If I can find the time, I think I'll like Cavell. — Zugzwang
I do see a reason for the different phrasing — Antony Nickles
Perhaps as excuses to save pride or avoid shame? — Antony Nickles
...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... — Baker and Hacker, exegesis of PI 80
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
Wittgenstein is pointing here to "extremely general facts of nature" (PI 142) - such as our shared form of life and our natural human reactions - as the "framework for the very possibility" of having shared rules. You and Cavell have it backward in reading Wittgenstein as talking about the end of justification. Witt is not talking about the end of justification, but its beginning; its possibility. — Luke
The essay we are debating is in Conditions Handsome and Unhandsome. — Antony Nickles
https://www.academia.edu/45638569/Review_of_Stanley_Cavells_Conditions_Handsome_and_UnhandsomePursuing a theme that will be familiar to readers of Cavell's earlier writing, he does not dispute the skeptic's claim that rules lack absolute grounds but laments the skeptic's cure. The cure, associated with Kripke, strips rules of their pretense of resting on an independent reality but then restores a demystified, antifoundationalist version of rules in which they ground themselves not in truth but in consent. Cavell claims that skepticism rejects one justification of conformity to existing rules only to endorse a more sustainable conformity. Skepticism, in this light, encourages conformity to community consensus. This argument about the politics of antifoundationalism should prompt further discussion of the links between liberalism's antifoundationalist update and the ongoing crisis of conformity in US democracy.
Pursuing a theme that will be familiar to readers of Cavell's earlier writing, he does not dispute the skeptic's claim that rules lack absolute grounds but laments the skeptic's cure. The cure, associated with Kripke, strips rules of their pretense of resting on an independent reality but then restores a demystified, antifoundationalist version of rules in which they ground themselves not in truth but in consent. Cavell claims that skepticism rejects one justification of conformity to existing rules only to endorse a more sustainable conformity. Skepticism, in this light, encourages conformity to community consensus. This argument about the politics of antifoundationalism should prompt further discussion of the links between liberalism's antifoundationalist update and the ongoing crisis of conformity in US democracy.
The 'confused' idea here seems founded on 'mathematical' fantasy of how language works. 'God' knows exactly what 'chair' and 'is' and 'there' mean (semantic Platonism.) — Zugzwang
You draw an interesting connection here between mathematics and Platonism. I wonder if this is what Antony means by “mathematical” in the thread title. — Luke
There is nothing common to all language games or particular applications of a rule. — Joshs
… 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”. — Pi 201
The point is that the extension or range of application of any word is a fiction, continually up for negotiation. What distinguishes the 'mathematical' from the 'ordinary' is the reasonable expectation that, however one's own utterances are interpreted (e.g. as plus or as quus), the consequent discourse will be well behaved in maintaining the distinction between distinct extensions, whatever they 'truly' are. This may or may not depend on those extensions being, like tunes, mutually exclusive. — bongo fury
The writer seems particularly stuck with the idea philosophy is always worried about what foundation it does or does not have. — Antony Nickles
I would say that there must be something in common in all particular cases of following a rule correctly, otherwise there could be no such thing as following a rule correctly. — Luke
. Family resemblance may (or may not) be concerned with the concept “rule”, but I don’t believe that family resemblance relates to particular applications of, or the following of, a rule. — Luke
Correctness would not be conformity to a categorical essense, but the fresh generating of a resemblance that produces agreement. — Joshs
That's quite appealing, but terribly abstract. There are constraints on or expectations about what sorts of resemblance you generate, and the generating itself, and the agreement — Srap Tasmaner
The best way I can put it is that the situation co-produces the constraints along with the new sense. Put differently, the past is changed by what occurs into it. — Joshs
But I imagine Wittgenstein asking, is not ‘rule’ also a word? — Joshs
There is no such thing as a word outside of some particular use; but that is a different claim from saying, with Baker & Hacker, that words belong to a type of use. For a word to be is for a word to be used. Language does not exist external to its use by us in the world.” — Joshs
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
You seemed earlier to be disputing that we ever use language intentionally, in relation to our discussion about meaning and use. I did acknowledge earlier that we may not always speak intentionally (e.g. on autopilot), but I would say that we speak intentionally at least most of the time. — Luke
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
I think that we generally use words with intention, particularly by intending one meaning of a word or sentence rather than another; intending to express something or other. Whether it is taken in the right way, understood or interpreted correctly by its audience is another matter. However, I confess that I don't think this talk of intention is very relevant to anything Wittgenstein was saying. — Luke
you were bordering on a misunderstanding whereby grammar is no longer about language, but about the things themselves (about "the world" and "our lives in it"). Hence, my blunt responses to remind you that grammar is about language.[/qu
It would help if you could say more yourself (to me or for yourself) other than grammar is about language. I'll try again. Witt is giving examples of what we say in certain situations, but not to shed light on what we should or should not say, but to see from that data (of the way we say something in a situation) what it reveals about the grammar of the thing. In drawing out the grammar of pain, we find out what is essential to us, meaningful to us, about pain itself. We indirectly get past Kant's line in the sand by looking back at expressions. If that can't be accepted, I'll need a little more justification and evidence to buy that Philosophical Investigations was meant as just some kind of etiquette book about how we should talk.
— Luke
That, unlike the mathematical, these concepts are opened-ended, extendable into unforeseen contexts. — Antony Nickles
Correct me if I'm wrong, but you appear to suggest that it is not the concepts themselves which can be extended (in terms of their family resemblance), but it is the applications/uses of the concepts which can be extended "into unforeseen contexts". — Luke
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
What will you say to the poor sod who continues to demand further justifications for why we write '1002' after '1000' when we are told to add 2? How will you avoid "repressing" them during this "crisis"? — 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
We do not follow a rule to expect something, but are said to be expecting (in that state). — Antony Nickles
The rule pertains to the use of the word "expect", not to (how to) expect something. The emphasis is on "said to be" (expecting). - "we are not doing natural science; nor yet natural history". — Luke
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. — Luke
I just ordered the first Hacker & Baker volume — Zugzwang
Well, I prefer (so far) to just pick up Wittgenstein. Or actually, once W breaks the ice, to just start paying more attention to the barks and moans and tweets we do. But this thread has largely focused on what X said about W.I don't recommend this. It's like when people teach themselves piano, — Antony Nickles
Hacker will just reinforce a reading of Witt that is limited and unconsciously driven by the same forces Witt is trying to investigate. I would suggest Cavell's The Claim of Reason, in which he discusses Hacker, or, easier, the very short essay The Availability of the Later Wittgenstein. — Antony Nickles
You draw an interesting connection here between mathematics and Platonism. I wonder if this is what Antony means by “mathematical” in the thread title. — Luke
If language was like math… we'd be essentially free from humiliating surprises. — Zugzwang
How can I be sure? Not sure enough to act with confidence...but even surer than that somehow. Infinitely sure. — Zugzwang
Behind all the fuss to be certain about what is right, is a desire to predict outcomes, which will avoid our being responsible after our act. That I can say, “Well, I followed the rule correctly!” — Antony Nickles
Well, I prefer (so far) to just pick up Wittgenstein. — Zugzwang
Or actually,, once W breaks the ice, to just start paying more attention to the barks and moans and tweets we do. — Zugzwang
This is the crux of the matter. I claim that Wittgenstein is giving us a way to treat a notion like ‘correctness’ that doesn’t depend on the reproductive representation of an alleged ‘essense’( the essense of what cases have in common). Correctness would not be conformity to a categorical essense, but the fresh generating of a resemblance that produces the possibility of agreement, among other things. — Joshs
...when we understand a rule, we do not await its prompt at every step of its application, baffled, as it were, about what to do next. On the contrary, it tells us, once and for all, what to do. For the rule always tells us the same, and in following it, we always do the same. Indeed, this is something one might emphasize in training someone to follow a rule. — Baker & Hacker on PI 223
If one treats a rule as a logical inclusion structure, a category to which particular applications belong, then it seems perfectly reasonable to make a distinction between the idea that different senses of a word relate to each other via family resemblance, and the idea that a categorical, normative concept like rule , being that essense common to a family of resemblances , cannot itself be dissolved into an infinity of related senses. — Joshs
235. From this you can see how much there is to the physiognomy of what we call “following a rule” in everyday life. — LW
[Hutchinson & Read]: “The mistake here then is (Baker &) Hacker’s thought that what is problematic for Wittgenstein—what he wants to critique in the opening remarks quoted from Augustine—is that words name things or correspond to objects, with the emphasis laid on the nature of what is on the other side of the word-V relationship. Rather, we contend that what is problematic in this picture is that words must be relational at all—whether as names to the named, words to objects, or ‘words’ belonging to a ‘type of use.’It is the necessarily relational character of ‘the Augustinian picture’ which is apt to lead one astray; Baker & Hacker, in missing this, ultimately replace it with a picture that retains the relational character, only recast. There is no such thing as a word outside of some particular use; but that is a different claim from saying, with Baker & Hacker, that words belong to a type of use. For a word to be is for a word to be used. Language does not exist external to its use by us in the world.” — Joshs
The picture you have of how language works creates the picture of intention as present during speech. — Antony Nickles
Let's try an example, say, the concept of justification. I can be justified if I was right in killing another, in the sense of absolution. But I am also justified to kill another by right, as by authority (by rule, law). Now we say belief (opinion) can be justified. Now based on these first two uses of justification, this could be that my belief has authority (I am right), or it could be in the sense of removing me from any need to stand behind what I say (letting the justification absolve my responsibility). — Antony Nickles
If a police officer, who has the authority to kill someone under certain circumstances, does so under those circumstances, we could say they had justification, but we might be left with the feeling that is no justification, that here, there is authority without absolution. These were two senses/two uses that we could be said to be familiar with, that were applied to a different context (belief), and then both brought to weigh in on their original context in reasonable but contradictory ways. — Antony Nickles
What will you say to the poor sod who continues to demand further justifications for why we write '1002' after '1000' when we are told to add 2? How will you avoid "repressing" them during this "crisis"?
— Luke
A. No one is going to ask why; we don't need a justification; and what they say is just condescension; and
B. That’s math! All I've been talking about is how the ideal of mathematical concepts affects the rest of our concepts. — Antony Nickles
Try imagining justifying (the rules of?) the concept of justification in the two uses (senses) in the case of the police shooting above — Antony Nickles
Maybe the law (the rule) represses the sense of what might be just, and a righteousness (based on a moral law) would seem to undermine society's ability to assert its authority. — Antony Nickles
If grammar are rules, then in what way is the grammatical rule--that expectation is a state--about the way to use the word expect? — Antony Nickles
And the question is actually how do we judge someone being in the state of expectation, not just whether we have said expecting correctly. — Antony Nickles
572. 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.)
573. To have an opinion is a state. — A state of what? Of the soul? Of the mind? Well, what does one say has an opinion? Mr N.N., for example. And that is the correct answer.
One should not expect to be enlightened by the answer to that question. Other questions that go deeper are: What, in particular cases, do we regard as criteria for someone’s being of such-and-such an opinion? When do we say that he reached this opinion at that time? When that he has altered his opinion? And so on. The picture that the answers to these questions give us shows what gets treated grammatically as a state here. — LW
I came across this neuroscience article (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6499020/#sec3title) which I think has a good discussion of Wittgenstein on intention. I note it's quasi-conclusion that Wittgenstein "solves the problem of causation-by-states by positing an equally contested form of causation-by-agents." However, since it still involves causation, I'm not sure you would agree. — Luke
as this is not about being told things as much as coming to see something for yourself. — Antony Nickles
This is a classic example of how the desire for certainty forces a picture on us that we then try to intellectually solve. It starts out okay by breaking the bad news to "neuroscientists" that intention does not come down to a physical process. Unfortunately, it does not stop there; but why? Why are we driven to continue? The problem is that they want to have our explanation of intention be "normative" or, be subject to "explanation, prediction, evaluation, and regulation". This is their desire. — Antony Nickles
In the essay Must We Mean What We Say, Cavell takes the air out of the desire to find some intellectual normativity by pointing out that something is normative to the extent the practice is normative in our lives. Intention is just not like promising--each concept has its own implications, consequences, or none; you can say whatever you like, but only some things will be considered, say, instructions, or an excuse. — Antony Nickles
But the author plows forward claiming that "we need to answer the question: what makes the ascription of an intention (by others or by oneself) legitimate?"(emphasis added) But, again, what is this need? He completely misses the point of #641, taking the phrase "the most explicit expression of intention is by itself insufficient evidence of intention”, to signal that: there must be sufficient evidence of intention out there somewhere! — Antony Nickles
The author quotes the same passages I did (#581-583), but they take the "situation"(#581) or the "surroundings"(#583) to be what is happening with the person, their "pattern" over time. Intention not being mental, they would have it be behavioral--"ascribed" to the person--as if to push causality into them externally. But when Witt says an expectation is "imbedded in a situation" (#581), he is saying the context is what makes expectation here even possible (with a bomb about to go off). Only "in these surroundings"(#583) is there any significance (meaning) to "expecting". — Antony Nickles
The same applies for intention; it is not a cause, it is an unanticipated part in a situation — Antony Nickles
It is the (cultural/personal) expectation that makes the discussion of intention even possible, not the occurrence or lack of someone's "intention". — Antony Nickles
Intention is part of a discussion, not an action, nor a person. — Antony Nickles
370. One ought to ask, not what images are or what goes on when one
imagines something, but how the word “imagination” is used. But that
does not mean that I want to talk only about words. For the question
of what imagination essentially is, is as much about the word “imagination”
as my question. And I am only saying that this question is
not to be clarified — neither for the person who does the imagining,
nor for anyone else — by pointing; nor yet by a description of some
process. The first question also asks for the clarification of a word; but
it makes us expect a wrong kind of answer. — LW
654. Our mistake is to look for an explanation where we ought to regard
the facts as ‘proto-phenomena’. That is, where we ought to say: this is
the language-game that is being played.
655. The point is not to explain a language-game by means of our experiences,
but to take account of a language-game.
656. What is the purpose of telling someone that previously I had such and-
such a wish? — Regard the language-game as the primary thing.
And regard the feelings, and so forth, as a way of looking at, interpreting,
the language-game!
One might ask: how did human beings ever come to make the kind
of linguistic utterance which we call “reporting a past wish” or “a past
intention”? — LW (original emphasis)
Now we say belief (opinion) can be justified. Now based on these first two uses of justification, this could be that my belief has authority (I am right), or it could be in the sense of removing me from any need to stand behind what I say (letting the justification absolved my responsibility).
I don't understand how a belief/opinion "could be in the sense of removing me from any need to stand behind what I say (letting the justification absolve my responsibility)". How is that a belief/opinion? By not understanding this, I don't understand the rest of what you say here. — Luke
If a police officer, who has the authority to kill someone under certain circumstances, does so under those circumstances, we could say they had justification, but we might be left with the feeling that is no justification, that here, there is authority without absolution. These were two senses/two uses that we could be said to be familiar with, that were applied to a different context (belief), and then both brought to weigh in on their original context in reasonable but contradictory ways.
— Antony Nickles
Who is "we" in this situation? — Luke
If "we" feel it is unjust, then why do "we" say it is just? — Luke
What role do "our" feelings play here? — Luke
Try imagining justifying (the rules of?) the concept of justification in the two uses (senses) in the case of the police shooting above
— Antony Nickles
These rules of the concept of justification are simply the two different uses (senses) of the word "justification" that you have described; the rules for using these words with different senses. There is no need to justify the existence of the different uses/senses of our words. — Luke
Maybe the law (the rule) represses the sense of what might be just, and a righteousness (based on a moral law) would seem to undermine society's ability to assert its authority.
— Antony Nickles
The sense of the word "just" is already established; you already know what it means. Are you saying that the law could repress or change the sense of the word? Okay, but so what? Maybe it doesn't change the sense of the word, and it only changes our views about what acts or events we would classify as being just or unjust. — Luke
Whether or not the killing is just does not affect the two different senses of "justification" (or "just") here. — Luke
This is a classic example of how the desire for certainty forces a picture on us that we then try to intellectually solve. — Antony Nickles
Of course that's their desire; they're scientists. We should not admonish scientists for attempting to explain, predict, etc. — Luke
He completely misses the point of #641, taking the phrase "the most explicit expression of intention is by itself insufficient evidence of intention”, to signal that: there must be sufficient evidence of intention out there somewhere! — Antony Nickles
Isn't that precisely what Wittgenstein signals here? Otherwise, what does he signal with this statement? — Luke
'I am not ashamed of what I did then, but of the intention which I had.'—And didn't the intention lie also in what I did? What justifies the shame? The whole history of the incident. — Witt, PI 644
'But when Witt says an expectation is "imbedded in a situation" (#581), he is saying the context is what makes expectation here even possible (with a bomb about to go off). Only "in these surroundings"(#583) is there any significance (meaning) to "expecting". — Antony Nickles
I'll just point out that an intention is not an expectation. — Witt, PI 644
How do you account for PI 647: "What is the natural expression of an intention? — Look at a cat when it stalks a bird; or a beast when it wants to escape." - This is not about "an unanticipated part in a situation." — Witt, PI 644
it is the (cultural/personal) expectation that makes the discussion of intention even possible, not the occurrence or lack of someone's "intention". — Antony Nickles
Are you saying that "the (cultural/personal) expectation" is an intention? — Witt, PI 644
Get involved in philosophical discussions about knowledge, truth, language, consciousness, science, politics, religion, logic and mathematics, art, history, and lots more. No ads, no clutter, and very little agreement — just fascinating conversations.