If you are talking about "what counts" in the concepts, then you are talking about the criteria of the concepts. — Luke
I don't make, or intend for, words to have "a public, conventional use". They already have that without me. I only intend how I use them. — Luke
However, there can clearly be right and wrong ways of using these words (such as "dreaming" or "justice") — Luke
One ought to ask... how the word 'imagination' is used. But that does not mean that I want to talk only about words. For the question as to the nature of the imagination is as much about the word "imagination" as my question is. — Witt, PI # 370
If we can only know afterwards whether an expression is meaningful, then how can we teach (the meaningful uses of) language to anyone? What is it that gets taught in the teaching of a language? — Luke
Again:
— Luke
"...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”. — Witt, PI #201
I really don't understand your argument that language (or an expression) is not used. — Luke
Cavell would say this is placing too much importance on rules, not seeing that rule-following is discussed and then moved on from to show how the grammar of other concepts differs.
— Antony Nickles
Why do you (or Cavell) think rule-following is discussed at all? — Luke
So I am inclined to distinguish between the essential and the inessential in a game too. The game, one would like to say, has not only rules but also a point. — Witt, PI #564
can you provide a reference that W shows "how the grammar of other concepts differs"? — Luke
Expectation is, grammatically, a state; like: being of an opinion, hoping for something, knowing something, being able to do something. But in order to understand the grammar of these states it is necessary to ask: "What counts as a criterion for anyone's being in such a state?" (States of hardness, of weight, of fitting.) — Witt, PI #572
But if the judgment is simply that my use is senseless (wrong), then that does not give us anything to do other than correction (re-conformity) or rejection.
— Antony Nickles
Why do you need something more to do? Nobody complains that breaking a rule of badminton "does not give us anything to do other than correction...or rejection". — Luke
Expression is judged on criteria, not rules, and words are (nothing without) concepts.
— Antony Nickles
I think W would say you have it backwards; that concepts are nothing without (the use of) words. Concepts are ideas; mental contents. — Luke
And to say, e.g., that "recognizing your fault" is a criteria for an apology does not mean that it is a rule of correctness. The apology may still come off (I may accept it), as you may acknowledge your blame but I may still not consider it an apology.
— Antony Nickles
Why would you not consider it an apology if you accept it as such? Or is your acceptance or rejection about something other than whether or not it meets the criteria of being an apology (i.e. the grammar of "apology")? (Consider PI 354-355 and PI 496-497) — Luke
Unless you can provide evidence to demonstrate that Wittgenstein is talking about morality in PI... then the evidence explicitly indicates that Wittgenstein's interest is limited only to grammar. He is not concerned with morality in PI. — Luke
"What is internal is hidden from us."... If I see someone writhing in pain with evident cause I do not think: all the same, his feelings are hidden from me. — Witt, PI #572
"I cannot know what is going on in him" is above all a picture. It is the convincing expression of a conviction. It does not give the reasons for the conviction. They are not readily accessible. — Witt, PI p. 223
My attitude towards him is an attitude towards a soul. I am not of the opinion that he has a soul. — Witt, PI p. 152
Cavell says Kripke just takes Wittgenstein to be giving rules too much importance. — Antony Nickles
And this is where I couldn't help but wonder what is happening here. Colloquially perhaps this picture of causing amounts to the same thing when I frame it that we say something, express something, in that there is no evaluating it except against the external practice, in your case, along rules, in mine with criteria in conjunction with, to whom and the place and time in which it is said. — Antony Nickles
Rather than judging whether the use of a word correctly follows the rules for a practice (language), I am judging how an expression, something said, fits into a concept (it's possibilities) based on the concept's criteria, e.g. "How did you mean 'I know'? [what use of "I know" is this?]" — Antony Nickles
He is looking at or imagining what we say or would say, and he will call that “language” sometimes, so it may seem as if he is only talking about how language works. — Antony Nickles
An example (of an expression in time with a possible context) like when we say "Did you intend to shoot the mule or was it an accident?" (Austin) shows a use of the word "intend", but it also tells us something about (real-life) intention (it only comes up when something goes wrong). — Antony Nickles
"If anyone says: "For the word 'pain' to have a meaning it is necessary that pain should be recognized as such when it occurs"—-one can reply: "It is not more necessary than that the absence of pain should be recognized." The point is not to explain how language works, but to feel out the limits and logic of the world (our lives in it). (#119) — Antony Nickles
Sometimes we just have to be an example, #208. #474. — Antony Nickles
Of course, one must distinguish two uses of ‘and so on’: (a) as an abbreviation
for a finite list (e.g. ‘the letters of the alphabet, viz. ‘A, B, C, D and so
on’) and (b) as an indication of a technique of unlimited application.
Employed as an abbreviation, ‘and so on’ is replaceable by an enumeration.
If instead of ‘and so on’ we use the sign ‘. . .’, then these dots are ‘dots of
laziness’ (AWL 6; cf. PLP 165). But employed, for example, in explaining
what the series of even numbers is (2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, . . . , 22, 24, and
so on’), the ‘and so on’ is not an abbreviation. Rather, it indicates a technique
for constructing an indefinitely long series (cf. BB 95). This is rendered more
explicit by ‘and so on ad infinitum’. But one must beware of the muddled thought
that an infinite development (such as π) is merely much longer than a finite
one (so that as it were, God sees right to its end, but we cannot).
(g) concludes that teaching the meaning of an expression defined by enumeration
is different from teaching the meaning of an expression by examples plus
an ‘and so on’. The criterion of understanding differs between such cases.
In the first case, repetition of the examples will betoken understanding; in
the second, the production of further, hitherto unmentioned examples (e.g.
continuing the series at an arbitrary point).
§208 exemplifies W.’s observation:
what the correct following of a rule consists in cannot be described more closely than
by describing the learning of ‘proceeding according to a rule’. And this description is
an everyday one, like that of cooking and sewing, for example. It presupposes as much as these. It distinguishes one thing from another, and so it informs a human being who is ignorant of something particular. (RFM 392)
(i) ‘by means of examples’: a cardinal point of W.’s argument is that a series
of examples can itself be employed as the expression of a rule. Cf. ‘Isn’t my
knowledge, my concept of a game, completely expressed in the explanations
that I could give? That is, in my describing examples of various kinds
of games . . . and so on’ (PI §75); see 2.1(i) below.
(ii) ‘I influence him by expressions of agreement, rejection . . .’: the effect
of explanations depends on the learner’s responses to encouragement, pointing,
etc. (cf. Exg. §145).
(i) ‘by means of examples’: cf. MS 165, 74: ‘When do A and B do “the
same”? How can I answer that? By examples.’ See also BT 188: ‘I cannot give
a rule in any way other than by means of an expression; for even examples,
if they are meant to be examples, are an expression for a rule like any other’
(cf. PG 273; RFM 320ff.). We are prone to think that a statement of a rule
plus a few examples are only an indirect way of conveying to the pupil what
the teacher has in mind. ‘But the teacher also has only the rule and examples.
It is a delusion to think that you are producing the meaning in someone’s
mind by indirect means, through the rule and examples’ (AWL 132).
(ii) ‘I do not communicate less to him than I know myself ’: elsewhere
W. stressed this point. We are inclined to think that a rule ‘in some sense’
contains its own applications, and hence that when we understand a rule, our
understanding foresees all its applications. (Hence, when we order a pupil to
expand a segment of a series, we conceive of our meaning him to write ‘1002’
after ‘1000’ etc. as an anticipation.) Here we confuse, inter alia, a grammatical
articulation which we know (can say or think ) with a future step in an unfolding
process. But my knowing the meaning of ‘x^2’ gives me no more reliable
an insight into my own future performances than I can have of another’s.
I have done many examples; I have understood and can give appropriate
explanations. ‘I know about myself just what I know about him’ (LFM 28).
An ability to employ a symbol according to a rule is not a mental container
out of which my subsequent acts are drawn; ‘You yourself do not foresee
the application you will make of the rule in a particular case. If you say
“and so on”, you yourself do not know more than “and so on” ’ (RFM 228).
This is not a form of scepticism, but an objection to a certain metaphysical
delusion. We do not think that if A is able to hit the bull six times in succession,
then, in some sense, he has already done so in advance. But we are prone
to think that if A understands the rule of the series ‘+ 2’, and now knows
that ‘1002’ succeeds ‘1000’, ‘1,000,002’ succeeds ‘1,000,000’ (which he does),
then in some sense the sequence he is to write unfolds in his mind in advance
of his writing it. Hence, we think, he must be able to predict what he will
do at any stage in the application of the rule. But this is muddled, and the
muddle runs parallel to that in kinematics (cf. Exg. §193), where the use of
the future tense to state principles of movement looks like a prediction of a
future movement. — Baker & Hacker on PI 208
Since it is not an interpretation, it does not answer a conflict about a rule, nor eliminate the possibility of interpretation. Though interpretation is not involved at this point in this case, we still express a rule, interpret them by "substitution of one expression of a rule for another". — Antony Nickles
If I am asked why, given
that I was told to add 2, I wrote ‘1002’ after ‘1000’, there is little I can say
other than ‘That is what is called “adding 2”.’ We need have no reason to follow
the rule as we do (BB 143). The chain of reasons has an end. When one
has exhausted justifications, one reaches bedrock. This is what I do; and, of
course, this is what is to be done.
W.’s point is not that where justifications thus give out my action is
unjustified (haphazard, a free choice), but rather that it has already been justified,
and no further justification stands behind the justification that has been given
(cf. RFM 330). The bedrock of justification in following rules is not a prenormative
foundation. Shared behavioural propensities (looking in the direction
pointed at) and common responses to teaching and training (learning the
sequence of natural numbers) are presuppositions for the possibility of having
such shared rules at all; not the bedrock of justification but the framework for
its very possibility. The bedrock is the point at which justifications terminate, and
the question ‘why?’ is answered simply by ‘Well, that is what we call “. . .”.’ — Baker & Hacker on PI 217
Rather than judging whether the use of a word correctly follows the rules for a practice (language), I am judging how an expression, something said, fits into a concept (it's possibilities) based on the concept's criteria, e.g. "How did you mean 'I know'? [what use of "I know" is this?]" — Antony Nickles
Part of the reason to discuss rules would be to draw a limit around how they differ from grammatical/logical rules. — Antony Nickles
Okay, you need words, yes. Witt's term "concept" is used in the sense of a classification for what we do: apologizing, understanding, knowing, seeing, etc. These are parts of our lives, so concepts are not abstract from that, nor individual nor arbitrary. — Antony Nickles
Let's call it the grammar of our ethical situations. — Antony Nickles
Let's call it the grammar of our ethical situations.
— Antony Nickles
Let's not. Grammar is of our language. — Luke
I have a suggestion to make which may or may not clarify this debate. Rather than giving the impression that what you are attempting to do is locate THE correct reading of Wittgenstein, maybe you could instead accept that there may be more than one ‘correct’ Wittgenstein, and proceed to learn about the alternatives to your own. You will still end up preferring one version over another, but at least you’ll have opened yourself up to other possibilities. — Joshs
I don’t see evidence yet in your posts that you recognize there is such a camp that backs up Antony’s perspective on Witt. — Joshs
Such background internal and culture constraints (grammar , rules) only function by being changed in actual use. The actual use co-invents the sense of the rule, grammar, concept that ‘was’ implicated. — Joshs
Language-games are, first, a part of a broader context termed by Wittgenstein a form of life (see below). Secondly, the concept of language-games points at the rule-governed character of language. This does not entail strict and definite systems of rules for each and every language-game, but points to the conventional nature of this sort of human activity. Still, just as we cannot give a final, essential definition of ‘game’, so we cannot find “what is common to all these activities and what makes them into language or parts of language” (PI 65). [...]
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. [...]
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 article on Wittgenstein
I've just read through half of the first article you quoted, Practising pragmatist-Wittgensteinianism. It is almost completely unrelated to this discussion. What's worse is that the article is not even critical of the so-called "Oxford reading", which it turns out, relates only very narrowly to the reading of PI 43 (the meaning-as-use passage). The "Oxford reading" is coined in the article and is cited only in order to criticise a reading by H.O. Mounce. It is not, as you presented, a criticism of the "Oxford reading" or of Baker and Hacker's reading. So I'm afraid I'll have to take your advice with a handful of salt. — Luke
it is a clear misreading by Cavell (followed by Antony) to view PI 217 as pointing to an end to rules or an invitation for further justification. (Cavell reads far too much into the word "inclined".) — Luke
I don't see evidence yet in your posts that you and Antony are even on the same page. — Luke
It is possible that you and Antony have mistaken me for appealing to "grammar-book rules" as per the final paragraph above, but I have been talking about the ""rules" of grammar" as described in the same paragraph. I have referred to this wider sort of grammar - Wittgenstein's concept of grammar - as a corrective to what is indicated by the discussion title: 'Rules' End', and to Antony's explicit statements that some concepts are without rules; the idea that some meaningful language-use is not rule-governed. That's just not the case. — Luke
Regarding your claim that grammar and rules "only function by being changed in actual use", you have given no reason as to why these function only "by being changed", or why they do not function without being changed. — Luke
The actual use can "co-invent the sense of the rule, grammar", but - if I understand you correctly - that is a change in the rules, not an end to the rules. — Luke
The actual use can "co-invent the sense of the rule, grammar", but ... that is a change in the rules, not an end to the rules. — Luke
If actual contextual use offers a fresh sense of a rule, and we only know rules in actual use , where is an ‘unchanged’ rule stored? Is there some internal or social non-contextual realm where they are kept protected from alteration? — Joshs
all that's needed is a relatively stable background of conventions. For instance, I trust that you understand well enough what I'm getting at here, thanks to extremely complex conventions in stringing words together that have become almost automatic for both of us. — Zugzwang
“ The thought that mapping our language might serve a purpose (non-person relative, non-occasion sensitive) relies on the assumption that certain relatively static reference points obtain within that language — Joshs
Indeed, it turns Wittgenstein into a closet metaphysician. — Joshs
Wittgenstein interpretation reached a high point of scholarly detail in Gordon Baker and Peter Hacker’s comprehensive commentary on the Philosophical Investigations, published in four volumes from 1980 onwards. [...]
The Philosophical Investigations [...] is understood by the ‘orthodox’ interpreters as a rejection of the Tractarian model of the language-world relation, and through it, of the tradition behind it. In particular, the book propounds an explicit anti-metaphysical view: philosophy is not taken to consist in the pursuit of the sempiternal and hidden structure of language and the world. Language can still be said to have essential features, but they lie in plain view and need only to be made perspicuous by way of describing the uses of words or by tabulating the rules by which language is governed (see PI § 92). Many of these features are not immutable, however, but belong to changing linguistic practices. The world, on the other hand, is no longer viewed as an object of a priori philosophical speculation, but only of empirical scientific investigation. The logical syntax of language does not mirror the hidden structure of the world, but is simply a means of representing the world. The study of language will thus not uncover any hidden metaphysical features of reality, since there are none. The traditional conception of the aims of philosophy, shared by the Tractatus, is taken to be the result of a misunderstanding of the relation between language and the world by (i) sublimating the essence of our language, and (ii) mistaking features of our linguistic representation of the world for features of the world. What previous philosophers took to be metaphysical truths about the nature of reality are in fact no more than ‘shadows cast by grammar’ (Baker and Hacker 2005, 97). Therefore, we need to discard this idealised model of language and give a systematic account of the language-games in which concepts are used and thus make our conceptual framework explicit in order to resolve philosophical problems.
...the later Wittgenstein is taken to argue that since language is a rule-governed practice (positive result), the idea of a private language is incoherent (negative result). Reading Wittgenstein as providing an overview of grammatical rules that will dissolve philosophical problems and confusions, this interpretation sees his later work as largely continuous with the work of Oxford philosophers such as Ryle, Austin and Strawson. [...]
The orthodox interpretation attributes to Wittgenstein a concern with a methodical account of philosophically relevant concepts for the therapeutic purpose of releasing us from deep-seated confusions, but not primarily an ethical interest in philosophy, as certain other interpreters do (see below). Consequently, the hermeneutic task is seen as consisting in working out his nuanced and complex arguments and analyses, both positive and negative. On this approach, then, interpreting Wittgenstein need not be fundamentally different from the interpretation of other major philosophers. — Wittgenstein and His Interpreters: Essays in Memory of Gordon Baker
Rather than judging whether the use of a word correctly follows the rules for a practice (language), I am judging how an expression, something said, fits into a concept (it's possibilities) based on the concept's criteria, e.g. "How did you mean 'I know'? [what use of "I know" is this?]"
— Antony Nickles
Your question "How did you mean 'I know'?" implies what I am saying here. You are asking what use of 'I know' was intended by the speaker. Why do you think that we use language without intention? — Luke
"If anyone says: "For the word 'pain' to have a meaning it is necessary that pain should be recognized as such when it occurs"—-one can reply: "It is not more necessary than that the absence of pain should be recognized." The point is not to explain how language works, but to feel out the limits and logic of the world (our lives in it). (#119)
— Antony Nickles
No, the point is grammar, and what it makes sense to say (e.g. about pain). — Luke
Sometimes we just have to be an example, #208. #474.
— Antony Nickles
You have cited #208 a few times now, but I think you are mistaking what Wittgenstein is saying. He is not talking about something "beyond the rules", as suggested by your OP. — Luke
A cardinal point of W.’s argument is that a series of examples can itself be employed as the expression of a rule. Cf. ‘Isn’t my knowledge, my concept of a game, completely expressed in the explanations that I could give? That is, in my describing examples of various kinds of games . . . and so on’ (PI §75) — Hacker
What do you make of the last [ paranthetical ] paragraph of PI 217?
"(Remember that we sometimes demand explanations for the sake not of their content, but of their form. Our requirement is an architectural one; the explanation a kind of sham corbel that supports nothing.)" — Luke
We need have no reason to follow the rule as we do (BB 143). The chain of reasons has an end. When one has exhausted justifications, one reaches bedrock. This is what I do; and, of course, this is what is to be done. * * * W.’s point is not that where justifications thus give out my action is unjustified (haphazard, a free choice), but rather that it has already been justified * * * The bedrock is the point at which justifications terminate, and the question ‘why?’ is answered simply by ‘Well, that is what we call “. . .”.’ — Baker & Hacker on #217
Hopefully, this shows that PI 217 is not indicating an invitation for further justifications. — Luke
Part of the reason to discuss rules would be to draw a limit around how rules differ from grammatical/logical rules.
— Antony Nickles
How do they differ? There is no difference. There aren't rules on one side and grammatical rules on the other. The rules are techniques that we learn how to apply, as per B&H's exegesis of PI 208. — Luke
Witt's term "concept" is used in the sense of a classification for what we do: apologizing, understanding, knowing, seeing, etc. These are parts of our lives, so concepts are not abstract from that, nor individual nor arbitrary.
— Antony Nickles
But neither is "what we do" separate from the words "apologizing", "understanding", "knowing", "seeing". The words encompass "what we do" and our uses/meanings of the concepts. — Luke
Let's call it the grammar of our ethical situations.
— Antony Nickles
Let's not. — Luke
So whose characterisation of Hacker and of the orthodox interpretation should I believe? — Luke
“… the book propounds an explicit anti-metaphysical view: philosophy is not taken to consist in the pursuit of the sempiternal and hidden structure of language and the world. Language can still be said to have essential features, but they lie in plain view and need only to be made perspicuous by way of describing the uses of words or by tabulating the rules by which language is governed (see PI § 92).”
“The logical syntax of language does not mirror the hidden structure of the world, but is simply a means of representing the world.”
“...the later Wittgenstein is taken to argue that since language is a rule-governed practice (positive result), the idea of a private language is incoherent (negative result). Reading Wittgenstein as providing an overview of grammatical rules that will dissolve philosophical problems and confusions, …” — Luke
How do you view the clarificatory/therapeutic dispute as being relevant to the current discussion regarding morality, the putative distinction between mathematical and ordinary rules, the exhaustion of justifications in following the rule "in the way I do", and the other matters raised in the OP? Do you find the OP to be consistent with your own reading of the Philosophical Investigations? — Luke
I have referred to this wider sort of grammar - Wittgenstein's concept of grammar - as a corrective to what is indicated by the discussion title: 'Rules' End', and to Antony's explicit statements that some concepts are without rules; the idea that some meaningful language-use is not rule-governed. That's just not the case. — Luke
IFurthermore, it is a clear misreading by Cavell (followed by Antony) to view PI 217 as pointing to an end to rules or an invitation for further justification. (Cavell reads far too much into the word "inclined".) — Luke
If I may jump in, all that's needed is a relatively stable background of conventions. For instance, I trust that you understand well enough what I'm getting at here, thanks to extremely complex conventions in stringing words together that have become almost automatic for both of us. — Zugzwang
Hutchinson’s point is that the background conventions do not do this work of understanding by themselves. They don’t exist independently of person-relative, occasion sensitive use. — Joshs
we are at the moment at which something falls apart: your understanding, our conventions, the "automatic" naturalness of expression and reception, and, in particular--what Witt is discussing here (PI #217, above)--the end of our ability to justify our actions to each other. It is, unfortunately, a tortured thread; I appreciate the interest. — Antony Nickles
If I have exhausted the justifications, I have reached bedrock and my spade is turned. — PI 217
Examples are necessary because we can not explain rules for our concepts that cover every situation--account for every context or predict the way in which they may go wrong. — 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? — Luke
I've tended to take this in terms of justifying claims that one knows something. A dry example: a king is put in check by a bishop. Someone doubts this or doesn't understand. You explain the rules, perhaps trace the diagonal path of the bishop. If that fails to convince, there's nothing more to do. There's nothing deeper, nothing hidden. — Zugzwang
Why, then, are we only inclined to say so? Witt uses the phrase at least 30 other times in the text, say, at #144. He also uses, "we should like to say", "we are tempted to say", "we might say". I would call these the data of investigation. Evidence from which he makes his claims to the grammar of an example, sometimes for correction, sometimes to allow for greater possibilities. — Antony Nickles
There's no top-down authority on what our noises and marks mean... Any of us can give examples of when 'better' is used appropriately. — Zugzwang
This would be why he says he is not advancing theories, because for anything to have value as a grammatical claim, we have to come to it on our own, and then he hasn't really told us anything we didn't already know. — Antony Nickles
There is a difference between a grammatical claim and a definition, but I wanted to acknowledge the democratic affinity. — Antony Nickles
You may be interested/challenged by Cavell's reading, which I draw out in the first post, as he compares it with Kripke's, who puts an emphasis on rules, and neither take the claim to be that there is a fundamental justification. As a teaser, Cavell points out that we are only inclined to, as he reads it, throw up our hands. — Antony Nickles
t's a pity there's so little in Wittgenstein about games evolving or morphing into other games, so that his readers, especially the less sympathetic, have always had to deal with the temptation to take "game" as indicating a closed, static rule system. — Srap Tasmaner
I think in terms of basic conventions, basic habits. We don't justify driving on the correct side of the road. Either side works. All that matters is that we all drive on the same side. This echoes the arbitrary nature of the sign. — Zugzwang
Obligatory plug for David Lewis's Convention: either side of the road is an equilibrium, a stable solution to the coordination problem. — Srap Tasmaner
The question only comes after the expression. My claim is that we don't always intend what we express; that that idea creates a necessity which, as Witt would say, forces a picture upon us (of causality). — Antony Nickles
We can intend to say something--we can reflect and try to say something specific, perhaps explicitly trying to influence (ahead of its reception) which way to take what we think might be misunderstood as another sense of the expression. However, most times we don't intend what we say in this sense, as a deliberate choice. — Antony Nickles
Witt puts it as "An intention is embedded in its situation" (#337). Sometimes it would be strange to even ask what we intended, as when a question can not exist. — Antony Nickles
That is one point, but not the one I was trying to draw your attention to there. I was pointing out the framing of the claim, not commenting on the topic of the paragraph. Those are not mutually exclusive. — Antony Nickles
As poorly misleading as the OP is named, I would still say: other than rules, but of course my topic was the influence of the mathematical on the desire for rules to play the part Kripke gives them. The mathematical can be extended repetitively with certainty and completeness for every application, predetermined and predictably (even when--particularly when--"used" incorrectly). — Antony Nickles
That, unlike the mathematical, these concepts are opened-ended, extendable into unforeseen contexts. — Antony Nickles
For I can give the concept of number rigid boundaries in this way, that is, use the word “number” for a rigidly bounded concept; but I can also use it so that the extension of the concept is not closed by a boundary. And this is how we do use the word “game”. For how is the concept of a game bounded? What still counts as a game, and what no longer does? — PI 68
A cardinal point of W.’s argument is that a series of examples can itself be employed as the expression of a rule. Cf. ‘Isn’t my knowledge, my concept of a game, completely expressed in the explanations that I could give? That is, in my describing examples of various kinds of games . . . and so on’ (PI §75)
— Hacker
This question is by the Interlocutor, who desires or believes possible a "complete expression" of a concept by explanations and describing examples. I take Witt's answer to the question here as no — Antony Nickles
69. How would we explain to someone what a game is? I think that we’d describe games to him, and we might add to the description: “This and similar things are called ‘games’.” And do we know any more ourselves? Is it just that we can’t tell others exactly what a game is? — But this is not ignorance. We don’t know the boundaries because none have been drawn. To repeat, we can draw a boundary a for a special purpose. Does it take this to make the concept usable? Not at all! Except perhaps for that special purpose. — PI 69
In the paragraphs following he points out that we can draw boundaries around different parts--mine loose and yours definitive--but that ultimately most times we can't completely express a concept by explanation; we can't say what we know (#78) or we can't anticipate the 9 mil ways an expression may be meaningful (#79)(even apart from just "what I intend it to be"). — Antony Nickles
The standard reading of Witt here is based on our requirement eventually for some kind of foundational justification, which is most times projected through all his terminology (forms of life, language games); that our shared lives are the final or preexisting justification for our choices. Kripke allows us "inclinations" and Hacker appears to give us "propensities", but the common practice is "what is to be done". This is Cavell's point in saying that Kripke's picture ends the conversation before we even begin about what to do when we are at a loss, what to base our action on in a situation when our justifications to each other run out--that Kripke's picture limits our relationship to judge/defendant. This is not to say there are further justifications, but that we are only "inclined" to end the discussion with a shrug (which you and Hacker have completely ignored). — Antony Nickles
If I am asked why, given that I was told to add 2, I wrote ‘1002’ after ‘1000’, there is little I can say other than ‘That is what is called “adding 2”. — Baker and Hacker, exegesis of PI 217
The desire for normativity creating social repression, suppressing the fallibility of the ordinary with the need to avoid the chaos of the skeptic's conclusions: we may not be justified, we may not (continue to) share a life, we can not be sure, relying on our knowledge and predetermination of practice or rules. — Antony Nickles
Shared behavioural propensities (looking in the direction pointed at) and common responses to teaching and training (learning the sequence of natural numbers) are presuppositions for the possibility of having such shared rules at all; not the bedrock of justification but the framework for its very possibility. The bedrock is the point at which justifications terminate, and the question ‘why?’ is answered simply by ‘Well, that is what we call “...”.’ — Baker and Hacker, exegesis of PI 217
We do not follow a rule to expect something, but are said to be expecting (in that state). — Antony Nickles
So to say we are only talking about language is minimizing — Antony Nickles
Philosophy is a struggle against the bewitchment of our understanding by the resources of
our language. [PI 109]
111. The problems arising through a misinterpretation of our forms of language have the character of depth. They are deep disquietudes; they are as deeply rooted in us as the forms of our language, and their significance is as great as the importance of our language. —– Let’s ask ourselves: why do we feel a grammatical joke to be deep? (And that is what the depth of philosophy is.)
115. A picture held us captive. And we couldn’t get outside it, for it lay in our language, and language seemed only to repeat it to us inexorably.
119. The results of philosophy are the discovery of some piece of plain nonsense and the bumps that the understanding has got by running up against the limits of language. They — these bumps — make us see the value of that discovery.
124. Philosophy must not interfere in any way with the actual use of language, so it can in the end only describe it.
For it cannot justify it either.
It leaves everything as it is.
It also leaves mathematics as it is, and no mathematical discovery can advance it. A “leading problem of mathematical logic” is for us a problem of mathematics like any other. — LW
I'd like your input on the following, inspired by the quote above. Personally it seems impossible for anyone to know all there is to know about (the token) 'justice.' At the same time, most of us could give most of us a rough idea, a start. Then we just keep living, keep interacting, and the way we understand or employ the token shifts, more or less, depending on our trajectories through time. It 'means' (roughly) how it's used. (I think we agree on this.) Its 'meaning' is out there in the hustle and bustle of the crowd, and definitely not in the possession of a clever individual. It has a 'market value.' I care about its so-called meaning only because I interact with others. Its meaning (for instance) is how they'll react to me if I used it like this rather than like that. — Zugzwang
Our concepts are not everywhere circumscribed by rules (cf. §§68–70). But
what would it be to have rules ready for all possible eventualities (cf. §84)?
The case of the disappearing chair leaves us bereft of words — we do not
know what to say. We do not have any rules to budget for such cases. But
the idea that our mastery of the use of the word ‘chair’ consists in knowledge
of a rule that settles the truth-value of ‘There is a chair’ in every conceivable
circumstance is confused. We have rules for the use of the word ‘chair’ wherever
we need them (and if a new need crops up, we can devise a new rule
to budget for it, modifying our concept of a chair accordingly). Our concept
of a chair is none the worse for not being determined by rules that cover the
imagined kind of case, precisely because it does not arise. ‘The signpost is in
order — if, under normal circumstances, it fulfils its purpose’ (§87). — Baker and Hacker, exegesis of PI 80
What's clearly missing from this list is "compelled" and friends.. but I guess you might want to compare the two sets, if you could be certain the variation isn't stylistic.) — Srap Tasmaner
[my children] move a rook in a great curving arc, flying over various pieces and pawns, and capture my piece. That's not misunderstanding but a signal that they're done for now. The best response always seemed to me to join them — Srap Tasmaner
Some parents tend to be a little tone-deaf about this sort of thing.... Treating failure as self-exclusion from the game (as readers of LW sometimes will) strikes me as similarly tone-deaf. — Srap Tasmaner
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