Right, that's the sort of thing we want to do. Point being, whatever analysis we find convincing, it's just not the same thing as logical analysis, and not just because we're interested in aspects of speech beyond truth-value, but because the analysis will include objects and actions, because circumstances will matter not just for disambiguating our words but for the choices available to us and the stakes.

Etc , etc. There's still structure to be found, and words and their meanings are still central, but there's more in play than semantics. Hence my reference to early research in robotics, for instance: how do you get a robot to figure out what steps it should take to accomplish a task? That's the domain of grammar rather than logic.

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

Right, a dictionary is merely an adjunct, in case we are not familiar with a word. We can usually glean the meaning of unfamiliar words using that resource though.

Of course I agree that we need a sufficient background knowledge of the world also, as the definitions of words are given in words in dictionaries and without adequate background familiarity with the things of the world and their names and terms of description we would be lost.

Which means we rely upon our webs of associations, which are indeed a function of our whole lives up to any time.

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

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.

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

Well... that might be to jump a few steps. If I were going to tell a story, it would start that we learned language and our human lives together. At some point we started asking questions, like what is it to be a better person. But we wished for knowledge to provide the answer for us, but found it lacked the ability to fix the space opening between our world and our interest in it. And so we built a new language for knowledge, one that would be certain and cover all occurances no matter the situation. And it was so wide and comprehensive that it bridged the gap but it was as if we sacrificed the world to save our connection to it because we were never allowed to touch the world again. But then we realized that, when we had learned our language and our lives together, the things we said had a memory of the things we did. We didn't need to fix our langauge nor have knowledge secure the world, because in finding that memory we found the world again.

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. So, they are different. However, the process of believing is fundamentally the same as thinking. Both consist entirely of meaningful correlations drawn between different things. 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(that we can think of something without believing it). Generally that is some proposition or another or perhaps carefully contemplating some foreign linguistic framework/conceptual scheme.


I'm not even sure how many different acceptable uses/senses/meanings are attributed to the words "ordinary language philosophy". Thinking about which popular philosopher is and which popular philosopher is not rightfully called some name or another presupposes a criteria or standard for what counts as such. The same problematic scenario underlies many philosophical discussions, and the following questions ought be asked with regard to so many of our own conceptions, notions, ideas, thoughts, and/or beliefs about the world and/or ourselves.

Does the name in question pick out that which existed in it's entirety prior to our picking it out of this world to the exclusion of all else? Are we the final arbiter; do we have the final say, regarding what counts as an "insert name here"?

It's worth mention that the ground of a "no true scotsman" is a refusal to accept that other people use the same name to pick out very different things(what counts as, or the set of characteristics that one must have in order to be rightfully called "a scotsman" - or - the referent of "scotsman", in this case).

However...

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.

So...

What is the benefit of our taking such a careful account of, and/or placing such high regard upon ordinary language use?

Well...

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.

What's philosophically interesting to me is that we begin to use language as a means to communicate our thoughts, beliefs, needs, wants, desires, expectations, etc. long before we begin taking account of our already having done so; long before we begin talking about doing so; long before we begin to consider our own thought and belief as a subject matter in and of itself. So, in this way, ordinary common use has primacy in that our account of that use can be quite wrong.

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?

By what measure do we then further discriminate between the two incommensurate notions/ideas?

How are we to possibly determine which of two equally coherent uses of "belief" is better? Coherency is the result of consistent terminological use. If all use of "thought" were different to all use of "belief", then it would not ever be the case that either "thought" or "belief" could be used without meaningful loss. Much more often than not, they can.

Thinking that a mouse ran behind a tree is belief about the location of the mouse. Believing that a mouse ran behind a tree is thinking about the location of the mouse.

Stubborn bunch, aye. They’ve done the heavy lifting, so perhaps have earned the right.

I’m familiar with the essay. What I found quite telling about it, is located in fn2, wherein it is admitted that the explication of the stated purpose of the essay, follows conditions “as I understand them to be”. The implications of that admission are staggering from the point of view of my particular armchair, antique, frayed and butt-crushed as it may be, insofar as “understanding” is precisely the quanta of the heavy lifting to which the especially post-Renaissance continentals directed themselves, and the anti-metatheoretical analyticals have back-burnered.

Question: are images part and parcel of human mentality?

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

Thanks 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

Learning is a social interaction, That's the point, a child needs to be able to communicate in order to be able to learn. 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. 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..

The general conceptual structure stayed the same; the arrangement of the structure changed, — Mww

Well, since a structure is an arrangement of parts, I really don't see how the arrangement of a structure can change, while the structure stays the same. To say that the arrangement changed is to say that the structure changed. 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.

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

But to say that the sun goes around the earth every day, is simply wrong. It's not a matter of incompleteness, it' s a matter of making a faulty representation, a faulty model. It's a falsity. And unless your representation of knowledge can account for this wrongness, falsity, within what is known as knowledge, your representation of knowledge is wrong. Saying that all faulty knowledge is a matter of incompleteness is simply wrong because faulty knowledge is sometimes a false representation.

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

A 2 is a symbol, they are put here by human beings. What a 2 represents in a particular instances of use is the symbol's meaning in that instance.

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

This I don't understand at all. What form does a principle have if not a propositional form? How would I differentiate between a principle and a proposition if I was presented with a bunch of each? And, what makes a principle necessarily true? A proposition for example is judged as true or false, and that judgement might be wrong. What excludes "the principle" from such a judgement, making it necessarily true. When I see a principle in a propositional form, beside a proposition, how would i know which one is necessarily true?

"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

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? That's what I've been trying to tell you, a number of times now. To simply accept, and agree to another's terms, is not to understand the other person. That's why we are taught in school to put things in our own words, and not to plagiarize. If one does not establish a consistency between what the other person has said, and one's own standards of judgement for interpretation, then that person cannot claim to have understood what the other said. 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.

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. You are saying things, talking about concepts, criteria, and grammar, without showing me the things you are describing. Is that your method, to make assertions about things which are hidden from me, because you are not showing them to me, and asking me to accept these assertions as true, carte blanche, because you are withholding from me the means for me to confirm the truth are falsity of them, by hiding the things you are talking about from me?

Here's what I can say about your method, from what you've provided for me. You claim to have a philosophical method which is unique from others, because it uses description rather than theory. However, I am skeptical, because I see all description as theory laden. So I see your claim of description rather than theory as just an attempt to avert the need for justification. You might say it's a description rather than a theory, therefore there is no need for justification, but I would say that I want the criteria (definitions) which justify your use of words in your description. Do you see what I mean? 'A cup is on the table' (a description) require criteria for the use of the words to be understood, judged, or agreed to..

The next thing I see about your method is that you claim to be able to say something about intention through the description of our shared lives. And you seem to believe that since it is descriptive, it is not speculative like other metaphysics. However, this is where I find a vicious circle which can only be escaped through speculation. You claim that we can conclude something about intention through describing what we mean by words like "mistake" and "accident", and describing the differences between what is meant by them. But 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.

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 here is your definition of "grammar". But if I replace "grammar" in your usage, with this definition, it often makes little or no sense. Look, here's an example: "The whole point of Witt's PI in describing our shared grammar is to show that words don't always 'point' to a 'thing'."

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. That's the issue we're having in this thread. We come together from different backgrounds, we have experienced different things, therefore we necessarily have different descriptions. 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.

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

Now your use of grammar here makes even less sense. Grammar is a description. Yet grammar sees things? A description is of things, and it may be of things which are seen. Through my familiar interpretation of "grammar", I want to say that a person sees things and describes them through the use of grammar. You want me to interpret grammar as the description itself. So why do you say "grammar sees things", as if the person is seeing and describing through the interpretive tool of grammar?

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

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?

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

This use of "Grammar" makes no sense to me. How is the thing described inherent in the concept? Don't you recognize a separation between the thing described, and the description?

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

This is very clearly incorrect. 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.

Furthermore, you have not closed the gap between the possibility for concepts, and the actual existence of concepts. This is another indication that you have a speculative theory rather than a description. Grammar only goes as far as describing the possibility for concepts, and anything you might say about the actual existence of concepts is theoretical and speculative.

Studying grammar shows us the way mistakes work--how they are identified, how corrected, the responsibility I have to what I say. — Antony Nickles

This is incorrect as well. Studying grammar is to study a description. This can show the effects of a mistake, but it cannot show the way that mistakes work. Nor can it show how a mistake might be averted or corrected. Principles other than descriptive must be applied for that, theoretical principles. 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. You only describe the possibility of conception.

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

This use of "grammar" is completely inconsistent with your definition. Grammar is a description. It makes no sense to say that we have no control over a description. A description is either your description, mine, or someone else's, and we are completely free to choose our words as we see fit. A description only becomes public if we understand, and agree on it, and this requires interpretation, explanation, justification, etc.. At each step we have control.

When you say "Our expressions use concepts which are embed in the shared lives we already have", I think you forget that the "shared lives we already have" is not grammar. 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.

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

None of this makes any sense to me if I adhere to your definition of grammar.

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

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.

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. If philosophy is an activity which seeks truth and understanding, and this means that we are seeking the highest standards of knowledge possible, then why would we settle on a method which admittedly accepts inaccuracies? I can see that for practical purposes we accept lower standards, as Aristotle describes in his Nichomachean Ethics, but here we are looking at the theory which will give us understanding of intention. Is this the basis of your distinguishing OLP from other philosophies? Is it not seeking a method toward truth and understanding (as other philosophies are), but rather a practical method for activities in the world. If this is the case, then how does describing language activity, and things like what we mean by the use of particular words, provide a better starting point, as an approach to intention, than moral philosophy does? What I see is a vicious circle which locks us out from any true understanding of intention, while moral philosophy seeks to understand intention directly.

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

This is a fine example of speculation. But you present such speculations as descriptions, in an attempt to separate your philosophical method from others, as if it is somehow superior because you assume justification is not required for descriptions.

If I were going to tell a story, it would start that we learned language and our human lives together. — Antony Nickles

This is a false starting point, a false premise, a faulty description. The fact is that human beings are spread out in space, all over the earth, and in time, through thousands of years. When we learn language we learn it from a very few people whom we are close to, we are "together" only with that tiny group of people. 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. There are distinct grammars and distinct language-games, and the assumption that you can aggregate them in composition to make one artificial Grammar, or language game, is a false assumption, the fundamental differences are too diverse. This practice of aggregation is just a misguided attempt to facilitate your theory.

This false description gives you a very skewed perspective. 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. However, this need for establishing consistency is ever present, and on-going, as is the separation between individuals ever present and on-going. Therefore we cannot take it for granted that this consistency has been already established, some time in the ancient past, and that some sort of togetherness maintains this consistency. That togetherness is a false premise, easily disproven by an accurate description.

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

I’m going to see if I can contribute anything helpful to this discussion. It seems to me that your understanding of understanding is compatible with first generation. cognitive psychology. The mind is
modeled on a computer. It inputs data from a world , and interprets that data according to internal
representations. OLP is not compatible with this model. It requires a shift to a way of thinking more consonant with newer approaches in cognitive science that replace internal representations with a system of interactions. Think of it this way: In Piaget’s model the cognitive system assimilates meanings from the world into itself. 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.
Piaget called this reciprocity of assimilation and accommodation the logic of action. It can also be seen as a grammar or action.

This newer approach is also being applied to the theories of empathy, that is , to the ways that we are able to recognize others as being enough like ourselves that we can communicate with them.

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.

The crucial shift in thinking here is away from knowledge as mirroring the world and toward knowing as interacting with a world. See Alva Noe’s important work on visual perception for a better sense of the distinction.

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

Well the full quote is: #574 "A proposition, and hence in another sense a thought, can be the 'expression' of belief, hope, expectation, etc. But believing is not thinking. (A grammatical remark.) The concepts of believing, expecting, hoping are less distantly related to one another than they are to the concept of thinking."

So I might have been a little hasty, but what you've said sounds like the grammar of thought is that every thought is either "believed" (not justified) or known (backed by something that ensures it as such).

A proposition as an expression of hoping "I have a great feeling about our project," or of expecting "I'm gonna kill it once I get that new technology," or of believing, "He looked into gene therapy as it might be a cure" (Witt calls this believing, like a hypothesis--see below). (I'm not sure in what sense of a proposition it is a thought, but here maybe just not the outward expression--my guess is he is saying this because the topic above it is thought compared to "belief".)

However, the process of believing is fundamentally the same as thinking. — creativesoul

Witt's claim is that believing is expressed in a proposition (which here he is saying can be thought (as it were, to yourself as well as externally). This is differentiated from picturing "belief" u]as[/u] a proposition, setting it up to be judged as a proposition (compared critically to true/false knowledge)--Witt's claim is that believing is a hypothesis (see the example above). See PI p. 162. "So it looks as if the assertion "I believe" were not the assertion of what is supposed in the hypothesis "I believe"! (emphasis in the original)

That's not to say "thought" doesn't come into it, just not in the way you may picture it. This is the next paragraph:

"575. When I sat down on this chair, of course I believed [had the hyposthesis] it would bear me. I had no thought of its possibly collapsing. But: 'In spite of everything that he did, I held fast to the belief. . . .' Here there is thought, and perhaps a constant struggle to renew an attitude."

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

And this is the skeptical fear which creates the desire for a standard of certainty for justified knowledge (as opposed to something deemed lesser) which is then used as the only standard instead of the ordinary criteria (Grammar) which varies with each concept as much as our interest in our lives--as Austin and Witt are in the business of showing.

[In OLP] are we the final arbiter; do we have the final say, regarding what counts as an "insert name here"? — creativesoul

As I explained above, the claim is to the Grammar implied in what we say when. It is an observation. It is made in Kant's "Universal Voice" (see my contribution to the Aesthetics as Objective post), which is to say for everyone to see for themselves--subject to if there is a more detailed example with a more appropriate context, etc., i.e., a closer description--but thus it is a rational discussion without statements relying on theories of justification (simply true/false, etc.).

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

This idea that what we need is "equal footing" or "have equal explanatory power" would be the exact issue being addressed: of wanting the same standard of knowledge applied to every concept (and every use of that)--when all this may be as varied as the Grammar of each and our lives are. Also, the claims are not explanations, but observations, descriptions.

What is the benefit of our taking such a careful account of, and/or placing such high regard upon ordinary language use? — creativesoul

As I've tried to explain elsewhere, we are not talking about "ordinary language use". It is the ordinary criteria (grammar) of language (for all our varied concepts)--this is seen indirectly through what we imply, etc. when we say "I believe ____".

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

The Grammar of each concept are not "certain standards" (as in all the same), and "true" (or false) is not the only criteria that has the value of truth (distinct, rational, rigorous, re identity, etc.). And OLP limits its claims to all English speakers as the Grammar/language is contingent on our the way we live (which is not to say this is a ground). That is not to say there are not ways to bring our lives/Grammar in line with, say, the "strangers" Witt discusses (on the page with the lion quote--as I discuss in another post), in as much as we can align our judgments, interests, what counts for what, and all the other ways we live (to have similar Grammar and thus a similar concept---hoping, misunderstanding, learning, etc.)

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

Overlooking the idea of "ordinary language use", yes, the ordinary Grammar of belief was wiped clean (as well as any context) by the kind of philosophy OLP is defining itself against for it to make a picture of philosophy created by its desire to rise above all the things that are uncertain to have a certain, universal, pre-determined criteria for knowledge. That is not to say that OLP philosophers are not rigorous, accountable, etc. or that in saying each person has a right to this type of claim, that this is just anyone's opinion (again, as gone over in the OP and other times above).

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

Yours doesn't consider the implications in mine.
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But to say that the sun goes around the earth every day, is simply wrong. — Metaphysician Undercover

Big deal. That does absolutely nothing to explain the reality that geocentrism was the standard cosmology model of its day.
————-

What form does a principle have if not a propositional form? — Metaphysician Undercover

Some are relational (Kant, ‘ought implies can”, 1785; “principle of evidence, Hume, 1748; “Sufficient Reason”, Liebnitz, 1714; varieties of Ockham’s Razor), some categorical (Principle of cause and effect, Principle of non-contradiction, ...).

Propositions reduce to principles, principles determine propositions.
————

What a 2 represents in a particular instances of use is the symbol's meaning in that instance. — Metaphysician Undercover

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.

Hint: meaning is not contained in the how, the how has no need of meaning.

Common affliction these days; neglecting the chronology relating thought and expression.

Yes.

Nice overview.

I want to say that there will be points where the science diverges from common sense, as it will, but also points where the science will be closer to what ordinary reflective people think than all that early modern philosophy whose terms we're still stuck with.

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

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. I try to just imagine that terms are a word in a foreign language and that you have to understand them by inference and context. The sense of understanding that I am talking about is through "being understanding", instead of, I don't know how to put it--assuming they should write to you rather than you come to them; learn something new rather than assume you have the tools to figure it out ahead of time; or that the whole thing crashes down because you can poke one hole into it based on a general standard or logical necessity.

And I am not saying read the words and simply agree to them. It takes work to see what they see, it takes stretching your imagination, putting things in the context of the philosopher they are reacting to and the history of texts in the tradition. I think reading the words is only a start, and more people need to treat philosophers as if they are not easy to understand (Nietzsche knew this problem, and I think Witt suffered under it--taking the author of the Tractates and of the PI as the same person); as if everything is a statement that you either agree with or not.

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 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. The (sure, speculative) claims to the Grammar of the concept from the implication of what we say is meant not to be taken as independently justified; it is justified if the example allows you to see and agree with it. If not, you can (must) object to it with a different example, a more detailed context, etc. I do think you will balk at what you see as the indirect nature of this, but I think that is part of not seeing how the ways we live are reflected in what we say in a situation.

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

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.

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

Seeing the Grammar is to look at what we say when as instances of "how [when] our lives have come together" (I would say "when"). Our description of the Grammar of those concepts is subject to disagreement, but thus also open to agreement.

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

Possibilities of a concept (plural)--the senses of a concept, the ways it is moved forward, its conditions of employment, etc. Not possibility of a concept, as in its potential to be (at all). Sorta like the conditions of possibility in the Kantian sense.

Don't you recognize a separation between the thing described, and the description? — Metaphysician Undercover

The description is of what you see implied in the example of what we say when. You want to call the implications "things"? Sure.

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

Well, the description is a claim about the ways in which intention works (sort of, basically, the Grammar of intention); you may disagree. But the description does not need a theory because it is based on the evidence of what we say when. I would not describe intention as a "cause" as it is not only not a part of an action, the actor may not even have an answer to a question about intention, and, as I said previously, the difference between motion and an action is not a matter of "intending" it; our motions are seen as "actions" based on our concepts (responding, anticipating, defying, etc.). This is going to require you to shift your whole picture of language and meaning.

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

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" (not as used re 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? or is the theory the "cause" of the mistake (having created a standard for what is "right")?

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

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.

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

This all works for me except we have not set our criteria ahead of time in making an assessment of a description of the implications of what is said when (Austin calls this "the descriptive fallacy"). It is a competition of details and breadth and imagination--like I said, if you have a better example and more details or a different context, we can sort that out rationally, though just not always, as with talk of art, or morals. Oh, and I understand "theory" here as like a guess, which is fine, but it is based on evidence.

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

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. Part of the Grammar is seeing the consequences (or means of reconciliation)--what comes after. This is one of the important lessons of OLP (historicity of acts/communication--which Nietzsche learned about morals; Hegel/Emerson about our growth).

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

I would suggest that in learning (reflecting on) how "activities" (concepts) work, we are learning about ourselves, and the possibility to better ourselves in seeing our part in them and where we might go from there. One lesson of OLP is the responsibility we have to what we say; a responsibility traditional philosophy wanted to get out from under by having a picture that did not include that responsibility (and possibility of failure). As Cavell says, knowledge is not our only relation to the world.

moral philosophy seeks to understand intention directly. — Metaphysician Undercover

One of the great philosophical words, "directly". Others include "actually" "logically" "exactly" etc. Ironically, in a sense, traditional philosophy has been staring at itself (the picture it created) instead of turning and looking (Plato and others will say remembering) our ordinary Grammar.

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

Well I would simply call this cynicism (we're talking pretty fundamental human concepts here), but it is philosophy's interpretation of our human condition of being separate (bodies) to make the individual special (and unreachable), or that the failure of knowledge is our separateness turned into an intellectual problem--that this separateness is our differences which need to be constantly reconciled (as if with every word). 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).

I obviously can not get this across well (it is complicated), but I think it would be best, if you are still interested, to read a better explanation with much better examples than mine. I would try Cavell's essay Must We Mean What We Say (found the link) from the book of that name or, better yet, Knowing and Acknowledging from the same book (though that does not appear to be online).

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.

One would think/believe.

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

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. That's the point I was arguing with Mww, knowledge is not only a matter of building onto existing principles, it's also a matter of rejecting principles once believed to be true, if later discovered to be false.

I haven't yet seen what "understanding" involves in OLP. I don't think Antony has gotten to that point yet.

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 didn't posit any internal templates or representations. What I posited was the need for interpretation. I don't think that interpretation is carried out through templates or representations, in most cases. As I said earlier, it's commonly a matter of familiarity, habit, and this involves recognition. So you might class me as closest to interaction theory, out of those three.

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

I can't say I understand what you're asking. I distinguish between artificial and natural. A 2 didn't "get into Nature" it was created, just like a house, a car, or a chair, they are artificial.

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'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.

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

I just don't see the method. You mostly ask questions like "what do we mean when we say...?". To me, a method would be a way to answer such questions. How are we to answer that question, what method would we apply to determine what is meant by...? If, simply asking the question, "what do you mean by...?" is the method, then you ought to be very proud of me because I'm practicing it very well. I've been asking you, what do you mean by "ordinary criteria", by "grammar", etc.. It appears I'm already proficient at your method. But now you insist that I shouldn't be asking you to explain yourself, you think I ought to just be able to know what you mean without asking. So which is it? Should we ask what does this or that mean, or should we assume to be able to know what it means without asking?

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

I totally agree with this. That is what I tried to bring to your attention, when 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. You didn't seem to want to listen to me at that point, insisting that there was some type of criteria at play here, ordinary criteria. But I insisted that applying criteria is an intentional act, negating the assumption that these familiar, habitual acts are carried out without intentional direction. Therefore we cannot assume that there is criteria involved here.

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 problem is much deeper than this. As I explained toward the end of the post, we have not really "come together". We are still spatially, temporally, and psychologically separated. So the claim that we have "come together" is not justified. To say that "our lives have come to together" is a false description. Our attempts at togetherness are a never ending, ongoing effort to increase closeness.

Well, the description is a claim about the ways in which intention works (its grammar); you may disagree. — Antony Nickles

I explained why this claim is completely unintelligible to me, and you've done nothing to clarify it, only reasserted it. You've defined grammar as a description concerning how we have come together in our lives. Clearly my intentions are quite distinct from your intentions. So if you think that you have a description of how our intentions have come to work together, I'm ready to hear it. Otherwise I think it's a false premise, and the true premise would be that getting distinct people with distinct intentions to work together is an arduous task, not something which ought to be taken for granted.

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 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. You keep going on as if we can make some sort of general description of a mistake, the grammar of a mistake, but each mistake must be dealt with as a particular individual, just like each human being is. Your idea, that we can describe all the human beings together as a Grammar of our being, or all the mistakes together as a grammar of mistakes, is deeply flawed.

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

The big question though, 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"?

And if we apply the OLP method and ask "what is meant by such and such?" how do we know the descriptive method which the describer who has control over one's own description, as well as individual intention, is employing? The togetherness which is implied by "our Grammar" has to itself be wanted, intended, or else OLP loses any footing it might have had. What good is a philosophy which is only useful so long as everyone is behaving honestly, and no one is practicing rhetoric, or sophistry, because it takes togetherness of intention as a premise?

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

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.

Well I would simply call this cynicism — Antony Nickles

It's not cynical, it's just a description based in evidence. The evidence I cited is physical and obvious, spatial temporal relations. Further, the psychological evidence of human emotions, and moral attitudes, indicates that the small degree of togetherness which we do enjoy, is difficult to maintain, requiring effort, and dedication.

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

This takes us right back to where we first engaged. It does not lead to a picture of every expression being intended, I don't know where you derive that from. I spent considerable time explaining to you that the majority of our expressions are habitual, and not thought out. The problem though, is that embedded within this habitual activity is where we find the majority of mistakes. This is why, in philosophy we employ things like criteria and the like, in an attempt to avoid such mistakes. These are avoidable mistakes, and your attitude of 'oh well we shouldn't worry about those mistakes' is disturbing. Philosophy only sees the need to perfect language to the extent required to better ourselves (avoid making mistakes). But improving language is a real need because bettering ourselves requires working together, which couldn't happen if we continually misunderstood each other (made those mistakes).

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

Well I won't take this as deliberately obtuse (I assume you have not read the 20 comments at the start trying to iron this out nor the list of additional misconceptions I made halfway through)--I'll say cheeky, which is fine. I will simply say that "ordinary language use" makes it sound like it's contrasted to philosophical language use (as if I am merely advocating: "No terms!" "Speak like regular people!" "My opinion matters!" "Common sense!!"), and, more importantly, as if we are talking about "language use" as in a theory about how we use language, and not a (poorly-named) philosophical method (like, say, Hegel's) and as if "language use" is one thing (explained generally), instead of as varied as there are things to do and say, as Witt and Austin are attempting to show (the Grammar of each, how each works differently, basically--very basically.) And you failed to consider my response? or it just made so much sense you've moved on, yet somehow irrevocably changed?

We're pretty far apart...

We're pretty far apart... — creativesoul

"We are separate people, but not separated by anything, so we are answerable for everything that comes between us." - Cavell (roughly)

Uhhhh... this is the opposite of understanding. — Antony Nickles

In order to understand another thinker, another worldview, another's world, their meaning, their behaviours, their aims, their desires, their fears, their states of mind, etc., we must attribute much the same meaning to much the same things by virtue of drawing much the same sorts of correlations that they've already drawn. It is best when ours match theirs as closely as is humanly possible. That's when we've acquired the best possible understanding; when we've drawn many or most of the same correlations; made all the right connections; associated all the same things one to another. Complete understanding of another's language use requires omniscience, and amounts to drawing each and every correlation that the other has drawn throughout their lives. It's an unattainable criterion. Good thing omniscience isn't required.

When looking at use, when contemplating another viewpoint, when seeing certain words articulated in a novel or curious way, understanding results in thinking anew, but requires the ability to carefully consider another's viewpoint.

We can intentionally suspend our judgement regarding whether or not some position or another counts as rational; or whether or not some statement is true; or some language use meaningful(lacking self-contradiction); or some thought, belief, and/or method practical; etc. We suspend our judgment as a means for carefully considering another's viewpoint; for grasping where another is coming from; what another means by something they've spoken and/or written; especially in order to understand another viewpoint that is itself seemingly contrary to our own in some way...

This is what it takes for understanding another's philosophical position(worldview) when key terms are being used quite differently, or when otherwise familiar things have been shown to have had quite different meanings tied to them by strangers.

Unless we are capable of wanting to hear from another, unless we are capable of satisfying that urge, unless we are capable of carefully considering another's worldview, unless we are capable of entertaining - sometimes said to be "for argument's sake" - we will never quite understand the other. Unless we begin our conversations with strangers with an attitude that everyone deserves a certain modicum of respect, it will be impossible to hear them out as thoroughly as is needed to understand in as complete a manner as possible.

That is exactly how it always happens. Acquiring an understanding, that is...





Regarding the world being always already interpreted...

That which is interpreted is already meaningful. If that were not the case, there could be no such thing as misinterpreting. This is a pivotal tenet on my view.

Our original worldview is almost entirely adopted, and all the stuff you learn to talk about is already meaningful to those with whom you learn to talk about it with. In this way, the world is always already meaningful, if and only if, the world is equal to word(to what one can talk about, what has been talked about, or what can be talked about). It's not.

Putting on the glasses of language use... and nodding to Heiddy's valiant attempt at naming all the different effects/affects language use has upon us...

The way we see the world is effected/affected by the way we've learned to take account of it and/or ourselves. Of that, there is no reasonable doubt left to be had. Until we borrow another's eyes we cannot understand them for it takes borrowing the eyes of another in order to see the world as they see it. We put ourselves in an other person's shoes by virtue of listening to them and imagining if we walked in those very same shoes. Shoes are a metaphorical device here. Walking in another's shoes is understanding what sorts of things have effected/affected an other and in what ways. It's living through the exact same sets of circumstances, as if you were them, by virtue of drawing correlations between what's happened and the effects/affects of those happenings. This is done by virtue of one method alone.

Listening.

...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

Surely everything said is meaningful at least to the creature saying it, even if it sounds like gibberish to everyone else. Everything said after-all can be said again. No? If nothing is being said, then there is no question of whether or not it is meaningful.

I do not like the phrase "tied to" unless it amounts to having a relation to, and if that's the case, then surely there's no issue here with saying that everything thought, believed, spoken, written, uttered, and/or otherwise expressed is meaningful to the individual creature capable of thought, belief, and/or language use(experience).

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

If communication is a pre-requisite to learning, as you claim, then a child without language should not be able to learn, right? But children - who start off with no language - do learn. How do you account for this?

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. He starts with this example only to undermine it throughout the rest of the work.

Otherwise, tell us: what language does a child "already know...in order to learn a language"? A private language which is comprehensible only to one person? Wittgenstein argues against this possibility. Do you have a counterargument?

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

Why are "rules required to learn rules"? Because you say so?

Again, people learn how to use language every day. I do not mean by that that a child learns rules or a language by a particular age and then their learning is finished. Learning is a continual process, not some end-point. However, one can be judged to have attained (via learning) a "level" or an adequacy of competence/knowledge/fluency of a language or of the rules. You can become fluent in a language or in the rules of a game without knowing any of the rules to begin with. This is happening every day.

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

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. The way you are understanding them is precisely as internal templates or representations, which are first consulted and then compared with something else.

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

That reminds me of the target of Davidson's paper on malapropisms... what counts as having a language and/or successful communication, conventionally speaking.

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.

Regarding ordinary language...

I'm all for striving to use as much common language as possible to explain something or other. The simpler the better assuming no loss in meaningful explanation. I'm also inclined to believe that Ockham's razor is worthy of guiding principle status, so...

Witt did not have a good grasp upon human thought and belief. Otherwise, he would not be looking for "hinge propositions" as the 'bedrock'. "All doubt is belief-based" was spot on though.

The article I linked to in this earlier post may help: https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/493421

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

Oh the irony. The sense I was saying it was: being understanding. Of the sense as in "knowing", Witt will speak of "mastery of a technique" ("is able to") #150 or "now I can go on" #323 or that it is "in the application" #146 based on the "particular circumstances" #154. As if not a middle ground or agreement that people reach between my meaning and your interpretation, and not an inner process, but, as it were, being able to continue from the point of the other; the circumstance dictating what it is to show one can continue--here, being to apply a method.

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

Not just asking questions. And not asking them on behalf of you, to me. Not "what do you mean by___" It's: "what do we mean when we say___?" This may appear trivial to you, but it is crucial to come up with something we would say about the concept, and prepare to elaborate on the context. And, as I said, then we can see and make claims about the grammar from the example. And "we" is, as I said, ever English speaker, as it is a claim to universality (subject of course to clarification, etc.)

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

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". And there will need to be very many more examples than of accidently and mistakenly to show all of intention's Grammar, which I will leave to Austin and Witt. After many examples, Witt will say we are inclined to say intention is internal to an action, it is "interpreted as the accompaniment to action." p. 219. That I can know what you intend, not as guessing thoughts but, that I might know what you will do (p. 223), as if it is imbedded in the situation. #337.

"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

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.

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

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]?" And this seems like it is more of a desperate act than a mistake (in what context I can imagine). And "What circumstances was the mistake a result of?" And this could almost be an excuse; you see what looks like me trying to do one thing and messing it up (making a mistake), but to offer the circumstances up to qualify the mistake... I'm not sure this example works for a mistake or if it's hard to imagine the context this would be in--and this is what makes OLP hard sometimes. But it may turn out that "I" have to "own up to" the act of shooting the cow, as if my intention is the only thing it being a mistake hangs on. And we can here say "my intention" would not have come into the picture if I had hit the donkey (unless perhaps it was your donkey).

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

Did I say this or you? What? Felicity in action!

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

That is actually a misapprehension based on a misquote. The teacher is only "inclined" to draw the line and say "this is what we do". His desire is not to "ground" anything as needed by one attempting to solve skepticism. The teacher is always open to try again to reach over the gap between us (except Ms. Kemik, horrible woman).

If communication is a pre-requisite to learning, as you claim, then a child without language should not be able to learn, right? — Luke

No, "language" is the more specific term, while "communicate" is more general. Using language is a form of communicating, but there are forms of communicating which do not use language. If language is a specialized human form of communication, then the child might still use more animalistic types before learning the human type.

He offers this as an example of a common philosophical misconception of language, not as an endorsement of the idea. — Luke

Right, it's a sort of dilemma which the philosophical misconception of language creates. The resolution to that dilemma is to recognize that the philosophical representation of language, which assumes rules as a necessary aspect of language, is wrong. Language allows for the existence of rules, which are expressed via language, and therefore cannot exist without language. This is a big part of that "coming together", the description of which Antony calls Grammar. If we allow, as a philosophical principle, that understanding some rules is prerequisite for language use, as is the common philosophical notion, then we have to account for the acquisition of these rules which are not learned through language use, as they must be already understood to be able to learn language. These rules would be private rules, constituting a private language, which is what Wittgenstein rejects.

Why are "rules required to learn rules"? Because you say so? — Luke

You don't seem to grasp the issue. Rules are expressed in language. Therefore one must know how to interpret language to be able to learn a rule. To know how to interpret a language means that one knows how to use that language. Therefore one must know how to use a language prior to learning any rules. Consequently, we must conclude that rules are not a necessary part of language. You might try to avoid this conclusion by assuming some type of rules which are not expressed in language, but this leads to the private rules and the private language which Wittgenstein argues is an absurdity.

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

I can accept this. with a slight revision, and this is what I've been arguing. We can not call this a "standard" then. That is why I rejected Antony's use of "criteria". The point though, is that we also have stated standards, and criteria, laws, which are not intended "to accommodate themselves to what they are applied to", they are intended to be steadfastly adhered to. These are exemplified in mathematics and logic. And they are what those words more properly refer to.

So, we clearly have a difference here, between the standards, criteria, and laws, which are intended to be adhered to, and these 'guidelines' (or whatever we ought to call them) which are intended to "accommodate themselves" by being alterable. Due to this difference, we ought to call them by distinct names to avoid confusion, equivocation, misunderstanding and mistake.

What I see is a distinction between the public and the private as Wittgenstein exemplified. Within the public realm, we must honour our words, stay true to our principles, and establish an equality between individuals. This means that we must establish rigid standards, criteria and laws, which must be rigorously adhered to, to maintain equality which is the basis of empathy and understanding. However, these standards which we adhere to (and in extreme cases of "law", we enforce), are not a true representation of the principles which we use within our own private minds, in our acts of speaking and interpreting, and acting in general. Within our own minds we use some sort of guidance mechanisms which are completely flexible. They must necessarily be, to capacitate learning, and to be adaptable to circumstances.

We might call these "principles", (as completely opposed to Mww's proposed definition of "principle" as an absolute truth) . But this is how we speak in moral philosophy, we have principles which provide our moral guidance. The unique particulars of the very distinct and unique situations which we find ourselves in, makes it impossible for us to govern our lives through strict adherence to any rigid standards or criteria, because these general, universal principles cannot be applied in the majority of those mundane situations. However, the moral person seeks to establish principles which can act as true standards, or criteria, because of the public domain which we partake in, and the necessity of interpreting one's acts, and the law, in a way which is consistent with others. In a sense then, there is a public pressure, for the rigid standards which we must adhere to in our cooperation with others, to enter into our private flexible guidance mechanism, as "principles".

The way you are understanding them is precisely as internal templates or representations, which are first consulted and then compared with something else. — Joshs

The internal "principles" cannot be templates or representations. The whole point of such a principle is its applicability, usefulness, therefore it must be to the greatest possible extent, something general, universal. A template or representation is by its very nature, something particular. Since it facilitates action, as the mechanism for decision making, "the principle" must exist in a direct relation with intention, or will, if these words refer to the motivator of action.

So consider this description you made: "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." If this is the case, then what is involved in my recognizing what another person has said, is simply a matter of switching out my intention, and replacing it with the other's intention. My "principles" have a direct relation to my intention, and the switch allows a direct relationship with the other's intention because I have assumed the other's intention to take the place of my own. The important word is "assumed", because the other's intention doesn't actually take the place of mine, i simply allow it to seem that way.

Now here's the complicating factor. This scenario, in its most simple and raw form, allows for unfettered deception. You can see that I would not intentionally deceive myself. But if I allow another's intention to freely take the place of my own intention, and the other's intent is to deceive, then it is just as if I intend to deceive myself when I allow the other's intention to take the place of my own. Since we actually do employ some safeguards against deception, this simple and raw form of "interaction" as I have represented it here, is not complete. It may provide a basic representation of habitual speaking, in which one completely removes one's own intention from the conversation, to have direct access to another's (direct access to both at the same time is not possible because contradiction), but this is never really the case in actual conversation. So this "direct access" is a type of assumption, a switching which we allow through some sort of "principles", but because there are these "principles" which for allow it to occur, the other person's intention's access to my mind is not completely unfiltered, and not really direct.

The conclusion to this is the principle I've been arguing, that there is a distinction to be made between hearing a person, recognizing what that person is saying, and actually understanding the person. Recognizing what the person is saying is the habitual act of assuming a direct relation with the other's intention. We might call this apprehending the meaning of the other's words. It's done by identifying with the other, allowing that my intention has become one and the same as the other's. However, that I really have direct access to the other's intention is an illusion, it's not a true assumption. I make the assumption for the pragmatic purpose of facilitating apprehension of the other's words. If I adhere to this assumption as a truth, deception is actually facilitated.

Therefore we must assume another level, which constitutes true understanding. Hearing and recognizing what a person is saying, is just to identify with the person, allow that person's intention to be mine, therefore to see what the person has said as if it was me who said it. To truly understand the person is to then remove this switched intention, which creates the illusion of understanding that allows for deception, and understand what the person has said, as a separate person, with distinct intentions.

Not "what do you mean by___" It's: "what do we mean when we say___?" — Antony Nickles

You're right back to incoherent nonsense now. Each act of saying something is an individual act of an individual person saying something in a particular situation. Context plays an undeniable role in meaning. Your phrases "we say", and "we mean", are incoherent, as if a phrase could be properly interpreted outside its context. This is representative of your false premise, that we "have come together", that "we" exist as a entity united through a common Grammar.

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

You are simply denying the reality of the situation. Human beings are intentional beings. They always have goals and therefore they cannot separate themselves from their goals, as if they could pass some time without having any goals. So an habitual, "unintended" human act, exists within the wider context of intention. When I walk to the store, my legs are moving in an unintended habitual way, but this is within the context of me intending to get to the store. When I talk to my brother, my lips are moving and I'm making sounds in an unintended habitual way, but this is within the wider context of intending to speak to him about some subject.

Your proposal, "intention only comes up sometimes", needs to be rejected as a false proposition. Intention is always there, as part of the background, the context.

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

If it's difficult to justify the idea that "you and I" exist as one united entity called "we", how much more difficult is it to justify your claim that "all English speakers" exist as such a united entity?

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

Have you never looked at your own question, to ask what is meant by "a mistake"? A mistake is something which occurs when a person has not properly accounted for the particulars of the situation. Therefore it is always an outcome of the circumstances. "What about the circumstances led to the mistake?" The fact that the person (oneself a part of the circumstances) did not properly account for the particulars. "Why did you shoot the cow instead of the donkey?" "Someone put the cow into the donkey's stall and I didn't confirm that it was the donkey I was shooting." This is the answer to "why" in every instance of a mistake, "I did not take into account all the particulars of the circumstances". A mistake is an intentional act which was made without adequate knowledge of the particulars of the situation, therefore it does not result as intended. It is because each situation consists of particulars which are unique to that situation, as "the circumstances", and the person fails to account for the particulars, that mistakes are made.

"We are separate people, but not separated by anything... — Antony Nickles

The biggest problem of idealism is to account for the fact that we, as individual minds, are separated. There is a very real medium of separation between your mind and my mind, which we call the material world, and this very real separation forces the idealist toward principles to account for this reality, to avoid solipsism. If you deny the reality of this separation between us, you force us into a reality in which there is no material world, and we are all just one solipsistic mind.

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.

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

Moving the goalposts.

Written standards can exist outside of being used, and be perfectly meaningful in doing so. They can be unambiguous and not followed. If they are not being followed, they are not being used, unless to show how they are not being followed. If they are written, not being followed, and not being used to show that they are not being followed, then they exist despite being not being used. Former standards fit here.

Look no farther than the United States Government for real life examples of standards existing in writing but no one following them, or using them to show that no one is following them.