That we can recognise pain behaviour when we see it is not the issue, of course we can. That Wittgenstein acknowledged this is not an insight of his. 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
303. “I can only believe that someone else is in pain, but I know it if I am.” — Yes: one can resolve to say “I believe he is in pain” instead of “He is in pain”. But that’s all. —– What looks like an explanation here, or like a statement about a mental process, in truth just exchanges one way of talking for another which, while we are doing philosophy, seems to us the more apt.
Just try — in a real case — to doubt someone else’s fear or pain! — Wittgenstein
I still do not see the impossibility you are talking about, although it might be there somewhere. Let's change the example. A fake Picasso and a genuine Picasso can both have exactly the same appearance. Nevertheless, a fake Picasso and a genuine Picasso are distinct things. Sure, both Picasso and the faker need the same materials in order to accomplish their goals. However, Picasso's goal is not to produce a genuine Picasso, he could hardly fail to do that after all. He is also not attempting to produce a representation of a genuine Picasso. The faker's goal, however, is precisely to do the latter. With genuine Picasso everything is there on the surface, so to speak. With a fake Picasso the story is much more complicated. In many cases, deception requires a lot more work than sincerity, although of course it can sometimes be hard to be honest as well.But, since there is a real, known difference between honestly expressing one's feelings, and deceptively expressing one's feelings, your conclusion has already been refuted. If there was no intermediary between one's pain, and one's expression of pain (pain behaviour) such deception would be impossible. If the intermediary was only added in the cases of deception, for the purpose of deceiving, it would be evident, the person would not be showing the beetle, creating a veil in between, when other times the person would be showing the beetle and there would be no veil. Therefore deception would be impossible.
The obvious rejoinder to this is dreams. Our own dreams are the equivalent to a beetle in a box as nobody else can experience a dream we have. And yet we can easily communicate dreams we remember to other people.
So how does that work? People do legitimately dream and they do legitimately talk and write about dreams remembered. We can't check their accuracy. But we can certainly understand what is being related, more or less. — Marchesk
296. “Right; but there is a Something there all the same, which accompanies my cry of pain! And it is on account of this that I utter it. And this Something is what is important — and frightful.” — Only to whom are we telling this? And on what occasion?
298. The very fact that we’d so much like to say “This is the important thing” — while we point for ourselves to the sensation — is enough to show how much we are inclined to say something which is not informative. — Wittgenstein
To be cautious as W exegesis, I think you would need to add the qualifier "just" between the "not" and "the subjective experience". Some people read W as denying outright that the inner has any role to play at all in determining the meaning of words, which I do not think he does. What I think he does is challenge the idea that "inner" here means "necessarily private and unknowable to others". Anyway, that's my interpretation, which might be wrong of course.If I understand Wittgenstein correctly (and I might not), then it is not the subjective experience of dreaming that determines the meaning of the word.
To be cautious as W exegesis, I think you would need to add the qualifier "just" between the "not" and "the subjective experience". Some people read W as denying outright that the inner has any role to play at all in determining the meaning of words, which I do not think he does. What I think he does is challenge the idea that "inner" here means "necessarily private and unknowable to others". Anyway, that's my interpretation, which might be wrong of course. — jkg20
Anyway, I only entered this discussion to correct MU's claim that Wittgenstein contradicts himself at §293, which I think I have done. MU won't agree, of course. I was foolish to think that he might actually try and understand Wittgenstein. — Luke
I still do not see the impossibility you are talking about, although it might be there somewhere. Let's change the example. A fake Picasso and a genuine Picasso can both have exactly the same appearance. Nevertheless, a fake Picasso and a genuine Picasso are distinct things. Sure, both Picasso and the faker need the same materials in order to accomplish their goals. However, Picasso's goal is not to produce a genuine Picasso, he could hardly fail to do that after all. He is also not attempting to produce a representation of a genuine Picasso. The faker's goal, however, is precisely to do both of those things. With genuine Picasso everything is there on the surface, so to speak. With a fake Picasso the story is much more complicated. In many cases, deception requires a lot more work than sincerity, although of course it can sometimes be hard to be honest as well. — jkg20
The intermediary, which allows for the existence of deception is an activity which lies unobservable between the observable behaviour and the internal intention, veiling the intention.
Sorry, to be clear, how I would like to interpret W is that "the object drops out of consideration as irrelevant" is true for him precisely and only if the object is considered to be necessarily private, so as per his analogy in the case where the beetle cannot be shown. — jkg20
I might have misunderstood you then. I was under the impression that your view was that pain behaviour is the intermediary in cases of both genuine and fake pain. Now though you seem to be suggesting that the intermediary is also hidden. I'm not sure I understand that, but it might just be lack of imagination on my part. — jkg20
If I understand Wittgenstein correctly (and I might not), then it is not the subjective experience of dreaming that determines the meaning of the word. Obviously, we are all taught how to use language, including words such as 'pain', 'dream', and 'remember', by others who cannot access one's private sensations. This all relates to Wittgenstein's remarks on the misguided notion of a private language. — Luke
In neither case is it a matter of definition or word usage. It's rather a matter of what kind of world we live in. — Marchesk
That's just not true. If it were so easy as simply being a "matter of what kind of world we live in," then we'd all still believe in Ishtar and Yhw and a geocentric universe. — Xtrix
We wouldn't because they don't exist and aren't consistent with our universe, — Marchesk
Where the beetle can be shown, is a case he says nothing about, because it is not, as you point out, his target at all. — jkg20
There lies the rub. To be honest, I am not certain that this interpretation of W is correct, nor that the ideas I am trying to force on him do so either. I am trying to see if there is room for both the general Wittgensteinian position that "nothing is hidden, everything is on the surface" on the one had, and the idea that pain behaviour and mock pain behaviour are distinct things. If they are distinct, then it is fairly natural to think that the difference lies in what the actors are feeling, but if everything is on the surface, then so is what they are feeling. In the end, it may not be a tenable position, but I have yet to see an out and out contradiction in it.Could you explain how the beetle can be shown?
They don't exist? Do numbers exist? Depends on the meaning of "existence" -- which is a word, with various meanings. Guess that matters. — Xtrix
Regardless, your claim was that words and word usage doesn't matter. That's still completely wrong.. — Xtrix
"Consistent with our universe" is meaningless. Maybe it implies some correspondence idea of knowledge, I don't know. — Xtrix
This seems really odd. It sounds like you are suggesting there could be words and phrases in a language that cannot be understood by anyone. Perhaps I am biased, but wouldn't a word or phrase at least have to be understandable by someone to count as part of a language? I am unsure that I am right about W, but I am even less sure that you are.the aspect of language which no one has the capacity to understand,that part of language which refers to the private.
Whether you are a realist or an idealist, certainly it, i.e. word usage, matters a lick for our capacity to find out, understand and express what is the case. That alone makes examining how words are used a useful activity for philosophers to engage in.It matters for how we say things and what we mean. It doesn't matter a lick for what is the case.
I'm not interested in substituting discussions of philosophical issues for debating semantics. If that's what philosophy amounted to, then it would be a sub-discipline of linguistics. — Marchesk
It matters for how we say things and what we mean. It doesn't matter a lick for what is the case. — Marchesk
This seems really odd. It sounds like you are suggesting there could be words and phrases in a language that cannot be understood by anyone. — jkg20
I am unsure that I am right about W, but I am even less sure that you are. — jkg20
There lies the rub. To be honest, I am not certain that this interpretation of W is correct, nor that the ideas I am trying to force on him do so either. I am trying to see if there is room for both the general Wittgensteinian position that "nothing is hidden, everything is on the surface" on the one had, and the idea that pain behaviour and mock pain behaviour are distinct things. If they are distinct, then it is fairly natural to think that the difference lies in what the actors are feeling, but if everything is on the surface, then so is what they are feeling. In the end, it may not be a tenable position, but I have yet to see an out and out contradiction in it. — jkg20
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