D. — schopenhauer1
Why do scientific facts obtain so well? You can say that it is similar to how a carpenter creates a masterpiece furniture, but is that the same? A man-made object created by someone, or a social convention, can be arbitrarily changed, and is contingent, varied. Any decision on it would be the freedom of the carpenter, or the architect. Perhaps the language of the woordworker is real in that community, but they are contingent conventions. This is not so with the science language game. There are constraints that nature is imposing, making the findings a necessity. It is nature forcing our hand. It moves away from contingency and hits on necessity. — schopenhauer1
Of course the default is that the mathematically-informed science is just an interpretation. But the interpretation corresponds with a greater predictive ability and technology which gives it a different characteristic far beyond other language-games and their heuristics, even accounting for other heuristics getting refined over time with accumulated knowledge. — schopenhauer1
As I said already, either there is a "how things are for us" which is prior to language and necessary for the existence of language, or "how things are for us" is something which emerges from language. Which position do you think Wittgenstein supports? — Metaphysician Undercover
In the beginning was the deed.
Everytime 'language-game' is equated with (just/mere/only a) convention, a small kitten dies. This thread is a feline mass grave, and all of you are kitten murderers, in particular the OP. — StreetlightX
But I still think that is fundamentally different than how the observable evidence and technological gains fostered by modern science dictates certain understanding of reality. Both are related, and share family resemblences, but are not the same. One is a constraint on epistemology itself, our ability to go beyond our own language-games. The other is a constraint on how we can interact and conceive of the universe itself. The latter is a constraint that perhaps indicates something about the universe, outside human interpretations of it. Of course the default is that the mathematically-informed science is just an interpretation. But the interpretation corresponds with a greater predictive ability and technology which gives it a different characteristic far beyond other language-games and their heuristics, even accounting for other heuristics getting refined over time with accumulated knowledge. — schopenhauer1
Why can't "merely" be used? — schopenhauer1
Because it tries to insinuate a stupid distinction between 'language-games' and 'scientific realism' that is senseless and inattentive to what language-games are. Shitty ideas deservse shitty replies. — StreetlightX
Not even 'all is lanaguage-games' makes sense; nor language-games 'limiting' anything. The grammar here is senseless. — StreetlightX
Perhaps the language of the woordworker is real in that community, but they are contingent conventions. This is not so with the science language game. There are constraints that nature is imposing, making the findings a necessity. — schopenhauer1
Wittgenstein's "forms of life" and "use" may not fit this scenario of science. — schopenhauer1
But I still think that is fundamentally different than how the observable evidence and technological gains fostered by modern science dictates certain understanding of reality. — schopenhauer1
Well it generally helps to have a basic mastery of the grammar, at a bare minimum, of what it is you're trying to critique. And it's hard to tell if it's tragic or cute that an appeal to actually read the text you're critiquing is somehow seen as asking too much. As if your laziness is the issue of others. — StreetlightX
↪Fooloso4 Do you think PI 242 also speaks to this? — Luke
242. It is not only agreement in definitions, but also (odd as it may sound) agreement in judgements that is required for communication by means of language. This seems to abolish logic, but does not do so. - It is one thing to describe methods of measurement, and another to obtain and state results of measurement. But what we call “measuring” is in part determined by a certain constancy in results of measurement.
240. Disputes do not break out (among mathematicians, say) over the question of whether or not a rule has been followed. People don’t come to blows over it, for example. This belongs to the scaffolding from which our language operates (for example, yields descriptions).
241. “So you are saying that human agreement decides what is true and what is false?” - What is true or false is what human beings say; and it is in their language that human beings agree. This is agreement not in opinions, but rather in form of life.
First there are constraints on the woodworker. The properties of the wood, the tools, the adhesives, the fasteners. There is also the woodworker's language that deals with these things and the working with the materials. It is a fact that pine is a soft wood and oak a hardwood. It is a fact that some woods are more prone to cupping and warping then others. It is a fact that some woods are more resistant to rot and insects than others. The terms used are conventions, but they are based on the activity of working with wood. The techniques are conventions but not independent of the tools that have been developed over time and what works and does not work. — Fooloso4
The philosophy and sociology of science say otherwise. It has its own activities which are not independent of but different from other human activities. — Fooloso4
I think the same is true throughout human history. Many cultures have stories of a golden age that has been lost. This is tied to technological advances - agriculture was perhaps the most disruptive, tying people to a patch of land, but tool making and weapons is another. — Fooloso4
But what are these facts compared to science? — schopenhauer1
By simply saying it is a different human inquiry, so requires different language games, is misleading. — schopenhauer1
The practical applications of use, the recreational applications of use, and simply the social applications of use, seem different in kind and not degree. — schopenhauer1
This a good formulation of the argument that this particular POV is contrasting to and calling into question. — schopenhauer1
However, there is something different when it is observing how the world is operating itself, perhaps. — schopenhauer1
Yeah it can be "for us" because we have our epistemological tendencies for systematizing, but I guess I'm wondering if there can ever be an indication of the things-themselves through this science outlook. — schopenhauer1
Perhaps an extreme form of this, which I can certainly see as being considered "scientisim" is Max Tegmark's theory of mathematical realism. I do not see much justification for it, but it is an example that is definitely opposed to the more epistemological approach like that of Wittgenstein. — schopenhauer1
It is "us" who observe and experiment and theorize and conceptualize. We see the world as we do not simply because it is the way it is but because we are the way we are. This holds for both our ordinary experience and for science. — Fooloso4
So I first juxtaposed this "for us" approach against Speculative Realism, as they do not take stock in the "critical" approach which Kant really started and has been with us up through Wittgenstein and beyond. They think that philosophy should turn back to ontological speculation again, pace Leibniz, pace Decartes, pace Medievalists, pace Stoics, pace Aristotle, pace Plato, etc. They do not like this "critical turn" of epistemology limiting speculation, so to say. — schopenhauer1
It is our agreed upon, that is, shared or common, form of life that is the scaffolding. Our agreed upon definitions and judgments are part of our form of life. It is not simply that we share the same opinions, but that both our agreement and disagreement regarding opinions rests on our form of life. And this means, in part, not only that we agree on the definition of a meter but that there is a certain constancy of results when we measure. When the woodworker measures the length of a board it is not first one meter then two or three. It is not human agreement that determines that the length of the board does not change, but we agree when we say that it is true that it does not change. — Fooloso4
...if things were quite different from what they actually are —– if there were, for instance, no characteristic expression of pain, of fear, of joy; if rule became exception, and exception rule; or if both became phenomena of roughly equal frequency —– our normal language-games would thereby lose their point. — The procedure of putting a lump of cheese on a balance and fixing the price by the turn of the scale would lose its point if it frequently happened that such lumps suddenly grew or shrank with no obvious cause. — PI 142
but then you say they also disagree ("pace") with Leibniz, Descartes, Medievalists, Stoics, Aristotle, and Plato. Perhaps you mean in accord with rather than politely disagree with? — Fooloso4
I don't understand the meaning of your question. — Luke
The thing is that we could have the same predictive ability and technology with very different language-games. It is a matter of convention whether we consider that there is such a thing as atoms and subatomic particles or not, we could explain observations differently. Rather than saying "we observe such result because electrons were deflected by the magnetic field", we could say "we observe such result when we heat a metal surface in a vacuum tube and there is a magnet nearby". — leo
To create his masterpiece furniture the carpenter would be implicitly applying his theories of how his tools work and how wood behaves in various situations, he just wouldn't call them theories because he would have internalized all that from his experience, each of his past experience with wood being experiments he carried out, from which he inferred generalities and expectations and predictions. Which is what scientists do, they carry out experiments, they infer generalities, expectations, predictions, and they share their results with one another. — leo
The difficult question is how much of what we see is a convention? There are plenty of so-called optical illusions, where we see different things depending on our state of mind. Plenty of examples of so-called shared delusions, where something seen by an individual becomes seen by a few other people, while others don't see it and interpret it as a delusion. But then if that "delusion" spread to everyone it would become reality, and then how do we know we're not living in a shared "delusion", how do we know how much of nature is man-made, how much it is not nature imposing constraints on us but ourselves imposing constraints on ourselves? — leo
I am not asking for justification or certainty, but to look at the idea that there are facts that we derived from experience, that we can perceive of the world, but also indicates something characteristic about the world and not the mind's interpretation of it perhaps. In other words, ontology. — schopenhauer1
Why is anybody here talking about 'mind' independence (or dependence) in relation to Witty? — StreetlightX
I am not asking for justification or certainty, but to look at the idea that there are facts that we derived from experience, that we can perceive of the world, but also indicates something characteristic about the world and not the mind's interpretation of it perhaps. In other words, ontology. — schopenhauer1
Wittgenstein brings up a good point about the fact that we already assume a position by using certain tools and language-games. We have certain tendencies of human nature that can't really be disputed without going outside of common sense. Beyond this framework, there are the mutable language-games transforming our foundational common sense notions into the stuff of our projects and ways of life. Science is just one of these, used for a purpose in a community. Things in-themselves, can never exist then, so we can never make a statement about ontology, just human nature. — schopenhauer1
It will still be the case, that the species shaped by evolution may have echoes of what is the case in reality. Perhaps it was the necessary qualities of human epistemology that lead to and are connected with understanding the necessary qualities of ontology that shaped it. — schopenhauer1
505. It is always by favour of Nature that one knows something.
508. What can I rely on?
509. I really want to say that a language-game is only possible if one trusts something (I did not say "can trust something").
84. But that is not to say that we are in doubt because it is possible for us to imagine a doubt. I can easily imagine someone always doubting before he opened his front door whether an abyss did not yawn behind it, and making sure about it before he went through the door (and he might on some occasion prove to be right) a but for all that, I do not doubt in such a case.
Ew, ew, ew. Why is anybody here talking about 'mind' independence (or dependence) in relation to Witty? As if one of the virtues of Witty's work were not to undo the very idea of such a lame distinction. — StreetlightX
The best that we can do or know, from within our all too human language-games, is "if everything speaks for an hypothesis and nothing against it". At least, that's my reading of it. — Luke
Get involved in philosophical discussions about knowledge, truth, language, consciousness, science, politics, religion, logic and mathematics, art, history, and lots more. No ads, no clutter, and very little agreement — just fascinating conversations.