Yes, or a point-at-infinity. For Peirce, inquity is about settling beliefs. What's true for this ideal, future community is just reality itself (because there's no meaningful/practical difference.) — T H E

There's a gnostic myth that in heaven all questions are answered. It's our origin and our ultimate destination.

There's a gnostic myth that in heaven all questions are answered. It's our origin and our ultimate destination. — frank

Nice! From what I remember, Peirce is aware that this community is a kind of heavenly fiction.

He makes the important point that science (well, inquiry in general) is always future-oriented. We want hypotheses that will be true for ourselves and others (even if we also think that they were true and can use them retrospectively.). To me this connects to the OP. The meanings of words are not fixed. What matters most is how they can or will be used, which is in ways we can't predict. So we just do our best to keep up with the jazz, never getting our hands on the score.

The meanings of words are not fixed. What matters most is how they can or will be used, which is in ways we can't predict. So we just do our best to keep up with the jazz, never getting our hands on the score. — T H E

:up: :up:

This quote seems relevant.

87. Suppose I give this explanation: "I take 'Moses' to mean the man, if there was such a man, who led the Israelites out of Egypt, whatever he was called then and whatever he may or may not have done besides."—But similar doubts to those about "Moses" are possible about the words of this explanation (what are you calling "Egypt", whom the "Israelites" etc.?). Nor would these questions come to an end when we got down to words like "red", "dark", "sweet".—"But then how does an explanation help me to understand, if after all it is not the final one? In that case the explanation is never completed; so I still don't understand what he means, and never shall!"—As though an explanation as it were hung in the air unless supported by another one. Whereas an explanation may indeed rest on another one that has been given, but none stands in need of another—unless we require it to prevent a misunderstanding. One might say: an explanation serves to remove or to avert a misunderstanding——one, that is, that would occur but for the explanation; not every one that I can imagine. It may easily look as if every doubt merely revealed an existing gap in the foundations; so that secure understanding is only possible if we first doubt everything that can be doubted, and then remove all these doubts.

The sign-post is in order—if, under normal circumstances, it fulfils its purpose. — PI

Here's another one that really drags the philosophical fantasy into the light.

But now it may come to look as if there were something like a final analysis of our forms of language, and so a single completely resolved form of every expression. That is, as if our usual forms of expression were, essentially, unanalysed; as if there were something hidden in them that had to be brought to light. When this is done the expression is completely clarified and our problem solved. It can also be put like this: we eliminate misunderstandings by making our expressions more exact; but now it may look as if we were moving towards a particular state, a state of complete exactness; and as if this were the real goal of our investigation. 92.. This finds expression in questions as to the essence of language, of propositions, of thought.—For if we too in these investigations are trying to understand the essence of language—its function, its structure,—yet this is not what those questions have in view. For they see in the essence, not something that already lies open to view and that becomes surveyable by a rearrangement, but something that lies beneath the surface. Something that lies within, which we see when we look into the thing, and which an analysis digs out. 'The essence is hidden from us*: this is the form our problem now assumes. We ask: "What is language?", "What is a proposition?" And the answer to these questions is to be given once for all; and independently of any future experience. — PI

The fantasy seems to be some place outside of language, not be subject to its tricks and metamorphoses (to escape time and ambiguity.) To be fair, I myself am projecting some vague theory of language on W (hopefully resistant to requiring revision in the light of future experience & minimizing unpleasant surprise), but I think this can be done a little less recklessly through its vagueness. Any kind of terminology or system will become stale. Maybe that's why Witt liked remarks. Less pompous, more tentative and flexible, which fits such a complex and elusive prey.

Perhaps it's better to think of a centerless system of shared practices, where the linguistic practices are not sharply distinct from non-linguistic practices. — T H E

I've something like this in mind. A "family resemblance" of language games in which beliefs live.

I'd like to hear more about that.

Part V
Claiming to know only makes sense when doubt is possible.

This depends on the notion that our beliefs are to be found only within language games, each of which is formed by taking some beliefs as non-negotiable.

And is threatened by truth and knowledge being dependent on the language game in which the claims of truth or knowledge occur.

This is the claim. I can't at the moment see the argument.

And there is this:

One might accordingly argue that the goal should instead be knowledge, so understood that it is definitionally something more than the psychological states (believings) an epistemic subject has to be in as a necessary condition for entering the richer, truth-constrained, relation in which 'knowing' consists.

But if knowing something presumes believing it to be true, how could knowledge be "definitionally something more than... psychological states"? Knowing is a psychological state.

But if knowing something presumes believing it to be true, how could knowledge be "definitionally something more than... psychological states"? Knowing is a psychological state. — Banno

I'd look at 'knowing' in terms of the highly complicated role it (the word) plays socially. Intuitively, there's a private 'sensation' of being sure, but I think we both agree that this beetle can't be getting things done. I lean more toward something like: we learn the use the word 'know' appropriately in the same way we learn to drive. It's a skill, just like making plausible definitions which nevertheless always fail to dominate unpredictable re-contextualizations of a word. Counterintuitively, knowing what knowing is may be far more like knowing how to drive than knowing how to offer a definition. What's nice about the driving metaphor is that it stresses how interactive and jazz-like language is. No one person governs meaning. It's an emergent phenomenon.

We tend to look only at knowing that such-and-such is the case in our philosophical meanderings, forgetting the more common know how to do such-and-such. But knowing that presupposes being able to say that... and hence is a genus of knowing how to talk. But talking is just getting stuff done with words, and its the getting stuff done that is important. Hence meaning drops out with the beetle, too. Look instead to what one is doing.

And if one is to talk about hands, there needs to be hands.

I think I agree. It's as if we know how to say that we know that something is such-and-such. I totally agree that facility with 'know' is part of a larger facility, the big language game. I also agree that talking about hands does something like imply the existence of hands. I would add, however, that this is like making definitions, a poetic act, an expression of skill. As individuals we can abstract rules from the conversations we observe. But perhaps you'll agree that it's not strictly metaphysical. It's more empirical. 'It doesn't make sense to talk about hands if there are no hands.' That's of the form of 'one doesn't do such things' or 'that doesn't fly around here.'

OC1 thus states that scepticism gets no purchase because our beliefs inhere in a system (the first component) which rests upon foundations (the second component), which latter non-negotiably constitute the conditions upon which our beliefs have content — AC

What's this gap between the system and the foundations? IMV, it's more like the system is the foundation of inherited, shared practices (in this context the ways we use words, the 'way things are done around here.' )

But I did not get my picture of the world by satisfying myself of its correctness; nor do I have it because I am satisfied of its correctness. No: it is the inherited background against which I distinguish between true and false. 105. All testing, all confirmation and disconfirmation of a hypothesis takes place already within a system ... The system is not so much the point of departure, as the element in which our arguments have their life.

I have a world picture. Is it true or false? Above all it is the substratum of all my enquiring and asserting (WR252).

341. The questions that we raise and our doubts depend on the fact that some propositions are exempt from doubt, are as it were like hinges upon which those turn. — W

I think it's unfortunate that W talks of propositions exempt from doubt. Knowing what cheese is (how to use the word 'cheese') doesn't seem to be constituted by some proposition. I use the example again of 'energy' in a doubt about physics. 'What if energy isn't conserved?' The whole 'world' of physics is tangled up with this doubt (meaning holism., Quine, etc.) I like the pragmatists' vision of belief as something like a ready reaction. Doubt paralyzes, while the absence of doubt proceeds more or less smoothly. It seems to me more a matter of 'knowing one's way around' (annoyingly fuzzy.)

OC1 thus states that scepticism gets no purchase because our beliefs inhere in a system (the first component) which rests upon foundations (the second component), which latter non-negotiably constitute the conditions upon which our beliefs have content and which therefore constitute the conditions even for doubting, which, therefore again, cannot take the foundations for their target. The justification for the foundations is thus effected by a "transcendental argument" : restated, it is that foundational beliefs (expressed by what Wittgenstein calls, in senses of 'logical' and 'grammatical' special to OC, logical or grammatical propositions; see e.g. 51, 56-8) are what make the system possible, and it is within the system that claims to knowledge and challenges of doubt are alone intelligible. A clever encapsulation of the transcendental argument is given at 248: 'I have arrived at the rock-bottom of my convictions. And one might almost say that these foundation-walls are carried by the whole house.' — AC

I don't think W suggests (and I don't personally think) that the 'foundation' is piecewise impervious to doubt. We can question any little piece of the system that we can manage to become aware of. I think @frank was defending this aspect of skepticism, and I agree. Maybe W's view (and a more reasonable view) is something more like Neurath's raft. We can analyze any particular word, suggest new ways of using them, but we can't do this with all words at the same time. Because we depend on living, current conventions to be understood (even by ourselves.) The radical or complete skeptic is a babbling dada poet.

OC2 is relativism. Relativism is the view that truth and knowledge are not absolute or invariable, but dependent upon viewpoint, circumstances or historical conditions. What is true for me might not be true for you; what counts as knowledge from one viewpoint might not do so from another; what is true at one time is false at another. Paragraph 97 arguably shows that the relativism implicit in this aspect of OC is of a classic or standard type. Its presence in OC is entirely consistent with its presence elsewhere in the later writings: one remembers the lions and Chinese of PI. What was left open in those earlier relativistic remarks was the degree of strength of the relativism to which Wittgenstein was committed. OC2 constitutes a claim that the framework within which claims to knowledge and challenges of doubt equally make sense is such that its change can reverse what counted as either. That is classically strong relativism. — AC

AC is responding to passages like

65. When language-games change, then there is a change in concepts, and with the concepts the meanings of words change.

95. The propositions describing this world-picture might be part of a kind of mythology ...

97. The mythology may change back into a state of flux, the river-bed of thoughts may shift.

99. And the bank of the river consists partly of hard rock, subject to no alteration or only to an imperceptible one, partly of sand, which now in one place now in another gets washed away, or deposited.

166. The difficulty is to realise the groundlessness of our believing.

256. On the other hand a language-game does change with time.

336. But what men consider reasonable or unreasonable alters. — W

I think he exaggerates the tension. I read W as making general points about language and belief that he expects to remain true. Just because some of what's considered reasonable alters doesn't mean that there's no relatively fixed point or relatively neutral matrix (or just a fixed point if you'll allow vague theses.) Probably all philosophy tries to conquer time, so the issue is not whether it finds or declares something fixed but how much it finds or declares fixed. For instance, Braver reads (the later) Heidegger as modifying Hegelianism. There's still something like the Zeitgeist (an understanding of being, perhaps like a form of life), but now it wanders aimlessly. So what Hegel held fixed (the destination of historical drift), Heidegger and seemingly Wittgenstein jettisons.

In other words, earnest 'relativism' tends to be partial. You get called a 'relativist' if you don't hold things fixed that the other guy does.

If I start to doubt that these words mean what I think they mean, what can I say about that?
— unenlightened

That you have realised that there is no fact about that kind of matter?

The hand proposition is the big fat fact. — bongo fury

Yeah but no but...

My point is that if you doubt the meaning of the question, you cannot answer at all. The answer to my question might just as well be "Wibble, wibble wibble, my old man's a mushroom." What you demonstrate by giving a sensible answer, is that you do not on this occasion doubt the meaning at all.

In the philosophy of language, demonstration is more powerful than proof, because...

... knowing that presupposes being able to say that... and hence is a genus of knowing how to talk. But talking is just getting stuff done with words, and its the getting stuff done that is important. — Banno

What you demonstrate by giving a sensible answer, is that you do not on this occasion doubt the meaning at all. — unenlightened

Nah, only rather that when in Rome (i.e. ordinarily) I can play their language games, regardless their philosophy of games and rules. Not sure why you would say, or think that Witty would say, that in making a play I can't entertain competing hypotheses as to the Romans' hypotheses and dogmas about the game and the rules.

Why is a mouse, when it spins?

Because.

Mornington Crescent.

I endorse this:

166. The difficulty is to realise the groundlessness of our believing. — W

There's a bias against accepting that we're equipped with a kind of faith. Faith has the same relationship to doubt as the eternal has to change. They're a package deal.

As language games and forms of life change, that remains the same. So Witt was discovering an unchanging feature of the mind?

There's a bias against accepting that we're equipped with a kind of faith. Faith has the same relationship to doubt as the eternal has to change. They're a package deal. — frank

Nice way of putting it. It took me a moment to see the analogy, but yeah, that makes sense.

As language games and forms of life change, that remains the same. So Witt was discovering an unchanging feature of the mind? — frank

As I read him, he's discovering or at least modifying a vision of some kind of permanent structure (of the mind if one embraces how social-public-embodied the 'mind' turns out to be.) IMO, this is related to what Hegel meant by zeitgeist/timespirit.

I'm not sure I'm understanding you though.

As I read him, he's discovering or at least modifying a vision of some kind of permanent structure (of the mind if one embraces how social-public-embodied the 'mind' turns out to be.) IMO, this is related to what Hegel meant by zeitgeist/timespirit. — T H E

So his philosophy is phenomenology?

So his philosophy is phenomenology? — frank

Yeah, I think he and Heidegger are often saying the same thing in very different styles.
Lee Braver's work is largely about their intersection. His book on anti-realism follows the trail from Kant to Derrida. Basically less and less is held fixed.

Cool. That sounds like a good book. I'll put it on my list.

There are two books. Not sure which you'd like better. The short one is Groundless Grounds, which focuses on Heidegger and Wittgenstein. The big one is A Thing of This World. That's the tale of anti-realism. I thought both were great.

I'll start with the short one. Thanks!

I hope you like it as much as I expect you will!

It's better perhaps to think of Wittgenstein as doing a kind of phenomenology, which is to say call our attention to what would be obvious if it wasn't so terribly taken for granted. A certain kind of philosophy is trapped in a picture. — T H E

And what is it that is taken for granted? That a certain kind of philosophy trapped in a picture is experienced as necessary, when it should be experienced as merely contingent?

Perhaps it would it be better to think this kind of phenomenology when attempting to understand Wittgenstein, but seems rather inept when attempting to understand human nature in general.

Keeping with language games, all philosophies are trapped in their respective pictures by the mind that creates them. Never stays that way, re: interpretational distinctions, which raises concerns over what being trapped really means. If trapped in every mind, it isn’t trapped in any. The epitome of contingency.

Yes, it appears quite possible to me too that a person could be uncertain. However, you do not appear to be uncertain, but quite dogmatically certain. you are playing the uncertainty card in order to dispute something that you do not in fact dispute. and that is the game I am playing back at you, that you are now disputing in turn. This is by way of a demonstration of something, rather than a proof of anything. You want to tell me "you probably already know what I mean," but you will not have it the other way about. — unenlightened

I am arguing that a certain type of doubt is reasonable to assume, not that I have that type doubt. Anyway, the fact that it appears to you that my personal form of doubt is actually dogmatic certainty, is irrelevant because you may be misunderstanding me. When you see a dog standing its ground, barking at you, and forbidding you to come closer, would you think that these actions of the dog are based in a dogmatic certainty?

I propose we revisit the premise, "doubt can occur only within a system of believe", and maybe we can find an acceptable compromise.

Let's first distinguish true doubt from fake doubt. Fake doubt is what you accused me of, playing the doubt card when I am actually dogmatically certain. True doubt is when a person is truly uncertain. So for example, an atheist might play the doubt card of fake doubt, in a discussion with a theist, pretending to doubt the reality of God, when that person really has certitude about the opposite. Only an agnostic would have true doubt in this situation.

Now let's position the "system of believe" relative to the true doubt. The doubting person cannot be "within" the system of believe because that would mean that the system is already accepted by that person. The doubt must be aimed at the system as a whole, because as "a system" we must assume that there is consistency between the parts (individual beliefs) of the system, and one cannot reasonably doubt one part of a consistent system. So true doubt must be directed at the system as a whole.

Would you agree with that? If we say doubt can only occur from within a system of belief, that system of belief must be other than the system being doubted. The two systems may not even be remotely related. So the assumption "doubt can occur only within a system of believe", is really an irrelevant point, because that system of belief must be other than the one which contains the belief being doubted.. And if we take the game analogy, true doubt can only come from the person who refuses to play the game, because to play the game is to consent to the rules, and to consent to the rules is to forfeit your right to doubt them.

Part V
Claiming to know only makes sense when doubt is possible.

This depends on the notion that our beliefs are to be found only within language games, each of which is formed by taking some beliefs as non-negotiable.

And is threatened by truth and knowledge being dependent on the language game in which the claims of truth or knowledge occur.

This is the claim. I can't at the moment see the argument. — Banno

Here's how what I stated above is relevant to this thread. If we assume that any specific language-game is a representation of a system of beliefs (consistency being a necessary requirement of "system"), then true doubt can only be directed at any specific language game from outside that particular game. I.e. the person who refuses to play. I'll call that person the skeptic, is the only one who may cast true doubt. If we assert that the skeptic must pose one's doubt from a position of being within a language-game, within a system of beliefs, then that system providing the skeptic's approach, must be other than the one doubted, and there cannot be consistency between these distinct language-games, or else true doubt would be impossible. This implies that language in general, as a whole, cannot be represented as a single language-game, because of the inconsistency between distinct language-games which makes true doubt a real thing.

The other course we could take, is to allow inconsistency within any specific language-game, and system of belief, thereby allowing for doubt within the system. If there is inconsistency within the game, or system, then doubt from within would be true justified doubt. But that ought to be seen as epistemologically unsound, to allow inconsistency to inhere within a system. It produces a faulty definition of "game" or "system", one in which the rules of the "game" contradict each other, or the "system" has parts which oppose each other, or are not conducive to its function.

So the logical course is to maintain that a language-game, or a system of beliefs, is necessarily consistent, and true doubt must be directed at the system as a whole, from outside that system. This is also the most practical solution, because if inconsistency appears to inhere within a system of beliefs, it is extremely difficult to isolate the defective parts, with the goal of doubting just those parts. So the entire system must be doubted as a whole. This implies that refusal to play the game is required, and we're at the point of doubting the entire system anyway.

And what is it that is taken for granted? That a certain kind of philosophy trapped in a picture is experienced as necessary, when it should be experienced as merely contingent? — Mww

I think you are ignoring the difference between an explicit thesis ('a certain kind of philosophy is trapped in a picture') and unquestioned background assumptions. The fly is trapped in the bottle because it's transparent. The hard work is making the hidden assumptions visible.

Perhaps it would it be better to think this kind of phenomenology when attempting to understand Wittgenstein, but seems rather inept when attempting to understand human nature in general.

Keeping with language games, all philosophies are trapped in their respective pictures by the mind that creates them. Never stays that way, re: interpretational distinctions, which raises concerns over what being trapped really means. If trapped in every mind, it isn’t trapped in any. The epitome of contingency. — Mww

While I don't think what you say is incorrect here, I also don't think it fits the situation. The issue isn't life in general but a certain kind of philosophy, 'trapped' in the transparent bottle of Cartesian assumptions or habits. To be trapped in such a way is not some cosmic tragedy. It's just wheels spinning in the mud. 'Prove to me I have a hand.' 'Do I see a chair or a representation of a chair?' 'Is morality objective?'

To me the center of the issue is something like: meaning is public, external, out there. To know how to drive is to attain the skill of being on the road with other cars. A view that I'm challenging is something like: we all have direct, private access to 'essences' and learn to map these similar private essences to the same symbols. Traditional ('bad', 'naive') philosophy tries to do a sort of 'math' or 'chess' with these essences. This is the picture (isolated minds with direct access to essences (exact concepts) and sense-data.) With that comes the whole man-in-the-box problem of getting to the real world, weird statements and counter-statements about the thing-in-itself, radical skeptics who don't see the absurdity of their doubts because they don't see that their 'concepts' are already extimate, worldly conventions.

The idea of proving my position (in that 'math' or 'chess') misses the whole point, which is that we are stuck with jazz. I can't do the word-math that proves the confusion in a word-math approach. Instead there's 'therapy,' analogies that gesture vaguely at vague insights. (Note also that I use the word 'insight.' Mentalistic man-in-the-box language is unfortunately necessary. I have to use the language of the tribe to criticize pieces of it.)

That is, what counts as a hinge proposition is not dependent on the structure of the proposition but is a role it takes on in the task at hand. — Banno

Aren't we talking about presuppositions now? If this isn't coherentism then I don't know what is.

So true doubt must be directed at the system as a whole. — Metaphysician Undercover

This is just what is impossible, unless we want to consider screaming madness. The point is something like: to express doubts in an intelligible language is to take most of those conventions for granted (to obey them in order to be intelligible to self and others.) In general, a certain kind of skeptic is quietly taken obsolete philosophical ideas for granted (Cartesian assumptions of being alone in a mind with direct access to concepts.)

Part VI
Does Wittgenstein confuse idealism with scepticism?

Idealism is scepticism towards what Moore called an external world, in the source text Proof of an External World - a text that ought be investigated further; Moore's target is idealism's scepticism towards an external world. Wittgenstein appears simply to have embraced this juxtaposition. Hence 19, 24 and 37. The idealist Wittgenstein addresses is he who was sceptical of the existence of an external world in Moore.

Grayling presents an exquisite analysis of the relation between idealism, realism, scepticism, anti-realism, physicalism. many would do well to note it. So many silly threads concerning idealism and quantum mechanics might be avoided.

Thereby hangs another thread...