Right, in that case it was "consistent with the universe" too. — Xtrix

But it wasn't. Their cosmology was wrong.

On the other hand, all action and investigation is conducted on the basis of tacit meanings -- otherwise it'd be a matter of pure instinct. — Xtrix

The point is that debating meanings does not resolve debates such as realism/idealism, because the nature of the world does not depend on our language usage. Nor does our ability to know, for that matter.

But surely "debates such as realism/idealism" do "depend on our language usage". If we are going to debate e.g. "the nature of the world", then we have to do it using language, no?

I haven't seen that it's been very successful in resolving philosophical issues.

I suppose that would depend on what you mean by the phrase "resolving a philosophical issue". I certainly know from experience that some people will stubbornly maintain an incoherent position even when it is pointed out to them that they are using words inappropriately when they try to express what they mean. Often such people resort to the Humpty Dumpty position that they can define the words the way they like. Finally, when that point is reached there is nothing to do but walk away from the discussion. So, if by successfully resolving philosophical issues, you mean convincing other people to change their minds, examining word use is not always effective. That I grant you. Sometimes, however, it is effective, and I have certainly had the wool pulled from my eyes by a person pointing out to me a subtle distinction in the use of words. However, you might have a more restrictive notion of what it would take to resolve a philosophical issue than I do. You may even have a more restrictive notion of what counts as a philosophical issue in the first place.

What is hidden, if anything, is what pain feels like for me, compared to what it feels like for you. Is it the same? We can't talk about it, so who knows?

I'm not convinced about this, although perhaps it doesn't matter to the point you are making. I remember having sciatic pain described to me, before I ever had sciatica, as like having streaks of burning electricity pulsing down the leg. Then, one day, I felt something those words described well and it occurred to me that I was sufferring from sciatica, and my self diagnosis turned out to be spot on. So, whilst I certainly cannot feel another person's pain for them, just as I cannot doff their cap for them, I can feel same pain another person feels, I can take the cap from their head and doff with it myself, and we can, it seems, usefully describe to each other exactly what it is we are feeling. But perhaps there is a way of interpreting that story as well such that the inner drops out of the picture.

I remember having sciatic pain described to me, before I ever had sciatica, as like having streaks of burning electricity pulsing down the leg. Then, one day, I felt something those words described well and it occurred to me that I was sufferring from sciatica, and my self diagnosis turned out to be spot on. So, whilst I certainly cannot feel another person's pain for them, just as I cannot doff their cap for them, I can feel same pain another person feels, I can take the cap from their head and doff with it myself, and we can, it seems, usefully describe to each other exactly what it is we are feeling. — jkg20

I had considered this sort of thing, but I wonder if it isn't more of a comparison - a simile or metaphor - rather than a direct description. It reminds me of the cliche "tastes like chicken" which isn't a very helpful description of taste, although it may give some idea. Come to think of it, it's funny how we generally describe the taste of most foods as the food itself, or in terms of one of the five basic taste descriptions (including salt-y), rather than in more specific terms. Anyway, I guess the question could become one of degree regarding what makes a (useful?) description.

Nonetheless, I think it makes sense to say that one can't compare their subjective experience to someone else's and that these private sensations are what some philosophers have assumed to give words their meanings. As noted in the SEP article on Private Language:

For example, a still very common idea, often attributed to John Locke and openly embraced by Jerry Fodor in the nineteen seventies, is that interpersonal spoken communication works by speakers’ translation of their internal mental vocabularies into sounds followed by hearers’ re-translation into their own internal vocabularies. Again, Descartes considered himself able to talk to himself about his experiences while claiming to be justified in saying that he does not know (or not until he has produced a reassuring philosophical argument) anything at all about an external world conceived as something independent of them. And he and others have thought: while I may make mistakes about the external world, I can infallibly avoid error if I confine my judgments to my immediate sensations. (Compare The Principles of Philosophy, I, 9.) Again, many philosophers, including John Stuart Mill, have supposed there to be a problem of other minds, according to which I may reasonably doubt the legitimacy of applying, say, sensation-words to beings other than myself.

In each of these examples, the implication is that the internal vehicle of my musings could in principle be private (as Kenny [1966, p. 369] showed, this vehicle does not have to be a language for the argument to apply to it): for these problems and theories even to make sense, sharability must be irrelevant to meaning and it must be at least conceivable that my knowledge, even my understanding, is necessarily confined to my own case.

I had considered this sort of thing, but I wonder if it isn't more of a comparison - a simile or metaphor - rather than a direct description.

Point taken, descriptions of pains often resort to metaphor. But how about descriptions of afterimages? It doesn't seem to be a metaphorical or non literal use of colour and shape vocabularly when we describe them.

The difference is, obviously, the pain (having it or not having it). What is hidden, if anything, is what pain feels like for me, compared to what it feels like for you. Is it the same? We can't talk about it, so who knows? It won't affect the meaning or use of the word 'pain' anyway. Regardless of what it feels like internally for each of us, reactions to pain, or pain behaviours, tend to appear similar across genuine cases, which may help to explain why someone can pretend to be in pain. This public exhibition also seems the more likely determinant of the meaning/use of the word 'pain'. — Luke

This is the faulty logic right here. If the difference between real pain behaviour and mock pain behaviour is the presence of real pain, you cannot proceed to your conclusion of "regardless of what it feels like internally for each of us", and make your judgement as to whether there is real pain based on people having similar behaviour. We must address the similarity of the feeling inside to avoid deception.

In other words, you cannot say: 1. The difference is the pain, either having it or not having it. And also say: 2. It does not matter what pain actually feels like to anyone of us, so long as the person behaves in a pain-like way, then there is pain. These two propositions are inconsistent. The first makes "pain" an internal feeling which one must have, thus requiring consistency in the naming of that feeling, while the second makes "pain" something that people are judged to have based on their behaviour, while consistency in the named feeling is irrelevant. The criteria for "pain", i.e. the definitions of that word, are completely distinct.

Therefore we have to turn to the internal thing, the thing which is called pain, to establish principles to differentiate real pain behaviour from mock pain behaviour. This is where Wittgenstein fails as you describe. "The private sensation is real, but nothing can be said about it; nothing further about it can be described or discussed in our public language." By claiming nothing can be said about this internal, private thing, he leaves us completely vulnerable, without any principles to address deception.

Therefore we have to turn to the internal thing, the thing which is called pain, to establish principles to differentiate real pain behaviour from mock pain behaviour. This is where Wittgenstein fails as you describe. "The private sensation is real, but nothing can be said about it; nothing further about it can be described or discussed in our public language." By claiming nothing can be said about this internal, private thing, he leaves us completely vulnerable, without any principles to address deception. — Metaphysician Undercover

Lots can be said about it. In fact, it is what we are doing here: distinguishing real pain behaviour from mock pain behaviour. Our words are doing it. When we encounter someone doing one or the other, these words describe that difference. We can in fact describe it to others, "That is mock behaviour" or "That person is genuinely in pain" perfectly.

In either case, we have spoken about it in words. Wittgenstein is giving us what address the the deception in speech: there is no private language, the so called "private" thing was never private in the first place.

"Feels like" has similar publicity. I can know what other people feel. My experience may take on similar sensation. Here the topic has moved on from words. In this situation, we are not asking about what words are used, but whether someone feels the same as another. It's not a move from words to knowledge, but a sensation experience all along.

The lesson here is not to get fooled into thinking a specific language used (or not used) here makes a difference. When we are dealing with publicity, we are dealing with whether some people feel or understand as others do, whether it be a language, what happened yesterday or what someone is feeling. Such communication is defined by the existence of certain experiences in the people in question. It is something our experience does.

We might well talk about it, if we speak the same language about it. All we need are our words, which have specific references to our feeling of pain, such that when one of us hears the words, we experience awareness of the pain in question. "What pain feel like to me," whatever that entails (which varies and may be a host of different thing, depending on the pain we are talking about), just needs to be communicated.

It's not there is nothing to say about it, but that we cannot get at it from outside itself. There isn't one certain concept which we can derive what someone else is feeling.

reactions to pain, or pain behaviours, tend to appear similar across genuine cases — Luke

So these aren't really telling us anything. Yes, they might be evidence someone is in pain... but that only functions if those behaviours are (and are known to be, in these instances) correlated with pain. In effect, to recognise a "pain behaviour," we have to already be aware the person is in pain. We have to know an instance of pain occurring before sorting a person's behaviour into "pain behaviour."

But it wasn't. Their cosmology was wrong. — Marchesk

Wrong to us, yes. But this itself assumes some correspondence theory of truth about something "out there." That itself is the subject/object assumption.

The point is that debating meanings does not resolve debates such as realism/idealism, because the nature of the world does not depend on our language usage. Nor does our ability to know, for that matter. — Marchesk

Our ability to know, and our language use, does not influence the nature of the world? And exactly what is that "nature of the world" outside of our knowing and talking about it? Please enlighten me.

You believe in a correspondence theory of truth, assuming some "thing" is out there, some nature or universe, which we may try to 'read off' and understand but which isn't dependent on us at all. But anything, even that very belief, comes out of the human mind and is therefore bound by interpretation and perspective, which in turn are shaped by our values and beliefs, which likewise are shaped by our social worlds in which we get grow and develop. Maybe it's some "thing in itself" outside of our representations, but in that case you're simply talking about Kant.

In either case, we have spoken about it in words. Wittgenstein is giving us what address the the deception in speech: there is no private language, the so called "private" thing was never private in the first place. — TheWillowOfDarkness

I agree with this, that the so-called "private thing" is not private, but not for the reasons you give, nor what Wittgenstein implies. It is not "private" because no one has access to it, not even the person who feels it. The feeling is just a representation of what is really there. So we cannot say that the thing there, "the beetle" is private, because the person whom we assume has ownership of it does not even have access to it. But this does not make it public. It is internal and inaccessible, like Kant's thing in itself is external and inaccessible. The person who feels the pain only has access to a representation of what is being sensed, just like any other sensation. The feeling is a representation, not the thing itself.

In either case, we have spoken about it in words. Wittgenstein is giving us what address the the deception in speech: there is no private language, the so called "private" thing was never private in the first place. — TheWillowOfDarkness

What I said above necessitates a private language. What appears to me, "the sensation", is distinct from any sensation which appears to you. Therefore the language which I use to refer to my sensations is inherently different from the language you use to refer to your sensations. I use symbols to refer to my sensations, you do the same. The sensations are not the same, so it's not the same language. Now we must communicate, agree, and conventionalize a common, or public language. As Wittgenstein demonstrates, the public language is completely distinct and incompatible with the private language, being developed for completely distinct purposes. That's what Wittgenstein demonstrates, that the private languages which we all use are distinct, incompatible, and not translatable to public languages, but not that private languages are impossible. To the contrary, we can see that private languages are necessary.

"Feels like" has similar publicity. I can know what other people feel. My experience may take on similar sensation. Here the topic has moved on from words. In this situation, we are not asking about what words are used, but whether someone feels the same as another. It's not a move from words to knowledge, but a sensation experience all along. — TheWillowOfDarkness

How can you know what another person feels, when the person who has the feeling cannot even know that? Suppose I have a feeling, and I want to give it a name in the public language, so I call it "pain". How can I know that I am properly using the word "pain"? I can judge by other people's behaviour, like Luke says, but how can I get beyond the possibility of deception in that behaviour? It's not like a sensation occurs to me, and says to me, you must call me by this name because that's what I am. There is nothing but behaviour (speaking for example) to indicate to me how to use the words to refer to my feelings in the public language. So I cannot ever be certain.

When we are dealing with publicity, we are dealing with whether some people feel or understand as others do, whether it be a language, what happened yesterday or what someone is feeling. — TheWillowOfDarkness

Right, so how are we going to confirm this, that people feel or understand the same way as others? The incompatibility between the private language, by which the individual understands one's own feelings, and the public language, by which we talk about our feelings, demonstrates that it is impossible to confirm this.

Let me just make sure I understand your position. You believe that pain involves three things:
1. Pain behaviour, including talk, which is entirely public.
2. A sensation of pain, private to the person feeling pain that nobody else but that person can get access to.
3. Something, that the above mentioned sensation represents, and that nobody has any understanding of, including the person feeling the sensation.

I'm not asking for your arguments or your reasons for thinking this for the moment, I just want to make sure I've been able to extract the basis of your position from everything you have been saying.

I'm sympathetic to the old positivist idea that both the affirmation and denial of idealism have no cognitive content. I can't prove it, but I think it's right.

If that's so, then acting like an idealist or not might be an external question, with emotive consequences. Certainly ordinary people (and philosophers!) really don't like idealism, and it's a fascinating psychological question why.

It may be cultural: in India, regular people are often idealists, in my experience. This is especially interesting if it's really true there's no cognitive content there. Why then do people get so upset? My guess is that it really is cultural, and hearing an idealist thesis triggers deep feelings of alarm at having one's culture questioned.

Let me just make sure I understand your position. You believe that pain involves three things:
1. Pain behaviour, including talk, which is entirely public.
2. A sensation of pain, private to the person feeling pain that nobody else but that person can get access to.
3. Something, that the above mentioned sensation represents, and that nobody has any understanding of, including the person feeling the sensation.

I'm not asking for your arguments or your reasons for thinking this for the moment, I just want to make sure I've been able to extract the basis of your position from everything you have been saying. — jkg20

I would not quite agree with #3. I think we do have some knowledge of this "something", but limited knowledge. We obtain this knowledge through experience and logical process, in the same way that we obtain knowledge about anything. But the inward looking is a bit of an inversion to the outward looking so it requires a different process. A large part of this "something" is unknown, just like a large part of the external universe is unknown.

But how about descriptions of afterimages? It doesn't seem to be a metaphorical or non literal use of colour and shape vocabularly when we describe them. — jkg20

I may have misspoken when I stated earlier: "What is hidden, if anything, is what pain feels like for me, compared to what it feels like for you. Is it the same? We can't talk about it, so who knows?"

We can talk about it, but only in our public language (the same applies to our talk of afterimages or dream contents). I should have said that we can't talk about it using some private language that describes how it feels exclusively for me or exclusively for you. The point is that the meaning of a sensation word such as 'pain' is not derived from any individual's experience of that sensation. Rather than getting caught up in what we can and can't talk about (using public language) regarding sensations, I should instead follow Wittgenstein to say that the private aspect of an experience (assuming that there is one), "drops out of consideration as irrelevant" with regard to the meaning of a word like 'pain'.

This is where Wittgenstein fails as you describe. "The private sensation is real, but nothing can be said about it; nothing further about it can be described or discussed in our public language." By claiming nothing can be said about this internal, private thing, he leaves us completely vulnerable, without any principles to address deception. — Metaphysician Undercover

You expect that Wittgenstein's philosophy should enable us to prevent deception?

OK, then, with 1 and 2 nailed down, let me try to get clearer on 3. Is this a fair summary of your position:
1: For the person feeling a pain, the pain sensations they have represent some other thing or process.
2: For that person to really be in pain, the pain sensation must correctly represent the presence or occurrence of that other thing.
3: Where there is representation there is the possibility of misrepresentation.
4: So a person could be having pain sensations, but not actually be in pain because those sensations are incorrectly representing the presence of that other thing.

Wrong to us, yes. But this itself assumes some correspondence theory of truth about something "out there." — Xtrix

You don't need correspondence for realism to be the case. Deflation is another option. But setting aside the question of realism, ancient cosmology has been shown to be wrong epistemologically, without making any assumptions about what science tells us regarding the nature of reality.

It's no different than the flat earth people, except the ancient people didn't have the as good of evidence to work out that the world was round (and yet some did manage to do so). And the world being spherical (roughly) is something verifiable.

However, you might have a more restrictive notion of what it would take to resolve a philosophical issue than I do. You may even have a more restrictive notion of what counts as a philosophical issue in the first place. — jkg20

My notion is that it a consensus can be reached by professional philosophers. Ongoing debate tells me a consensus has not been reached regarding many issues, and so the last century of analyzing language has failed to be as successful as originally intended.

But surely "debates such as realism/idealism" do "depend on our language usage". If we are going to debate e.g. "the nature of the world", then we have to do it using language, no? — Luke

If we're going to debate anything, we have to use language. That doesn't mean the thing being debated is dependent on language. Analyzing the language usage of "social distance" and "flattening the curve" isn't going to tell us how long to continue to doing both, for example. That's a matter for the epidemiology of Covid-19 and health care capacity balanced against economic concerns.

Nor would analyzing he terminology of QM tell us the proper interpretation for the measurement problem. It would only help us understand what's being debated.

That doesn't mean the thing being debated is dependent on language. — Marchesk

Even though we have to use it?

Not all philosophers engage in the kind of language analysis that Wittgenstein engaged in. Some I know to be overtly hostile to that kind of approach. As far as I am aware, there is as little consensus amongst nonWittgensteinian philosophers as there is amongst Wittgensteinian ones. But pehaps your point is that philosophy itself is futile.

Even though we have to use it? — Luke

We also have to use our bodies. Does that make the world dependent on our hands, eyes, brains? Then again, this is philosophy and Berkeley thought things were dependent on being perceived.

I would say no, science shows us the world doesn't depend on us. QM and Covid-19 don't care what words we use.

But pehaps your point is that philosophy itself is futile. — jkg20

I think it's worth being able to explore the questions raised. Humans are prone to wax philosophical anyway. But maybe finding resolution is a matter for science, where science can provide answers. At least we're not still stuck with the five elements of Aristotle or ancient atomism.

We also have to use our bodies. Does that make the world dependent on our hands, eyes, brains? — Marchesk

No, it makes the debate dependent on them.

Well, your position is not too far away from Wittgenstein's then. He was pretty clear that once you make the questions you are asking clear, either they will turn out to be addressable by science, or they will rest philosophical ones. But the questions being asked need to be made clear, and it is there that the analysis of language use has its role to play, at least on the Wittgensteinian approach.
Addendum, of course for W, the analysis of language will also have a role to play, but a different one, with the residual purely philosophical questions.

No, it makes the debate dependent on them. — Luke

Sure, in a sense you're right. But in another, this is missing the point, because debates are usually about things and not the words themselves. Or at least they start out that way.

Which is ironic, because we're now debating word usage. Which seems to happen too often in these philosophical disputes. But let's agree. Debates depend on word usage. Okay, so how does that answer the realism/idealism question?

Because if I want to know whether the world is ideal or real, defining the terms doesn't answer the question. It just leaves a puzzle.

Well, your position is not too far away from Wittgenstein's then. He was pretty clear that once you make the questions you are asking clear, either they will turn out to be addressable by science, or they will rest philosophical ones. — jkg20

Alright, that sounds reasonable. But let's take the hard problem debate. It's not known whether science can resolve it. Philosophers like Chalmers argue science can't. Sow here does that leave the debate? Should we dismiss it as meaningless? But what if I find it meaningful and understand what's being argued? I know where Dennett and Chalmers disagree, and it's not over the meaning of qualia. It's over whether qualia exist.

Well, I would start by asking both Chalmers and Dennett what they mean by "qualia", after all, clever as they undoubtedly are, they are not immune to conceptual confusion and this might be revealed when we push them to express what they mean.