I don't think that Wittgenstein dismisses the inner sensation, but some people do think this is the case. — Sam26
Indeed, and we've embraced a use of "inner experiences" that makes them useless apart from this uselessness. (Or an ordinary kind of thing was rarefied into a metaphysical cliché.)There is no way to know if our inner experiences are the same except through our common reactions to these experiences....We can't peer into the mind to observe these inner experiences, and looking at brain activity does little to help in the way of describing the experience. — Sam26
The sensation of pain does have direct bearing on the meaning of the word pain. Suppose there is one of Wittgenstein's tribes, one whose members do not feel pain. The term 'pain' would be meaningless. It is only because we have had the sensation of pain that we understand what the word means. — Fooloso4
Aren't we talking about the sensation of pain? What many different ways are there to define "pain" in this sense? (I'm not asking what many different types of pain there are). — Luke
Yes, common or conventional usage constitutes the existence of a "type". Like when Pluto was declassified as a planet. "Planet" is the type, the definition of the word. The rocks in our solar system are the concrete particulars that we classify as planets or not planets. — Luke
What I've told you multiple times is that the type-token distinction is independent of "things sensed"; the distinction is merely classificatory, distinguishing a class from its instances; a name from the things named. — Luke
He says there doesn't seem to be any problem of words referring to sensations, and that "we talk about sensations every day, and name them". Where does he "explain how there really is a problem" with words referring to sensations? — Luke
You start by saying the problem is not with "S" but end by saying the problem is with justifying the use of "S"...? — Luke
Meta's public language argument(!), which demonstrates the logical impossibility of a public language.
...All stated in a public language. — Luke
Imagine a boy who knows very little about female anatomy. — hanaH
It seems to me that the inner sensation is useless. It doesn't matter if we all have different beetles in our boxes or if some of us have no beetles. — hanaH
It can't be useless. For example, if there were no inner experience of pain, then there would be no language of pain, no outward sign. — Sam26
Shall we then call it an unnecessary hypothesis that anyone else has personal experiences? -- ... is this a philosophical, a metaphysical belief? Does a realist pity me more than an idealist or a solipsist?
You might say that philosophy got in a strange rut, the idea of private experience, while rarely noticing the impossibility of being rational or critical or scientific about the idiosyncractic-by-definition.The essential thing about private experience is really not that each person possesses his own exemplar, but that nobody knows whether other people also have this or something else. The assumption would thus be possible—though unverifiable—that one section of mankind had one sensation of red and another section another. What am I to say about the word "red"?—that it means something 'confronting us all' and that everyone should really have another word, besides this one, to mean his own sensation of red? Or is it like this: the word "red" means something known to everyone; and in addition, for each person, it means something known only to him? (Or perhaps rather: it refers to something known only to him.) Of course, saying that the word "red" "refers to" instead of "means" something private does not help us in the least to grasp its function; but it is the more psychologically apt expression for a particular experience in doing philosophy. It is as if when I uttered the word I cast a sidelong glance at the private sensation, as it were in order to say to myself: I know all right what I mean by it.
Wittgenstein's "tribes" are isolated peoples. Unlike the boy who knows something is happening that he does not quite understand, no one in this imagined tribe feels pain. There would be no pain behavior and no word for something that does not exist — Fooloso4
...the principal criterion of identity is a thing's spatial-temporal positioning. — Metaphysician Undercover
The point here is that there is no absolute, canonical, essential right or wrong to these differing descriptions. — Banno
don't think that Wittgenstein dismisses the inner sensation, but some people do think this is the case.
— Sam26
It seems to me that the inner sensation is useless. It doesn't matter if we all have different beetles in our boxes or if some of us have no beetles. — hanaH
Could you explain why? — frank
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/behaviorism/According to methodological behaviorism, reference to mental states, such as an animal’s beliefs or desires, adds nothing to what psychology can and should understand about the sources of behavior. Mental states are private entities which, given the necessary publicity of science, do not form proper objects of empirical study.
...
Analytical or logical behaviorism is a theory within philosophy about the meaning or semantics of mental terms or concepts. It says that the very idea of a mental state or condition is the idea of a behavioral disposition or family of behavioral tendencies, evident in how a person behaves in one situation rather than another. When we attribute a belief, for example, to someone, we are not saying that he or she is in a particular internal state or condition. Instead, we are characterizing the person in terms of what he or she might do in particular situations or environmental interactions. Analytical behaviorism may be found in the work of Gilbert Ryle (1900–76) and the later work of Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–51) (if perhaps not without controversy in interpretation, in Wittgenstein’s case).
Sure. I'm not trying to play the skeptic, nor am I trying to found some theory of knowledge. You might say I'm emphasizing the behaviorist streak in Wittgenstein. — hanaH
Mental states are private entities which, given the necessary publicity of science, do not form proper objects of empirical study. — hanaH
IMO, people do think in terms of internal states, though I think it's better to translate this into dispositions...if and when we care about being rational and scientific, etc. — hanaH
It is a description of the sensation, although not an complete one. — Fooloso4
I think Wittgenstein's point is that having a pain (or other sensation) is not something that one can come to know or to learn of, and so it does not constitute knowledge. In order for it to be (learned) knowledge, one would need to be able to guess or speculate whether one was in pain and then be able to confirm or disconfirm it. — Luke
One says ‘I am in pain’ without justification. Whereas I identify the pain of another by reference to behavioural criteria (including his verbal behaviour), I do not identify my sensation by criteria, nor does a ‘private’ sample warrant my utterance. Indeed I do not identify my sensation (for there is here no possibility of any misidentification). — Baker and Hacker
We take ‘I have a pain’ to be a description of the speaker’s state of mind, and so conceive this language‐game to begin with the sensation, which is observed, identified, ascribed to a subject (I) to whom one refers in the description which is the terminus of the language‐game. For when I describe my room, e.g. ‘The sofa‐table has a K’ang‐Hsi vase on it’, I observe the items in the room, identify them, satisfy myself that I know how things are, and refer to them in the description I give. But these language‐games are altogether different. I do not observe my sensations, nor do I identify them. There is no question of my knowing or not knowing how things are with me here. The first‐person pronoun thus used is not a referring expression, and in an avowal such as ‘I have a pain’ I do not ascribe an experience to a person to whom I refer (cf. Exg. §§404 – 10). An avowal of pain is not a description of one’s state of mind, nor is it a description of one’s pain. — Baker and Hacker
290. It is not, of course, that I identify my sensation by means of criteria; it is, rather, that I use the same expression. But it is not as if the language-game ends with this; it begins with it. But doesn’t it begin with the sensation — which I describe? — Perhaps this word “describe” tricks us here. I say “I describe my state of mind” and “I describe my room”. One needs to call to mind the differences between the language-games. — LW
Correct me, but wouldn't Wittgenstein advise that we don't have a vantage point on ourselves necessary to diagnose behaviorism? — frank
That's one way to grok "meaning is use." This is not intended to exhaust the use of the phrase.Why would anyone be a behaviorist?
The first reason is epistemic or evidential. Warrant or evidence for saying, at least in the third person case, that an animal or person is in a certain mental state, for example, possesses a certain belief, is grounded in behavior, understood as observable behavior. Moreover, the conceptual space or step between the claim that behavior warrants the attribution of belief and the claim that believing consists in behavior itself is a short and in some ways appealing step. If we look, for example, at how people are taught to use mental concepts and terms—terms like “believe”, “desire”, and so on—conditions of use appear inseparably connected with behavioral tendencies in certain circumstances. If mental state attribution bears a special connection with behavior, it is tempting to say that mentality just consists in behavioral tendencies.
Correct me, but wouldn't Wittgenstein advise that we don't have a vantage point on ourselves necessary to diagnose behaviorism?
— frank
I don't think I understand you here. , — hanaH
The first reason is epistemic or evidential. Warrant or evidence for saying, at least in the third person case, that an animal or person is in a certain mental state
Why? — Banno
As I, and pretty much everyone else, read this section, we see that what Wittgenstein has shown is that there can be no "principal criterion of identity". — Banno
You, and "pretty much everyone else", are inclined to say that he presents us with a puzzle which cannot be solved. I am inclined to look for the resolution. — Metaphysician Undercover
This is how we decide conclusively whether two temporally separated instances of what appears to be the very same thing, actually are two instances of the very same thing, rather than two different but identical things, by referring to a spatial-temporal continuity. — Metaphysician Undercover
You are convinced of something along the lines of words having determinate, identifiable or statable meanings, in this case arguing that identity has something to do with location. But this is the very ting that has been dismissed in the argument you so tortuously mis-comprehend....this is oddly matched against a form of essentialism, where there is a determinate meaning for each and every word... — Banno
Behaviorism is built on certain hinges that we don't verify. — frank
What I want you to do is turn the above around on the world you see around you. You have no warrant for saying you're not a brain in a vat. — frank
In all the most significant ways, skepticism about mental states is the same as skepticism about external states. — frank
Behaviorism is built on certain hinges that we don't verify.
— frank
Sure. I'd say that (roughy) we reason from uncontroversial statements toward more controversial statements. — hanaH
But yes. It's uncontroversial that people have mental states. The cost of your doubt is morality. — frank
It's about cutting out an explanatory middle man, an appendix that serves no purpose, at least in a stricter, philosophical context — hanaH
but there's a reason that a psychologist or philosopher might want to minimize their dependence on entities that are private by definition (invisible to science and rationality by definition.) — hanaH
tTat's just not what is being claimed. — Banno
You are convinced of something along the lines of words having determinate, identifiable or statable meanings, in this case arguing that identity has something to do with location. But this is the very ting that has been dismissed in the argument you so tortuously mis-comprehend. — Banno
What Wittgenstein shows is that words do not have such fixed meanings. — Banno
We do not decide conclusively if two temporally separated instances are or are not the very same thing, — Banno
Scientists call it first-person data. It's certainly not invisible and not private as that word is used in the PLA. — frank
https://philpapers.org/rec/PICFDFirst-person data have been both condemned and hailed because of their alleged privacy. Critics argue that science must be based on public evidence: since first-person data are private, they should be banned from science. Apologists reply that first-person data are necessary for understanding the mind: since first-person data are private, scientists must be allowed to use private evidence. I argue that both views rest on a false premise. In psychology and neuroscience, the subjects issuing first-person reports and other sources of first-person data play the epistemic role of a (self-) measuring instrument. Data from measuring instruments are public and can be validated by public methods. Therefore, first-person data are as public as other scientific data: their use in science is legitimate, in accordance with standard scientific methodology.
Now, can you see that "common or conventional usage", though it may dictate what is correct and incorrect, it does not necessarily indicate what is true and what is false. In other words, common usage might have us saying something which is false, because it is conventional, and therefore correct, though it is not true. — Metaphysician Undercover
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
If the "type" is produced by, or it's existence is dependent on, common, conventional, or correct usage, with complete disregard for truth or falsity, how can we correctly call this "existence"? — Metaphysician Undercover
If “X exists” amounts to no more than “X” has a meaning — then it is not a sentence which treats of X, but a sentence about our use of language, that is, about the use of the word “X”. — PI 58
So, let's look at what you call "the existence of a 'type'". If the "type" is produced by, or it's existence is dependent on, common, conventional, or correct usage, with complete disregard for truth or falsity, how can we correctly call this "existence"? Such a "type" is something purely imaginary, and it is incorrect to say that imaginary things have existence. — Metaphysician Undercover
Simply put, we commonly talk about nonexistent things. — Metaphysician Undercover
If the type-token distinction is merely classificatory, then all tokens would simply be types, because classification just produces types. — Metaphysician Undercover
Come on Luke, 258, where "S" is proposed as the name of a sensation, is where he shows that there really is a problem with names referring to sensations.. — Metaphysician Undercover
Reread 244 please. He distinctly says, there doesn't "seem" to be any problem here. Then he goes on to explain how there really is a problem with names referring to sensations.. — Metaphysician Undercover
You might simply say, a "type" is a thing whose existence is created by common or conventional usage, but conventional usage is insufficient to support "existence". Talking about Santa Clause does not give that named thing existence. — Metaphysician Undercover
So I'll reiterate, the problem is not with the reality of a private language, there is no problem here. — Metaphysician Undercover
...All stated in a public language.
— Luke
Obviously you misunderstand. — Metaphysician Undercover
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