tried to make clear above that OLP does not mean "ordinary" as in everyday language, or just language generally, or that people actually discuss these criteria (though they may have to) in making judgements, though OLP is drawing out the ways in which we are making judgements about our concepts such as "whether or not one has correctly understood." — Antony Nickles

I really don't know what you mean by "ordinary" then. It seems like your attempts to define "ordinary" "ordinarily", and in your usage I see nothing to indicate anything other than everyday language. I'm hoping you will enlighten me concerning this other type of "ordinary language" which you are concerned with.

So if I understand correctly, you are saying that there is a way to make judgements as to whether or not our concepts are misunderstandings without referencing metaphysical principles.

And, second, yes, this is epistemology. It is a method to discover the unexamined ways in which our concepts work, their grammar. (And also an ethics of epistemology, a comment that the way in which we seek knowledge, and the type of knowledge we seek (the criteria for it), reflects on us.) — Antony Nickles

As far as I understand, epistemology is grounded in metaphysics, so if you can demonstrate an epistemology which is not, yet is well grounded anyway, I'm ready to consider it.

Now this is where I am trying to point out the philosophy that differs from OLP. Instead of "imposing" criteria to "escape" the pitfalls, OLP is trying to show all the ways we have to carry on in the face of these pitfalls, and that we can not escape and shouldn't impose, but look and work within (or extending beyond). There is no philosophical solution for this failure (nor the implied radical skepticism)--it is our human condition. I tried to work through this with Joshs above in relation to when words fail us. — Antony Nickles

I view philosophy as an effort toward a higher understanding. If you are trying to tell me, to just forget about it, a higher understanding is impossible, I simply will not listen to you, and continue to do philosophy in disregard of what you say. If you're saying that a higher understanding is possible within the existing conceptual structure, I will argue that as contradictory. To proceed toward a higher understanding requires amendments to the existing understanding, therefore we need to impose changes. So which do you think it is? Is philosophy an effort toward higher understanding, in which case we need to impose standards, or is a higher understanding impossible, and philosophers should do something else?

Again, this is not philosophy using or justifying "ordinary" language or our games, in the sense of regular, unquestioned, etc., but to say that these games (Witt uses concepts to generalize here) have criteria for how they work, their grammar; these are our ordinary criteria for these concepts. Looking at our ordinary criteria gives us an idea of why philosophers react to solve "the gap" that skepticism takes as absolute and world-ending, by imposing particular (universal) criteria to ensure understanding. But OLP also sees that we are separate and that we do sometimes fail, but that who we are is responsible for our expressions and for our answerability to the Other, our misunderstandings along the regular ways we already have. — Antony Nickles

Now you've completely lost me. You've already stated that you don't mean "ordinary" in the sense of everyday, so how are you using it here? What do you mean by "ordinary criteria". If ordinary criteria is not criteria imposed by some philosophical principles, and it is not everyday criteria (which I've argued is incoherent), what do you mean by this?

One thing I realized I need to clear up. The term "language-game" is to say the games we play with a "concept"--what criteria/grammar describe. — Antony Nickles

Again, I don't see what you're trying to say here. You've converted a singular, "language game", to a plural, "games we play", in your description. What Wittgenstein showed was that the same word has different meaning in different contexts, hence it is employed in different language games. Since the same word has different meaning in different language games, then if we are going to say that the word refers to a concept, we need to say that it is a different concept in each different language game. Since a concept would consist of rules or boundaries (criteria), and the rules would be different for different games, then we cannot say that it is the same concept. So these are not games we play with "a concept", they are games we play with a word. In other words, word games.

Now it is not the point here, but he is not saying that the concept of "game" has no ordinary criteria. One is that it is, as he says, "not closed by a frontier" (he later says it is the kind of concept that has blurred edges (#71)--that is another one of the ways it works, its grammar). He directly says, "And this is how we use the word 'game'." Another criteria, or grammar, for games is that its boundaries and rules are drawn--not set ahead of time. Another is that "What still counts as a game and what no longer does?" is answered by us (that is part of the way the concept of a "game" works). "That's not a game! You're just playing with a tennis racket!" but then I could counter that we are balancing it (a skill) and seeing how long we can (a measure of winning)--are these not some of the criteria of (set for) a game? and do they not allow for a discussion of what counts (criteria) and what matters? Witt is calling out the fear that if rules and boundaries can sometimes be drawn by us, we can't count on anything,which leads to the fixation to have rules take our place. — Antony Nickles

What Witt explicitly says in that section, is that there is no boundaries for the supposed concept of "game", but this does not prevent him from understanding what is meant by the word when it is used. Further one can draw boundaries for a particular purpose, if a person wants to. So he is saying that criteria (being boundaries) are not necessary, but can be imposed for particular purposes.

Again, we can remove "in ordinary language" because we are not opposing that to any other language. — Antony Nickles

OK, so why not just leave out the word "ordinary" altogether, if it serves no purpose. You've already said that it doesn't indicate everyday, and now it doesn't seem to qualify "language" in any way, so let's just drop it, and we'll start talking about language philosophy, or philosophy of language. But we have a problem, and this is that you seem to want to derive a foundation for epistemology from a philosophy of language.

The premise with OLP is that we regularly do not know what the criteria for a concept are (they work behind the scenes as it were), — Antony Nickles

Oh come on, this is nonsense. You are saying that people apply criteria without knowing that they apply criteria. But if this were the case, then we could not call this applying criteria, because applying criteria is to make a conscious judgement in relation to the criteria. Let's look at the reality of the situation. People act out of habit when they talk. And acting out of habit is not applying criteria. So let's just forget this unrealistic notion that people are applying criteria for the concepts involved with each of the words when they are talking. That doesn't make any sense at all.

Right, not investigating "what we do in ordinary language use", but "investigating to understand what counts as an instance of a particular concept", which is to say, as you do, OLP is doing philosophy. Its method is to investigate an instance (example) of a concept by looking at: when we say "I know___" to understand what counts, what matters, where the distinctions are made, etc., i.e., the criteria for the concept. — Antony Nickles

If you are distinguishing between "it rained this morning", and "I know it rained this morning", saying that the latter must be justified by conceptual criteria, then how are you going to justify standards for what "rain" means, or what "morning" means without ontology?

I think I've got another misconception. It is not that what we say is an example of the structure of our concepts. We take an example of what we say when to investigate the structure of our concepts--the criteria hidden in what we say when. And, it is exactly philosophy's "standards" for [the explanation of] criteria (universality, certainty, predetermined, "normative") which causes the loss of our ordinary criteria and any use of their context. — Antony Nickles

The problem is, that there is no such criteria "hidden in what we say". It's very obvious, we speak out of habit, use words which are familiar to us, without applying criteria. That's what Wittgenstein was showing in that passage. There are no boundaries to the use of the word "game", yet we understand each other when we use it. "Can I give the boundary? No. You can draw one; for none has so far been drawn." Then he further explains, that when we do draw a boundary, it is for a particular purpose. This is when we apply criteria, it is for a particular purpose, like doing philosophy.

So when philosophers, scientists, mathematicians, or whoever, apply criteria, this does not cause the "loss of our ordinary criteria". There never was any ordinary criteria, just habitual, yet inherently free, usage of words. It is a misrepresentation to say that there is criteria being applied when we commonly speak .

Let me paraphrase where I think we're at. You are claiming that there is a type of epistemology which is grounded in some type of criteria other than metaphysical criteria. You call this "ordinary criteria"? This is not criteria in the sense of some philosophical principles, but in the sense of some grammar. Can you demonstrate to me, how we might ground epistemology in grammar? For instance, if a proposition was composed according to proper grammatical form, would it be necessarily true?

it is case by case for OLP (we are not looking for a general theory). — Antony Nickles

Ah, but there are general pre-suppositions informing the carrying though of the ‘case by case’ even if not explicitly articulated as such.

I believe you are using "sense" here as in "meaning", as if they were attached to the expression. Witt is trying to show that words (concepts more specifically) do not have an associated "meaning", in the sense of thought: — Antony Nickles

I am using sense in a Heideggerian or Derridean way.
For both of them words do not refer to
or represent meanings. A sense of a word is not an aspect of a concept that already exists, as in a variation on a theme. A sense is a variation, but it is a variation of a variation. There are only senses, with no originating ground. So really we can’t speak of a sense of a word, but word as only sense. You will not find me or Heidegger or Derrida advocating any notion of ‘associated meaning’.

an expression" has a lot of moving parts in each case, — Antony Nickles

I think it is safe to say that the collection of terms that are interlinked as part of Austin’s approach to doing things with words points to many moving parts. I consider this a particular kind of structuralism. There are of course many different sorts of structuralisms in philosophy. What they have in common is that they make use of a notion of an ensemble of parts unified by a central sense. We can also call this a gestalt. It is this unity in difference that drives the ordinariness of language for olp writers. One could say that the terms of ordinariness are whatever allows for an alignment of moving parts that creates agreement, shared practice , normativiity. You can qualify this unifying feature any way you like, provide cautions, limitations, reminders of all the different ways and circumstances in which it can be said to work or not work or maybe work, and what it means to work or not work or maybe work.

My point is that olp’s kind of structuralism ( and there are of course differences from Cavell to Austin to Witt to Ryle), like all structuralisms, is built on events that are invisible to it. How do I mean this? The picture view that Witt problematizes hides all differences from context to context in what it believes to be the same meaning, the same standard or origin that supposedly exists apart from
those changing contexts. The rabbit is there to be seen because it supposedly pre-exists my seeing it ‘as’ a rabbit. But it is not as if the person who relies on this picture view is not seeing what they believe is the ‘same’ meaning ( or just a different aspect of the ‘same’ meaning) via an endless series of language games. They just don’t notice this transformational process. It is invisible to them at an explicit level
even though they rely on it implicitly.

In a similar way, I see the particular discursive -based structuralism of olp as relying on a kind of box. Not a box in Witt’s sense of the beetle box. That is, not a box that supposedly remains what it is outside of contextual change, but a box that remains what it is only locally, contingently. So what makes it a box?

not that the concept is changed by the context--we could have the same sense of a concept expressed (same type of threat) and the contexts would only need to align in the ways necessary to allow for the criteria to work as they do in the same way--so that "every context" is different is not as meaningful as: they have differences, but they may or may not matter: to the expression (you deciding to say it, say, at an inappropriate time), or may only matter in the aftermath of you saying something we have to make sense of, or which changes the consequences of the expression (what happens after a threat to your brother may be different than after — Antony Nickles

For olp change and stability are functions of different kinds of relations between participants in language.
That means a relation between bodies is an irreducible structural condition for any notion of stability or change , accord or misunderstanding, usefulness or failure to work. By bodies I don’t mean bodies defined as humans or biological or any other substantive way other than as discursive participants.

What does this irreducibility structural condition hides?It hides its dependence on a more orginary relation, that between the self and itself.

Could there possibly be any way of thinking about a concept like a self’s relation to a self that does t depend on some form of cartesianism?

When would one use a word like self except in order to contrast it with a person who is not myself? What other use is there? I can have a use of ‘I’ and ‘self’ which only considers ipsiety as background to a figure that appears before ‘me’ . The ‘me’ is nothing but whatever this background part of the current context is. What occurs into the ‘me’ .’ I see, I do, I feel’ :these terms just are talking about how the background is changed. There is no ‘I’ without the background but there is also never an ‘I’ without what appears to it, changes it , interrogates it, expresses it. The ‘I’’s ‘ ‘voluntary’ actions also interrogate it, so that the ‘I’ finds itself deciding or acting. It doesn’t decide to decide or decide to desire. The matter confronting it interrogates it , decides for it.

A world of other persons appear to an’I’ , and their effect on the ‘I’ contributes to its sedimented background, but all other phenomena of sense also appear to and interrogate the ‘I’. That is , all events of perception speak to the ‘I’ in all forms and varieties of consonance and dissonance. The ‘I’ may recognize a phenomenon as familiar, disturbing , useful, illusory, promising , vague. But even the strangest and most alien phenomenon that speaks to the ‘I’ is still in some fashion recognized as akin to something previously experienced , so in the most general sense is normative. But every moment of experience of being spoken to , the ‘I’ is in some subtle but comprehensive way never the same ‘I’ as it was, it is an other. Is this a private or inner process? But what would that mean ? Private with respect to what ? It is a background continually changed by being continually exposed and interrogated by an outside. Is it inner because it is not a sharing with an other? But sharing is itself a being interrogated. The other, whether it is a voice or another sort of phenomenon , shares with the ‘I’ by changing the ‘I’.
If there is no ‘public’ , is there no ordinary? Yes, the ordinary is the various ways the background can be transformed such that it appears to itself as the same differently, as familiar to itself in various ways in an ongoing manner in various circumstances.


This being spoken to is language , although it may or may not involve words. The ‘I’ will have experiences not only of being interrogated by language from other persons , but is interrogated by language from the ‘I’. There is no definite distinction between my talking to myself and my talking to another person. Both experiences are forms
of talking to another who interrogates the ‘I’.
When the ‘I’ is with other persons and it is talking and listening, it is changing itself in myriad ways , as all phenomena that appear to it talk to it and change it. The process of the ‘I’’s being changed is so immediate and continual that it can make no sense to point to verbal language as in any way a difference in kind with respect to the always already ongoing contextual shifts in conceptualization that characterize the ‘I’’s comportment.

Olp’s ordinariness hides a richer, more immediate and more mobile ordinariness of the ‘I’s discourse with its world before , within and beyond verbal interchange.

When would one use a word like self except in order to contrast it with a person who is not myself? What other use is there? I can have a use of ‘I’ and ‘self’ which only considers ipsiety as background to a figure that appears before ‘me’ . The ‘me’ is nothing but whatever this background part of the current context is. What occurs into the ‘me’ .’ I see, I do, I feel’ :these terms just are talking about how the background is changed. There is no ‘I’ without the background but there is also never an ‘I’ without what appears to it, changes it , interrogates it, expresses it. The ‘I’’s ‘ ‘voluntary’ actions also interrogate it, so that the ‘I’ finds itself deciding or acting. It doesn’t decide to decide or decide to desire. The matter confronting it interrogates it , decides for it. — Joshs

This is exactly why (expressed in a different way than I), Antony's proposal of "ordinary criteria" is unacceptable. If we take a step beyond Descartes, for whom the 'I' finds itself being, to see the 'I' finding itself deciding, acting, and therefore changing, we cannot assign to this deciding, or acting, a method of applying criteria. You say, the matter confronting the 'I' decides for it, making the 'I' a part of the background, in a determinist way. I would give the 'I' some degree of autonomy, free will, to decide for itself. In each case though, the decision is not criterion based. Antony is proceeding with a faulty assumption.

Furthermore, we ought to be able to see, from this difference of opinion, which we all have concerning this matter, that we cannot produce a sound epistemology which is not based in solid metaphysical principles. If we cannot agree on the principles which drive a decision or judgement, and justification is based in agreement, then we have no means for justification.

There is no definite distinction between my talking to myself and my talking to another person. Both experiences are forms
of talking to another who interrogates the ‘I’. — Joshs

I disagree with you on this matter as well. There is a difference between talking to myself and taking to another, and this difference is based in the fundamental assumption, of a continuity of 'self', what we call identity. Whether the assumption is true or not, is irrelevant, because just in being there, it provides substance to the difference in attitude between talking to myself and talking to another, making each distinguishable from the other, as a distinct type of language act. So despite the ever changing difference of 'I', which you aptly describe, there is an underlying attitude of sameness, identity, within the 'I' which gives the 'I' of yesterday a special relationship with the 'I' of today, in comparison with the relationship between the 'I' of today, and any other person. This attitude, which is grounded in the difference between the temporal separation between the 'I' and itself, and the spatial separation between the 'I' and others, substantiates the difference between talking to oneself and talking to another.

The picture view that Witt problematizes hides all differences from context to context in what it believes to be the same meaning, the same standard or origin that supposedly exists apart from
those changing contexts. — Joshs

This issue may be associated with the question of the temporal continuity of the 'I', identity. If we assume the existence of a standard, or as Antony would say, a criterion, which remains the same, maintains its identity, regardless of the context of particular circumstances, then we need to support the existence of such a standard, with some sort of ontology, if we want others to agree. We cannot simply assume independent Platonic Forms, as the substance for such an assumption.

The attempt to describe spatial continuity of such a standard, different people in different places holding the exact same standard, fails, due to the observed deficiencies in language. And if we turn to temporal continuity, to see if the same person holds the same standard throughout an extended period of time, we'll find that this fails as well, due to the changing activity of the 'I' which you describe, as well as the significant differences between contextual circumstances, which would render "the same" standard as ineffectual. This is why we cannot describe this capacity which human beings have, to understand that incessant procession of differences, changes, through the intuition of an ideal sameness, as a matter of referring to the same standards.

The premise with OLP is that we regularly do not know what the criteria for a concept are (they work behind the scenes as it were),
— Antony Nickles

Oh come on, this is nonsense. — Metaphysician Undercover

Just a quick butt-insky here, if you don’t mind. I think it is the case that the average person doesn’t know how it is he knows things. Regularly, a guy accepts his knowledge as being merely given from personal experience or instruction by rote. If this be granted, it follows that not only does the average joe not know what a concept per se is, he also won’t have any idea what it means for a concept to have its criteria. To him, a dog is just some particular thing; the ways and means between the thing and knowing it as a particular thing are (regularly) undisclosed to him. It is only when he wants to know its kind, its degree of danger, etc., must he then determine supplemental conceptions to add to the conception of dog in general, such

From here, it is easier to see that there are only two criterion for any conception....the principle of identity for those conceptions relating to conceptions in general, and the principle of non-contradiction for those conceptions supplementing given general conceptions.....both principles operating entirely behind the scenes.

People act out of habit when they talk. And acting out of habit is not applying criteria. — Metaphysician Undercover

Or, it is applying criteria behind the scenes, without ever being conscious of it. Makes sense actually; regularly-learned folk don’t need to consciously examine the validity of a thing’s verbal description when the habitually communicated description has always sufficed. Nevertheless, theoretically-learned folk will maintain that the cognitive system as a whole must still be in play, otherwise, we are presented with the necessity for waking it up when needed, and then the determination of method for waking, and then the necessity of determination of need, ad infinitum......and nothing rationally conditioned is ever successesfully accomplished.

So....my thinking is that OLP as I understand it, is at least superfluous and at most utter nonsense, but that the criteria for our conceptions, operating “behind the scenes”, and therefore not “regularly” known as belonging to our knowledge structure, is not.

From here, it is easier to see that there are only two criterion for any conception....the principle of identity for those conceptions relating to conceptions in general, and the principle of non-contradiction for those conceptions supplementing given general conceptions.....both principles operating entirely behind the scenes. — Mww

I don't see how the principle of identity is called for here. If a person sees a dog, and calls it a dog, then sees a different dog, and calls it a dog, then clearly the person is not applying the principle of identity, because they are seen as different things, not the same. The person would only be using the principle of identity if the two different dogs were seen as the same dog.

And since the person knows that the two different thing which are called by the name "dog" are not the same thing, the principle of non-contradiction is not even relevant. The two different dogs might have contradicting properties.

Or, it is applying criteria behind the scenes, without ever being conscious of it. — Mww

The point was that "applying criteria" is a conscious act. If the subconscious, or unconscious, is doing something which might be in some way similar to "applying criteria", then we ought to acknowledge the difference, rather than asserting that the unconscious is applying criteria. Until we have a complete description of what the unconscious is doing, which at first glance, appears to be similar to "applying criteria", we ought not simply assume that it is applying criteria. This way of thinking leads to panpsychism, and ideas such as the notion that quantum particles are deciding what to do.

Makes sense actually; regularly-learned folk don’t need to consciously examine the validity of a thing’s verbal description when the habitually communicated description has always sufficed. Nevertheless, theoretically-learned folk will maintain that the cognitive system as a whole must still be in play, otherwise, we are presented with the necessity for waking it up when needed, and then the determination of method for waking, and then the necessity of determination of need, ad infinitum......and nothing rationally conditioned is ever successesfully accomplished. — Mww

The reality of the situation, is that the cognitive system is engaged in many more things than simply applying criteria. So there is no need to assume that if it were active doing something other than applying criteria, it would need to be awoken from an inactive state in order to start applying criteria. What would be required would simply be a coming to one's attention of a need to apply criteria, then the cognitive system would engage itself in applying criteria.

So....my thinking is that OLP as I understand it, is at least superfluous and at most utter nonsense, but that the criteria for our conceptions, operating “behind the scenes”, and therefore not “regularly” known as belonging to our knowledge structure, is not. — Mww

My position is that there is no reason to assume that what is going on behind the scenes is a matter of applying criteria. That is just an assumption which OLP supporters like Antony might make in an attempt to facilitate a misguided epistemology. It's a matter of 'we don't know what goes on behind the scenes, so let's just assume some type of applying criteria goes on, because this is convenient for a simplified epistemology. However, the evidence brought forward, especially by Wittgenstein, through the notions of family resemblance, and a fundamental lack of boundaries to word usage, indicates that what is "operating behind the scenes" is not even similar to "applying criteria". In fact, as I described earlier in the thread, I believe that what is happening behind the scenes is completely incompatible with "applying criteria". And so the conscious human being must suppress the natural inclination, which is other than applying criteria, with will power, in order to actually apply criteria.

So despite the ever changing difference of 'I', which you aptly describe, there is an underlying attitude of sameness, identity, within the 'I' which gives the 'I' of yesterday a special relationship with the 'I' of today, in comparison with the relationship between the 'I' of today, and any other person. This attitude, which is grounded in the difference between the temporal separation between the 'I' and itself, and the spatial separation between the 'I' and others, substantiates the difference between talking to oneself and talking to another — Metaphysician Undercover

There has to be more to perceived self-relationality of the’I’ than just temporal and spatial continuity. For instance, schizophrenics may experience thought insertion, the sense that another person’s voice is speaking to one inside one’s head. The schizophrenic knows the voice is coming from their own head, and yet they don’t recognize it as their ‘I’. So in this case absolute temporal and spatial
proximity is not enough to have a sense being one’s own ‘I’.

The person would only be using the principle of identity if the two different dogs were seen as the same dog. — Metaphysician Undercover

True enough, if we were concerned with the notion of identity given by Parmenides, which has to do with one thing in relation to itself. We are, on the other hand, only concerned with the conceptual notion of identity, which has to do with the synthesis of a plurality of phenomena under a general rule.
————

And since the person knows that the two different thing which are called by the name "dog" are not the same thing, the principle of non-contradiction is not even relevant. The two different dogs might have contradicting properties. — Metaphysician Undercover

First... he knows they are not the same thing while knowing they are different instances of the same kind of thing; he knows all this because the synthesis of contradictory predicates is held in abeyance. Or, the principle of non-contradiction inheres in the cognition.
Second..... two different dogs can have different properties, but those properties cannot contradict the general conception under which they are all subsumed. One dog can have four legs another have only three without being thought as different concepts.
Third....two different dogs cannot have contradicting properties and still both be conceived as dogs. One dog having four legs and the other dog having wings is an irrational cognition translated from general conceptions that contradict themselves. A dog with wings is not a dog and a bird with four legs is not a bird.
————

My position is that there is no reason to assume that what is going on behind the scenes is a matter of applying criteria. — Metaphysician Undercover

No one should fault you for that. So what....there isn’t any behind the scenes going on, or there is but it doesn’t manifest in applying criteria? There must be a behind the scenes or the notion of being conscious is meaningless. So it reduces to.....what is going on behind the scenes if not the application of criteria?

We are, on the other hand, only concerned with the conceptual notion of identity, which has to do with the synthesis of a plurality of phenomena under a general rule. — Mww

OK, but the synthesis of a plurality of phenomena under a general rule is called inductive reasoning, it's not identity.

First... he knows they are not the thing while knowing they are different instances of the same kind of thing; he knows all this because the synthesis of contradictory predicates is held in abeyance. Or, the principle of non-contradiction inheres in the cognition. — Mww

What is at issue is how does he know that they are the same kind of thing. When he is speaking, he calls them each a dog, but does he even recognize that "dog" is a type? He might not even know what it means to be a type. So when he is speaking, why would we assume that he applies some criteria to determine that the thing is a type of animal called a dog, and therefore call it that?

I don't see how the principle of non-contradiction is relevant, because he can see that the two things, have contradictory properties (different colour, or different size, for example), yet he still calls them by the same name, "dog". In this action, is he designating them as both the same type, or has he just developed some habit whereby he calls these similar animals by that same name? We are interested in why the person calls both of the two animals "dog", or two different buildings houses, or two things cars, etc. If we ask the person why, the person might rationalize, and give some reasons as "criteria", but the question is whether the person applies criteria when speaking, in referring to the thing as a car, or a house, or a dog.

Second..... two different dogs can have different properties, but those properties cannot contradict the general conception under which they are all subsumed. One dog can have four legs another have only three without being thought as different concepts. — Mww

All this indicates is that when the criteria for the concept of "dog" is stipulated, the inductive reasoning is carried out to the point of ensuring that there will not be a dog which contradicts the concept. Of course we have some failures in our capacities in this respect, and that's evident in cross breeds and the in between links in evolution. As per your example, if "four legs" is a stated criteria in the concept, then the dog which has three legs will demonstrate a fault in that concept.

Third....two different dogs cannot have contradicting properties and still both be conceived as dogs. — Mww

Yes they can have contradicting properties as in my examples above, different colour, different size, etc.. In Aristotelian logic these are accidental properties. With the so-called essential properties the thing must have that property. But what we find is that there is even exceptions to the essential properties, or questions as to whether such and such properties are essential or not, such as the three legged dog. This is more evidence that the basis for natural conceptualization is not criteria. When we look to pure reason, like mathematics, we might find that criteria is the basis. But then we are faced with the question of whether mathematical principles are supernatural, or artificial, and we still do not have the basis for natural conceptualization, if there is such a thing. That's the further issue, maybe the idea of "natural conceptualization", or "ordinary conceptualization", however you want to call it, is misguided in the first place..

No one should fault you for that. So what....there isn’t any behind the scenes going on, or there is but it doesn’t manifest in applying criteria? There must be a behind the scenes or the notion of being conscious is meaningless. So it reduces to.....what is going on behind the scenes if not the application of criteria? — Mww

What is going on behind the scenes remains as unknown, and that's why we have so much difficulty agreeing on metaphysical principles. So if someone proposes that what's going on behind the scenes is a matter of applying criteria, and requests that we agree on this so that we might use this proposition as starting point or a premise for an epistemology, we ought to reject it as unsound. We need an epistemology which starts with the assumption that what's going on behind the scenes is unknown, and this acknowledges the need for metaphysics.

the synthesis of a plurality of phenomena under a general rule is called inductive reasoning, it's not identity. — Metaphysician Undercover

Inductive, yes, henceforth from the establishment of the rule. The rule is the identity, the reasoning is either deductive in the establishment of the rule by which a thing becomes known, or inductively, by which subsequent perceptions are identified as possessing sufficient correspondence to the original.

My “synthesis of the plurality of phenomena” indicates the establishment of the rule, phenomena herein, not the number of objects perceived, but rather, the variety of properties the matter of some particular object exhibits, and the synthesis being the reduction from all possible properties held in intuition, against only those exhibited by the object, which is deductive and leads to the rule from which the representation follows as its conception, in turn represented by its name. The rule thus established by which all following instances of sufficient similarity are identified, those all represented as schema of the original conception. Family, genus, species, member. Simple as that.

Your principle of induction arises when members meeting the criteria of the particular conception, are thought in general a priori, or perceived as a group empirically, re: a kennel or off-leash park. This way, reason doesn’t waste itself with unnecessary effort, instead only noticing possible breaks in a pattern. The proverbial.....seen one dog, seen ‘em all kinda thing.
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What is at issue is how does he know that they are the same kind of thing. — Metaphysician Undercover

Easy. When sufficient properties exhibited by the subsequent perception correspond to the properties of the original. Neuroscience posits feedback loops called memory, speculative epistemology posits the faculty of intuition, in which are held conceptions given from extant cognitions.
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I don't see how the principle of non-contradiction is relevant, because he can see that the two things, have contradictory properties (different colour, or different size, for example), yet he still calls them by the same name, "dog". — Metaphysician Undercover

My Mustang is gold in color, m’lady’s car is some oddball green, or some damn thing....I really don’t know what to call it. Is either vehicle less a car because they’re different colors? Differing manifestations of the same general property do not rise to the level of contradiction. A guy calls the black dog “George”, but calls the white dog “Mutt”. No contradictions in evidence.

We also have a truck. There is some property of a truck sufficient to contradict calling it a car. The insurance company does indeed charge different rates for the car as opposed to the truck, but the distinctions must be sufficient, and color is not one of them.

Cars and trucks are both motorized vehicles. Motorized vehicle with a trunk is called a car, vehicle with a bed is called a truck. Calling a vehicle with a bed a car is a contradiction. (Hybrids superfluous to the argument). Guy with two dogs calls them both dogs because there is no sufficient proprietary contradiction.
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In Aristotelian logic these are accidental properties. — Metaphysician Undercover

Be that as it may, we are.....I am.....concerned here with the categorical syllogism method of Aristotelian logic. The classes of ideas or notions and their relation to each other. The major given in the yet undetermined observables (perception, the possibility of conceptual criteria), the minor given in the intuition derivable from the synthesis of the observables (phenomenon, the conceptual criteria), and the conclusion given in a determined correspondence (understanding, the conception itself).

The premises are behind the scenes, the conclusion is present to conscious thought.
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What is going on behind the scenes remains as unknown, and that's why we have so much difficulty agreeing on metaphysical principles. — Metaphysician Undercover

Oh absolutely. It’s all speculative theory, and could be all catastrophically wrongheaded. But as in all theory, all it has to do is be internally consistent and not in conflict with observation. In which case, one theory is no better or worse than any other; none of them being susceptible to empirical proofs, even if they stand as logically coherent.

And the game continues.......

an expression" has a lot of moving parts in each case,
— Antony Nickles

I think it is safe to say that the collection of terms that are interlinked as part of Austin’s approach to doing things with words points to many moving parts. I consider this a particular kind of structuralism. — Joshs

Not sure they are interlinked (but he does categorize them by more general criteria); the concepts he is talking about are a multitude of examples to show we may have different criteria for each concept, instead of just statements about the world that are either true or false. I might call it formalism but they are not necessarily rules, or closed, etc.

One could say that the terms of ordinariness are whatever allows for an alignment of moving parts that creates agreement, shared practice , normativiity. — Joshs

Well we do not agree on these type of criteria (they are unexamined, thus the need for philosophy), and it is not the critria of, say, apologizing, that are normative for our practice of apologizing, it is actual apologizng, whetther or not you do it correctly (whether you learn your lesson when you do it wrong). Our lives are aligned, "shared" sounds too much like we share one exact same thing or that the "sharing" was not everywhere surrounded by the criteria for a concept and what it is to change our lives.

The rabbit is there to be seen because it supposedly pre-exists my seeing it ‘as’ a rabbit. But it is not as if the person who relies on this picture view is not seeing what they believe is the ‘same’ meaning ( or just a different aspect of the ‘same’ meaning) via an endless series of language games. They just don’t notice this transformational process. It is invisible to them at an explicit level @even though they rely on it implicitly. — Joshs

The picture duck-rabbit is to show we don't have an "inner picture" as a perspective in us that changes. As he says, "seeing as... Is not part of perception." P. 168. It is complicated but part of this kind of seeing involves seeing "aspects" based on our (pre-existing) familiarity (of rabbits--like being able to recognize a human face in something else). An example is when Witt says "My attitude towards him is an attitude towards a soul." P. 152 I see that aspect of him, I see him as a human, rather than, say, as a means of production. Witt says this takes "imagination". Id.

For olp change and stability are functions of different kinds of relations between participants in language. — Joshs

I think it would be more apt to focus "change and stability" in our world and our concepts; people usually come into it afterwards to figure out a mess.

When would one use a word like self except in order to contrast it with a person who is not myself? What other use is there? — Joshs

Well the idea is to ask yourself when you say "self" what are you implying. Witt says one use would be "I myself", PI #413 as if to say I did it by myself or as if to emphasize that I am the body owning, or disowning, an expression (if necessary)--standing behind it, judged as lacking for having said it. In any event, this would be process of analysis in OLP, showing, looking at our ourselves by looking at our expressions, without "introspection" which Witt says is "the state of a philosopher's attention when he says the word "self" to himself and tries to analyze its meaning (and a good deal could be leaned from this). Id.

think it would be more apt to focus "change and stability" in our world and our concepts; people usually come into it afterwards to figure out a mess. — Antony Nickles

What do you mean by world? Can world have any useful
meaning outside of how the word is used by people relating via language?

Also, I had mentioned the following to Metaphysician Undercover :

“schizophrenics may experience thought insertion, the sense that another person’s voice is speaking to one inside one’s head. The schizophrenic knows the voice is coming from their own head, and yet they don’t recognize it as their ‘I’.” In the West , this voice is typically belligerent, accusatory, judgmental, whereas in other cultures it can be positive and supportive.

I was wondering if you think the kinds of conversations that that place with this sort of ‘other’ voice in one’s head
are amenable to an Austinian analysis. By that measure, what of the voices of characters a novelist creates? Often, writers say that the characters they create come to life and tell them what they want to do. They converse with the author.

I really don't know what you mean by "ordinary" then. It seems like your attempts to define "ordinary" "ordinarily", and in your usage I see nothing to indicate anything other than everyday language. I'm hoping you will enlighten me concerning this other type of "ordinary language" which you are concerned with. — Metaphysician Undercover

Again, it is not ordinary language. It is our ordinary ways of telling an accident from a mistake--the criteria of their identity and employment (grammar), and all I can say at this point is it is a term to hold a space opposite of how philosophy sets up the traditional criteria (certainty, universality, etc.) it wants for the concepts of meaning, knowledge, understanding, etc. Frankly, the term doesn't matter much compared to the method and the examples.

So if I understand correctly, you are saying that there is a way to make judgements as to whether or not our concepts are misunderstandings without referencing metaphysical principles. — Metaphysician Undercover

Yes, but you're probably not going to be happy about it because it takes the concepts that philosophy wrings its hands over and reveals their mystery and seeming power as driven by our disappointment with misunderstandings and our desire to take ourselves out of the solution. OLP is investigating our concepts to show that desire in our philosophy by showing that our concepts have ordinary (various, individual) ways in which they work and ways in which they fail, and, at some point, they involve our involvement, accepting, denying, asking, walking away, etc. and in ways that reflect on us, or require us to change ourselves, our world, or extend these concepts into new contexts, a new culture, perhaps to make a word include a change in our lives, perhaps to re-awaken it to old contexts.

As far as I understand, epistemology is grounded in metaphysics, so if you can demonstrate an epistemology which is not, yet is well grounded anyway, I'm ready to consider it. — Metaphysician Undercover

I was speaking of epistemology as the investigation of knowledge. OLP gives us a knowledge of our concepts that we did not have, of their ordinary criteria. Now justification is a trickier subject as we can say our criteria align with the ways in which our lives are, but that is not to say our forms of life are the bedrock of our criteria or that we "agree" on our criteria. And also not to say that radical skepticism is the outcome either. The truth of skepticism is that knowledge only takes us so far and then we are left with ourselves, you and me to work out the failings and clarifications that our criteria/lives lack the necessity, conclusiveness, completeness, etc. to ensure. Our concepts are breakable, indefensible but also open-ended (justice) and extendable into new contexts (freedom of speech).

I view philosophy as an effort toward a higher understanding. — Metaphysician Undercover

And is it not a higher understanding to realize that knowledge also involves acknowledgement? What we are responsible for and our relationship to others (even in creating a picture of knowledge of the other that skips past them). Perhaps we are looking for a specific version of "higher", even before we start our investigation to look at the use of our concepts.

Since the same word has different meaning in different language games, then if we are going to say that the word refers to a concept, we need to say that it is a different concept in each different language game. — Metaphysician Undercover

And here it is the PICTURE of "word" and "reference": word--refers to--concept, that gets in the way. We (me) express a concept in a context (of time, place, language game, criteria). Nevertheless, I would say that the different "context" of a different language game, may or may not require "different" criteria (for the same concept). "I know the sun will rise tomorrow" is a sense of certainty (that concept), but not a factual one (knowledge connected to certainty, without doubt). It may be a sense of faith (certainty) in hope. Now this "different language game" is part of the possibility of this expression, but it simply falls on another concept (certainty) rather than reflecting on knowledge (other than to say knowledge is not always connected to certainty, or that, without the possibility of doubt, we are talking about a different "sense" of knowledge).

Since a concept would consist of rules or boundaries (criteria), and the rules would be different for different games, then we cannot say that it is the same concept. So these are not games we play with "a concept", they are games we play with a word. In other words, word games. — Metaphysician Undercover

Maybe it is better to say concepts have different criteria for the different ways (and different contexts in which) they are used (the sense in which they are used). So they have more possibilities than under the fixed standards (one picture) that philosophy wants. So in a sense they ARE different "games we play" with a concept, but a concept is not just about "words" or even expressions, because concepts are not "conceptual" or "ideas" as opposed to the world as philosophy's picture of certainty creates.

What Witt explicitly says in that section, is that there is no boundaries for the supposed concept of "game", but this does not prevent him from understanding what is meant by the word when it is used. Further one can draw boundaries for a particular purpose, if a person wants to. So he is saying that criteria (being boundaries) are not necessary, but can be imposed for particular purposes. — Metaphysician Undercover

He is making a point about the roles of rules and boundaries in a concept. This is an example of when they are not necessary; this does not mean that criteria do not exist, just that in this instance we can impose them. What seems like a categorical statement about criteria is not, it is a statement about games. Criteria of the concept of "a game" are that there are no rules or boundaries, and that one can draw those for a purpose (as one can elsewhere with other concepts--even as to their criteria). That those are part of the grammar of how a game works. Criteria are not like rules, they are not always fixed, or unbreachable, or determinative.

You are saying that people apply criteria without knowing that they apply criteria. But if this were the case, then we could not call this applying criteria, because applying criteria is to make a conscious judgement in relation to the criteria. Let's look at the reality of the situation. People act out of habit when they talk. And acting out of habit is not applying criteria. So let's just forget this unrealistic notion that people are applying criteria for the concepts involved with each of the words when they are talking. — Metaphysician Undercover

I wouldn't say that people apply criteria (I would have to think why we feel the need to say this), or that they always do--as I've said, everyone can reflect on our criteria, and some moments call for it, as it were philosophical moments, moments of reflection on who we are and how we do things, and that is to say everyone can be said to sometimes "do philosophy", a politician writing a speech about freedom, a new freedom, getting back to our old sense of freedom, what freedom means in our new America. But I agree that most of the time we speak and act out of "habit"; Emerson will cll it conformity (to which we must at times be averse). One thought on application is that, even unconsiously, we know the criteria of an action to ask "You know you smirked when you apologized." not because we explicitly are thinking of the criteria, but that we were raised in a world with others, and pain, and a need for forgiveness, etc. The explicit "criteria" are drawn out in a philosophical moment when we are at a loss as to how to respond, our criteria fail us in a way we do not know how to be responsible for, etc.

If you are distinguishing between "it rained this morning", and "I know it rained this morning", saying that the latter must be justified by conceptual criteria, then how are you going to justify standards for what "rain" means, or what "morning" means without ontology? — Metaphysician Undercover

These two statements don't bring into question what rain or morning are, but knowledge. When I say "It rained this morning" I am reporting a fact (that I know), but I could be saying it really rained hard, or that it rained this morning so I don't think it will (or do think it will) rain this afternoon, etc. When I say "I know it rained this morning" I could be acknowledging what you told me, as in "yeah, I agree with you Bob, it rained", perhaps to confirm the claim Bob has made (on authority or proof) that it rained "I read it in the paper", "I saw it" "The grass is wet" "My mom told me" (some of these are more credible than others, but nevertheless under that criteria for that sense of knowledge). Now to see that, it some cases, I don't have a way to do other than accept/confirm it, is to see the power ("normativiy") of that sense of knowledge and its criteria, and that philosophy tunnels in on that as the standard for everything. These are two senses (of the concept) of knowledge we are investigating in what we say when we say these expressions.

Let me paraphrase where I think we're at. You are claiming that there is a type of epistemology which is grounded in some type of criteria other than metaphysical criteria. You call this "ordinary criteria"? This is not criteria in the sense of some philosophical principles, but in the sense of some grammar. Can you demonstrate to me, how we might ground epistemology in grammar? For instance, if a proposition was composed according to proper grammatical form, would it be necessarily true? — Metaphysician Undercover

Well two small tweaks. I take epistemology not as the search for grounds for knowledge, but as the search for knowledge, and that looking at what we say to see our criteria, as in to make them explicit--known from the unknown--is a way of knowing ourselves since our lives (what is important to us, what should count as a thing, judging, making distinctions) are our criteria. And that sometimes, we are responsible for our claims to aversion, to our extension of a concept asserting a new context, (politically, culturally) creating a new context.

Now a proposition can be true, or false. I would say that it does have to be grammatically proper to categorically be this kind of proposition, one that is either true or false (There are other types of proposition Austin shows). But this is merely a threshold; it does not "ground" it's truth or falsity; and it has criteria, it's grounds, but it is not a quality of the criteria (of their formation or their internal logic), it is meeting them. A scientific fact is "necessary" based on the method of good science, its reproducibility, its universal application, etc.--but also refutable through its method, or the denial "of science".

it takes the concepts that philosophy wrings its hands over and reveals their mystery and seeming power as driven by our disappointment with misunderstandings and our desire to take ourselves out of the solution. — Antony Nickles

I know that Cavell uses this sort of explanation to account for the problematic features of philosophy before Wittgenstein. It makes it sound as though desire is at the heart of the split between olp and approaches antagonistic to it. Wittgenstein’s work is important, as important and innovative , and challenging , as any of the great philosophers in history. You had mentioned Kuhn in a previous post. Does Wittgenstein’s work not represent a paradigm shift? Would you say that a shift from Newtonian to Einsteinian physics , or from Lamarckism to Darwinian biology, or from Descartes to Hegel was a matter of shift of desire, or a gestalt shift requiring turning the world on its head ?

Is it possible to understand what you mean by ‘ taking ourselves out of the solution’ without already having undergone the paradigm shift necessary to relate to Wittgenstein’s world?

If we take a step beyond Descartes, for whom the 'I' finds itself being, to see the 'I' finding itself deciding, acting, and therefore changing, we cannot assign to this deciding, or acting, a method of applying criteria. — Metaphysician Undercover

This is perhaps to say, without this picture of the "I" there is no deciding or acting along the ways in which we decide and act. And I understand that this puts into question "applying criteria", but the picture forces itself onto what it means to "apply criteria". But we have not asked ourselves what we mean when we talk about deciding and acting, and investigate if their criteria require this picture.

If we cannot agree on the principles which drive a decision or judgement, and justification is based in agreement, then we have no means for justification. — Metaphysician Undercover

I'll just say up front that it is a misconception that our criteria are based on "agreement," that is to say, we do "agree" on criteria (here, but there are times) but in forms of life Witt calls it (though not as grounds--for, say, certainty--and not the same way), but that the routes of our lives align--in judging, identifying, expecting, exluding, etc.--for each concept. (In many layers: Cavell will say even our sense of humor; Witt will add even in our being human). That is, again, not to say forms of life JUSTIFY our criteria; we have a concept of justification, and this has many different senses in many different contexts. Though our lives and concepts and expressions do split sometimes, say in a moral moment, (another opening for skepticism), but in ordinary ways, in specific instances (even in the investigation of criteria). That said, I think I need to review how Wittgenstein's "criteria" are not singular and separate from our ordinary use of criteria (set standards, rules, etc.).

I think it is the case that the average person doesn’t know how it is he knows things. — Mww

And what we are looking for in OLP is knowledge of the ways we judge (what criteria we use to) what makes a thing important to us, what counts in its identity, its place in our world, etc. ("Grammar tells what kind of object anything is.") #373 (my emphasis). And the average person (I assume here not the "philosopher") can reflect and give examples of what counts as criteria for concepts (understood as Witt uses that term), including objects, though the need for such is rare.

To him, a dog is just some particular thing; the ways and means between the thing and knowing it as a particular thing are (regularly) undisclosed to him. — Mww

The example of corresponding a word to an object can appear philosophy simple (just factual) or complicated (skeptical problems unthought by the average person); but OLP is using examples of: when do we say it is no longer a wolf, but a dog? (When it is tame?) Isn't a dog in a sense always also (historically) a wolf? Are these criteria "undisclosed"? or merely just don't have to be brought up all the time?

I think it may help to say that Witt's "criteria", as "grammar", is a special term @Metaphysician Undercover. Some points may be: there are regular criteria (we decide on), this is not that; it is not to start with an object (a dog) and then pick criteria (like how to judge a dog at a dog show); start with "knowledge" and then pick the criteria for it, certainty. OLP is to first investigate criteria to learn about a thing (intention)--to know what a thing is in the end.

It is only when he wants to know its kind, its degree of danger, etc., must he then determine supplemental conceptions to add to the conception of dog in general — Mww

Yes, but to point out that here we are simply going from what the object is generally to particularly, not understanding all the ways (other than as an "idea" of a dog--universal? true?) we use the concept "dog"--say, even metaphorically to malign your character.

From here, it is easier to see that there are only two criterion for any conception....the principle of identity for those conceptions relating to conceptions in general, and the principle of non-contradiction for those conceptions supplementing given general conceptions.....both principles operating entirely behind the scenes. — Mww

And here is where the traditional philosopher has wiped away our ordinary criteria for a concept (and here I don't mean philosophical "conceptualization"), and replaced it with their own principles (like conceptualization, integrity, particular in relation to general, etc.), of which of course the average man has no idea. But, as an example, the concept of "identity" has its own criteria (Austin will talk a lot of identifying a Goldfinch), and anyone can reflect on "I have identified that bird as a Goldfinch" and make a claim about what criteria the speaker might be using, and learn more about the type of criteria we use for identification; only some do this better (and are more interested) than others--and those are philosophers.

regularly-learned folk don’t need to consciously examine the validity of a thing’s verbal description when the habitually communicated description has always sufficed. Nevertheless, theoretically-learned folk will maintain that the cognitive system as a whole must still be in play, otherwise, we are presented with the necessity for waking it up when needed, and then the determination of method for waking, and then the necessity of determination of need, ad infinitum......and nothing rationally conditioned is ever successesfully accomplished. — Mww

Again, it is as if everyone is sleep-walking here except the philosopher, who understands the "cognitive system as a whole" which is always "in play". Except we all have drank the "lethe" as Emerson says, that we may "tell no tales" (not explicate our criteria) until we "shake off our lethargy". Experience, p.1. So there is no "cognitive system" happening all the time, which just needs to be systematized. We don't reflect, until we do; until, as you say, there is a necessity to, say, distinguish between an accident and a mistake, or a thought and an intention, or a fetus and a life.

my thinking is that OLP as I understand it, is at least superfluous and at most utter nonsense — Mww

This isn't (maybe just) thinking, it's a (also a) judgement (categorically--identified by the criteria of what a judgement is). I stand ready to help in understanding if that is of any interest.

@Mww

The point was that "applying criteria" is a conscious act. If the subconscious, or unconscious, is doing something which might be in some way similar to "applying criteria", then we ought to acknowledge the difference, rather than asserting that the unconscious is applying criteria. — Metaphysician Undercover

I'll leave"applying criteria" alone for now (still not sure what to do with it), only to say that criteria could be described as "unexamined" (not unconscious exactly) which means we are maybe missing the fact that criteria are just all the ordinary ways we might judge someone as doing or saying this well, how we show in this case how it matters to us, what counts as an instance of it, etc. These things are not mental constructs, or created standards (though there are those too), these are our lives of doing these things like apologizing, thinking, knowing, threatening, identifying a dog, etc.

My position is that there is no reason to assume that what is going on behind the scenes is a matter of applying criteria. — Metaphysician Undercover

I'm not sure the point of this, but I would agree. I might say, "what is going on behind the scenes" is our lives.

the conscious human being must suppress the natural inclination, which is other than applying criteria, with will power, in order to actually apply criteria. — Metaphysician Undercover

And I would agree with this as well. Only one small step in between: to become "conscious" for OLP is to become aware of our ordinary criteria, so they may be applied intentionally, aversely, controversially, etc. Maybe that, in being unaware, we can not "apply" anything(?). In any event, to become aware of (in this sense, know) our ordinary criteria is the only epistemology OLP has, and it does that by... blah, blah, no one cares.

Inductive, yes, henceforth from the establishment of the rule. The rule is the identity, the reasoning is either deductive in the establishment of the rule by which a thing becomes known, or inductively, by which subsequent perceptions are identified as possessing sufficient correspondence to the original. — Mww

I don't see how a rule is an identity. It might be a principle that a person would use in an effort to identify something, but that does not make the rule itself an identity.

My “synthesis of the plurality of phenomena” indicates the establishment of the rule, phenomena herein, not the number of objects perceived, but rather, the variety of properties the matter of some particular object exhibits, and the synthesis being the reduction from all possible properties held in intuition, against only those exhibited by the object, which is deductive and leads to the rule from which the representation follows as its conception, in turn represented by its name. The rule thus established by which all following instances of sufficient similarity are identified, those all represented as schema of the original conception. Family, genus, species, member. Simple as that. — Mww

Do you really believe that when a child is learning to call a dog a dog, it goes through a synthesis/reduction process of possible properties, as you describe? I think that's far fetched.

When sufficient properties exhibited by the subsequent perception correspond to the properties of the original — Mww

Let's suppose "sufficient properties" is the case. You neglected the influence of social relevance. So if a judgement of "sufficient properties" is what is the case, then what is "sufficient" must be determined by social interaction. But this is not what we observe in practise. The child is not taught which properties are sufficient to distinguish an animal as a dog rather than a cat, the child is told that's not a dog, it's a cat, when it is wrong. The issue of which properties are sufficient is not demonstrated in such ostensive learning. In fact, I don't think i could even name which properties are sufficient to distinguish a dog from a cat, if I tried. So I think you're barking up the wrong tree.

The premises are behind the scenes, the conclusion is present to conscious thought. — Mww

That can't be right though. Deductive logic is formal logic which follows a very strict method. It's impossible that there can be unstated premises, or else the logic would not be valid. One cannot make a valid deductive argument which relies on premises which are not stated, or "behind the scenes". If this were the case, that the premises were somewhere outside the conscious mind, we'd be out of the realm of logic, and we might just say that the person dreamed up the conclusion from nothing. How does it make sense to you, to talk about a form of conscious logic which uses premises which are unknown to the conscious mind performing the logic? How could the conscious mind be using these premises if it has no knowledge of them?

Oh absolutely. It’s all speculative theory, and could be all catastrophically wrongheaded. But as in all theory, all it has to do is be internally consistent and not in conflict with observation. In which case, one theory is no better or worse than any other; none of them being susceptible to empirical proofs, even if they stand as logically coherent. — Mww

I think the part about sufficient properties clearly conflicts with observation. And the part about premises behind the scenes is inconsistent with how we normally understand "logic", therefore it conflicts with observation as well, the observed nature of logic.

There has to be more to perceived self-relationality of the’I’ than just temporal and spatial continuity. For instance, schizophrenics may experience thought insertion, the sense that another person’s voice is speaking to one inside one’s head. The schizophrenic knows the voice is coming from their own head, and yet they don’t recognize it as their ‘I’. So in this case absolute temporal and spatial
proximity is not enough to have a sense being one’s own ‘I’. — Joshs

I'm not so sure that schizophrenia can be characterized in this way. The issue I see would be whether or not the person knows the voice to be coming from one's own head. The voice might be within one's own head, but one's own head is not necessarily the source of the voice. It might be the case that the voice is coming from God or some other source like that. So it wouldn't be correct to say that the person knows the voice to be "coming from their own head", if in fact they believe that the voice has a different source.

"think it would be more apt to focus "change and stability" in our world and our concepts" - Antony Nickles

What do you mean by world? Can world have any useful meaning outside of how the word is used by people relating via language? — Joshs

Nothing metaphysical or factual; just world in the sense of our lives in the world, how we live, which we learn about (the grammar of) through our investigation of our criteria of what counts for us, what matters, etc.

“schizophrenics may experience thought insertion, the sense that another person’s voice is speaking to one inside one’s head. The schizophrenic knows the voice is coming from their own head, and yet they don’t recognize it as their ‘I’.” In the West , this voice is typically belligerent, accusatory, judgmental, whereas in other cultures it can be positive and supportive.

I was wondering if you think the kinds of conversations that that place with this sort of ‘other’ voice in one’s head are amenable to an Austinian analysis. By that measure, what of the voices of characters a novelist creates? Often, writers say that the characters they create come to life and tell them what they want to do. — Joshs

This is actually right up Cavell's alley. I mean Wittgenstein was dealing with Logical Behavioralism and Verificationalism along with Positivism, so he was dealing with the psychologism of philosophy, but his main goal was just to get people out of their (everyone's) head. But Cavell has wild examples and loves to draw outside the lines into literary forms etc. Cavell talks about Thoreau's use of "ecstasy" (In the Sense of Walden) as the sense of being beside yourself at the same time as a way of talking about Emerson's closing and moving to a larger circle (of your always-partial self). Austin might just say pphhfftt.

I now realize that the best of the continental philosophers use a language to express exactly what they mean to say, and what they are saying is vitally relevant and substantive. — Joshs

How do you know "what they mean to say" if there is no context in common?

Commenting to show appreciation of the stellar defense of OLP put up by @Anthony Nickles.

My only bugbear is that it is called OLP at all. The name is misleading and invites hostility. It's just good philosophy.

I don't see how a rule is an identity. It might be a principle that a person would use in an effort to identify something, but that does not make the rule itself an identity. — Metaphysician Undercover

Types have identities, just as tokens do. So the type <dog> has an identity as a kind, just as an individual dog has an identity as an individual. Identity is not itself a substantive thing but a logical function of substantive difference, as I see it; difference is paramount.

How do you know "what they mean to say" if there is no context in common? — Janus

I don’t, any more that I would know what Einstein meant to say without a context in common. Context in common means I have already found myself thinking in terms that are close enough to that of the writer that I can relate to what they have to offer.

The issue I see would be whether or not the person knows the voice to be coming from one's own head. The voice might be within one's own head, but one's own head is not necessarily the source of the voice. It might be the case that the voice is coming from God or some other source like that. So it wouldn't be correct to say that the person knows the voice to be "coming from their own head", if in fact they believe that the voice has a different source. — Metaphysician Undercover

Sometimes they believe the voice is being broadcast by a radio signal, or that some audio speaker has been implanted in their brain, These are just some of the many different ways voice hearers attempt to explain a phenomenon that is fundamentally puzzling to them, the hearing of a voice that they don’t recognize as their own, not just in its acoustic features, but in its personality, coming from inside their head in the same way that they hear their own thinking.

Shaun Gallagher has done some interesting work in tthis area.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/283415573_Gallagher_S_2000_Self-reference_and_schizophrenia

It is our ordinary ways of telling an accident from a mistake--the criteria of their identity and employment (grammar), and all I can say at this point is it is a term to hold a space opposite of how philosophy sets up the traditional criteria (certainty, universality, etc.) it wants for the concepts of meaning, knowledge, understanding, etc. — Antony Nickles

I'll repeat then, what I've said from the beginning, there is no such thing as the ordinary way of distinguishing an accident from a mistake. Each particular incident, in each set of circumstances, must be judged according to the available evidence, and there is no such thing as the "ordinary criteria", to be applied in a particular situation. That's why a judge in a court of law has a difficult task. And one only gets to the point of being a judge through an extended period of experience. The experience does not teach the judge the criteria, it gives the judge many examples to compare with. These are known as precedents. We say that the judge upholds the law, in many unique circumstances, but this is not really done through reference to criteria, it's done through the experience of many precedents.

Yes, but you're probably not going to be happy about it because it takes the concepts that philosophy wrings its hands over and reveals their mystery and seeming power as driven by our disappointment with misunderstandings and our desire to take ourselves out of the solution. OLP is investigating our concepts to show that desire in our philosophy by showing that our concepts have ordinary (various, individual) ways in which they work and ways in which they fail, and, at some point, they involve our involvement, accepting, denying, asking, walking away, etc. and in ways that reflect on us, or require us to change ourselves, our world, or extend these concepts into new contexts, a new culture, perhaps to make a word include a change in our lives, perhaps to re-awaken it to old contexts. — Antony Nickles

If this notion of "ordinary criteria" is your proposed solution, then it's quite clear to me that you do not have a solution at all. And if philosophy appears to be trying to take itself out of "the solution", you might take this as a hint, that the supposed solution is not acceptable to philosophers.

I was speaking of epistemology as the investigation of knowledge. OLP gives us a knowledge of our concepts that we did not have, of their ordinary criteria. Now justification is a trickier subject as we can say our criteria align with the ways in which our lives are, but that is not to say our forms of life are the bedrock of our criteria or that we "agree" on our criteria. And also not to say that radical skepticism is the outcome either. The truth of skepticism is that knowledge only takes us so far and then we are left with ourselves, you and me to work out the failings and clarifications that our criteria/lives lack the necessity, conclusiveness, completeness, etc. to ensure. Our concepts are breakable, indefensible but also open-ended (justice) and extendable into new contexts (freedom of speech). — Antony Nickles

So it appears to me, like OLP is a lot of idle talk with no justification for what is said. See, you are claiming that OLP give us knowledge of our concepts, which we didn't have, through reference to their "ordinary criteria". But you cannot even justify this assumption that there is such a thing as ordinary criteria. If you cannot even point to any instances of ordinary criteria, how are we ever going to get a better understanding of our concepts through examining their ordinary criteria?

Maybe it is better to say concepts have different criteria for the different ways (and different contexts in which) they are used (the sense in which they are used). So they have more possibilities than under the fixed standards (one picture) that philosophy wants. So in a sense they ARE different "games we play" with a concept, but a concept is not just about "words" or even expressions, because concepts are not "conceptual" or "ideas" as opposed to the world as philosophy's picture of certainty creates. — Antony Nickles

All you are doing here is attempting to validate equivocation. If you allow that the same concept has different criteria according to different contexts, you are saying that the word refers to the same concept despite having a different meaning. Using the word with different meanings, and insisting that the different meanings constitute the same concept is equivocation.

Criteria are not like rules, they are not always fixed, or unbreachable, or determinative. — Antony Nickles

A criterion is a principle or standard used for judgement. There is no ambiguity there. Either a person is following the criteria or not. It makes no sense to say that the person is at the same time adhering to the standard, yet also not adhering to the standard. The thing which you don't seem to be acknowledging is that in the vast majority of "ordinary" situations, the circumstances are unique and peculiar, such that a judgement cannot be made on the basis of criteria. There might be some criteria which would serve as some sort of guideline, but the real judgement is made by some process other than referencing the criteria.

Take the judge in the court of law, in my example above. Let's say that the law is the principle or standard which the judge uses, so the written law is the criterion in this example. There must be a judgement as to whether or not the person is within, or outside the criteria (law). The work of the judge is interpretation, interpret the person's actions, and interpret the law. Interpretation cannot done solely through reference to criteria, because the criteria itself has to be interpreted. So we find the true nature of judgement in interpretation, not in criteria, and interpretation cannot be dependent on criteria.

One thought on application is that, even unconsiously, we know the criteria of an action to ask "You know you smirked when you apologized." not because we explicitly are thinking of the criteria, but that we were raised in a world with others, and pain, and a need for forgiveness, etc. — Antony Nickles

Reflect on this action, your example here: "You know you smirked when you apologized." I think you'll agree with me that what is referred to is a matter of interpretation. What is at issue though, is what does interpretation consist of? If it is a matter of "we were raised in a world with others, and pain, and a need for forgiveness, etc.", then it is a matter of an emotional reaction rather than a matter of criteria. So this is why I am arguing that we must make sure that we get our principles straight here. "Criteria" implies that we are employing principles of reason, but if these basic kernels of meaning are really emotional reactions, then the use of "criteria" is really misleading to us.

Well two small tweaks. I take epistemology not as the search for grounds for knowledge, but as the search for knowledge, and that looking at what we say to see our criteria, as in to make them explicit--known from the unknown--is a way of knowing ourselves since our lives (what is important to us, what should count as a thing, judging, making distinctions) are our criteria. And that sometimes, we are responsible for our claims to aversion, to our extension of a concept asserting a new context, (politically, culturally) creating a new context. — Antony Nickles

I'm sure that wherever we have criteria, they are important to us, that would be the reason for having them. But if we assume that there is criteria where there is none, then if something goes wrong, don't we confuse an accident with a mistake? We'd accuse a person of not adhering to the principle, not correctly following the criteria, when the person was not even following any criteria in the first place.

I'll leave"applying criteria" alone for now (still not sure what to do with it), only to say that criteria could be described as "unexamined" (not unconscious exactly) which means we are maybe missing the fact that criteria are just all the ordinary ways we might judge someone as doing or saying this well, how we show in this case how it matters to us, what counts as an instance of it, etc. These things are not mental constructs, or created standards (though there are those too), these are our lives of doing these things like apologizing, thinking, knowing, threatening, identifying a dog, etc. — Antony Nickles

Do you see how it may be the case that "criteria" is not the right word here? But if we go to replace it, then what would we replace it with? We are entering into the realm where words will most often fail us. But this does not mean that we ought to use words like "criteria" which might give the wrong impression. Nor do I think it means that we ought not try to describe what we find here. It just means that we must choose our words very carefully. And I think, this is why it often appears like philosophers do not use ordinary language, it's because they choose their words carefully.

Types have identities, just as tokens do. So the type <dog> has an identity as a kind, just as an individual dog has an identity as an individual. — Janus

You may say that a type has an identity, but a rule is not a type, even if it defines a type.

OK, then I must have misunderstood you, because I had thought you had said that context exists only in individual temporal instances and not between or across them.

You may say that a type has an identity, but a rule is not a type, even if it defines a type. — Metaphysician Undercover

I agree that a rule is not a type, not even the type it might provide the criteria for. On the other hand a particular rule does have an identity as that particular rule.

had thought you had said that context exists only in individual temporal instances and not between or across them. — Janus

Ah yes, I did say that. I didn’t mean to imply that there is no referential consistency from moment to moment. I was trying to convey Derrida’s argument that each moment what I experience , and what I am, is in some subtle but thoroughgoing way completely other than the previous.
The result of this is that from moment to moment I continue to be the same differently. So at a glance I continue to appear to myself as self-identical, even though this is only made possible by an underlying process of continual transformation.
This continuity through change means that the world around me that I relate to can , in various circumstances, be more or less comprehensible, more or less stable and normative. When I am involved with events that appear to me as familiar, recognizable, comfortably interpretable in a. ongoing way , that is what is usually referred to as a single stable context. But really it is what Derrida calls a stratified context, the appearance of a unitary context that is in fact the product of a continuously self-transforming series of ‘micro-contexts’.

I was trying to convey Derrida’s argument that each moment what I experience , and what I am, is in some subtle but thoroughgoing way completely other than the previous. — Joshs

OK, that I can certainly agree with.

'preciate that. Worst name ever. Austin's is not much better. I don't have the patience to give better examples and come up with more text. And I didn't realize the terminology was so technical (concept, criteria, ordinary, even context!, although Cavell warns of this with Witt). And it's really hard to get people to see that it's not a different view within the same picture; that it's turned on itself, first looking at what we say to find our what matters to us, and then figure out why we ignore what we find to skip over ourselves and create a picture to ensure certainty; is it reassuring? Who is it convincing?

How do you know "what they mean to say" if there is no context in common?
— Janus

I don’t, any more that I would know what Einstein meant to say without a context in common. Context in common means I have already found myself thinking in terms that are close enough to that of the writer that I can relate to what they have to offer. — Joshs

In terms of OLP, this would be the alignment of the criteria of our concepts (our forms of life), their terms of judgment, what counts and how, what matters in making what distinctions, etc. Their history and possibilities. Our lives have agreed in all the little ways (all the pieces are in place Wii says) that allow for us to recognize the terms of a misunderstanding, the concept of miscommunication. If this is a context (setup?) we don't have to share it (exactly?) except only in that we agree in those paths of judgment Witt says. This is not the "context" that OLP points to, which is whatever is needed to clarify what sense of concept we are using and the criteria that we need to clear anything up, etc.