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. — Antony Nickles
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
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. — Metaphysician Undercover
It is an OLP claim that structurally, categorically, the process and identity of believing is not the same as that of thinking. — Antony Nickles
Thanks Luke.If you are actually interested in Wittgenstein's notion of grammar, I recommend reading this article. — Luke
It's not so black-and-white. You have to allow for learning and intermediate stages of development and capability. Children can learn the rules of grammar just as they can learn the rules of a game. It takes practice. — Luke
The general conceptual structure stayed the same; the arrangement of the structure changed, — Mww
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? — Mww
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. — Mww
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. — Mww
"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. — Antony Nickles
Try to understand that it is a method not a theory; I have repeatedly given examples and samples of Witt's text. — Antony Nickles
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. — Antony Nickles
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. — Antony Nickles
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. — Antony Nickles
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). — Antony Nickles
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. — Antony Nickles
Studying grammar shows us the way mistakes work--how they are identified, how corrected, the responsibility I have to what I say. — Antony Nickles
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. — Antony Nickles
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. — Antony Nickles
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). — Antony Nickles
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. — Antony Nickles
If I were going to tell a story, it would start that we learned language and our human lives together. — Antony Nickles
Interpretation is an act of subjecting your terms to my standards of judgement. If I have not interpreted what you have said, simply read the words and agreed to them, it is impossible that I have understood what you have said. — Metaphysician Undercover
It is an OLP claim that structurally, categorically, the process and identity of believing is not the same as that of thinking.
— Antony Nickles
We can think about something without believing it. — creativesoul
However, the process of believing is fundamentally the same as thinking. — creativesoul
It is only when one becomes aware of their own fallibility that the two are no longer the same. It is only when we begin to consider whether or not some thought or belief are true, that there can be a difference between thought and belief.... — creativesoul
[In OLP] are we the final arbiter; do we have the final say, regarding what counts as an "insert name here"? — creativesoul
It quite simply does not follow from the fact that there is more than one use for the same term that all uses have equal footing, are equally justified, are equally warranted, have equal explanatory power, do the same thing, afford us the same capabilities, etc. — creativesoul
What is the benefit of our taking such a careful account of, and/or placing such high regard upon ordinary language use? — creativesoul
Our account of everyday ordinary language use must meet certain standards in order for it to be true. Those standards are nothing less than the way that different people across the globe use the same terms. — creativesoul
Has the conventional academic use "belief" become something quite different than the ordinary everyday use(s) of those same marks? Does academic convention pick out the same things as everyday ordinary people? If academia has altered the use of ordinary terms, and the different senses of the term are incompatible with one another, if the one negates the other, then which sense warrants our assent? — creativesoul
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? — Mww
If the objects stayed the same, that does not mean the structure stayed the same, unless the structure is the object, but the structure is what changed. — Metaphysician Undercover
But to say that the sun goes around the earth every day, is simply wrong. — Metaphysician Undercover
What form does a principle have if not a propositional form? — Metaphysician Undercover
What a 2 represents in a particular instances of use is the symbol's meaning in that instance. — Metaphysician Undercover
Don't you see, what I've been saying, that this is what "understanding" is, to subject another's terms to one's own standards? * * * Interpretation is an act of subjecting your terms to my standards of judgement. If I have not interpreted what you have said, simply read the words and agreed to them, it is impossible that I have understood what you have said. — Metaphysician Undercover
Try to understand that it is a method not a theory; I have repeatedly given examples and samples of Witt's text.
— Antony Nickles
But I don't see that you are showing me a method. — Metaphysician Undercover
I think we need to know the intention to know what was meant. So we have the vicious circle whereby we cannot say what was meant by the word without knowing the intention, but we are wanting to say something about the intention by knowing what was meant. So we are actually completely excluded from describing intention, and all we can do is speculate. — Metaphysician Undercover
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.
— Antony Nickles
So you are talking about a "shared grammar" here. And "grammar" means a description of how our lives have come together. But my description is completely different from yours.
* * *
If "grammar" is a description of the ways we have come together, as you have defined it, then it makes no sense to speak of a "shared grammar" because we've each come from different directions with different descriptions, therefore different grammars. — Metaphysician Undercover
Under your definition of "grammar", I don't see how a concept could have a grammar. Grammar is a description of the possibility for a concept. How do we make the jump from describing the possibility for a concept (grammar), to the the claim that an actual concept has a grammar? Or, are all concepts just "possible concepts", because that is how they are described by "grammar", such that a "concept's grammar" implies the possibility for a concept? — Metaphysician Undercover
Don't you recognize a separation between the thing described, and the description? — Metaphysician Undercover
It is a theory about the way intention works, it is not a description of the way that intention works. Actions, which are what is described, as " the ways in which our lives have come together to create these distinctions and terms of judgment and identity and possibility for each concept", are the results of intention, the effects. When you proceed to speculate about the cause of those actions, intention, it is theorizing. — Metaphysician Undercover
To show the way a mistake works is to show the cause of a mistake. That is what I described in my last post, "the way mistakes work". But your study of grammar has no approach to this, because you have no way to apprehend the actual conception, which is where the mistake inheres. — Metaphysician Undercover
Grammar is a description of this shared life. We may not have control over the sharing of our lives, which we've already had, but we do have control over our descriptions of it, and consequently we get some control over the way we share our lives in the future. — Metaphysician Undercover
If grammar is just a description, then it is not "the ways our lives come together" but a description of that. We need not follow any such description, we might even reject a description on a judgement of inaccurate after reference to criteria. A description is really nothing more than a theory about the thing being described. — Metaphysician Undercover
Furthermore, if you ascribe to human beings the capacity to act freely, randomly etc., in a way which does not follow the description (grammar), then you are actually admitting that the description has inaccuracies. — Metaphysician Undercover
Is [OLP] not seeking a method toward truth and understanding (as other philosophies are), but rather a practical method for activities in the world. — Metaphysician Undercover
moral philosophy seeks to understand intention directly. — Metaphysician Undercover
The degree to which "our human lives are together" is extremely minimal. * * *Therefore, there is a fundamental separation between people which makes it impossible to speak about "the Grammar of language" in general, or, "the language-game" in general. * * * Instead of recognizing the individual differences between the individual perspectives of individual people, differences which need to be worked out through establishing consistency in interpretative, explanatory, and justificatory practices, through the application of rules and criteria, you simply take all this for granted, as a starting point. — Metaphysician Undercover
Overlooking the idea of "ordinary language use"... — Antony Nickles
But at the same time the system as a whole accomodates itself to the novelty of what it assimilated. What is key to understanding g this approach is that the system is an integrated network , and the accommodation . changes the network’s structure as whole. Learning something news isnt simply a matter of synthesizing and combining the new event with one’s
extant cognitive system, but of altering the meaning of that system as a whole while assimilating the new item. This means when you subject someone’s
terms to your standards of judgement , those standards must at the same time accommodate and alter themselves in order to assimilate the other’s terms. — Joshs
The three main contenders are theory theory, simulation theory and interaction theory.
Theory theory seems to be be similar to your thinking. It posits that we understand and relate to others
by consulting our own internal templates or representations. That is , we create a theory of how they are thinking and apply it to them. Simulation theory says that we imitate the other and learn to understand them that way. Against both of these representationalist approaches , interaction theory claims that we do not consult an internal set of representations or
rules in order to relate to the other , but perceive their intent directly in their expressions. Interaction theory
rejects representationalist because it never makes contact with another. Instead it just regurgitates the contents of its own cognitive system, which is not true interaction. The system must be affected and changed as a whole in response to communication with others. You can see the resonances here with Witt. Contexts of interaction create meanings, rather than just acting as excuses for a cognitive system to recycle it’s own inner contents. — Joshs
I know about the what; I’m talking about the how (did a 2 get into Nature seeing as how it isn’t there naturally). You’re talking about what it’s there for, to relate a use to a meaning. I wish to know how the representation occurs such that it can be used. — Mww
Uhhhh... this is the opposite of understanding. You are never going to get Hegel unless you find a way to meet him on his ground through his terms as he uses them. — Antony Nickles
I suggest going back through all these comments and find the places were I am imagining something someone might say (in quotes). Those are the instances of method (I think there are some on the Witt page too. Sometimes it is "Imagine what one would say..." as well. — Antony Nickles
Sometimes (in regular life) you'll want to know the intention, as I have said, because something is fishy. But the picture that everything said is tied to a "meaning" or "intention" is the misconception that Austin and Witt spend their entire books overcoming, so maybe I'm not going to get you to see that here. — Antony Nickles
My description is completely different from yours" is different than "how our lives have come together" (I would say "when"). Our shared language (concepts) is "how our lives have come together". Now our description of the Grammar of those concepts is subject to disagreement, but thus also open to agreement. Seeing the Grammar is to look at what we say when as instances of "how [when] our lives have come together" — Antony Nickles
Well, the description is a claim about the ways in which intention works (its grammar); you may disagree. — Antony Nickles
Well, you can theorize about the "cause" of mistakes, or we can ask when we might say it: "What was the cause of your mistakenly shooting the cow, and not the donkey?" Of course, this is probably a different sense of "mistake" (used as to actions) than I believe you are using. But how would we ask your question? "I made a mistake." "What was the cause?" Now there are a number of answers here, perhaps they show the grammar of explaining a mistake (as in confessing to it, asking for help in correcting it, or learning how it went wrong, etc.) Now do we want a theory to avoid the mistake? — Antony Nickles
I wouldn't say the control we have over our shared lives is through description (maybe politics, decent, violence, etc.--Emerson will call this "aversion", Thoureau of course, civil disobedience). I do agree that we can disagree over our descriptions of our Grammar (though we are not doing sociology), but there is a logic and rationality to this (through OLP's method), though no certainty of agreement, or the kind of justification you might want. — Antony Nickles
That doesn't follow, I can break the Grammar of an apology; that doesn't mean an apology is not an apology, but that I am a jerk. — Antony Nickles
Well I would simply call this cynicism — Antony Nickles
I'm not going to try to talk you out of this, but this is the slope that leads to a picture of every expression being intended or meant or thought and understood or interpreted, and those are all up to you and me. As if we were responsible not to what we have expressed (held to it), but that we are responsible for everything--the whole process--thus the need to perfect language (rather than ourselves). — Antony Nickles
Overlooking the idea of "ordinary language use"...
— Antony Nickles
Seems quite an irrational move, remarkably so even, given that ordinary language is one of many irrevocably crucial elemental constituents of ordinary language philosophy. — creativesoul
We're pretty far apart... — creativesoul
Uhhhh... this is the opposite of understanding. — Antony Nickles
...the picture that everything said is tied to a "meaning" or "intention" is the misconception that Austin and Witt spend their entire books overcoming, so maybe I'm not going to get you to see that here. — Antony Nickles
It's not so black-and-white. You have to allow for learning and intermediate stages of development and capability. Children can learn the rules of grammar just as they can learn the rules of a game. It takes practice.
— Luke
Learning is a social interaction, That's the point, a child needs to be able to communicate in order to be able to learn. — Metaphysician Undercover
That's what Witt pointed out at the beginning of PI, it's as if a child needs to already know a language in order to learn a language. — Metaphysician Undercover
That's why we cannot characterize language as consisting of rules because then we'd have an infinite regress of rules required to learn rules, and rules required to learn those rules etc.. — Metaphysician Undercover
I haven't denied altering one's own standards, I just said the person has to establish consistency between the new information and one's standards. Sometimes the existing standards might be judged as wrong — Metaphysician Undercover
That's what Witt pointed out at the beginning of PI, it's as if a child needs to already know a language in order to learn a language.
— Metaphysician Undercover
He offers this as an example of a common philosophical misconception of language, not as an endorsement of the idea. — Luke
The whole point of interaction theory is that standards don’t have any existence outside of their use... — Joshs
I'm afraid I will never understand you then, if you're not willing to compromise with your terms, and explain yourself in a way which appears to be intelligible to me. — Metaphysician Undercover
If, simply asking the question, "what do you mean by...?" is the method, then ...I'm practicing it very well. I've been asking you, what do you mean by "ordinary criteria", by "grammar", etc. — Metaphysician Undercover
I spoke of familiar, habitual activities, which most of language use is. These language acts are mostly just responses, reactions, to the particular circumstances which we find ourselves in, we might even call them reflexive. So these language acts cannot be directly tied to any meaning or intention. — Metaphysician Undercover
"My description is completely different from yours" is different than "how our lives have come together" (I would say "when"). Our shared language (concepts) is "how our lives have come together". Now our description of the Grammar of those concepts is subject to disagreement, but thus also open to agreement. Seeing the Grammar is to look at what we say when as instances of "how [when] our lives have come together"
— Antony Nickles
The claim that we have "come together" is not justified. To say that "our lives have come to together" is a false description. — Metaphysician Undercover
how would we ask your question? "I made a mistake." "What was the cause?" Now there are a number of answers here, perhaps they show the grammar of explaining a mistake (as in confessing to it, asking for help in correcting it, or learning how it went wrong, etc.)
— Antony Nickles
I find that there's a problem with your example of "mistake". A mistake, no matter when or where it occurs, is a product of the particular circumstances. I think that is the only generalization we can make about mistakes, other than that something has gone wrong. — Metaphysician Undercover
do you see that we have control over our own descriptions, the descriptions which we make, of whatever we describe? We can choose whatever words we want, even make up new ones. Furthermore, there is no need that we be truthful, or accurate, we can leave things out, and do all manners of deception, depending on what one's intention is. The intention of the individual is not completely irrelevant. So, how can there be such a thing as "our Grammar"?
It is (all of) our Grammar as it is all of our shared lives. And you don't need intention here (describing, choosing or inventing words, deceiving, are enough). Now if you have an example of what we say, and you describe it, the truth and accuracy of it is my seeing it as you do (not being persuaded or deceived into what you say). Witt refers to this not as agreeing in opinions, but in judgments. #241-2. Witt talks of perspecuity, and seeing the whole view, but his examples show there is a kind of epistemological ethics; he says we conjure up a picture designed for a god which flxes sense unambigously but with which we can do nothing, lacking meaning or purpose; instead, we go by side roads and detours to the seeming muddiness of actual use (#426).
— Metaphysician Undercover
I can break the Grammar of an apology; that doesn't mean an apology is not an apology, but that I am a jerk.
— Antony Nickles
If you break the Grammar of an apology, then you are not making an apology. If the thing is not consistent with the description, then it is not the named thing. Otherwise you could call anything an apology. — Metaphysician Undercover
Witt did not have a good grasp upon human thought and belief. Otherwise, he would not be looking for "hinge propositions" as the 'bedrock'. — creativesoul
If communication is a pre-requisite to learning, as you claim, then a child without language should not be able to learn, right? — Luke
He offers this as an example of a common philosophical misconception of language, not as an endorsement of the idea. — Luke
Why are "rules required to learn rules"? Because you say so? — Luke
The whole point of interaction theory is that standards don’t have any existence outside of their use, and in their use they are altered to accommodate themselves to what they are applied to. — Joshs
The way you are understanding them is precisely as internal templates or representations, which are first consulted and then compared with something else. — Joshs
Not "what do you mean by___" It's: "what do we mean when we say___?" — Antony Nickles
But this is to just divide acts/expressions into intended ones and unintended ones, so the intended ones still fall under the picture of a ever-present cause (for those "intended"). And this is different than my proposing the question of intention only comes up sometimes, not that it applies to all acts that are (pre?) "intended". — Antony Nickles
This is not "we" as in "you and I". It is "we" as in all Engilsh speakers (Cavell will say "native" speakers, not to be racist or exclusionary (intentionally) but to record the fact that learning a language is to learn (be trained in, is more accurate given Witt's student) all the things that we do and say. And here I am not saying people don't then disagree or have hidden motives or speak past each other or mistake a claim for a statement, etc. — Antony Nickles
I guess I don't see where I implied that mistakes happen without circumstances--"product of" seems to need accounting for, as if a mistake was a result of, at least an outcome of, the circumstances. "I made a mistake." "What about the circumstances led to the mistake [as an outcome]?" — Antony Nickles
"We are separate people, but not separated by anything... — Antony Nickles
Being written is not equivalent to being used when it comes to standards. Being written is most certainly a way of existing. Interaction theory, if your report is accurate, is wrong. — creativesoul
The whole point of interaction theory is that standards don’t have any existence outside of their use... — Joshs
Being written is not equivalent to being used when it comes to standards. Being written is most certainly a way of existing. Interaction theory, if your report is accurate, is wrong.
— creativesoul
We only know what is written by reading it , and reading involves interpretation. Each time we return to a written page to read it , we interpret it slightly differently than the last time. So saying the written word ‘exists’ without us doesn’t tell us exactly what it is that is existing. — Joshs
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