Yes, we learn rules from their linguistic expression. If one simply observed an activity and made up so-called "rules" to follow, from the observations, in order to engage in that activity, this would not be a case of learning rules, it would be a case of making up so-called "rules". — Metaphysician Undercover
Consider the difference Wittgenstein describes between thinking oneself to be following a rule, and to be actually following a rule. Think of this as a part of Wittgenstein's definition of "rule", as a restriction placed on the word's usage. — Metaphysician Undercover
I have seen no acceptable logic which leads to this conclusion, and I see no evidence of learning rules in early childhood learning of language. — Metaphysician Undercover
I see that people only learn rules after they learn language. — Metaphysician Undercover
If you truly believe this, then you ought to be able to provide some examples. Show me some rules, or even a rule, which is not expressed in language. — Metaphysician Undercover
Mentality is whatever you think it is, and from which whether images are part and parcel of it, is then determinable. We are not saying imagination, because we already said mentality. If it was the ability to bring up images, then they are presupposed and the question remains as to their part and parcel. — Antony Nickles
I discovered where you got your writing style. — Mww
after dropping out all those stupefying cogito interruptus parentheticals — Mww
“...And what we mean (...) to say, like what we mean (...) to do, is something we are responsible for....”, pg 197
.... is merely a reiteration of that which has always been the case, long before this article was written, because the rules for what is meant by what is said, are never simultaneously established in the saying, but already completely established beforehand in the relation between the words said and the conceptions thought, from which they arise. — Mww
And to which the question regarding images becomes its most relevant. — Mww
Rorty is the only one here that really makes sense as having 'learned from' OLP – many of these guys probably hadn't even read it or weren't aware of it. — Snakes Alive
I have no interest in 'team continental' versus 'team analytic' nonsense, which this post smacks of. — Snakes Alive
They didn’t have to read it to have absorbed the essence of its advances. Do you think that olp’s ideas are proprietary, that they don’t belong to larger movements in philosophy that includes hermeneutics , phenomenology, pragmatism, constructivism, social constructionism, philosophy of science? — Joshs
This is totally off-topic and has nothing to do with the thread. No one asked you for a list of philosophers you happen to like, which is all this amounts to. — Snakes Alive
I don't think philosophy died – it just went on doing pretty much what it did before when people got bored of one way of doing it and moved on. It's a matter of historical contingency and fashion. It’s not any better now than it was then, though. — Snakes Alive
I think that, in a thread about OLP, coming in and listing a bunch of random philosophers who never engaged with it and have nothing in particular to do with it is not helpful — Snakes Alive
I think you’re wrong about that. I read Wittgenstein and olp after having read phenomenology and deconstruction, and concluded that the essential ideas of Witt, Austin and Ryle (not the details of methodology of course ) were not only pre-supposed by those approaches, but the phenomenological and deconstructive perspectives thought more radically about the basis of language than olp did.Philosophical movements are contingent historical things, and you can't magically grasp them without engaging with them. — Snakes Alive
This article is not about OLP. — Snakes Alive
but the phenomenological and deconstructive perspectives thought more radically about the basis of language than olp did. — Joshs
Much of OLP was, and I think should still be seen, as destructive to philosophy, and is a matter of 'seeing through' it. — Snakes Alive
Suppose we're going through the forest and we hear rustling, so we go to investigate. We look beyond and in a clearing there's an animal. We are close enough to see it perfectly clearly. You say it's a wolf, and I say it's a fox. When you protest, I ask, how can that possibly be a wolf? It looks and acts like a fox – it has all the features typically associated with a fox. But you protest, and say 'I grant you that – it has all the characteristics of what we would normally call a fox. Nevertheless, it is a wolf.' — Snakes Alive
This records the fact that traditional philosophy strips away our ordinary criteria and any context in the attempt to generalize for universality and ensure certainty by fixing the picture of language, even with identity for particulars (Austin works very hard picking out Goldfinches). The step we really run into trouble with is the need for justification that it is a "real" fox. — Antony Nickles
How is language use any different to these sorts of rule-governed activities? — Luke
Explaining a particular use of a word is describing a rule for its use; — Luke
Corporate culture is an understood set of behaviours which are often not explicitly expressed in language. — Luke
Also, rules and laws are often made explicit only after there has been some transgression of the implicit, understood principles of conduct. — Luke
There's also pets. Sometimes we train pets to respond to particular verbal commands. We might say that our pet understands to do (or not do) something, or behave a certain way, even though the pet doesn't speak English, and we might never make the rule explicit - to the pet - in English. — Luke
Finally, there is language itself. When children are trained how to use language, they learn "the regulations or principles governing conduct or procedure" for the activity of language use, which is a definition of "rule(s)". Obviously, children don't already know the principles that govern (i.e. the rules of) speaking English before they learn how to speak English. — Luke
Of course you have, except that you are blinded by a particular definition of "rule" which you think requires that it must be expressed in language. — Luke
I'll let the formulation of Grammar as "rules" go for now, and say I agree that Grammar has been established beforehand (as part of learning and joining society), though "completely" is also a bit far, as seeing that "we are responsible for" "the saying" does play an extra part because, once said/done, we are bound to our expressing, acting, "responsible for" having said it, for answering why, how, among all the possibilities and among what part of the context is important, we said this now, here--we are called out by it, seen in it. — Antony Nickles
And to which the question regarding images becomes its most relevant.
— Mww
And here I think I can say that if the idea that I am guessing as the answer to the riddle.... — Antony Nickles
I would say Witt is trying to diagnose the reason people are drawn to that picture by showing how public "meaning" and language are, and how "understanding" is relational (see comments above) at a point where knowledge reaches its limits. — Antony Nickles
Witt and Austin's goal is that our lives ([all] our judgements, distinctions, interests, in this language-game) are attuned to these words (concepts**), not that words "arise" from "concepts" (as in "ideas" I would guess) which are thought (casually, or otherwise). — Antony Nickles
Witt's idea of "concepts"** (completely different) is a grouping of regular and complex parts of our lives (language games) like justice, meaning, understanding, but also, forgiving, threatening, sitting in a chair, pointing, learning a series, seeing, seeing an aspect, and that each of these have their own Grammar (roughly, ways they work, as they are part of our lives) — Antony Nickles
I think we just don't know very much about how to think well, or how our languages work. — Snakes Alive
A major part of that is our not understanding the way that the conditions under which we ask questions affects their intelligibility and the truth of their potential answers. In this respect, it's the radical pragmatists like Travis that carry on the OLP legacy, if anyone. — Snakes Alive
Is OLP still alive and kicking? I have read that Searle is the last proponent of OLP. I admittedly don't know much about OLP or ILP — emancipate
Meta either cannot or will not set aside his framework...
— creativesoul
I do this intentionally, to demonstrate to people like Antony who take agreement, "our coming together", "our shared lives" as a fundamental premise, that their premise is false. — Metaphysician Undercover
Philosophy itself as a first-order discipline is fairly tedious to me at this point, because once you see through its small bag of tricks you recognize them everywhere, and you can't be duped anymore — Snakes Alive
“Completely” wouldn’t be a bit too far, if there is a time frame earlier than, or in addition to, learning and joining society. It seems to me, that if the onus is on each of us to take responsibility in the saying, if we are “bound to our expressing”, we’d want something more authoritative than the meager accolades of society. That which merely assuages the ego, as in, “Hey, you expressed that correctly! Good for you!!”, comfortably disguised as “Ok, fine; you’re playing by the rules”....isn’t the taking of responsibility.
Yours is the beforehand as part of learning/joining, but with no true account of the extra part of being bound by the responsibility in expression because of agreement with the rules. — Mww
Your form of OLP wants to turn what it looks at as learning/joining, into rote instruction. There should still be an account for how learning is done. — Mww
Your OLP wants to account for responsibility in expression by a subject, but doesn’t account for the authority within the same subject, by which the responsibility is obtained. It follows that the rules are contained in the subject, antecedent to, and hence authority for, any expression whatsoever. — Mww
It shouldn’t be a contention that whenever language is in use, something necessary is occurring beforehand. — Mww
Point being, no matter the word, somebody somewhere at some time, determined its relation, and that determination had nothing to do with learning or joining society, but rather, contributed to a society for its members to learn. — Mww
Everybody uses the same words, but with uncommon intimations, which facilitates an examination of the expressive ambiguities of the many at the exclusion of the compositional certainty of the one. — Mww
What I posed as just a simple question, you turned into a riddle. There is no reason to do that, there’s no hint in being a mere question that there is a disguised sublimity contained in it. You, of your own accord, before even considering a response, thought my expression as having qualities not justified by the words used in it. — Mww
People generally aren’t drawn to that picture, your “concepts" being thought (then?) turned into words”. They haven’t a clue that’s what happening, because it’s all theory. Could be no one does that. So why diagnose a reason for something that is no more than speculative theoretic? — Mww
By showing how public meaning and language are......what? — Mww
To show how understanding is relational to a point where knowledge reaches its limits.....I can’t unpack that. Knowledge has it limits, but such limits don’t have anything to do with understanding. — Mww
I don’t have a problem with calling all those things “concepts”. I would only say the objects of those concepts are what’s part of our lives. Seeing is a concept; what is seen is the object of the concept of seeing; learning is a concept, a series is the object learned about, etc. — Mww
What does the double asterisk and the (completely different) attached to “concepts” mean, from the point of view of Witt and OLP? — Mww
Have their own Grammar (roughly the way they work).....sounds an awful lot like rules to me. — Mww
So....nothing on images? Familiar with the science of visual thinking? From mention by Einstein, 1942 to books by Pinker, 2007, and originating as a speculative condition for human cognition, in Kant, 1781, the idea has been around quite some time. Being around much longer than OLP isn’t sufficient reason for it being better, but it is sufficient reason for OLP to account for the possible validity of it. — Mww
Phenomenology in general has nothing to do with OLP – their milieus were too different, and their practitioners didn't overlap, so they shared few if any concerns or methodologies. — Snakes Alive
phenomenology at its heart was a neo-medieval enterprise with Kantian and Platonist influences — Snakes Alive
Not sure how to respond to that since I don’t know what olp means to you. I’m on more familiar ground with Wittgenstein , and I’d say that a fair amount has been written recently connecting him to phenomenology. — Joshs
Medieval? How so? Many of today’s philosophies have Kantian and Platonic influences so you may have to be a bit more specific( perhaps in a new thread). Husserl, the founder of modern phenomenology , had many influences, including DesCartes, Kant , Hume
and Brentano, but his notion of the cogito and the subject-object relation transcended these. Merleau-Ponty showed the influence of Hegel, but again his work transcended Hegel. And then there’s the phenomenological work of Eugene Gendlin, who was a friend of mine. He credited Dilthey, Wittgenstein, Dewey, Merleau-Ponty , Marx and Heidegger. — Joshs
In my experience, I see that people learn to talk, and do so adequately without reference to rules. — Metaphysician Undercover
And if I have doubts about how to express what I want from someone else, there are no rules for me to refer to. — Metaphysician Undercover
That is how language use is different from a rule-governed activity. For the majority of its activities there are no rules to consult if one has doubts about what ought or ought not be done, but a rule-governed activity has rules which can be consulted. — Metaphysician Undercover
This is exactly why language cannot be a rule-governed activity. Each instance of language use occurs in a particular and unique set of circumstances, and the meaning must be designed, created, for that specific context. — Metaphysician Undercover
This is meaningless babble to me. I have no idea what you mean by "corporate culture", or "understood set of behaviours". — Metaphysician Undercover
So there is no such thing as "implicit" rules without language. — Metaphysician Undercover
Sometimes we train pets to respond to particular verbal commands. We might say that our pet understands to do (or not do) something, or behave a certain way, even though the pet doesn't speak English, and we might never make the rule explicit - to the pet - in English.
— Luke
To "understand" does not require following a rule. You are simply begging the question, assuming that one cannot understand without following a rule. — Metaphysician Undercover
I described my experience of understanding another as presuming to allow the other's intention to become my own, such that I do what I think the other wants me to. The fact that it is presuming allows for the reality of misunderstanding. You might think that it's odd to believe that a dog or cat has intention, and that it allows my intention to become its own, and that's why it does what I want it to do, but it's no odder than believing that such animals "understand", and clearly these animals act with purpose. — Metaphysician Undercover
When children are trained how to use language, they learn "the regulations or principles governing conduct or procedure" for the activity of language use, which is a definition of "rule(s)". Obviously, children don't already know the principles that govern (i.e. the rules of) speaking English before they learn how to speak English.
— Luke
That a person behaves in an habitual way does not demonstrate that they have learned "the regulations or principles governing conduct or procedure". If this were true, then we'd have to conclude that birds, insects, and probably even single celled beings have learned the regulations governing conduct and procedure. — Metaphysician Undercover
It's an inductive conclusion. All the rules I've ever known have been expressed in language, therefore I think that a rule must be expressed in language. I've already invited you to disprove this principle, and I'm still waiting, as your attempts seem to have failed. Until you provide that proof, I'll adhere to my reasoning. — Metaphysician Undercover
Well, the Mac I use is not that antiquated, but thank you very much for that providing link. — creativesoul
folks like Moore show... why so many people refuse to understand that simply knowing what "this is a hand" means proves beyond any reasonable doubt that there is an external world(Witt's private language argument aims at much the same thing, but he struggled with the infinite regress of justification as his remarks throughout OC show). — creativesoul
Another broader benefit leads us to consider specific situational circumstantial context aside from just the statements and/or words being used as a method or means to correctly translate and/or better understand another's meaningful language use. — creativesoul
I'm puzzled by the lack of clear unambiguous distinction being drawn between statements and belief statements when discussing things like Moore's paradox or Gettier. — creativesoul
Moore's paradox shows that self-contradiction is a natural occurring limit upon our belief, and that there is a difference between accounts of belief and belief. One cannot believe that both statements are true when talking about oneself, but we've no issue believing or saying that it's raining outside but another does not believe it is (both are true regarding another). — creativesoul
There is a clear distinction that needs to be drawn and maintained between the truth conditions of a statement (when spoken by an individual that believes the statement) and the statement itself - when taken in general - completely divorced from the individual believing speaker. Sometimes, they are remarkably different. — creativesoul
I understand that many reject the very notion of one single overarching theory of meaning, simply because there has yet to have been an acceptable one(one that is amenable to evolutionary progression, and is somehow relevant and/or explanatorily powerful enough to exhaust the acceptable parts of all the rest, while also being able to explain the unacceptable parts). — creativesoul
Meaning arises/emerges within belief formation. Getting meaning right requires getting belief right. — creativesoul
Children are often corrected when they learn to talk, by parents, teachers and others. They may not be taught explicit rules - that's my point - but they are still taught how to speak properly, and this training constitutes "the regulations or principles governing the conduct" of language use. As the Google definition of the word "rule" states, such regulations or principles can be either "explicit or understood". — Luke
There are rules you can consult if you have doubts about what ought or ought not be done with language, e.g. dictionaries, thesauri, rules of syntax, other fluent speakers, written examples, etc. Language is a tool. Learning how to use a hammer won't tell you when or where you should hammer, either. — Luke
Intention is irrelevant to our disagreement, which is whether or not rules must be made explicit. — Luke
Put simply, you're mistaken. The dictionary defintion I have repeatedly given states that a rule can be either "explicit or understood". You appear to be using a special meaning of the word "rule" that excludes the (unarticulated) "understood regulations or principles governing conduct or procedure within a particular area of activity". — Luke
Witt spends a lot of time showing how learning a concept is being able to continue a series.. even into new contexts. — Antony Nickles
People generally aren’t drawn to that picture, your “concepts" being thought (then?) turned into words”. They haven’t a clue that’s what happening, because it’s all theory. Could be no one does that. So why diagnose a reason for something that is no more than speculative theoretic?
— Mww
This is complicated (it took the whole PI to draw it out), but the idea is that humans have a desire for certainty, and a fear of our human frailty (failings), and philosophers slide from there into radical skepticism, which, along with our ability to understand words without context, allows for a theoretical philosophical picture of how (all) language works, which skips over our human frailty and separateness. — Antony Nickles
The point being that a "concept" for Witt is not like an "idea" of something, or, say, conceptual--just language. — Antony Nickles
By showing how public meaning and language are......what?
— Mww
How much language and our concepts are public (rather than determined by me); that they are meaningful to (all of) us in the ways our lives are attuned "in judgments" Witt will say (not only in definitions of words). #242. — Antony Nickles
All I can put out there is that I think OLP's early intent on accounting for the desire for the picture of language as something internal (meaning, thought, intention, "mental activity" Witt will say) attached to or corresponding to a word or object, lessens its interest in anything else "mental". — Antony Nickles
off the top of my head: we don't "follow" Grammar, as we do rules; — Antony Nickles
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