#217. 'How am I able to obey a rule?'--if this is not a question about causes, then it is about the justification for my following the rule in the way I do.
If I have exhausted the justifications I have reached bedrock, and my spade is turned. Then I am inclined to say: 'This is simply what I do.' — Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investgations
Yet I don't have to give up on you; my fallback is not a judgment of exclusion, a turning away. Our impotence (that of our ordinary rules) turns us toward each other--rather than necessitating we solve this (always eminent) failure with authority, agreement, knowledge, better rules, more logic, a foundational bedrock--we resist philosophy's anxiety to be better than, a solution for, the ordinary by removing our (uncertain, frightening) part and responsibility. — Antony Nickles
Isn’t it just the case that we obey the rule because that’s the practice/convention and that’s what people typically do here? — Luke
Or else we don’t follow the rule for whatever reason, yet the rule still exists because that’s how most people do this particular thing, as a rule. — Luke
What do I mean when I say that the teacher judges that, for certain cases, the pupil must give the 'right' answer? I mean that the child has given the same answer that he himself would give... that he judges that the child is applying the procedure he himself is inclined to apply. — Kripke, p 90 (emphasis added).
Weren’t you instructing me (or “someone”)? How does your not giving up on me in your instruction (about what constitutes obeying a rule) suddenly become you and I both resisting philosophy’s anxiety? How does that help me? — Luke
The structure of the rules of math makes them determined in advance, encompassing all applications, eternal — Antony Nickles
We can point to rules, we can give examples, we can threaten consequences; at a certain point sometimes they run out, you don't continue as expected--it is meant to be a situation which summons skepticism. — Antony Nickles
Kripke's take on the passage is that this leaves us with only the options of following the rule, change the rule, or be excluded--that it is conformity to a rule. Where Cavell takes Witt as showing that... — Antony Nickles
So the exhaustion of justifications for how you should obey a rule, make a wish, apologize, mean what you say, etc. can be that you refuse to follow the rules, but it can also be that we have not yet imagined all the implications, shown you how our interests are aligned, etc.--that there is not only force and defiance — Antony Nickles
Weren’t you instructing me (or “someone”)? How does your not giving up on me in your instruction (about what constitutes obeying a rule) suddenly become you and I both resisting philosophy’s anxiety? How does that help me?
— Luke
The fear is of the inability to justify obeying a rule or justify how we obey rules. — Antony Nickles
Both Cavell and Kripke leave that possibility open, but Kripke's picture pits "what we typically do" against your instincts, in judgment of your authority, in a sense, before our discussion even gets started. This is to cave into the anxiety of leaving it up to us, to the vision that there is more to us than rules and conventions, that such discussions can be reasonable, between conformity and exclusion. — Antony Nickles
But teaching (indoctrinating into society) sometimes runs out of ways to convey, in this example: what constitutes obeying a rule (justifies saying how/that we obey/have obeyed). — Antony Nickles
Depends on what you refer to as "rules of math". For instance, the Law of the Excluded Middle is useful in traditional or standard math, but not allowed in constructive math. Turmoil in the jungles of the mind. — jgill
I believe that is a rule of logic, but, yes, I'm thinking more of addition. — Antony Nickles
We can point to rules, we can give examples, we can threaten consequences; at a certain point sometimes they run out, you don't continue as expected--it is meant to be a situation which summons skepticism.
— Antony Nickles
Is it meant to "summon skepticism", though? Maybe from Kripke's overly philosophical perspective, but I doubt it would summon skepticism from the average person. This is a very alien way of looking at obeying a rule. — Luke
Kripke's take on the passage is that this leaves us with only the options of following the rule, change the rule, or be excluded--that it is conformity to a rule.
— Antony Nickles
So the exhaustion of justifications for how you should obey a rule, make a wish, apologize, mean what you say, etc. can be that you refuse to follow the rules, but it can also be that we have not yet imagined all the implications, shown you how our interests are aligned, etc.--that there is not only force and defiance
— Antony Nickles
This seems to fit into the three options cited above. — Luke
The fear is of the inability to justify obeying a rule or justify how we obey rules.
— Antony Nickles
I get that, but you (or Cavell) were instructing someone about what constitutes obeying a rule. — Luke
You say that the teacher is unable to provide sufficient justification to the student about what constitutes obeying a rule. Then you say - crucially - that the teacher does not have to give up on the student because both teacher and student can "resist philosophy's anxiety". I guess I'm asking: what is it that allows the student to "resist philosophy's anxiety"? — Luke
But teaching (indoctrinating into society) sometimes runs out of ways to convey, in this example: what constitutes obeying a rule (justifies saying how/that we obey/have obeyed).
— Antony Nickles
Teaching/indoctrination is training someone how to obey the rules or how to "go on" (or behave) in a particular way(s). You cannot first teach/train someone what it means to obey a rule in order for them to then go on and obey a rule; otherwise, you would not be able to teach them what it means to obey a rule in the first place. — Luke
You cannot first teach/train someone what it means to obey a rule in order for them to then go on and obey a rule; otherwise, you would not be able to teach them what it means to obey a rule in the first place. — Luke
teaching (indoctrinating into society) — Antony Nickles
But humanity aspires to mathematical rules rather than our ordinary "rules" — Antony Nickles
I agree with framing it as training, — Antony Nickles
But even the notion of addition was expanded in 1801 when Gauss introduced the modern concept of modular arithmetic. — jgill
Seems you might set out in some detail what you think is Wittgenstein's orthodoxy, Kripke's variant, and Cavell's reply. — Banno
When, for example, Metaphysician Undercover repeatedly misunderstands certain notions in mathematics, there is a point at which one concludes that he is simply not participating in the game. One might then either turn away or attempt to follow the path of the eccentric. The question becomes one of what is to be gained in going one way or the other. — Banno
Broadly, I would say there is the traditional skeptic, who sees that our actions are groundless, and thus "aspires to mathematical rules rather than" what Witt would call a concept's grammar; what Cavell refers to as our "ordinary" criteria, framed as the opposite of the skeptic's imposed criteria of ("mathematical"-like) certainty (also referred to as "metaphysical"). — Antony Nickles
When, for example, Metaphysician Undercover repeatedly misunderstands certain notions in mathematics, there is a point at which one concludes that he is simply not participating in the game. One might then either turn away or attempt to follow the path of the eccentric. The question becomes one of what is to be gained in going one way or the other. — Banno
Are we really aware of what matters to considering it part of/not part of, the game? — Antony Nickles
Cavell [is] differentiating between mathematical rules and grammatical rules. How is this distinction to be made?
I gather we are talking in terms of the broad notion of "grammar" Wittgenstein used, roughly the way appropriate to a given language game... but isn't mathematics a language game? — Banno
I gather we are talking in terms of the broad notion of "grammar" Wittgenstein used, roughly the way appropriate to a given language game... but isn't mathematics a language game? If so, there is no prima facie distinction to be made here. — Banno
This is a good thing to have clarified. — Antony Nickles
Summon the specter of skepticism for the philosopher (reader), yes; the fear that leads to our need to have a foundational bedrock to justify our acts. An average person might feel an inability to communicate, that words/fact/truth lack power, discouraged at the prospect of (or empowered by) not having anything else to say... — Antony Nickles
Witt's example is meant to show us something about philosophy; its powerlessness, and hope. — Antony Nickles
Maybe not my best work trying to show a distinction (part of the problem is Witt is discussing justification for how we follow a rule; and Kripke is reading that as we act from inclination ("inspiration" #232) and then are judged as right or wrong based on if we follow the rule, conform to the rule (before there is any justifying why/how you did or didn't follow the rule)). Cavell takes Witt as leaving open the judgment/exclusion to begin a conversation about what it means to have followed a rule (what counts, what matters, etc.). One view ends the relationship, the other begins a moral discussion. — Antony Nickles
What constitutes justifying that I obeyed a rule. — Antony Nickles
“So is whatever I do compatible with the rule?” — Let me ask this: what has the expression of a rule — say a signpost — got to do with my actions? What sort of connection obtains here? — Well, this one, for example: I have been trained to react in a particular way to this sign, and now I do so react to it.
But with this you have pointed out only a causal connection; only explained how it has come about that we now go by the signpost; not what this following-the-sign really consists in. Not so; I have further indicated that a person goes by a signpost only in so far as there is an established usage, a custom. (198)
To follow a rule, to make a report, to give an order, to play a game of chess, are customs (usages, institutions). To understand a sentence means to understand a language. To understand a language means to have mastered a technique. (199) — LW
And Kripke wants to resolve the worry that we may not be able to justify how we obey a rule or what constitutes obeying a rule — Antony Nickles
Cavell takes Witt as leaving that possibility of failure open, but also continuing a conversation beyond our pre-determined judgment. An ongoing conversation about, say, what constitutes an example (#223)--rationalizing our relationship instead of it relying on, say, violence (understanding rather than just change). — Antony Nickles
To make themselves intelligible. They might claim they did obey the rule; or explain their aversion to conformity--examine their "blind" obedience (#219); as normally we do not "follow" rules (#222). — Antony Nickles
I agree with framing it as training, but I am trying to show two "particular ways" we can be seen as going on--that maybe it isn't (as in teaching math), that we behave (obey) or not, but that we are learning the skill of how to continue, to be able to justify our actions at all--to move forward rather than not be able to "conflict" or "accord" at all (#201) — Antony Nickles
206. Following a rule is analogous to obeying an order. One is trained to do so, and one reacts to an order in a particular way. — LW
I may ask why you didn't obey, say, the golden rule, and you may claim that you did, and then go on to try to justify how what you did was still an instance of obeying the rule. — Antony Nickles
If Kripke's reading is correct, the discussion of what is right happens before my personal action, upon which I am judged. If we take Witt to be reserving judgment, then we begin a dialogue of what it is to, say, treat the other as having a soul (p, 152; 3rd 2001), or convince ourselves we can not know them (p. 192). — Antony Nickles
Are we really aware of what matters to considering it part of/not part of, the game?
— Antony Nickles
I've bolded the bit that is bothersome. — Banno
Are we aware of what matters to considering it part of/not part of, the game?
Well, yes, we are. — Banno
There is a difference between plus and quus. — Banno
I believe that is a rule of logic, but, yes, I'm thinking more of addition. — Antony Nickles
What distinguishes a genuine notation is not how easily correct judgements can be made, but what their consequences are. [...] Marks [= tokens] correctly judged to be joint members of a character [= type] will always be true copies of one another. — Languages of Art, p134
I remain at a loss to understand the difference between - taking from the thread title - a rule's end for mathematics and an ordinary rule's end; that is, while I understand the difference between mathematics and ordinary language, there is something here that I do not understand. — Banno
You or Cavell seem to want there to be a difference between the spade being turned at the end of an analysis of mathematics, and a spade being turned in ordinary language or something along those lines. Or is that such a distinction might be made the topic here? — Banno
I would have thought that the spade was turned, in either case, when there was nothing more to be said, and only the "exhibition of what we call obeying the rule" as in §210; the point at which every interpretation is no more than the "substitution of one expression of the rule for another". — Banno
Witt's example is meant to show us something about philosophy; its powerlessness, and hope. — Antony Nickles
And its recurring, thematic, archetypal problems, which he is attempting to resolve. — Luke
The issue that Wittgenstein identifies (or forecasts) is that philosophers such as Kripke are sceptical or dissatisfied with any and all justifications of behaving in accordance with, or obeying, a rule. — Luke
There is no middle ground in obeying the rule for how the knight moves in chess, only conflict or accord. — Luke
For the sake of clarity, let's use the example of a very straightforward rule instead, such as a rule of chess or a signpost. — Luke
I disagree that Wittgenstein is inviting a moral discussion at all, nor any further justification in general terms, although he might consider a place for philosophy or justification to intervene in relation to some specific issue. Generally speaking, the matter is fairly black and white: people do manage to follow rules and are able to be judged as following them or not. As W says: "there is a way of grasping a rule which is not an interpretation, but which, from case to case of application, is exhibited in what we call “following the rule” and “going against it” (201). See also 240-241. I view 232 as a continuation of the thread that brings into relief the impossibility of privately determining a rule (see 202). — Luke
Pointing to the existing practice that constitutes the rule. "You're not allowed to move your knight like that!" (in chess) because that's not the practice or the way it's done. — Luke
It's an odd reading to think that Kripke is attempting to resolve this worry, when, by design or by folly, he exacerbates it. — Luke
Cavell takes Witt as leaving that possibility of failure open, but also continuing a conversation beyond our pre-determined judgment. An ongoing conversation about, say, what constitutes an example (#223)--rationalizing our relationship instead of it relying on, say, violence (understanding rather than just change). — Antony Nickles
I'm not sure what you mean here [the discussion of what constitutes an example], but I don't see 223 as questioning what constitutes an example. — Luke
One might say to the person one was training: "Look, I always do the same thing: I . . . . . — Witt, PI #223
To make themselves intelligible. They might claim they did obey the rule; or explain their aversion to conformity--examine their "blind" obedience (#219); as normally we do not "follow" rules (#222). — Antony Nickles
This is not my reading of 219 or 222. — Luke
When I obey a rule, I do not choose.
I obey the rule blindly. — Wiit, PI # 219
I don't see Wittgenstein as talking about ethics or about "what is right" in general (in life) in PI. Or at least, not in relation to his discussion on rule following. — Luke
.The rule for addition extends to all its possible applications. (As does the rule for quaddition...otherwise it would not be known to us as a mathematical function.) But our ordinary concepts are not thus mathematical in their application: we do not intuitively, within the ordinary, know in advance... a right first instance... know whether to say an instance counts... no concept is "bound" by ordinary criteria....
When the child starts to walk, they walk, [ though ] tentatively, as I do; we agree in walking; but we have not achieved this agreement, come to agree... If chairs ceased to exist... then something would happen to our concept of a table. I do not insist that one agree that the concept would change, but the role of the concept of a table [ would be different ] because the role of tables in our lives would be different.
In reaching the gesture expressed as, "This is simply what I do"... I say I cannot then say I am right [ as Kripke's society does ]; and in going on to say that the repudiation of deviance is a stance, a voice taken in disapproval, betokening social repression; and in remarking further that the violence in claiming to be right where there is no right repudiates the ordinary (the ordinary criteria for the application of everyday [ nonmathematical ] concepts, e.g... of "this"--since it counts on criteria that are already rejected--of "I"--since it seeks to represent a community that does not exist — Stanley Cavell, Conditions Handsome and Unhandsome, p. 89, 94, 95
So, we're, in our "ordinary" lives, stuck with rules that are neither justified to our satisfaction nor universal in scope. — TheMadFool
What if, in keeping with Wittgenstein's ludological analogy, rules are more about making the "game" more fun, more interesting and less about justification? In other words, rules don't need to be justified in that they have to make sense, instead they have to ensure the "game" is enjoyable, exciting, and pleasurable but also "painful" enough to, ironically, make the "playing" the "game" a serious affair. — TheMadFool
Both Kripke and Cavell take Witt as pointedly not trying to resolve skepticism (the "orthodox" view I described earlier), but take it seriously, investigate it, see what it shows about us. — Antony Nickles
...the irreconcilability in Wittgenstein between our dissatisfaction with the ordinary and our satisfaction in it, between speaking outside and inside language games, which is to say, the irreconcilability of the two voices (at least two) in the Investigations, the writer with his other, the interlocutor, the fact that poses a great task, the continuous task, of Wittgenstein's prose, oscillating between vanity and humility. Skepticism appears in Philosophical Investigations as one of the voices locked in this argument, not as a solution or conclusion. — Cavell
The issue that Wittgenstein identifies (or forecasts) is that philosophers such as Kripke are sceptical or dissatisfied with any and all justifications of behaving in accordance with, or obeying, a rule.
— Luke
In the passage starting this OP, Witt acknowledges the possibility of the exhaustion of justifications. — Antony Nickles
But Cavell is attempting to draw out that there is grammar (not just judgment) in obeying a rule; that there are cases that exhibit what these criteria are (#201); that we can go over these examples and see if the context matches ours, whether it is an example, etc. And that grammar, even that of obeying a rule, is different than rules--even leaves us in a different place in the end. — Antony Nickles
It gets even more straightforward, let's use the example of math. The idea is that things are not straightforward like rules (#426), that our criteria (our lives) are open-ended, unpredictable, etc. — Antony Nickles
The further point of the passage of the turned spade is that, though I can wield rules the way you point to (as Kripke grabs onto them as finalizing), we do not have to, there is nothing necessary in treating the other on black and white terms--unless you don't want to address the Other (open the moral realm), that you just want, as it were, to apply the rule. — Antony Nickles
On p. 192, Witt calls this a "conviction". — Antony Nickles
240. Disputes do not break out (among mathematicians, say) over the question of whether or not a rule has been followed. People don’t come to blows over it, for example. This belongs to the scaffolding from which our language operates (for example, yields descriptions).
— LW
I would say #240 clarifies our need to be able to know how to fight well (keep open the possibility for reasonable moral debate), — Antony Nickles
241. “So you are saying that human agreement decides what is true and what is false?” — What is true or false is what human beings say; and it is in their language that human beings agree. This is agreement not in opinions, but rather in form of life.
— LW
...and that #241 does not solve those issues, by pointing to our way of life in the way Kripe takes it as a contractual (enforceable) agreement. — Antony Nickles
Pointing to the existing practice that constitutes the rule. "You're not allowed to move your knight like that!" (in chess) because that's not the practice or the way it's done.
— Luke
This is to justify the judgment of not obeying a rule by pointing to our practice. We (teacher-student) are at the moment where I claim there is an attempt to convey what it is to obey a rule, how it is that we obey a rule. That this has an ordinary (non-"mathematical") grammar that is not just pointing to a rule (Kripke as it were, generalizes this practice/picture). — Antony Nickles
And the other might claim his is an example, but responsive to a new context. "This is justice, but here we must do harm in this case." — Antony Nickles
When I obey a rule, I do not choose.
I obey the rule blindly. — Wiit, PI # 219
You say that the teacher is unable to provide sufficient justification to the student about what constitutes obeying a rule. Then you say - crucially - that the teacher does not have to give up on the student because both teacher and student can "resist philosophy's anxiety". I guess I'm asking: what is it that allows the student to "resist philosophy's anxiety"?
— Luke
To make themselves intelligible. They might claim they did obey the rule; or explain their aversion to conformity--examine their "blind" obedience (#219); as normally we do not "follow" rules (#222). Not to take the position that their actions are unable to be communicated--to feel there is something private, unknowable (not just personal). But really this is an examination of the teacher, and the limitation/impotence of our knowledge (what comes after it). — Antony Nickles
I do not then "follow" the rule, as in watch it go on ahead of me (#232). Kripke takes it that our justifications end (I act blindly) when I obey the rule, and then as if this is how we are said to act at all, with no space for discussing (justifying) that choice afterwards, for rescission if your suggestion to obey the rule was irresponsible, that I would no longer (morally) say I obeyed the rule, but that I obeyed your intimation (#222). — Antony Nickles
It is peppered throughout, in his insistence not to treat our practices mathematically, singularly, but also (albeit cryptically), in Part II, with his discussion of attitudes, seeing aspects. — Antony Nickles
I've just finished reading the second chapter of Cavell's Conditions Handsome and Unhandsome; the chapter on Wittgenstein and Kripke. — Luke
I note that Cavell says PI is not meant to refute skepticism; but that's not the same as saying that Wittgenstein attempts to resolve skepticism. — Luke
the interlocutor could alternatively be viewed as a mere literary device which allows Wittgenstein to express these typical philosophical concerns — Luke
Do you view [the exhaustion of justifications] as Wittgenstein conceding to the sceptic? The quotes from 198-199 in my previous post include his reply to the sceptic (that following a rule is a custom, a practice, a usage, an institution). — Luke
we can go over these examples and see if the context matches ours, whether it is an example, etc. And that grammar, even that of obeying a rule, is different than rules--even leaves us in a different place in the end.
— Antony Nickles
Cavell references Wittgenstein's PI 199 regarding the grammar of obeying a rule. I don't know what you mean by the rest, starting from: "see if the context matches ours, whether it is an example, etc." — Luke
The idea is that things are not straightforward like rules (#426), that our criteria (our lives) are open-ended, unpredictable, etc.
— Antony Nickles
What has this got to do with rule following? — Luke
I don't see Wittgenstein or Cavell as talking about "the moral realm" with regard to rules, so I don't see that as being "the further point of the passage of the turned spade". But I invite you to make a case for it. — Luke
On p. 192, Witt calls this a "conviction".
— Antony Nickles
In which edition? The word "conviction" does not appear on p. 192 of my copy. — Luke
240. Disputes do not break out (among mathematicians, say) over the question of whether or not a rule has been followed. People don’t come to blows over it, for example."
— LW
I would say #240 clarifies our need to be able to know how to fight well (keep open the possibility for reasonable moral debate),
— Antony Nickles
You might need to expand on why you think that. I don't see that at all. 240 is simply describing the wide (world-wide) consensus that exists among language users and among mathematicians. — Luke
If we disagree, you and I, about quantity, over which of two groups is greater, would our disagreement over this make us enemies and angry with each other, or wouldn't we quickly resolve the issue by resorting to counting?
Euth: Certainly.
* * *
So: Then what topic, exactly, would divide us and what decision would we be unable to reach such that we would be enemies and angry with one another? Perhaps you don't have an answer at hand, so see while I'm talking whether it's the just and the unjust, and the noble and shameful, and the good and the bad. Isn't it these things that divide us and about which we're not able to come to a satisfactory decision and so become enemies of one another, whenever that happens, whether it's me and you, or any other men? — Plato - Euthyphro Sec. 7
I think your assumption that Wittgenstein intends 240 or 241 to be about a "moral debate", or about a solution to it, still requires justification... I take 241 only to be clarifying the type of agreement/consensus Wittgenstein is referring to at 240. — Luke
Pointing to the existing practice that constitutes the rule. "You're not allowed to move your knight like that!" (in chess) because that's not the practice or the way it's done.
— Luke
This is to justify the judgment of not obeying a rule by pointing to our practice. We (teacher-student) are actually at the moment where there is an attempt to convey what it is to obey a rule, how it is that we obey a rule. That this has an ordinary (non-"mathematical") grammar that is not just pointing to a rule (Kripke as it were, generalizes this practice/picture).
— Antony Nickles
Sorry, I don't understand. How can you convey what it is to obey a rule without pointing to our practice? Are you referring to the student's (and/or teacher's) thought processes or something? And what do you mean by "grammar" here? — Luke
And the other might claim his is an example, but responsive to a new context. "This is justice, but here we must do harm in this case."
— Antony Nickles
That would require that the student/trainee already understands what "justice" means; that they are not being taught the rule for how to use the word. — Luke
The student and teacher can "resist philosophy's anxiety" in order to "make themselves intelligible"? — Luke
if the student does not know the rule.. [they are] in no position to claim that they did obey the rule... Unless they already know the rule, then the student would not have a "blind obedience" to it. — Luke
And 222 neither states nor implies that "normally we do not follow rules". — Luke
Wittgenstein is only talking about the teaching and learning of existing rules. I don't see him as talking about morality, justifying choices or changing rules. — Luke
Where does he insist "not to treat our practices mathematically"? Perhaps you could provide an example or two? — Luke
Confusingly in this case, the grammar for movement of a knight in chess is based on rules--it falls into the category of mathematical criteria: that all the applications are circumscribed, predetermined, etc. — Antony Nickles
And, although the teacher has authority over the student, that does not mean the teacher knows all there is about justice — Antony Nickles
And, although the teacher has authority over the student, that does not mean the teacher knows all there is about justice (which, my point here, is impossible--seeing the whole of each infinite series #426). — Antony Nickles
the teacher could concede that: not only has the student applied (justified) the concept of justice appropriately (within its grammar--not the "meaning", but what is meaningful to us about it), but that the student has taught the teacher something, in this instance by extending the concept into a new context (my example doesn't really fit), something about justice in a new world (say, what is just in reconciling our past incorporation of our reaction to race into our continuing institutions). — Antony Nickles
we obey rules, we do not "follow" them — Antony Nickles
I meant to point to the entire section from #218-#232 (after the passage #217 under discussion), which, following the grammatical claim that "When I obey a rule, I do not choose," (#219) in the sense that: part of the criteria for "obeying" a rule is that I do not obey "my inspiration" (#232), as it were, at each moment, like my "eye travel [ ing ] along a line" Id--as if always tracking it/myself--that, if I do that, then I am, categorically, not "obeying" the rule. — Antony Nickles
At #222, Witt sees this fantasy of ours is only a picture of the line intimating to us (absolving us of being "irresponsible"--or the one who taught us being so); — Antony Nickles
that the line does not nod, or whisper, or tell us (#223); that we do not follow along it as a path "on tenterhooks", anxious each second about society's moral judgment (our intention, what we "mean"). — Antony Nickles
Well again I take #217 as about teaching someone how to be able to obey rules, presenting my justifications (say, even: myself as justification by example) for how it is that obeying rules is justified (in justifying how I have obeyed one). — Antony Nickles
“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 avoid a misunderstanding. One might say: an explanation serves to remove or to prevent a misunderstanding —– one, that is, that would arise if not for the explanation, but not every misunderstanding that I can imagine.
It may easily look as if every doubt merely revealed a gap in the foundations; so that secure understanding is possible only if we first doubt everything that can be doubted, and then remove all these doubts.
The signpost is in order — if, under normal circumstances, it fulfils its purpose. — LW (PI §87)
I don't see why you view the rules of chess or the rules of mathematics differently to rules of grammar or road rules. — Luke
Do you believe that all moves (or all movements of a knight) in chess are circumscribed and predetermined? — Luke
Why is it impossible for the teacher to know "all there is about justice"? Surely they can know enough to teach a student what the word "justice" means (i.e. how to use the word "justice"). After all, didn't someone teach you what "justice" means? And couldn't you teach the meaning of the word to someone else? I don't believe that #426 is typically regarded to be in the rule-following section of PI, but we could look at 218-221 instead. — Luke
I don't see why you view the rules of chess or the rules of mathematics differently to rules of grammar or road rules.
— Luke
The point of all the examples of the different types of practices/concepts is to show that there is a different grammar for each one. — Antony Nickles
There are not "rules of grammar" — Antony Nickles
Grammar, usually taken to consist of the rules of correct syntactic and semantic usage, becomes, in Wittgenstein’s hands, the wider—and more elusive—network of rules which determine what linguistic move is allowed as making sense, and what isn’t. This notion replaces the stricter and purer logic, which played such an essential role in the Tractatus in providing a scaffolding for language and the world. Indeed, “Essence is expressed in grammar … Grammar tells what kind of object anything is. (Theology as grammar)” (PI 371, 373). The “rules” of grammar are not mere technical instructions from on-high for correct usage; rather, they express the norms for meaningful language. Contrary to empirical statements, rules of grammar describe how we use words in order to both justify and criticize our particular utterances. But as opposed to grammar-book rules, they are not idealized as an external system to be conformed to. Moreover, they are not appealed to explicitly in any formulation, but are used in cases of philosophical perplexity to clarify where language misleads us into false illusions. — SEP
The use of a word, Wittgenstein averred, is determined by the rules for the use of that word (AWL 30). For using words in speech is a rule-governed activity. The rules for the use of a word are constitutive of what Wittgenstein called ‘its grammar’. He used the expression ‘grammar’ in an idiosyncratic way to refer to all the rules that determine the use of a word, i.e. both rules of grammar acknowledged by linguists and also what linguists call ‘the lexicon’ and exclude from grammar — i.e. the explanations of meaning (LWL 46f.). To grammar belongs everything that determines sense, everything that has to be settled antecedently to questions about truth. The grammar of an expression, in Wittgenstein’s generous use of ‘grammar’, also specifies the licit combinatorial possibilities of the expression, ‘i.e. which combinations make sense and which don’t, which are allowed and which are not allowed’ (ibid.; emphasis added). ‘What interests us in the sign’, he wrote, ‘the meaning which matters for us, is what is embodied in the grammar of the sign. . . . Grammar is the account books of language’ (PG 87). Wittgenstein contended that the questions ‘How is the word used?’ and ‘What is the grammar of the word?’ are one and the same question (ibid.). The use of a word is what is defined by the rules for its use, just as the use of the king in chess is defined by the rules (AWL 48). — Baker and Hacker, Wittgenstein: Understanding and Meaning, Volume 1 of An Analytical Commentary on the Philosophical Investigations: Part I: Essays, Volume 1, pp. 145-146
There are not "rules of grammar" (that sounds like a sillogism) because each grammar is different, the criteria for their employment are different. — Antony Nickles
Every practice is not bound by "rules" — Antony Nickles
(not all grammar is rule-like) — Antony Nickles
though there is a grammar to rules, and a different kind of grammar for different kinds of rules. — Antony Nickles
Do you believe that all moves (or all movements of a knight) in chess are circumscribed and predetermined?
— Luke
Well, I think so... aren't they? I'm mean, strategically unexpected, but the criteria for the rules are complete, exact; this is the category of "mathematical" criteria. — Antony Nickles
(Though predetermined is the wrong word, especially in a philosophy discussion.) — Antony Nickles
Why is it impossible for the teacher to know "all there is about justice"? Surely they can know enough to teach a student what the word "justice" means (i.e. how to use the word "justice"). After all, didn't someone teach you what "justice" means? And couldn't you teach the meaning of the word to someone else? I don't believe that #426 is typically regarded to be in the rule-following section of PI, but we could look at 218-221 instead. — Luke
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