I have to be honest here: call me obtuse, but I have to say I don't have any idea what Wittgenstein is getting at in those passages from PI. Can it be explained in plain language?

I have to be honest here: call me obtuse, but I have to say I don't have any idea what Wittgenstein is getting at in those passages from PI. Can it be explained in plain language? — Janus

Don't worry about the points. The reason I picked them is it shows the method of OLP - it looks at what we imply, etc. when we say___. And I was trying to give a flavor of what "Grammar" is for Witt.

What we learned about (the Grammar of) Memory in #56 is: we do not always resort to what memory tells us as the verdict of the highest court of appeal. (That it is certain and a perfect copy). This is (grammatically) a constraint on this concept.

In #90 the statements we say about concepts show us their possibilities; these possibilities are part of its Grammar--this concept can do that and this, but if it tries to do this other, than it is no longer that concept. When does a game just become play? The concept of knowledge has different possibilities (senses, options) and each is distinguished by its Grammar.

In #572 "Expectation is a state" is a claim to its Grammar--to be expecting is to be in a state; that's how expecting works. And we see this when we say: "What counts as a criterion for expecting [being in that state]?" And criteria here being special as well, tied to "what counts as".

#573 has a lot of: when do we say, what do we regard, etc. And the "answers to these questions" shows us what it is that gets treated as a state, grammatically--which is to say, what (criteria) forms its category, what differentiates it from feelings, its relation to time, etc.

In #574 to call the statement "believing is not thinking" a grammatical remark is to say that it is not a statement that Witt is claiming is true (relying on some logic or justification). It is an OLP claim that structurally, categorically, the process and identity of believing is not the same as that of thinking. I have discussed above how an accident is grammatically different than a mistake--not to claim that they are different, but how.

So be it. To strike out is to show one should stick to his own game. — Mww

I appreciate the attempt.

Cavell does account for the connection (I wouldn't call it logical more then inevitable, or sliding down a slippery slope) between the desire for certainty and removing the human.

Witt separately refers to a picture (like a framework) but it is not one people "believe" in. It is forced on them by their desire for certainty. — Antony Nickles

Are there other ways that frameworks get forced on people? If there is a desire for certainty, is this universal , or it it possible some people don’t have this desire for certainty? And if such people exist , and have existed in the past, is it possible that such persons scattered about history have not been forced into the framework Witt is referring to? In other words, due to their imperviousness to the drive for certainty, is it possible such persons in previous eras of history , say during Descartes era, were not motivated to think outside of language games?

“Not everything is done with my intention or reasons--the effect of what I say is not causally related; I may choose my words, but then they are in the world, subject to the criteria or our concepts, even though I remain answerable for them. “

That’s right, not everything is done with my intentions. Take perception for instance. I can choose to look at an object with the expectation of seeing a particular pattern, but what I end up seeing will be a function both of what answers to my expectations in the world, by validating or surprising them , and the background of my expectations. This background constrains what counts as validating or surprising, and even determines what appears at all.

The background that accompanies my perceptions places limits on what I can see and how I can see it., apart from my desires ( for certainty or anything else) In a similar way , my background of pre-conceptions places limits on what I can understand as scientifically or morally true and how I can understand it. What Witt calls a picture ( framework) is forced on me the way that the pattern I recognize in a perceptual image is forced on me. If I do not know Chinese and have never seen a Chinese character, nothing in the changes in clarity or focus of a Chinese visual character presented to me will be recognized by me as an item of language rather than a pattern of squiggly lines. Similarly , if I am a Cartesian philosopher, I can be immersed in intense conversation with a community of Wittgensteinians and still not recognize ‘language game’ or ‘picture theory ‘ any differently than Mmw and metaphysical undercover do after many exchanges with you. That is, such notions will be forced into what my Cartesian pre-conceptions impose on them.

“Witt 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.”

What you desired of the picture was comparable to what you desired of the Chinese character and what you desired of the scientific worldview. In all cases, the desire was as much determined by the pre-conditions for the seeing of the picture, character and worldview as it was determining of them. The desire was as much product as cause. One could say that the genesis of the picture framework gives birth to a particular notion of certainty that then becomes desired. Likewise , Your desire for speaking within language games has its genesis in your absorption of Witt’s idea of the language game. It gave rise to your particular understanding of desire and of your formulation of ‘desire for certainty’.

But what is also implied in the notion of desire that you are using is the tacit assumption of a meta-context(what Putnam would call realism with a human face) that you think will allow the possibility in certain circumstances of a common criterion to be applied to desire as it is experienced by a Cartesian and as Witt experiences it. But they belong to different worlds.

Apart from the fact that 'mistake' is also a verb which 'accident' is not, it is easy to see that there are a significantly different constellation of associated ideas in each case. There is also some overlap to be sure. The two terms are far from being synonymous. — Janus

Of course they're not synonymous, I don't think anyone suggested that. The issue was how to distinguish a mistake from an accident in order to ensure that the correct word is used to describe the situation.. And, as I demonstrated, sometimes a mistake is also an accident, and in those instances the accident would also be a mistake. What makes one of those a better choice of words in these instances?

I have to be honest here: call me obtuse, but I have to say I don't have any idea what Wittgenstein is getting at in those passages from PI. Can it be explained in plain language? — Janus

Wittgenstein's use of "grammar", I find is very elusive. I think he wants the word to do what it cannot possibly do, and that of course is a problem.

n #90 the statements we say about concepts show us their possibilities; these possibilities are part of its Grammar--this concept can do that and this, but if it tries to do this other, than it is no longer that concept. — Antony Nickles

Wittgenstein, taking hypocrisy to a whole new level, trying to make the word "grammar", which he says refers to the limitations of what a word can do, do what it cannot possibly do.

In #90 the statements we say about concepts show us their possibilities; these possibilities are part of its Grammar--this concept can do that and this, but if it tries to do this other, than it is no longer that concept. When does a game just become play? The concept of knowledge has different possibilities (senses, options) and each is distinguished by its Grammar. — Antony Nickles

So here's the dilemma for you Antony. Can the word "grammar" be successfully used in the way that Wittgenstein demonstrates, which is to go outside of the concept's grammar? If so, then it's not true that a concept's grammar is what determines its possibilities.

Btw Antony, this is what I perceived you were trying to do with "criteria", use the word in a way which was outside of the concept's grammar. If we allow, "there's nothing wrong with that", then we open a big can of worms. If we want to enforce the grammar of concepts, then the P in OLP stands for Police.

It's a funny thing that LW's other really salient metaphor for what he's up to is seeking a "bird's eye view" -- that puts you not only not on the rough ground but not on the ground at all! Perhaps this is his "stereoscopic vision", I don't know. It's odd though. — Srap Tasmaner

Wittgenstein's metaphorical contrast of "rough ground" with "slippery ice" are both found on the ground (obviously).

Wittgenstein advocates a return to the rough ground of actual everyday language use and a departure from the preconceived/misconceived role of the philosopher as being (e.g.) to create an idealised "slippery ice" formal system using the "crystalline purity of logic" in order to make discoveries of things hidden beneath the surface of language.

The "surveyable overview" Wittgenstein speaks of relates to grammar (in W's wider use of the term), and so to the rough ground of actual everyday language.

Wittgenstein talks about things like "following a rule", which you can't formalize in rules on pain of regress, and then he asks how it is possible that we clearly can follow a rule or fail to despite the lack of definitive criteria. To answer that question, you need the bird's eye view, but therein lies temptation: it is from such heights that we perceive structure, human civilization laid out before us like a circuit board in all its logical perfection, the territory reduced to a map. — Srap Tasmaner

The overview, or bird's eye view, that Wittgenstein might wish for is of the rough ground of actual everyday language use. Whether Wittgenstein was, in fact, seeking such a "surveyable overview" of our grammar is questionable. I read him as indicating instead that a "surveyable overview" of all grammar is difficult, if not practically impossible, since our grammar is "deficient in surveyability":

122. A main source of our failure to understand is that we don’t have an overview of the use of our words. — Our grammar is deficient in surveyability. A surveyable representation produces precisely that kind of understanding which consists in ‘seeing connections’. Hence the importance of finding and inventing intermediate links. The concept of a surveyable representation is of fundamental significance for us. It characterizes the way we represent things, how we look at matters. (Is this a ‘Weltanschauung’?) — PI §122

He goes on to imply that it is, however, possible to get a "surveyable overview" of the small region of our language/grammar which is problematic for us in a particular case (which he calls in the above quote a "surveyable representation"). See §123-127, particularly §125.

Not your fault, for....

if I am a Cartesian philosopher, I can (....) still not recognize ‘language game’ or ‘picture theory ‘ any differently than Mmw (...) after many exchanges with you. That is, such notions will be forced into what my Cartesian pre-conceptions impose on them. — Joshs

.....it is just like that.

I read him as indicating instead that a "surveyable overview" of all grammar is difficult, if not practically impossible, since our grammar is "deficient in surveyability": — Luke

How could there be grammar which is not surveyable? The rules of grammar must be observable if they are to be followed. It makes no sense to say that someone is obeying grammatical rules which they have not found, located, or identified. This is the same problem I brought to Antony's attention concerning his use of "criteria". Antony seemed to claim that we use "ordinary criteria", but we don't know what that criteria is. How does that make any sense, to say that we are using some sort of grammar, criteria, or rules, in our proceeding, but these rules or principles being applied are not present to the conscious mind which is proceeding with those actions? Mww suggested a similar thing, that we could proceed in logic with unconscious premises. How does that qualify as logic, to proceed with unstated premises? And how does this qualify as "grammar", if there are rules of grammar which we are supposed to be obeying, but we cannot even observe them?

The problem I see here is a backward analysis. The processes of formal logic came into existence following the coming into existence of language. the application of rules, grammar, criteria, etc., was developed in an attempt to make language use logical, so that language could provide better understanding. Now when we look back at natural language, basic, common, ordinary language, in analysis, we want to apply these principles, grammar, criteria, rules, which were developed for logical language, but they do not fit in describing natural language. Instead of recognizing that these descriptive terms of logical languages do not fit in describing natural languages, because they describe features exclusive to specialized languages which came into existence after natural language, some philosophers of language will go through all sorts of contortions in an attempt to make them fit. Instead, we ought to just recognize that rules, criteria, and grammar, are not necessary features of natural language.

Of course we cannot examine the coming into being of knowledge without knowledge having already come into being, but how is that point relevant to anything? — Metaphysician Undercover

It is the entire raison d’etre of speculative epistemological theory, that which satisfies the standard human interest for justifying the condition of his certainty.
————-

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

You have no logical association here. — Metaphysician Undercover

Not sure what logical association is needed here, insofar as I qualified my assertion with “the reality that....”, which is an ontological condition.

so we cannot logically say that the existence of heliocentrism is dependent on the prior existence of geocentricism. — Metaphysician Undercover

Oh, that logical association. Two things: the commonality of their respective objects, and the historical record. The first needs no exposition, the second defines the condition. The logical possibility that heliocentrism could have come to be without the antecedent geocentrism is irrelevant in the face of fact that the record shows Copernicus developed the former because he knew something about the later, sufficient to justify changing it. I grant you would have been correct iff Copernicus had absolutely no experience whatsoever with Ptolemy, but the record immediately falsifies that condition.

So we can logically say the existence of one is entirely dependent on the other, given the historical facts. Just as the reality of quantum physics was dependent on the existence of the so-called ultraviolet catastrophe. Can’t use logic to change history.
—————

in many cases principles are built on existing principles. — Metaphysician Undercover

Minor point, but no: laws are built on principles, rules are built on laws, suppositions are built on rules, but principles are not built on each other. If they were, each principle would be contingent, hence any law built on a contingent principle, is not properly a law.

Since we cannot account for those fundamental principles, then all of our knowledge of knowledge is fundamentally flawed. — Metaphysician Undercover

Agreed, almost. We can account for principles simply from the thought of them, but they are not thereby empirically proven. It follows that our empirical knowledge, when based on them, is not so much flawed, as always uncertain. And it really doesn’t change or help anything, to call uncertainty a flaw, even if in the strictest possible technical sense, it is.

If we cannot account for the fundamental principles, that's no problem, we just posit a priori principles and there you have it, problem solved. — Metaphysician Undercover

Facetiousness accepted, because in fact a priori principles do not solve the problem (of the uncertainty of empirical knowledge when based on principles). Nonetheless, the intent of assigning the nomenclature “a priori” is to indicate the impossibility of denying the inception. It must be absolutely true a priori principles are real, because we cannot deny having thought them, and given the human proclivity in seeking the unconditioned, that which is thought is as close to perfect undeniability as we can get, and anything perfectly undeniable is also just as perfectly unconditioned.

What a priori principles do solve, is the fundamental starting point for whatever follows from them. It is the termination of cognitive infinite regress, and serves no other purpose. Metaphysical reductionism writ large.

But now you are rejecting that assumption, saying that there might not even be such a thing as knowledge. I don't think you can have it both ways. That would just lead to ambiguous meaninglessness. — Metaphysician Undercover

Careful now. I didn’t say knowledge wasn’t a thing, but only that it may not have a character, as you implied with “we cannot characterize it as the type of thing which continually builds upon an existing foundation“. I meant by it to indicate knowledge isn’t the thing that builds, but is instead the thing that is built, such that that characterization is false.

The argument sustaining the assertion knowledge may not even be a thing, on the other hand, derives from the concession that even though no epistemological theory is provable, calling knowledge anything at all is still solely dependent on the theory used to explain it. However and always, if the theory is wrong, and the theory describes knowledge as a certain kind of thing having a certain character, than knowledge is not that kind of thing and doesn’t have that character.

So in effect, you are correct, in that we cannot have it both ways, if we expect to gain any profit from our knowledge theories. We do so expect, hence we do so grant the conclusions of our respective favorite theories, and run with them.
————-

This is what I think is fundamental to knowledge. We start with premises which prove very useful, and since they are so useful they seem solid to support structures of knowledge......

Yes, agreed.

.....An important thing to remember here, is that the principles at the base of the structure have been around for the longest.

Ditto.

.....they are actually the weakest ones, having been put into use the longest time ago when the state of knowledge was most primitive. — Metaphysician Undercover

Ok, premises support the structure, principles base the structure. Premises currently useful can certainly supervene on the formerly useful, yes. It could, however, also be said the principles at the base of the structure, being around the longest, are the most powerful, because they have been used to evolve knowledge from the primitive. Cause/effect come to mind, along with the Three Laws, on which nothing has yet supervened. So it is actually the premises that are the weakest because they can be supervened.

If I were to analyze the idea to a finer point, I might say premises support what knowledge is about, while principles base the structure of knowledge itself. In this way, it is explained why some fundamental principles have lasted so long and some supporting premises fall by the epistemological wayside.

Good talk. Socrates would have to give us the Athenian equivalent of a gold star, methinks.

Of course they're not synonymous, I don't think anyone suggested that. The issue was how to distinguish a mistake from an accident in order to ensure that the correct word is used to describe the situation.. And, as I demonstrated, sometimes a mistake is also an accident, and in those instances the accident would also be a mistake. What makes one of those a better choice of words in these instances? — Metaphysician Undercover

It would help if you could give an example of a mistake which also is, as opposed to merely is causing, an accident.

Wittgenstein's use of "grammar", I find is very elusive. I think he wants the word to do what it cannot possibly do, and that of course is a problem. — Metaphysician Undercover

I have long thought Wittgenstein thinks of grammar as being equivalent to one sense of logic. So, the grammatical structure of statements reflects the logical structure of perception. Also, the logical structure of conception reflects the logical structure of perception. But that is probably more Tractatus than Investigations. I have tried to read PI but have never found it illuminating enough to sustain much interest in it.

What we learned about (the Grammar of) Memory in #56 is: we do not always resort to what memory tells us as the verdict of the highest court of appeal. (That it is certain and a perfect copy). This is (grammatically) a constraint on this concept. — Antony Nickles

I don't understand this; as i see it we have nothing but memory to rely upon. Granted it is not always accurate, but that just means we and our knowledge and understanding can never be perfect.

these possibilities are part of its Grammar--this concept can do that and this, but if it tries to do this other, than it is no longer that concept. — Antony Nickles

This seems trivially true to me; perhaps there is some subtlety in this I'm not seeing.

"Expectation is a state" is a claim to its Grammar--to be expecting is to be in a state; that's how expecting works. And we see this when we say: "What counts as a criterion for expecting [being in that state]?" And criteria here being special as well, tied to "what counts as". — Antony Nickles

Would saying that expectation is a process rather than a state help? Dynamic, not static? I have always thought 'criteria' determine what "counts as", so I don't see this as a new thought.

In #574 to call the statement "believing is not thinking" a grammatical remark is to say that it is not a statement that Witt is claiming is true (relying on some logic or justification). It is an OLP claim that structurally, categorically, the process and identity of believing is not the same as that of thinking. I have discussed above how an accident is grammatically different than a mistake--not to claim that they are different, but how. — Antony Nickles

If the process and identity of believing is not, structurally and categorically, the same as that of thinking, is not that just to say that they are logically different, which would necessarily also be to say that it is true that they are different? I can think something without believing it, surely?

Thanks for your efforts Antony, but I'm still not seeing anything much in this.

The logical possibility that heliocentrism could have come to be without the antecedent geocentrism is irrelevant in the face of fact that the record shows Copernicus developed the former because he knew something about the later, sufficient to justify changing it. — Mww

I think it's relevant, because you need to show a causal relationship to support your claim. Your claim was that new knowledge builds on the old knowledge, so we need a causal relationship of how the old knowledge lead to the new, not just circumstantial evidence. That Copernicus knew the geocentric system, is clearly not the cause of him developing the heliocentric system, because millions of people already knew it as well.

But clearly the old conceptual structure was rejected, lock stock and barrel, and replaced by the new. It wasn't a case of "changing" geocentricism, as you seem to imply, it was a case of rejecting and replacing it. If knowledge truly advanced simply by building on older knowledge, the geocentric system would not have ever come about, because this description doesn't allow for dismissing old knowledge as wrong. This is a problem epistemologists have, how can knowledge be wrong. If it's wrong, it can't be knowledge. But if we do not know it's wrong, we'll call it knowledge. So what is 'real' knowledge, the stuff we call knowledge, which might be wrong, or the stuff that we want knowledge to be, which can't be wrong?

So we can logically say the existence of the one is entirely dependent on the other, given the historical facts.. — Mww

No we cannot make that conclusion. I think you are confusing "sufficient" with "necessary", and you haven't even demonstrated geocentricism to be sufficient. For one to be "dependent on" the other, means that the other is necessary. In this case, you have merely asserted that geocentricism is sufficient, but you haven't shown it to be necessary. So even though the one is prior to the other, in time, you haven't shown the posterior to be dependent on the prior.

Here's an example to consider. Someone tells me my hair is too long. The next day I get a hair cut. You might argue that the person telling me my hair is too long is sufficient to cause me to get my hair cut, so in this historical context it is the cause. But that would be faulty logic, because a multitude of other things might be the real reason, I might have already been planning the haircut. So you cannot conclude "one is entirely dependent on the other, given the historical facts" because we never know all the historical facts. History is open to interpretation.

Minor point, but no: laws are built on principles, rules are built on laws, suppositions are built on rules, but principles are not built on each other. If they were, each principle would be contingent, hence any law built on a contingent principle, is not properly a law. — Mww

I can't follow your use of terms, but I will ask at the end of this post for an explanation of "principle".

Agreed, almost. We can account for principles simply from the thought of them, but they are not thereby empirically proven. It follows that our empirical knowledge, when based on them, is not so much flawed, as always uncertain. And it really doesn’t change or help anything, to call uncertainty a flaw, even if in the strictest possible technical sense, it is. — Mww

When we're talking about knowledge, clearly uncertainty is a flaw.

It must be absolutely true a priori principles are real, because we cannot deny having thought them, — Mww

If we thought up the so-called a priori principles, and we are sentient beings, then how could these principles be free from the influence of sense experience, to be truly a priori?

It could, however, also be said the principles at the base of the structure, being around the longest, are the most powerful, because they have been used to evolve knowledge from the primitive. — Mww

Yes, definitely the principles at the base are the most powerful, being the most useful. The problem being that useful does not equate with true. We can see that with the geocentric system. The principles they used were powerful and useful (Thales apparently predicted a solar eclipse), but they were not true. We have a trend in modern science, which is disturbing to me, and that is the trend to replace the search for truth, for the search of useful principles. So scientists focus on their capacity for making predictions rather than trying to find the true nature of things.

If I were to analyze the idea to a finer point, I might say premises support what knowledge is about, while principles base the structure of knowledge itself. In this way, it is explained why some fundamental principles have lasted so long and some supporting premises fall by the epistemological wayside. — Mww

Can you explain to me, how you would differentiate between a principle and a premise.

It would help if you could give an example of a mistake which also is, as opposed to merely is causing, an accident. — Janus

So if I'm walking for example, and there's an object in my path which I step on. My stepping on it is an accident, as the unforeseen, unintentional event. Stepping on the object is also my mistake (wrong action).

I have long thought Wittgenstein thinks of grammar as being equivalent to one sense of logic. So, the grammatical structure of statements reflects the logical structure of perception. Also, the logical structure of conception reflects the logical structure of perception. But that is probably more Tractatus than Investigations. I have tried to read PI but have never found it illuminating enough to sustain much interest in it. — Janus

The "logical structure of perception" is what I am arguing against. I think it's nonsense to say that perception uses logic. There is a logical structure to conception, because conception is done through the application of logic. But there are many notions, ideas, and beliefs which do not have a logical structure, some are even illogical, and therefore cannot be said to be conceptual. The structure of these ideas and beliefs are closer to the structure of perception than to conception, and cannot be said to be logical.

What is meant by "the grammar of a mistake"? If "grammar" concerns rules of correct usage, and a "mistake" is to do something incorrectly, then how could a mistake have grammar? Doesn't "grammar of a mistake" seem oxymoronic to you? — Metaphysician Undercover

With a lot of this I feel like a few things are happening (which happen between people a lot):

1) you insist on your terms and your framework (and your criteria for judging what I say) instead of working to see my terms and how what I am saying requires you to see everything in a new way (walking in my shoes is exactly the method of OLP--trying to see what I see).
2) we are getting side-tracked on every little statement I make if it doesn't fit what you believe even if it isn't part of my trying to explain a different method of philosophy, instead of having to justify every little thing.
3) OLP is not taken seriously enough; by which I mean it is entirely outside the normal framework of traditional analytic philosophy, and thus requirements seeing it differently.
4) the points I have made above or to other participants are getting forgotten or lost and so I am having to repeat myself.

Of course, this is just how philosophy goes sometimes.

I do think you may be taking "grammar" too literally (as regularly defined), but I'm not sure this is all wrong. (Though Witt does differentiate Grammar from "rules" in many different ways (we don't "follow" Grammar), but that is a rabbit hole.) Grammar does show the boundaries of what would be considered a "correct" or apt apology (but this type of criteria does not work for, say, intending--though we may find the Grammar of what is or is not part of intending). And there can be different "uses" (senses) of a concept (like: I know, above), and Grammar does differentiate between these. But the phrase "rules of correct usage" makes it seem like we are looking for something to ensure "usage"; maybe, of meaning, or communication, etc. that would be "correct" as in justified or certain.

In any event, moving on, the focus is the "concept" of a mistake--we could call it the "practice" of a mistake (though that has confusing implications). And looking at what we imply when we say "I made a mistake" is to find differences that make it distinct (in our lives) from, say, an accident (this differentiation is "part of the Grammer" as Witt says). If I can say "what did you intend to do there?" we learn that part of the Grammar of intention is that it is not always present--you do not intend anything when you have an accident, or (usually) if you do something in the ordinary course. These are, in a sense, categorical claims, procedural claims, claims of distinctions, etc. So it is a different level of investigation than just how language is justified--these aren't rules about language or communication, they are what matters and counts in our lives--we are simply turning to look at them.

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

Can't you see though, that this is a judgement in itself? To say that something is a "mistake", or it is an "accident", implies that you have made that judgement. It's hypocritical to say to a person, "I'm not judging you", but then proceed to talk about what the person has done as a :"mistake". So in reality, you really are judging, by referring to things as mistakes or accidents. — Metaphysician Undercover

Yes, this got all twisted up. OLP is not "saying" something is a "mistake". It is making a claim to the conditions of/for a mistake--you can call that "judging" the example, but the point is to see the grammatical claim. Now, yes, another philosopher might hear the grammatical claim and say, "no, you haven't got that right." At which point they might say "The context would be different", or "the implication does not have that force." (This happens between Cavell and Ryle). But the point is you have the means and grist with which to have a discussion. I was trying to say this is not the normal conversation that people would have to figure out if it was a mistake or an accident--people in a sense "assume" (though this is misleading) the things that philosophers would call Grammar because mistakes are part of our lives. We are not trying to justify whether it was one or the other, we are discerning what makes it so by investigating what we mean (imply) when we talk about it.

Choice of words implies judgement, and that's why we can categorize language use as an action. And we assume that this activity is carried out through some form of intention, like other human acts. The difficult aspect about language use is that it is activity which is often carried on rapidly, in an habitual way, therefore with very little thought. So we're faced with the question of how does intention play a role in an activity carried out with very little thought, and no immediate indications of intention even being present. — Metaphysician Undercover

Well I don't want to get side-tracked here--Austin has a whole essay about "intention" and Cavell's essay "Must We Mean What We Say" (a link is above to Banno). First, not every motion is an action (even, "try really hard to move your finger"--is there a point to calling this an "action"?), and this is not to say all actions are intended. As I discussed above, we find that something has to be wrong or off about something for someone to ask "Did you intend to do that [shoot the cow]?" So choice of words "may" be important ("Choose your words carefully, she's grieving"), though most of the time we do not "choose" our words, nor say them with "intention" (nor "meaning"). Witt will even say there is no space between our expression and our pain.

#244 "So you are saying that the word 'pain' really means crying?"— On the contrary: the verbal expression of pain replaces crying and does not describe it.
#245. For how can I go so far as to try to use language to get between pain and its expression?"

And these statements are claims to the Grammar of intention and expression.

we relate to what has been said through "meaning" implying what was meant, or intended. Therefore there is a serious gap here, a hole in our knowledge. We assume to know what was meant or intended, by an act in which intention is barely evident. So we turn to something completely other than the speaker's intention to justify our interpretations. — Metaphysician Undercover

"Meaning" can be the same thing as "intending", as: "Did you mean to offend them? or did you not know their history when you made that joke?" But we also want to clarify "Did you mean to tell me to fold the dough, or kneed it?" or definitional "What does anthropomorphic mean?" These are all different senses of when we say "I mean" or you ask "Did you mean?" Each will have its own grammar. We do not get someone's meaning by, as Witt will say, "guessing thoughts". And you speak of a "gap" in our "knowledge". And this is a picture caused by (Cavell will say) the fact of our being separate turned into an intellectual lack (problem). We do have things we say in situations, so we do not always (have to) "interpret" what another say. To say that there is a "gap" for Witt is the fact we can be opaque to one another, and so to fill that gap is to ask about meaning (or, yes, assume, and see where that gets you). It is "we" that are responsible to each other for meaning--after (usually), not before; though we can imagine a case in which you can be irresponsible (lazy) in what you say. This is also to bring up the fact discussed before that our expressions and our lives are out there, public, so when we say something, even though we don't (necessarily) "choose" it, we are bound to it, fated to its implications and the consequences of having said it--this is the realm of meaning: what is meaningful to us, what counts for something, what differences have been made, etc.--all the things Grammar uncovers of what matters in our lives.

The hole, or gap is only closed by skepticism. — Metaphysician Undercover

Witt would say that the fear of radical skepticism creates a certain picture of the "gap" (and thus the way that it must be bridged (with knowledge, certainty, justification, etc.).

You say for instance, "grammar of a mistake", I recognize that I might very easily misunderstand what you mean by this, so I question you in a skeptical way. Now, we'll see what comes out of this, but the way I see it, is that very often on this forum, people cannot explain what they mean when questioned about a phrase they have used. This fact provides another piece of evidence. Not only do people appear to be talking away habitually, without thought or intention entering into what they are saying, but even when questioned about what they mean by what they have said, sometimes they cannot even determine what they themselves intended. The evidence therefore, is that there are speech acts with very little if any intention, thus very little meaning, yet they appear to be correct grammatically. — Metaphysician Undercover

Just two things: calling a speech act grammatically correct (not of course correct in regular grammar) does nothing to ensure understanding. Second, one might choose their words very carefully (as is necessary in philosophy as opposed to regular life), and it might be the other is not doing their part in understanding, but rather just insisting on justification or explanation on their terms.

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...
— Antony Nickles

This I believe is a misrepresentation of philosophy. It is not preoccupied by this 'one picture', or 'one explanation'. * * * A philosopher might appear preoccupied in skepticism, with the question of what validates that particular explanation (definition), the one employed by the mathematician as the ideal. — Metaphysician Undercover

As I tried to explain above, instead of dragging it out, when I say "philosophy" I mean analytical philosophy like metaphysics, positivism (the Vienna Circle), representationalism, Descartes, Kant (partly), early Witt, A.J. Ayer, etc. And, yes, it is the "preoccupation in skepticism" that is the slippery slope to wanting the ideal (or approximating it), and ignoring the rest.

Take Plato's dialectical method for example. Each dialogue takes a term, like love, courage, friendship, knowledge, or just, and investigates the various different ways that the word is used. The implication is, that if there was an ideal, the ideal would validate the correct definition, therefore correct use of the term. — Metaphysician Undercover

I would offer that Socrates method is analogous to OLP's. The only issue is that (and I think this is the way Plato pictures it) he doesn't stop at the end of each discussion and see that we have learned something of the way justice works when we look at the implications of saying "justice is nothing else than the interest of the stronger." (The guy's not "wrong".) Now I would say it is the fixation on the standard that will satisfy us which creates the necessity of the Forms (and the loss of the rest of the discussion).

Clearly this is folly, to claim that we can have "rationality and logic and truth value" without justification. — Metaphysician Undercover

And this is Austin's point in Sense and Sensibilia. That picturing language as just being statements that are either true or false (because they are justified), is to ignore all the different ways which language has (the value of) truth, rationality, and logic (these of course being different than you'd like I imagine). The one example I have given is felicity (aptness). To pull off an apology aptly is to do it correctly--the right way. And the grammar of a concept just is what counts as rationale and what fits. To say you MUST do an apology a certain way, is not to claim authority to ensure norms--you can do whatever you like. But if you don't do certain things, it's not really an apology is it? This is the categorical nature of concepts (sort of like Kant's except every word in a sense).

Therefore we ought to conclude that interpretation, and explanation, the aspects of language use which philosophers are interested in, cannot be deferred to grammar or criteria. — Metaphysician Undercover

OLP's tools are imagining examples of what we say and describing what we see. Thus its powerlessness to ensure your interest.

But this doesn't make sense to say that there is a particular grammar for each unique action. * * * if we say that each particular action has a description unique to it, how could we call unique, distinct, and different incidents, as following "a grammar"? — Metaphysician Undercover

I would put it that there is Grammar for each "class" or "type" of action (I'm not sure I would say "unique" because they overlap, etc. (as if family resemblances); and one might get the idea we are talking about each individual act.) So each concept, e.g., --"meaning", "knowing", "understanding"--all have associated "grammar" (multiple, and extendable, as much as our lives). Now we are tripping up on "incident" again as well--some incidents are not (grammatically) distinct from each other; we will only come up against grammar when necessary, and, even then, the discussion may not be "about" grammar (just along its lines as it were). Maybe it helps to point out that we are not "following" grammar, that we are just meaning, knowing, understanding, having accidents, making mistakes.

But every circumstance is unique, time and space are that way, despite what you say about the way that we align our lives. — Metaphysician Undercover

This is true, but only meaningful to the extent it is necessary; say, to flesh out the context to clear up something or frame what we were referring to, etc.

Why do you feel the urge to think that there is always 'concepts' involved when people are speaking? Why not just start with the evidence, and basic facts, that people are doing something with words? If, when we proceed to analyze what they are doing with words, the need to assume concepts comes up, then we can deal with that. But until that point I see this assumption of "concepts" as misleading. — Metaphysician Undercover

Well a lot of expressions involve multiple concepts (asking while being threatening), but can we imagine an expression where none was involved? Maybe, but what would that sound like? And that's not to say all or any of the concepts that could be pointed out need to be, or can be easily (passive-aggression). But I would think that "doing something with words" comes close to the idea of concepts, but are we "always" doing something? or, more importantly, are we always doing one thing--e.g., what I mean, what you understand, or something theory/explanation about how all that (all) happens.

I see your assumption of "concepts" as directly opposed to what you say that OLP is telling you: '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'. You have just replaced the 'picture which can give certainty' with 'concept'. — Metaphysician Undercover

OLP is not looking for certainty, nor is it a theory; it's a method, it's a description.

This is what I'll ask of you, as a proposition, to enable our capacity to proceed in a manner of discussion which is acceptable to both of us. Can we start simply with the idea that in language and communication people are 'doing something with words'. We cannot assume "concepts", nor can we assume "grammar", or "criteria", or any such type of principles or rules as prerequisite for 'doing something with words'. — Metaphysician Undercover

The prerequisite for all of it is our shared lives (not agreed; nor as a fallback for justification); our attunements, the way we judge, feel pain, spot folly, apologize, intend... We are looking (at what we say when) not explaining.

let's start with the assumption that a human being is free to act as one pleases, and if the need to assume some sort of grammar appears to arise, we can discuss that need. — Metaphysician Undercover

Again, not assuming, looking. And, yes, you can act however you'd like, but, in doing so, you're not going to be apologizing, or threatening, etc.

So, I further propose that this type of action, customary, habitual, familiar, and ordinary acts, are carried out with little, if any, reference to grammar in the performing of those acts. * * * thought is not directed toward, or by, grammar, it is directed by the intent to bring about the desired consequences in the particular context or circumstances. — Metaphysician Undercover

Yes people do not usually "refer" to grammar (not sure what this would sound like), this is why philosophy needs to turn and look at examples of: what is said when, in order to see it.

And your mention of "thought" appears to be in the sense of: consideration, or deliberation, or strategizing, etc. but even with all that I would agree that people do not "refer" to grammar, but they might consider the implications, possible misunderstandings, etc. before they speak, and these would be part of the grammar of a concept. They might not consider the way we "mean" what we say (the concept of meaning); or contemplate the criteria for an apology before apologizing; but maybe they would consider our history of determining what is just before they discuss justice. All that is to say some concepts are more transparent than others.

Because of this progression of knowledge, this philosophical need for evolution or advancement of knowledge, there is a need for a progression and evolution of language as required to capacitate the evolution of knowledge. Therefore there is a need for philosophy to "redesign language", and use language in a way initially perceived as "abnormal", or else we could not venture into the unknown with the intent to make it known. — Metaphysician Undercover

I'll grant you that philosophy does create a lot of "terms" (even Wittgenstein). It is the entire framework that is re-designed in this traditional form of philosophy; a (unbeknownst) manufactured picture. The story you are telling is what: knowledge as fact? knowledge as a better theory (of, say, meaning)? I'm not saying language does not progress or evolve; our concepts have the ability to stretch into new contexts as our lives do, as poetry does; but traditional philosophy cleared all our ordinary criteria out of the way to make its own space, where it floats and never touches anything.

I read him as indicating instead that a "surveyable overview" of all grammar is difficult, if not practically impossible, since our grammar is "deficient in surveyability":
— Luke

How could there be grammar which is not surveyable? The rules of grammar must be observable if they are to be followed. It makes no sense to say that someone is obeying grammatical rules which they have not found, located, or identified. — Metaphysician Undercover

It might be better to say that grammar is not easily surveyable, as in, not able to be taken in at a glance. Wittgenstein doesn't say much about it, but I can think of a few reasons why. For example:

Are you consciously aware of the grammatical rules as you speak or write every sentence? Could you name the grammatical rules for all uses of a given word (without looking it up, of course)? Are you aware of the grammatical rules and meanings/uses of all words in every English-speaking location?

If you are actually interested in Wittgenstein's notion of grammar, I recommend reading this article.

Are there other ways that frameworks get forced on people? If there is a desire for certainty, is this universal, or it it possible some people don’t have this desire for certainty? — Joshs

Well Cavell would say the human condition is universal (to humans), in the sense that we are separate bodies. I am responsible for what I say, and answerable for that to you (and, as the other), to make myself intelligible. But nothing is more human than to want to escape being seen by what I say, to want our words to work perfectly without us, yet not have meaning unless I give it. The human desire not to be human. In philosophers it is the desire for certainty (or the seeming acceptance of skepticism while trying to escape/work around it as well), to close the gap, in a way, with the mind. Descartes, Plato, Kant, early Wittgenstein... And I wouldn't put this as a framework or aspect to be seen or not, but some people don't care about these things of course, even some philosophers.

Witt talks a lot about how language forces a picture on us. One point is the idea that if: the word "tree"=tree than all of language works that way. And if each word has a "meaning" we can look at a group of words, each one independently, without any overall concept in a context, and talk ourselves into a picture that makes them understandable. "I only see the appearance of a chair." and... well, that's the only example I have on the tip of my tongue, but the Interlocutor in the PI says a lot of things that seem to be understoodable; and Witt and Austin just started asking: but when would we say this?

it would also be a mistake to think that exploration is not required for making good maps, or to think that having drawn the map you've actually been everywhere you want to go. — Srap Tasmaner

I wonder what Witt's image of bumping into things to find our way adds to this. I'll have find that.

Dictionaries are based on ordinary, everyday usage and are constantly being revised, so why should they not be fair guides to the meanings of terms? — Janus

I'm not going to say it's a terrible place to start but it is only one way, and which gives the impression the word carries its meanings around as a definition. Understanding words "independently" as I said would be independent of how and when they are expressed (in what contexts, to whom, what counts as a reason, a misuse, how are those corrected...). You say we don't have "precise" meanings, but what if "meaning" wasn't just in a web of "associated ideas" but a whole life. Cavell has us imagine looking up a word that turns out to be an Eskimo kayak, and he asks did the dictionary bring us the world, or did we bring the whole world to the dictionary?--we already knew what a boat was, an Eskimo, vehicles of travel, etc. to learn the "meaning" of the word.

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

What does it mean to see a better way? If you’ve read Kuhn, you know that embracing a ‘better’ scientific theory always implies a change of subject. — Joshs

I guess in this analogy I would not say a different subject (nor a different theory either), but a better method, as in different than the scientific one.

I think you, Austin and Cavell are holding onto a version of realism along with Putnam, who has nothing but praise for Cavell, and this puts you at odds with Rorty and a thoroughgoing postmodernism. — Joshs

I don't know what "realism" is but I've always been wary of labels. I find there is always something worth learning even if not everything is agreeable or correct. And I don't know Rorty at all, but from what I've been told, the idea of "postmodern" is something like we are past the traditional concerns of analytical philosophy. So Plato created the Forms, Descartes ended up in outer space, Marx thought humans were good under it all--you're not going to learn something in reading them? Like theory is more important then "the dark path" as Hegel put it?

That Copernicus knew the geocentric system, is clearly not the cause of him developing the heliocentric system, because millions of people already knew it as well. — Metaphysician Undercover

Then you may want to ask yourself how it came to be, that it was only one of the millions, that changed the science for the millions.

But clearly the old conceptual structure was rejected, lock stock and barrel, and replaced by the new. — Metaphysician Undercover

Actually, it wasn’t. I anticipated the objection, by stating “commonality of objects”. The general conceptual structure stayed the same; the arrangement of the structure changed, or the orientation of it, if you’d rather. And seeing as how the physical arrangement cannot be changed.....what arrangement is left that can, and still conform to observation of the physical arrangement?
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This is a problem epistemologists have, how can knowledge be wrong. If it's wrong, it can't be knowledge. — Metaphysician Undercover

Easy: it isn’t knowledge that’s wrong, it is the incompleteness of the conditions for it, or misunderstanding of the complete conditions, that are wrong. As I said before, knowledge is at the end of the chain, so it is theoretically inconsistent to claim an end is a fault in itself. Think about it: how is it that you and I know everything there is to know about shoes, but you know your shoe size and I do not. Can you claim, without being irrational about it, that my knowledge of shoes is wrong because I don’t know about two of them?
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And it really doesn’t change or help anything, to call uncertainty a flaw, even if in the strictest possible technical sense, it is.
— Mww

When we're talking about knowledge, clearly uncertainty is a flaw. — Metaphysician Undercover

Yeah, well....the flawless is the perfect, and metaphysics only permits perfection as an ideal, which would make unflawed knowledge a metaphysical ideal. Experience of metaphysical ideals is impossible for humans, so we grant the flaw in knowledge given from experience in order to abstract it from the metaphysical, and call it uncertainty. There is even a principle by that very name.
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If we thought up the so-called a priori principles, and we are sentient beings, then how could these principles be free from the influence of sense experience, to be truly a priori? — Metaphysician Undercover

How can it be, that there are no 2’s in Nature unless we put them there? Because of an active domain specific, if not exclusive, to human sentience over and above their domain of mere reactive experience.
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So scientists focus on their capacity for making predictions rather than trying to find the true nature of things. — Metaphysician Undercover

The true nature of things has been theorized as out of our reach, since 1781. Your statement merely confirms the theory has yet to be falsified.
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how you would differentiate between a principle and a premise. — Metaphysician Undercover

At bottom, a premise is usually a subject/copula/predicate proposition. A principle is a synthesis of conceptions into a necessary truth. From that, a premise can be the propositional form of a principle, but a principle does not have a propositional form. Furthermore, the employment of a principle is in the logical ground of a law, but the employment a premise is only in the ground of a logical argument and never the ground of a law. Building on all that, depending on the construction of the proposition, a premise may be contingent, whereas a principle cannot be.
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The "logical structure of perception" is what I am arguing against. I think it's nonsense to say that perception uses logic. — Metaphysician Undercover

Perception does not have a logical structure and perception does not use logic; it is a passive receptive faculty only, that which makes physical sensation possible. Reason, on the other hand, is the necessary systemic logical function used by humans, by means of which passive perceptions are structured into known objects. You know.....theoretically.

1) you insist on your terms and your framework (and your criteria for judging what I say) instead of working to see my terms and how what I am saying requires you to see everything in a new way (walking in my shoes is exactly the method of OLP--trying to see what I see). — Antony Nickles

Actually I've been working very hard to demonstrate to you that I do not understand what you are saying, because your use of words is not what I am accustomed to, or familiar with. I am asking you to explain, or define some terms which in your usage have created obstacles, roadblocks to my understanding. The reason for defining words and insisting on criteria, is, as I've said, to ensure an adequate understanding. "Walking in my shoes" is exactly the type of thing which requires criteria, rules and definitions. Agreeing with each other does not require criteria, rules, etc.. However, if words are used in strange or ambiguous ways, we might agree with each other, then proceed on our respective ways, assuming to have understood each other, when we really misunderstand, and that would be a mistake.

So I requested, that you define "ordinary criteria", in a way which I could understand, and you couldn't, or didn't. Instead of defining it, or explaining what you could possibly mean by it, you eventually suggested exchanging it with "grammar". Now I have the same problem with your use of "grammar". I can't make sense of what you are trying to say with it. If you want me to "walk in your shoes", you need to provide me with what is necessary to understand your point of view. Clearly I do not have the same background as you, so you cannot simply use words in ways which are foreign to me, and expect that this will allow me into your perspective.

At this point I would say that we do not have a clear understanding between us, as to what "grammar" refers to. I will adhere to a familiar understanding, that grammar refers to some sort of rules which we follow, and I will attempt to demonstrate how it makes sense to interpret "grammar" in this way. If you can show me another way to interpret "grammar" which makes sense to you, then I will attempt to follow you.

2) we are getting side-tracked on every little statement I make if it doesn't fit what you believe even if it isn't part of my trying to explain a different method of philosophy, instead of having to justify every little thing. — Antony Nickles

If you want to show me a method of philosophy, then show me a method of philosophy, but to use words in ways which are illogical, hypocritical, and even contradictory, from my philosophical perspective, does not appear as a method of philosophy, it's a method of sophistry, better known as deception.

4) the points I have made above or to other participants are getting forgotten or lost and so I am having to repeat myself. — Antony Nickles

If I tell you that I don't understand how you could possibly be using "ordinary criteria", and request that you could use different words to explain or describe to me, what it is that you are referring to with these words, then repeating yourself is not the answer.

Now, I think we've made some very real progress with your switch from "ordinary criteria" to "grammar", but I still don't see the thing which you are referring to with this word.

This is the problem I am having. Your words are referring to some type of thing or things which you assume exists somewhere, "ordinary criteria", "grammar of a mistake", But you are not describing this thing or things, and when you point toward where the thing ought to be I do not see it, nor do I see any logical possibility that the thing referred to through my normal, familiar, use of those words, could even be there. Therefore you need to provide me with a better description of what you are referring to, so that I might understand your use of those words.

I do think you may be taking "grammar" too literally (as regularly defined), but I'm not sure this is all wrong. (Though Witt does differentiate Grammar from "rules" in many different ways (we don't "follow" Grammar), but that is a rabbit hole.) Grammar does show the boundaries of what would be considered a "correct" or apt apology (but this type of criteria does not work for, say, intending--though we may find the Grammar of what is or is not part of intending). And there can be different "uses" (senses) of a concept (like: I know, above), and Grammar does differentiate between these. But the phrase "rules of correct usage" makes it seem like we are looking for something to ensure "usage"; maybe, of meaning, or communication, etc. that would be "correct" as in justified or certain. — Antony Nickles

The reason why I was looking at grammar as "rules of correct usage" is that you replaced "criteria" with "grammar". And criteria is very explicitly principles for judgement. In language use we have two very distinct types of judgement, choosing one's words, and interpreting the words of others. So if grammar shows some boundaries as to what is correct in language use, and it doesn't refer to rules of correct usage, then can I conclude that it refers to rules of correct interpretation?

But how could these two sets of rules be fundamentally different? If the boundaries for choosing words were different from the boundaries for interpreting words, wouldn't this lead to misunderstanding? Where else could you possibly be pointing with "grammar", and "criteria", other than to rules of usage? I just don't see it. That's how the words are normally used, now you want to say that you are pointing to something different than this, but what could that different thing possibly be?

In any event, moving on, the focus is the "concept" of a mistake--we could call it the "practice" of a mistake (though that has confusing implications). And looking at what we imply when we say "I made a mistake" is to find differences that make it distinct (in our lives) from, say, an accident (this differentiation is "part of the Grammer" as Witt says). If I can say "what did you intend to do there?" we learn that part of the Grammar of intention is that it is not always present--you do not intend anything when you have an accident, or (usually) if you do something in the ordinary course. These are, in a sense, categorical claims, procedural claims, claims of distinctions, etc. So it is a different level of investigation than just how language is justified--these aren't rules about language or communication, they are what matters and counts in our lives--we are simply turning to look at them. — Antony Nickles

Sorry to have to inform you of this Antony, but this does nothing for me. It appears as so confused and full of mistakes.

First, as you say to 'practice a mistake' has very confusing implications. No one practices a mistake. Couldn't you have found a better way to say what you wanted here? I assume you are asking 'what does it mean to make a mistake?'.

But why do we have to distinguish "mistake" from "accident" to do this? Why must we "find differences" And if a mistake is a type of accident, then "accident" will be a descriptive term used, like "animal" is a descriptive term used for describing "human being". In describing a thing we do not assume to have to distinguish that thing from other things, we do the exact opposite, compare it to others, looking for similarities, to establish its type. The differences are what is obvious to us, we don't have to find them, as they normally jump out at us, to describe the thing we look for points of similarity, and make comparisons.

But you really lose me with "Grammar of intention". What is the point of "Grammar" here? It appears to serve no purpose but to distract, as if you are talking about Grammar when you are really talking about intention. Clearly you are talking about intention rather than grammar, as you proceed with "you do not intend anything when you have an accident". However, this statement is itself mistaken. "Doing something" always involves intention, so even when there's a mistake or an accident there is still something intended. So a mistake, or an accident, is an unintended feature of an intentional act. Therefore the fact that there was an accident is insufficient for the claim that intention was not present.

We might however, use this fact, the occurrence of a mistake, as evidence that Grammar wasn't present. Let's do that instead shall we? Now we have evidence of intention without grammar. And we appear to have no principle whereby grammar could be brought into intention. So "the Grammar of intention" is a misnomer, a mistaken use of words which we need to reject. As you ought to be able to see, grammar is not inherent to intention, but extrinsic to it.

Yes, this got all twisted up. OLP is not "saying" something is a "mistake". It is making a claim to the conditions of/for a mistake--you can call that "judging" the example, but the point is to see the grammatical claim. Now, yes, another philosopher might hear the grammatical claim and say, "no, you haven't got that right." At which point they might say "The context would be different", or "the implication does not have that force." (This happens between Cavell and Ryle). But the point is you have the means and grist with which to have a discussion. I was trying to say this is not the normal conversation that people would have to figure out if it was a mistake or an accident--people in a sense "assume" (though this is misleading) the things that philosophers would call Grammar because mistakes are part of our lives. We are not trying to justify whether it was one or the other, we are discerning what makes it so by investigating what we mean (imply) when we talk about it. — Antony Nickles

Do you see the point I am making? Grammar is not any part of a mistake. Grammar is brought into existence intentionally, to serve a purpose, and that purpose is to avoid mistakes, to exclude the possibility of mistakes. The "conditions of/for a mistake" are the absence of appropriate grammar. If the appropriate grammar was there, there would not have been a mistake. So we can see that since "mistakes are part of our lives", so is the absence of grammar.

Therefore, we can proceed toward an examination of our actions, and determine which intentional actions are lacking in grammar, therefore prone to mistake. As I proposed earlier, these are the customary, familiar, habitual actions. It is when we proceed in the customary, habitual ways, without adequately accessing the risks of the particular circumstances, and applying the appropriate rules (grammar in this case), that mistake is most probable.

These are all different senses of when we say "I mean" or you ask "Did you mean?" Each will have its own grammar. We do not get someone's meaning by, as Witt will say, "guessing thoughts". — Antony Nickles

I think you are misusing "grammar" here, or at least using it in a way which doesn't make any sense to me. It is not the phrase itself which has a grammar, it is the people using the phrase which have grammar. It really doesn't make any sense to say that there is grammar within the spoken words. How would we locate this grammar in our attempts to interpret the words? As I explained above, we apply grammar. When the person speaking is applying a different grammar from the person interpreting, then we have here another type of mistake, again due to an inadequacy of grammar. But in this case there is an inconsistency in grammar, and this will lead to misunderstanding, which is also a type of mistake due to an absence, an absence of consistency..

Just two things: calling a speech act grammatically correct (not of course correct in regular grammar) does nothing to ensure understanding. Second, one might choose their words very carefully (as is necessary in philosophy as opposed to regular life), and it might be the other is not doing their part in understanding, but rather just insisting on justification or explanation on their terms. — Antony Nickles

Right, calling a speech act "grammatically correct" is done from the point of view of a particular grammar. If, my grammar is different from your grammar, then I will still misunderstand you despite your assertion of grammatically correct. This is why we need the second condition, in order to avoid mistake, the first being grammar, the second being consistency in the grammar.

If you follow me so far, I can tell you about a third condition, and this one is the most difficult to understand. The third condition is the willingness to follow, or adhere to the grammar. as we are free willing beings, their is some tendency for us to drift off into some sort of random actions, or trial and error situations. Here again we would have no grammar in our intentions.

I would put it that there is Grammar for each "class" or "type" of action (I'm not sure I would say "unique" because they overlap, etc. (as if family resemblances); and one might get the idea we are talking about each individual act.) So each concept, e.g., --"meaning", "knowing", "understanding"--all have associated "grammar" (multiple, and extendable, as much as our lives). Now we are tripping up on "incident" again as well--some incidents are not (grammatically) distinct from each other; we will only come up against grammar when necessary, and, even then, the discussion may not be "about" grammar (just along its lines as it were). Maybe it helps to point out that we are not "following" grammar, that we are just meaning, knowing, understanding, having accidents, making mistakes. — Antony Nickles

I'm almost happy with this use of "grammar", except that I will insist that grammar must be something that we are following, like instructions, rules. It makes no sense to say that the grammar is within the words, "meaning", "knowing", "understanding". Where could it possibly be hiding? Instead, we follow a grammar when using the words (speaking), and interpreting the words. Otherwise we have no way to understand the nature of misunderstanding. If the grammar was in the spoken words, then either we'd perceive it (and understand), or not. To allow for the possibility of misunderstand, we allow that the words are apprehended, but improperly interpreted. Then what does "improperly interpreted" mean other than not applying the correct grammar? So we must allow that "grammar" is the rules we follow in choosing words and interpreting words.

Are you consciously aware of the grammatical rules as you speak or write every sentence? Could you name the grammatical rules for all uses of a given word (without looking it up, of course)? Are you aware of the grammatical rules and meanings/uses of all words in every English-speaking location? — Luke

I have been insistent with Antony, that we must allow for the reality that much speaking is done without grammatical rules. The reason for this insistence is to be able to account for the reality of mistaken understanding, misunderstanding. If we say that misunderstanding consists of instances when the speaker is following a different grammar from the interpreter, then we have to account for the possibility of this difference. This would mean that a person's grammar is developed individually from another person's, through one's social interactions for example. But this implies that a person goes into the social interactions, in the original condition (as a child), without grammar. And, the person must still be capable of communicating, in that original condition, in order to learn the grammar, without having any grammar. Therefore grammar is not a fundamental aspect of communication.

The issue was how to distinguish a mistake from an accident in order to ensure that the correct word is used to describe the situation.. And, as I demonstrated, sometimes a mistake is also an accident, and in those instances the accident would also be a mistake. What makes one of those a better choice of words in these instances? — Metaphysician Undercover

The fact that we can switch one synonymous word for another shows that our words don't hold the meaning so much as the context/our lives in a way allow for it, and shows the fact that the difference between mistakenly and accidentally does not matter in that instance, nothing hinges on it then. But just because in most circumstances you can be sloppy with language does not make that demonstrable of anything.

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

Well, speaking of sloppy language, I'm gonna have to get both my foot and some crow out of my mouth @Janus. I just realized I (inadvertently? unintentionally?) lost track over the posts that the point of Austin's examples was to understand intention so they were examples of excuses for action (Austin has a whole essay). So I have meant to be strictly describing the grammar of how an action can be done accidentally or mistakenly (not all senses of mistake and accident). Ugh; "I'll not trust his word after!"

But if you aren't ready to kill me yet, this is a good exercise.

Now we can say "I accidentally went through the intersection." and here we can imagine my foot slipped off the brake (which I did not intend). And "I mistakenly went through the intersection." (is a crappy examples again). Here I could say "I intended to go into the turn lane", or "I only meant to creep up to the edge of the intersection." And thus part of OLP is imagining cases (contexts) to fill out what we say in order to see what it means for the grammar of the two concepts and what they show about intention.

Again sorry for the confusion. Saying things over and over tend to take the punch out of em.

In #90 the statements we say about concepts show us their possibilities; these possibilities are part of its Grammar--this concept can do that and this, but if it tries to do this other, than it is no longer that concept. When does a game just become play? The concept of knowledge has different possibilities (senses, options) and each is distinguished by its Grammar.
— Antony Nickles

So here's the dilemma for you Antony. Can the word "grammar" be successfully used in the way that Wittgenstein demonstrates, which is to go outside of the concept's grammar? If so, then it's not true that a concept's grammar is what determines its possibilities. — Metaphysician Undercover

A concept's grammar" does not "determine" anything. Its possibilities are a part of our lives and the way language can move into new contexts or our lives change or the possibility of justice is lost or dies to degenerate times, but we can find it by turning to look and bring it back to life in our expression.

"Walking in my shoes" is exactly the type of thing which requires criteria, rules and definitions. Agreeing with each other does not require criteria, rules, etc.. — Metaphysician Undercover

"Walking in my shoes" as an idiom here would mean trying understand me on my terms rather than subject my terms to your standards of judgment. Try to understand that it is a method not a theory; I have repeatedly given examples and samples of Witt's text. And the point here is that agreeing is: agreeing on the description of the grammar of a concept. Agree that to do something mistakenly requires intention, or provide an example of what we say with a context to show there is another point which makes "mistakenly" what it is.

So I requested, that you define "ordinary criteria", in a way which I could understand, and you couldn't, or didn't. — Metaphysician Undercover

I'm not sure this is always possible, and in this case I'm guessing not. To understand "ordinary criteria" requires you to let go of a standard of judgment or justification that I take you to consider essential, which I would consider a choice. Again, I tried to show how it was different than what you are familiar with and with what you appear to want. I think you would have to not focus on your understanding of those words (grammar) and look at the examples and the method by which they are reached--a definition (or explaination) is not always sufficient for understanding.

At this point I would say that we do not have a clear understanding between us, as to what "grammar" refers to. I will adhere to a familiar understanding, that grammar refers to some sort of rules which we follow, and I will attempt to demonstrate how it makes sense to interpret "grammar" in this way. If you can show me another way to interpret "grammar" which makes sense to you, then I will attempt to follow you. — Metaphysician Undercover

I have said that grammar are not rules in the exact sense that we do not "follow" them. Also, we agree to rules, or set them, and we have authority over them, etc. None of these things are true for grammar. Of course you can interpret the word "grammar" as you are familiar with, but how does that help us? I have also tried to say that grammar is just a description of the ways in which our lives have come together to create these distinctions and terms of judgment and identity and possibility for each concept. If we assume we do not already have an understanding of meaning, we learn about it by examining what we mean when we say "I meant..."

If you want to show me a method of philosophy, then show me a method of philosophy — Metaphysician Undercover

Is it fair to say that none of the examples I have given, nor the quotes from Witt, have been sufficient to show this method? Have we tried it? Or to counter the implications of what we say when?

Your words are referring to some type of thing or things which you assume exists somewhere, "ordinary criteria", "grammar of a mistake", But you are not describing this thing or things, and when you point toward where the thing ought to be I do not see it, nor do I see any logical possibility that the thing referred to through my normal, familiar, use of those words, could even be there. Therefore you need to provide me with a better description of what you are referring to, so that I might understand your use of those words. — Metaphysician Undercover

We are not using a picture of language that has "words" "referring" to "things" which you assume "exist" "somewhere". Nevertheless, I have repeatedly tried to explain how grammar is just a description of the ways our lives have embodied the things that grammar sees. @Banno brought in a quote from Austin. I tried to show @Janus how a definition is contingent on a world of concepts.

criteria is very explicitly principles for judgement. In language use we have two very distinct types of judgement, choosing one's words, and interpreting the words of others. So if grammar shows some boundaries as to what is correct in language use, and it doesn't refer to rules of correct usage, then can I conclude that it refers to rules of correct interpretation? — Metaphysician Undercover

Skipping over that this is a particular picture of choosing and interpreting words, and a particular idea of "correctness", which I have addressed previously, why can't we describe the possible, categorical ways a concept (not just individual words) can be meant? and what is possible (open) to question (in different contexts)? As I paraphrased Witt earlier, it is not part of the grammar of knowledge to speak of it when there is no possibility of doubt, such as "I'm in pain" compared to "I know I'm in pain".

If the boundaries for choosing words were different from the boundaries for interpreting words, wouldn't this lead to misunderstanding? Where else could you possibly be pointing with "grammar", and "criteria", other than to rules of usage? I just don't see it. That's how the words are normally used, now you want to say that you are pointing to something different than this, but what could that different thing possibly be? — Metaphysician Undercover

The whole point of Witt's PI in describing our shared grammar is to show that words don't always "point" to a "thing". With that in mind, our grammar describe the ways we live our lives. As I have said again and again, this is not about language "usage" as in conscious reasons we say one thing or another. We don't decide how to apologize, we apologize. There are criteria (measures) of the boundaries for this, practices, conditions, ways to judge, etc.--these are just our lives.

First, as you say to 'practice a mistake' has very confusing implications. No one practices a mistake. Couldn't you have found a better way to say what you wanted here? I assume you are asking 'what does it mean to make a mistake?'. — Metaphysician Undercover

What I meant was that a concept is like a practice in the sense of a way of doing something.

Why must we "find differences"... "animal" is a descriptive term used for describing "human being". In describing a thing we do not assume to have to distinguish that thing from other things, we do the exact opposite, compare it to others, looking for similarities, to establish its type. The differences are what is obvious to us, we don't have to find them, as they normally jump out at us, to describe the thing we look for points of similarity, and make comparisons. — Metaphysician Undercover

Obviously we can compare a concept's grammar to others--grammar is like context in that what we focus on is dictated by what we would like/need to investigate it for. So it is helpful to categorize groups of concepts together, as Austin does. But he also gets into the differences in types of excuses in order to show the ways our actions are considered moral or can be qualified to avoid our responsibility.

But you really lose me with "Grammar of intention". What is the point of "Grammar" here? It appears to serve no purpose but to distract, as if you are talking about Grammar when you are really talking about intention. — Metaphysician Undercover

I don't think describing the ways in which intention works--its conditions, its place, when it comes up, how it is possible to discuss, how we question it--are the same as "talking" about "intention". These are not justified "true" statements explaining intention, it is a claim about what is implied in examining and describing what we say when we talk about intending.

Clearly you are talking about intention rather than grammar, as you proceed with "you do not intend anything when you have an accident". However, this statement is itself mistaken. "Doing something" always involves intention, so even when there's a mistake or an accident there is still something intended. So a mistake, or an accident, is an unintended feature of an intentional act. Therefore the fact that there was an accident is insufficient for the claim that intention was not present. — Metaphysician Undercover

Must We Mean What We Say is to a essay by Cavell that does a great job of explaining Austin''s claim from the description of the examples he gives of what we say which show that intention, as I have said above a few times, (usually) only comes up when something about an act is "fishy" he says. ("Did you intend to...?") The traditional picture is that every act or expression is "intended", as the same picture that every expression is "meant". Of course "doing something" (which is unclear), which I take as consciously deciding to act, can be done deliberately, after consideration, in the hope of a certain outcome, etc. And we can ask, what was your intention?, and I can answer along these lines. But most times, actions are not intended, and one part of the grammar of doing something accidentally is that we are not culpable because we did not intend for it to happen--"I" do not come into it, so I can not intend to "do something" accidentally (though I might intentionally make it look like I did it accidentally, or intentionally say it was done accidentally--more of the grammar of accidentally).

We might however, use this fact, the occurrence of a mistake, as evidence that Grammar wasn't present. Let's do that instead shall we? Now we have evidence of intention without grammar. And we appear to have no principle whereby grammar could be brought into intention. So "the Grammar of intention" is a misnomer, a mistaken use of words which we need to reject. As you ought to be able to see, grammar is not inherent to intention, but extrinsic to it. — Metaphysician Undercover

I think this might be an assumption of some causality or necessity. I thought I have made clear that Grammar may not be present (conscious), but what it describes is inherent in the concept (the life in it). It is not just made up rules or some theory about words; it is a description of ways in which intention works, what matters to us, what counts for it, the reasoning it has, and the ways it falls apart. This is not an explaination nor a justification nor the reasons we use nor the ways we discuss it. Intention is part of the world, which is inherent in it. Grammar is merely the explication by description of these ways of the world that make up, are embodied in, as Austin says above, intention.

Grammar is not any part of a mistake. Grammar is brought into existence intentionally, to serve a purpose, and that purpose is to avoid mistakes, to exclude the possibility of mistakes. The "conditions of/for a mistake" are the absence of appropriate grammar. If the appropriate grammar was there, there would not have been a mistake. So we can see that since "mistakes are part of our lives", so is the absence of grammar. — Metaphysician Undercover

I would not say Grammar is "part" of a concept. It isn't part of its makeup--it describes what counts for a concept (among of things). Looking at the grammar of a concept has different reasons, and it might be said that someone might reflect on it in order not to run afoul, or, as discussed, someone might look at what makes an expression what it is (literary/art criticism (see my discussion in the Aesthetics as Objective post), political speech, come to mind), but OLP is also using the investigation of grammar to shed light on our traditional philosophical issues. The point is not to "avoid mistakes" or "exclude their possibility". I would say that is the desire of the philosophy OLP is trying to revolutionize. Studying grammar shows us the way mistakes work--how they are identified, how corrected, the responsibility I have to what I say.

It is not the phrase itself which has a grammar, it is the people using the phrase which have grammar. It really doesn't make any sense to say that there is grammar within the spoken words. How would we locate this grammar in our attempts to interpret the words? As I explained above, we apply grammar. — Metaphysician Undercover

Now here we are way off into a picture of communication that Witt spends half of PI trying to unravel. Yes, grammar is public. It is both within the expression and in our lives because those are woven together. We do not "have" or control grammar or meaning (use it any way we like) anymore than we "have" or control the ways we share our lives. An apology is an apology despite what you want it to be. A concept has different senses (options, possibilities) in which it can be used, but "sense" is not some quality an expression has which is applied by intention or "meaning" (or "thought"). We do not "apply" grammar. Our expressions use concepts which are embed in the shared lives we already have.

It makes no sense to say that the grammar is within the words, "meaning", "knowing", "understanding". Where could it possibly be hiding? Instead, we follow a grammar when using the words (speaking), and interpreting the words. Otherwise we have no way to understand the nature of misunderstanding. If the grammar was in the spoken words, then either we'd perceive it (and understand), or not. To allow for the possibility of misunderstand, we allow that the words are apprehended, but improperly interpreted. Then what does "improperly interpreted" mean other than not applying the correct grammar? So we must allow that "grammar" is the rules we follow in choosing words and interpreting words. — Metaphysician Undercover

Grammar is forgotten (not hiding, or "in" an expression, readily viewable) because we just handle things in our lives--thus philosophy's images of turning (in caves), and reflecting, and looking back, remembering, etc. Thus we have to see it indirectly in the kinds of things we say when we talk of a concept. Again, we do not use grammar (directly) to clear up misunderstandings ("interpret words" plays into the picture I describe above). "Misunderstanding" has grammar as well, and so ordinary ways in which it is handled. Concepts have different senses so which one is being used might need to be cleared up ("improperly interpreted?"); also, you may break the concept expected in a particular context, but that can be fixed in ways everyone understands (drawing out the context, making excuses); etc. Our lives have much more depth than we give it credit for. To have one theory of how language works is a picture that, for example, we always "choose" words and that words always need to be "interpreted": e.g., I mean something (applying my rules and "my context") and then you interpret that (with your rules and from "your context"), or some such explanation.

If you follow me so far, I can tell you about a third condition, and this one is the most difficult to understand. The third condition is the willingness to follow, or adhere to the grammar. as we are free willing beings, their is some tendency for us to drift off into some sort of random actions, or trial and error situations. Here again we would have no grammar in our intentions. — Metaphysician Undercover

Well, again, the picture of "intention" (as casually or ever-present) is getting in the way, as well as the idea that grammar is somehow a justification, reason, or conscious necessity. That being said, this is a good thing to bring up. We do not "have" to follow the ways our lives come together. We can act randomly, or even act rationally (or emotionally) but revolutionarily (against our concepts or taking them into new contexts). We can act flippantly, playfully, experimentally, etc. All of those things are specifically possible because of the grammar for each concept being specific to it and flexible in those ways (even those concepts).

I will just point out, as I did above with @Joshs, that Witt and Austin and Cavell (and Emerson) see our relationship with our expressions as giving ourselves over to them, choosing (if that is the case) to express, and then that expression speaks for us, but also reveals us (in its having been expressed). We say it, then we are responsible for it (which we can shirk), so answerable to the other to make it intelligible, even why it was meaningful to say it, here, now; describe, in what matters for this concept, what matters to me, to make clear to you.

This would mean that a person's grammar is developed individually from another person's, through one's social interactions for example. But this implies that a person goes into the social interactions, in the original condition (as a child), without grammar. And, the person must still be capable of communicating, in that original condition, in order to learn the grammar, without having any grammar. Therefore grammar is not a fundamental aspect of communication — Metaphysician Undercover

We learn how to communicate in learning our concepts which is to say what matters about our lives, the distinctions we need to make, the way an apology works, etc. Witt has many instances of a student or child and how we take them through something (like training) and see if they can follow on or continue a series, etc. Learning our lives and learning our concepts happens at the same time. That is not to say we are not sometimes without words, but as I discussed that above with Joshs, this is not to say we don't have the means of expression, even without words (is violence a concept?), but that we are nonetheless responsible to make ourselves intelligible.

"Grammar" is a sort of generalization of logic, a bit like the operational logic of early AI and cybernetics research. For instance, in a logical or mathematical context, "if ... then ..." is intended to be truth-preserving; in an operational context, it's intended to be goal-achievement-advancing.

What's the logic of "Pass me the salt"? Do requests or commands even have truth values? Me passing you the salt when you say that doesn't follow logically, but it does follow grammatically, ceteris paribus.

((Sorry if I'm repeating you @Antony Nickles -- there's no percentage in reading MU, so I tend to skip over point-by-point responses to him too.))

What's the logic of "Pass me the salt"? — Srap Tasmaner

Yes, for one thing, it appears to be a request. I would say that it is a claim upon me that is open to refusal, despite anything said in support (even pretty, pretty please)--and maybe there is something specific about the type of support here? But the fact of the unqualified denial of a request differentiates it from a demand, which appears to be based on leverage, consequences ("If you don't ___, then I will ____."; or a command, which would be contingent on authority ("Pass me the salt!" (said to a waiter--however rudely). The other thing about a request seems to be that it can be made of a stranger, or a friend--but it is perhaps a kind of claim not just for help, an expression of need, but a claim to a community possibly? And then what could we imagine we would say to elicit the criteria for the kind of support offered to create community?

Do requests or commands even have truth values? — Srap Tasmaner

Well I use them interchangeably with my 9-yr-old but not my wife, if that helps. That is to say, there are criteria which differentiate one from the other. That they have a categorical identity is also tied to doing them correctly, aptly--not boffing it and inadvertently commanding your wife instead of requesting something of her (this is the value of being apt, or felicitous as Austin says).

So here's the dilemma for you Antony. Can the word "grammar" be successfully used in the way that Wittgenstein demonstrates, which is to go outside of the concept's grammar? If so, then it's not true that a concept's grammar is what determines its possibilities. — Metaphysician Undercover

A concept has possibilities, as life does. These are described by grammar--the difference options ("senses" as Witt says), but, also, some concepts provide for where they are fluid, how they can be stretched, extended into new contexts, etc.(as much as some will not be defied without being deemed incorrect). Grammar is not everywhere prescribed by rules, not is our lives, and OLP is enforcing statements explaining Grammar, it is making open claims, refutable by anyone.

And I hate to say it, but "Grammar", "Sense", "Criteria", are all technical terms here. As I said, it is philosophy--but in traditional philosophy it is as if every word were a term.

It's a stubborn bunch. I will say, the understanding of of OLP came over me all at once in a way. I don't believe I have the ability to present a description that interests people enough and allows for seeing the breadth of the change requested. I would suggest this Essay by Cavell, which is in response to someone so addresses the sticky points of seeing things a different way. Stick to your guns.