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. — Metaphysician Undercover
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. — Metaphysician Undercover
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. — Metaphysician Undercover
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. — Metaphysician Undercover
So it appears to me, like OLP is a lot of idle talk with no justification for what is said. — Metaphysician Undercover
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. — Metaphysician Undercover
A criterion is a principle or standard used for judgement. There is no ambiguity there. Either a person is following the criteria or not. — Metaphysician Undercover
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. — Metaphysician Undercover
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. — Metaphysician Undercover
Do you see how it may be the case that "criteria" is not the right word here? — Metaphysician Undercover
it takes the concepts that philosophy wrings its hands o know the other or 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
It makes it sound as though desire is at the heart of the split between olp and approaches antagonistic to it. — Joshs
Does Wittgenstein’s work not represent a paradigm shift? — Joshs
a gestalt shift requiring turning the world on its head ? — Joshs
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? — Joshs
So there is no "cognitive system" happening all the time — Antony Nickles
I stand ready to help in understanding if that is of any interest. — Antony Nickles
I thank you for your patience and persistence. — Antony Nickles
ell I think you are still stuck on something about these words; maybe thinking there is "no such thing as the ordinary way", as if the ordinary way were opposed to the philosophical way (which can make those distinctions). I can't sort it though. — Antony Nickles
Each"? "Particular"? "Must be judged"? And here we are imagining that each case is the worst case (skepticism without a net). Do we "apply" the criteria? Well, we didn't know them before and now we do, but do we always need them? Imagine that there is all this life we have that makes it so we don't usually need them ("Don't make a mistake!" "Don't worry; it's only an accident."); does this help dispell the sense of doom with every "circumstance"? — Antony Nickles
I think here it is important again to say that Witt is focusing on a special idea of criteria, as I mentioned to Mww above. One difference is it is not the kind of criteria that we set, say, for identification of a show dog, or when someone has broken the law. Those criteria are in the wide open; one, standards of a perfect specimen; the other, the law. And yes, the law Is not a science and takes judgment to clearly align the facts of this case with the law, or, when necessary, rest on a precedent circumscribing a tricky set of facts or the interpretation of the law in a new context, but, even here, not every case is distinct in the eyes of the law either. — Antony Nickles
And I believe I came to this same spot with Mww above. OLP does not have a solution (to skepticism). Ordinary criteria are not acceptable for certainty, universality, predetermination, etc. I can perhaps some time in the future (or in my other posts) show its usefulness in morality, aesthetics, politics, etc. where traditional philosophy has failed to satisfy. Or I stand ready to try again to show /explain and hope to do better. — Antony Nickles
The standard for OLP of a claim to our ordinary criteria is if you see it and agree; if you see what I see--that you can show yourself. — Antony Nickles
Well, let's pull out "refer" just in case anyone gets confused that this is word=idea. For example, intending is a concept; to say it is (only) a word is to make it seem isolated, connected only to a "meaning', which is a picture Witt is trying to unravel. Meaning being more like, say, what is meaningful to us about a concept, along the ordinary criteria for it. And let's put it that: we are seeing how a concept is used. Witt says "sense" for the fact that a concept (knowing) can be used in various ways; here, again, I know as: I can give you evidence; I know as: I can show you how; I know as: I acknowledge you, your claim. He is imploring us to Look at the Use! (#340) to see that our concepts are various and meaningful in different ways. — Antony Nickles
Well, I would say the vast majority of situations are mundane and uneventful and non-specific, such that our criteria (of this type) never really come up (Thoreau says we lead quiet lives of desperation). — Antony Nickles
I'm not sure this was a great example (surprise). But you could say that identifying the smirk was an interpretation (of their facial movement), but what I was trying to point out is that everyone could agree that to correctly apologize, you can not scoff at the whole procedure--that it is not open to interpretation, that it is a categorical necessity. — Antony Nickles
So the idea is that the fear of doubt and the black hole of skepticism/relativism cause the philosopher to skip over our regular criteria to fix meaning and word together, to have certain knowledge, normative rules, universal criteria, predetermined, etc. — Antony Nickles
I consider this a particular kind of structuralism. — Joshs
One could say that the terms of ordinariness are whatever allows for an alignment of moving parts that creates agreement, shared practice , normativiity. — Joshs
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
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 — Metaphysician Undercover
You neglected the influence of social relevance. — Metaphysician Undercover
One cannot make a valid deductive argument which relies on premises which are not stated, or "behind the scenes". — Metaphysician Undercover
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. — Antony Nickles
You’ve been adamant in maintaining OLP is best understood by its examples, which suggests there isn’t a method, — Mww
the idea is that the fear of doubt and the black hole of skepticism/relativism cause the philosopher to skip over our regular criteria to fix meaning and word together, to have certain knowledge, normative rules, universal criteria, predetermined, etc. h — Antony Nickles
In reacting to skepticism, philosophy sees the problem as the human, its fallibility, its inconsistency, its emotion, its partiality, its diversity, and decides that none of that is going to give us the certainty and universality and rationality that we want to solve skepticism, so we take philosophy out of any context and fashion it to meet the standards that will solve it. But this doesn't see that not only are ordinary criteria more adequate, but they also see that we still have a place in their application or their extension, or going past them, or against them. — Antony Nickles
I don’t care. From a metaphysical point of view, that is, as opposed to mere anthropology or rational psychology, reason is presupposed as developed sufficiently to be the ground of learning, which has more to do with some arbitrarily sufficient measure of extant experience. In other words, in the philosophical examination of how knowledge is acquired, something must already known.
Besides, given that a young dog is the same kind of thing as an old dog, it is logically consistent that a young brain is the same kind of thing as an old brain. No matter how an old brain learns or knows things, it must be the case the young brain learns or knows things in the same way, or, at least can learn or know. Otherwise, it becomes possible, e.g., that a child is taught of a thing, yet learns of some other thing, which can never explain how that other thing came to be. Rather, it is always the case that a child simply does or does not learn the one thing, rather than learns some other thing instead, and it is here that, by whatever means any human learns anything, the explanation is given, because the knowledge system is common to all humans. — Mww
Tell me you were mentally actively thinking....cognizing by means of concepts..... and not merely motivating your hand to follow the dots. And afterwards, henceforth forever, was it the hand motion you remember for the letter you want to write, or the rule that the shape identifies the name of the letter you want to write? — Mww
well I think you are still stuck on something about these words; maybe thinking there is "no such thing as the ordinary way", as if the ordinary way were opposed to the philosophical way (which can make those distinctions). I can't sort it though.
— Antony Nickles
"Ordinary" in this instance implies normal, does it not? As if there is a customary, familiar, or habitual, normal, or "ordinary" way of making this decision as to whether it was an accident or a mistake. — Metaphysician Undercover
"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." - Tony Nickles
I don't see where the reference to "worst case" comes from, or "sense of doom with every 'circumstance'". We are talking about judging an action which has already occurred, as to whether it was an accident or mistake. The action has already occurred so there is no sense of impending doom if the wrong decision is made. — Metaphysician Undercover
What I said, is that in each particular instance of such an action occurring, if such a decision is to be made, the action must be judged in a way which is specific to that particular instance. That is because each particular instance is unique, and there is a very fine line of difference between the two possible judgements. There is no customary, familiar, or habitual way of deciding this, therefore no "ordinary way" of making such a judgement. — Metaphysician Undercover
This is why there is a very clear need to distinguish, in principle, between what a person is saying, and what a person is doing with the words. If I judge what a person is 'saying' to me, according to my customary, familiar, habitual, ordinary way, but the person is actually 'doing' something different from what appears through my ordinary interpretation, then I will be deceived. Therefore, I need to apply criteria in my interpretation, to go beyond the ordinary interpretation which the deceiver intends for me to use to support the deception, in my effort to determine what the person is really doing with the words. — Metaphysician Undercover
If you allow that OLP cannot dispel skepticism concerning "the solution", then you have no principle whereby you can argue that OLP is better than any other philosophy... — Metaphysician Undercover
The standard for OLP of a claim to our ordinary criteria is if you see it and agree; if you see what I see--that you can show yourself.
— Antony Nickles
But this has no logical rigour. Agreement does not require criteria. You propose something to me, I can agree or disagree, but neither requires criteria... And your claim that "ordinary criteria" is justified by me agreeing, is unsupported. — Metaphysician Undercover
The customary, habitual, familiar, ordinary acts proceed from an attitude of certainty, while we only apply criteria when we are uncertain. So if we wish to obtain a true understanding of these types of acts, we need to maintain that separation between acts carried out with an attitude of certainty, and acts carried out with uncertainty, we ought not use "criteria" when referring to the motivating factor in customary, habitual, familiar, ordinary acts, which are carried out with an attitude of certainty. We only apply criteria when we are uncertain. — Metaphysician Undercover
The problem though, is that the term "everyone" is extremely inclusive, in an absolute sense, therefore too inclusive. All it takes, is one person who is abnormal, and doesn't share that ordinary way, to be skeptical, uncertain. This person might start applying criteria, and develop the belief that the judgement which everyone else is certain of, as they proceed in the ordinary way, with certainty and without criteria, is actually wrong... This is why we cannot ever exclude skepticism. — Metaphysician Undercover
Either we must just accept as a fact that language was not designed to talk about meaning, and we simply cannot go there with language, it is a realm of what cannot be spoken about, or, we need to redesign language such that it can be used to properly speak about meaning. I think that the latter is the appropriate way forward, and the way which philosopher generally proceed, giving the impression that philosophy uses language in an abnormal way. Well yes, but that's because we cannot do philosophy using language in the ordinary way, because ordinary language was not purposed for doing philosophy. OLP ought to simply acknowledge this difference. — Metaphysician Undercover
But I think we can say this much: philosophy doesn't come along to add a normative dimension to our lives -- it's already there, and available for philosophy to participate in just as people do ordinarily. Philosophy doesn't stand outside or above life in judgment, but by the same token philosophy can make just the same sort of normative claims as non-philosophers do everyday. — Srap Tasmaner
Perhaps we are looking for a specific version of "higher", even before we start our investigation to look at the use of our concepts. — Antony Nickles
In reacting to skepticism, philosophy sees the problem as the human, its fallibility, its inconsistency, its emotion, its partiality, its diversity, and decides that none of that is going to give us the certainty and universality and rationality that we want to solve skepticism, so we take philosophy out of any context and fashion it to meet the standards that will solve it. — Antony Nickles
Seeing the representation of an object with a word (or any other similar picture) as the only picture out there of how meaning works, Witt turned to look at all the variety of ways different things are meaningful to us. So why this other picture? And his interlocutor keeps going on about having to know, and about rules, etc. So the idea is that the fear of doubt and the black hole of skepticism/relativism cause the philosopher to skip over our regular criteria to fix meaning and word together, to have certain knowledge, normative rules, universal criteria, predetermined, etc. — Antony Nickles
"Ordinary" in this instance implies normal, does it not? As if there is a customary, familiar, or habitual, normal, or "ordinary" way of making this decision as to whether it was an accident or a mistake.. — Metaphysician Undercover
One thing I'd emphasize is how one of the quintessential moves of OLP works: if X were true then it would make sense to say Y. — Srap Tasmaner
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.
— Antony Nickles
Our lives will have had to agree in more than just the little ways in order for our criteria to align closely enough to attain agreement on the content of the ideas. — Joshs
Rorty and I are both claiming that Cavell is assuming a logical connection between such situations as believing in the picture theory of meaning and Wittgenstein’s corrective of that thinking. Instead, we argue that moving from a belief in the picture theory to language games amounts to a change of subject. — Joshs
Skepticism belongs to the type of thinking that is incommensurable with Wittgenstein. In order for a skeptic to “take meaning out of any context” they would fist have to understand ‘context’ and ‘ meaning’ in the way that Witt means it , and that is precisely what they cannot do. — Joshs
As Witt says, "back to the rough ground!" — Luke
Thank you, I understand your being wary of talking about something "higher". A reticence that I have is that philosophy does want something higher, a more complete understanding, to better ourselves, to rise above what can be lazy, nasty, partisan, ineffective, unintelligible, etc. I think OLP provides the possibiity of that in taking us from: grasping for a goal of certainty to have it slip away, to waiting to see the grammar that provide the humble dirt from which to begin that work. — Antony Nickles
in the philosophical examination of how knowledge is acquired, something must already known.
— Mww
I disagree with all of this, at a most fundamental level. (W)e cannot philosophically examine the acquisition of knowledge with the presupposition that something must already be known, for the acquisition of knowledge, because this is contrary to the observed evidence of empirical science. — Metaphysician Undercover
Since we cannot characterize knowledge as relying on something already known, we cannot characterize it as the type of thing which continually builds upon an existing foundation. — Metaphysician Undercover
Now let's just clear up that the grammar of a mistake would not be used in making a decision as in beforehand (in most cases--except a deliberate appeal to them, like in a speech), but, as I believe you are saying, in a decision as to what happened, though usually indirectly. For example, "Did your finger slip? (Was it an accident?); or, "Why did you shoot the cow?" (Was this a mistake?) — Antony Nickles
With OLP we are not "judging" (or justifying) the action, we are making a claim to our observation of the grammar (my claim, your concession to it), and the evidence is the example of what we say when we talk of accidents, or mistakes. So we are not doing the judging; people just make mistakes and accidents happen, and these are part of our lives, as is the deciding between them--which is what OLP looks at. — Antony Nickles
I was overreacting here I think to the supposition I saw that every instance calls for the need to be "judged" ("must" be justified), which I took as tied to the assumption that everything is intended or decided, or needs to be, or even can be, judged (Witt here talks of the grammar of knowledge: that there can be none without the possibility of doubt). And especially, that, if we were to (could) always judge, it would be based on one picture of how we judge. — Antony Nickles
What OLP is doing is looking at Grammar to: 1) show that philosophy's preoccupation with a picture where there is one explanation (for speech, say) is confused by our desire for certainty; and 2) to learn something about, e.g., intention by looking at the grammar of actions which delineate them from each other (here, see Austin, ad infinitum) Banno. — Antony Nickles
So, I think we are onto something to say OLP is not in the business of justification--we would be seeing what counts (what matters to us)--the grammar--to show us about intention, evidence, judging, decisions, etc., starting with the basic goal of OLP initially, which was to say judging and evidence--justification--works in different ways depending on the concept and even the context; that not everything is about certainty, universality, etc., but we can still have rationality and logic and truth value in other ways, and in cases philosophy thought we could not, e.g., what it is to judge and what counts as evidence, in: the problem of the other, aesthetics, moral moments, types of knowledge, and other philosophical concerns. — Antony Nickles
Now we can see that we are saying each "instance" is "unique" (and here is where Joshs is, I believe, hanging onto "context" as unique/different) instead of saying there is a "particular" grammar for each "action" (concept). — Antony Nickles
In other words, if every circumstance was "unique", we would not have our lives aligned in the ways they are. — Antony Nickles
Maybe we could say, there is what a person says, and then the possibility this is a different concept based on the anticipated grammar and the context, so that there is what is actually "done" with the words in terms of the aptness of the expression and the anticipated implications, and the consequences which should follow. — Antony Nickles
This could have been worded better. I did not mean to say "Words/concepts are used (by people)". Just that OLP is looking at the uses (as in "senses") of a concept, describing the grammar of that use (as a concept may have different uses/senses--see "I know" above). Not that I control the meaning (how it is "used") of the expression, but only that expressions (concepts) have different ways in which they work (uses/senses)--a concept will have different grammar for each use, but we don't "use" that grammar, manipulate, control, intend, etc., or "use" a concept. — Antony Nickles
However, what OLP makes clear is that this is not the open hole that leads to the type of skepticism where we abstract from any context and install "certainty" in some other way. This would be to overlook or wipe out the grammar of the act, which includes the way it might fail, and how we rectify that, with qualifications, excuses, detail, etc. "Was that a threat...?" "No, I was trying to make an overture, and left off what I intended next." Now the Other is reassured, but are they now "certain"? — Antony Nickles
Now if we are qualifying acts as "customary, habitual, familiar, ordinary", then we are assuming a sense of "certainty" in those types of acts, where with "other" acts we need certainty, in the sense of justification perhaps. Now we may just be thinking of aesthetics, morality, politics, etc., where some might say there are no justifications, or none that satisfy reason, or logic, or certainty. And even here, OLP will point to the grammar of the concepts in these areas as a sense of rationale, intelligibility, if not certainty, nor agreement. But there may be times when, even given the existence of our grammar, we are at a loss as to how to proceed. And then perhaps reflection on our grammar (philosophy) might help, or at least allow us to see the ground we are on in this case (the rationality of our options), so that we may go beyond our grammar, or against it, or extend it into a new world. — Antony Nickles
And here is where we are caught by the same net. I admit (@Banno) that our language is the rope, as it were, but OLP's idea is not to "redesign language", use it in an "abnormal" way (I would say this is, backwards, putting certainty first and the words second), yet neither, as I have been saying, use it in a contrasting "normal" way, within the net as it were. — Antony Nickles
Just look up dictionary definitions of the two words and see if there is any consistent conceptual difference. — Janus
As Witt says, "back to the rough ground!" — Luke
Except you aren’t at the fundamental level, obviously, because my assertion presupposes knowledge already acquired. — Mww
Your rejoinder is even more absurd empirically, considering the reality that, e.g., heliocentrism could never have come to be known, if the standing knowledge represented by geocentrism wasn’t being first examined by Aristarchus. Just because Ptolemy turned out to be wrong doesn’t take away from his knowledge. — Mww
Yet, that is exactly how science is done, and science is both the means and the ends of human empirical knowledge, so.....the asymptotic relation is glaringly obvious. — Mww
I’m not characterizing knowledge, but theorizing on its acquisition, which presupposes its character is already determined, as it must have been, in order to grant it is something possible to acquire by the means supposed for it. — Mww
It might just be that knowledge doesn’t even have a character, but it is a characterization of something else. Knowledge may be characterized as merely the condition of the intellect. But that still doesn’t indicate what knowledge is, but only what it does. — Mww
"Ordinary" in this instance implies normal, does it not? As if there is a customary, familiar, or habitual, normal, or "ordinary" way of making this decision as to whether it was an accident or a mistake..
— Metaphysician Undercover
Just look up dictionary definitions of the two words and see if there is any consistent conceptual difference. — Janus
Ordinary language can be taken as the content of any linguistic engagement, thus OLP can then be taken as each rational being’s internal ground for his philosophizing by means of that content, and such philosophizing suffices as that by which such internal ground is represented.
From here, it makes sense that he intends differing meanings for articles of his linguistic engagement depending on the differing contexts of its expression, all in accordance with an overarching personal philosophy with respect to all of them. As such, each engagement is itself a measure, or an example, of a philosophy.
How’m I doing? Close? Ballpark? — Mww
All this to say, with these two words, we are not going to find our answers in a dictionary. I will also throw out there that a definition is one type of description of, say, intention, but the idea that we understand every word independently is one way we get into problems with the picture of how language works. — Antony Nickles
I have. We can say that an accident in some cases is the result of a mistake, the consequences of. But a mistake might also be the consequences of another mistake, or some other unforeseen thing, making the mistake itself an accident. So in many instances the same thing could be correctly called an accident or a mistake. — Metaphysician Undercover
To say Witt is corrective is not to say he is convincing people to "now believe" in language games. He is doing more than changing the subject; he is hoping you see what you desired of the picture, and then to turn around and see a better way (method) to see our actual desires. — Antony Nickles
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