So the analogy really tells us nothing about the relationship between language and what's inside, pain, or other feelings whatsoever, "what's in the box". — Metaphysician undercover
WittgenstienThe thing in the box has no place in the language-game at all;
That's irrelevant, I'm not talking about "anyone", I'm talking specifically about the person whose box is empty. That person would be practising deception, according to the contradiction in the terms of the analogy. — Metaphysician Undercover
Yes, showing, for me, that the language game itself is incoherent : the meaning of "beetle" cannot be entirely determined by necessarily private objects. — jkg20
For me we are being invited to conclude that people must be able to show each other their beetles, otherwise "beetle" never gets to really mean anything at all.
More tentatively, I think we are also being invited to reach for a conclusion that where we can all show each other what is inside our boxes, what is inside our boxes cannot vary too much without "beetle" losing its usefulness entirely. But there I meander a long way away from the text. — jkg20
3. Suppose that the word "beetle" has a use in these people's language nonetheless.
4. Then the word "beetle" would not be as the name of a thing. The thing in the box does not belong to the language game at all. The box could effectively be empty, as this would make no difference to the language game or the meaning/use of the word "beetle". — Luke
There is no contradiction here. He doesn't say both that there is something and nothing in the box. He says only that if the word was to have a use in these people's language, then it would have no effect on the language game if the box was empty. — Luke
3. Suppose that the word "beetle" has a use in these people's language nonetheless.
4. Then the word "beetle" would not be as the name of a thing. The thing in the box does not belong to the language game at all. The box could effectively be empty, as this would make no difference to the language game or the meaning/use of the word "beetle".
— Luke
These are the questionable statements. This use of "beetle" is something completely distinct from, other than, to refer to the thing in the box. — Metaphysician Undercover
Furthermore, if any instance of what appears to you as me showing you my beetle might actually be an instance of deception, then I can never actually be showing you my beetle.
Everyone uses the word "beetle" to refer to some unknown, inaccessible thing inside a box. You seem to accept this. It doesn't matter what the inaccessible thing in a box is, everyone calls it a "beetle" anyway. How does this change if there is nothing in a box? Everyone else's box is inaccessible and everyone would still call whatever is (or is not) in a box a "beetle" anyway. That's how the word is used and that's what it means. Your complaint that the word is supposed to refer to some positive thing and that it cannot refer to nothing carries no weight, because whatever is in a box makes no difference to the meaning or use of the word. — Luke
his is the point of the conditional, that if the word has a use in these people's language, then the word "beetle" would not be the name of a thing and this thing does not belong to the language game at all. — Luke
As Wittgenstein says: "The thing in the box has no place in the language-game at all; not even as a something" — Luke
Accepting the antecedent of the inference you make above involves accepting the concealed premise that could be expressed in the first instance as: if there is no difference between the appearance of two things, in this case types of behaviour, there is no real difference in what they are. — jkg20
Nevertheless, if one does deny that inference, i.e. if one does accept that pain behaviour and fake pain behaviour can have the exactly the same appearance but may yet nevertheless be metaphysically entirely distinct phenomena, then the difficult question is to try to explain how we can be fooled into thinking someone is in pain: it seems that there just must be some common denominator between fake pain behaviour and pain behaviour, but if we accept that, then falling back into skepticism about us ever being able to show each other our pain seems inevitable. — jkg20
Therefore the premises of 1&2 describe a language-game in which "beetle" refers to something in the box, and 3&4 describe a completely different, unrelated language-game, within which "beetle" is used in a completely different, unrelated way. — Metaphysician Undercover
You are ignoring that the word has a use in these people's language. — Luke
I don't know whether it's a problem which is peculiar to English, but there is a difficulty in trying to describe the thing in the box without referring to it as a positive "thing", where it instead refers to either a something or a nothing. Yet, this is what the word "beetle" refers to: whatever is in the box, a something or a nothing. What would you call this instead of a "thing"? Is there a more neutral term? — Luke
See, the people have a use for "beetle", but this use has nothing to do with the thing in the box. The thing in the box has absolutely no relevance in this language-game. "The thing in the box has no place in the language-game at all;..."But suppose the word "beetle" had a use in these people's language? --If so it would not be used as the name of a thing. The thing in the box has no place in the language-game at all; not even as a something: for the box might even be empty. — Wittgenstein
You took issue with my earlier use of "contents" of the box, I suspect because this deflated your argument, but that's really what the word refers to - some unknown quantity, an algebraic 'x', some "thing" which might not be a thing, just whatever it is that is in the box....or not. Whatever is (or is not) inside the box is called a "beetle". — Luke
Can you think of a better word than "thing" for the contents of a box which could be anything or nothing; a non-positive synonym for "thing"; a thing which is "not even a something"?
Anyway, that's where I see you going wrong here. Obviously, apart from your complete misunderstanding of all of Wittgenstein's work, including his private language argument. To avoid further repetition, I'll leave it there. — Luke
304. “But you will surely admit that there is a difference between pain behaviour with pain and pain-behaviour without pain.” — Admit it? What greater difference could there be? — “And yet you again and again reach the conclusion that the sensation itself is a Nothing.” — Not at all. It’s not a Something, but not a Nothing either! The conclusion was only that a Nothing would render the same service as a Something about which nothing could be said. We’ve only rejected the grammar which tends to force itself on us here.
The paradox disappears only if we make a radical break with the idea that language always functions in one way, always serves the same purpose: to convey thoughts — which may be about houses, pains, good and evil, or whatever. — Wittgenstein
I'm not sure about "unidentifiable" here, why isn't a case of deception just a successful attempt to deceive? After all, if each instance of deception were of necessity unidentifiable, no deception would ever be discovered, and so how would the notion of deception ever get a hold? The opposite take from yours would be that deception must be discoverable, and so identifiable, but to be deception it must of course allow for being, as a matter of fact, unidentified. Here we do not need a paradigm of deception in your sense, just the paradigm of sincere behaviour and the idea of an attempt to emulate that behaviour for, at least in some cases, deceitful purposes. So, if all deceptive behaviour must be identifiable as deception, that might entail, with some additional premises of course, that deceptive behaviour does not share a common denominator with sincere behaviour, and so sincere behaviour in the case of pain can really be a case of showing the world what is your box. This still leaves the tricky business of explaining how actual cases of deception work, but perhaps Wittgenstein would just say that it will vary from case to case and that no matter how many examples we produce we will not obtain a general principle that will apply to all cases.That is the key point, deception is unidentifiable, because if it is identified it is not deception, only an attempt to deceive. And the other point is that deception occurs.
I can think of many greater differences than the difference between mock and sincere pain behavoiur, the difference between pain behaviour and smoking calmly in an armchair, for instance. Pain behaviour and mock pain behaviour might be different, but there is also the apparent similarity to account for. If one suggests, quite naturally, that there is a common denominator between mock and genuine pain behaviour, e.g. the bodily movements, including the movements of the larynx and lips, then the question arises, "so what is added in the genuine case to distinguish it from the mock case?" The response, "it is not nothing but it is not something either " or "you are being lead astray by language" then just rings to some like a hollow refusal to engage with the issue.Admit it? What greater difference could there be? — — Wittgenstein
I'm not sure about "unidentifiable" here, why isn't a case of deception just a successful attempt to deceive? After all, if each instance of deception were of necessity unidentifiable, no deception would ever be discovered, and so how would the notion of deception ever get a hold? — jkg20
Pain behaviour and mock pain behaviour might be different, but there is also the apparent similarity to account for. If one suggests, quite naturally, that there is a common denominator between mock and genuine pain behaviour, e.g. the bodily movements, including the movements of the larynx and lips, then the question arises, "so what is added in the genuine case to distinguish it from the mock case?" The response, "it is not nothing but it is not something either " or "you are being lead astray by language" then just rings to some like a hollow refusal to engage with the issue. — jkg20
Hacker identifies the target of the beetle story as a form of semi-solipsism: the view that each of us "knows what 'pain' means only from one's own case, for it seems that it is the sensation one has that gives the word its meaning". [...]
[This] construal of the grammar of expression of sensation on the model of name and object, leads to a dilemma: [...]
"If what is in the box is relevant to the meaning of 'beetle' then no one else can understand what I mean by 'beetle'; and if 'beetle' is understood by others, it cannot signify what is in each person's private box." (Hacker 1990) — David G. Stern
305. “But you surely can’t deny that, for example, in remembering, an inner process takes place.” — What gives the impression that we want to deny anything? When one says, “Still, an inner process does take place here” — one wants to go on: “After all, you see it.” And it is this inner process that one means by the word “remembering”. — The impression that we wanted to deny something arises from our setting our face against the picture of an ‘inner process’. What we deny is that the picture of an inner process gives us the correct idea of the use of the word “remember”. Indeed, we’re saying that this picture, with its ramifications, stands in the way of our seeing the use of the word as it is. — Wittgenstein
Well if it were only language Wittgenstein was concerned with, then fine, nothing more need be said. However, I have met so called Wittgensteinians that feel that in being concerned with language Wittgenstein somehow managed to solve metaphysical problems along the way, rather than just avoiding them or, perhaps more charitably, expressing them in a different way.Almost, if not always, Wittgenstein's concern is with language
109. It was correct that our considerations must not be scientific ones. The feeling ‘that it is possible, contrary to our preconceived ideas, to think this or that’ — whatever that may mean — could be of no interest to us. (The pneumatic conception of thinking.) And we may not advance any kind of theory. There must not be anything hypothetical in our considerations. All explanation must disappear, and description alone must take its place. And this description gets its light — that is to say, its purpose — from the philosophical problems. These are, of course, not empirical problems; but they are solved through an insight into the workings of our language, and that in such a way that these workings are recognized — despite an urge to misunderstand them. The problems are solved, not by coming up with new discoveries, but by assembling what we have long been familiar with. Philosophy is a struggle against the bewitchment of our understanding by the resources of our language. — Wittgenstein
If the issue you are concerned with is of mock vs. real pain-behaviour, then you might need to look elsewhere, but from memory I think Wittgenstein does say somewhere that we can recognise real pain-behaviour when we see it. I will try and find the quote another time. — Luke
The issue that concerns metaphysics and on which Wittgenstein seems silent is embedded in Metaphysician Undercover's question: what makes the difference between mock pain behavoiur and real pain behaviour. — jkg20
This is compatible with the idea that we can nevertheless in some circumstances recognise genuine pain behaviour for what it is, i.e. the manifestation of pain. At least, you would need more argument to show that the mere fact that we can go wrong means that we can never get it right. What it is to get it right, of course, remains open for discussion, but the idea that getting it right means, at least sometimes, being directly confronted with someone's pain and not simply a representative intermediary of it, has still yet to be refuted as far as I can tell.The fact is that we might, anyone of us, at any time, be deceived by mock pain-behaviour.
This is compatible with the idea that we can nevertheless in some circumstances recognise genuine pain behaviour for what it is, i.e. the manifestation of pain. At least, you would need more argument to show that the mere fact that we can go wrong means that we can never get it right. — jkg20
What it is to get it right, of course, remains open for discussion, but the idea that getting it right means, at least sometimes, being directly confronted with someone's pain and not simply a representative intermediary of it, has still yet to be refuted as far as I can tell. — jkg20
This is the point of the conditional, that if the word has a use in these people's language, then the word "beetle" would not be the name of a thing and this thing does not belong to the language game at all. The word would not be used to refer to anything in particular, but would only refer generally to whatever is in a box, which could include nothing. As Wittgenstein says: "The thing in the box has no place in the language-game at all; not even as a something" — Luke
But as I've pointed out elsewhere, the very notion of subject/object, "inner and outer worlds," mind and body, etc., already presume an understanding of what it is to be. They themselves operate in the context of an ontology. In the West, at least, that ontology is still very much Greek. Until we understand this point fully, we're operating in a blind alley.
(This is not to say these problems don't exist, or that they're "wrong," by the way.) — Xtrix
This is a good point, but the problems still exist even if you reframe the debate, as you mentioned in parentheses. It doesn't make the fundamental issues with perception, consciousness and language go away. — Marchesk
What's the problem, exactly? Someone has to tell us what "consciousness" is. Likewise with "God's existence." Why is that not a "hard problem"? It certainly was for centuries, but that essentially drifted away. — Xtrix
There was another prominent idealist whose name I forget. — Marchesk
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