I don't agree that the ""meaning" of "headache"" is learned entirely on account of public behavior, though. One could not learn the meaning of headache if one had never felt pain. — Janus
But in the Wittgensteinian spirit, I'd say that knowing what a word means is just knowing how to use it appropriately.
If I go by what you say, then I can't ever know if you know what "headache" means. The only way I can get a sense of whether you have experienced pain is by noting whether you use the token "pain" appropriately. — hanaH
Here's my take on what you're wondering about:
The correct use of words is a matter of convention which may change over time. — Janus
Thinking, believing, understanding, pointing, excusing, deducing, etc., etc. All the various concepts and activities of our lives have different conditions (criteria) and possibilities than reference or correspondence (and embody different interests and judgments of our culture in different ways). This is the main point of the PI (that everything is meaningful in its own way). — Antony Nickles
You are restricting what you call philosophy to something analogous to a statement being true or false (essence as something singular and certain), when, for example, Austin has shown that there are statements that have the value of being true without the same criteria and mechanism as true/false (that some statements accomplish something (or fail to) in the saying of them). — Antony Nickles
I think knowing what a word means is knowing how to use it appropriately; but I cannot see how that could be the whole story. — Janus
The assumption would thus be possible—though unverifiable—that one section of mankind had one sensation ofredpain and another section another. — W
None of this has anything to do with what you can know about another because in all cases their behavior could be wholly faked, and the concept of pain is not the concept of any kind of behavior, simply because someone could be in pain and manifest no outward sign of it at all. — Janus
Why would Wittgenstein then say some philosophical problems are psuedo-problems, not real but actually instances of "bewitchment by language"? By the way, none of the articles I read on Wittgenstein provide concrete examples of this happening in actuality. — TheMadFool
Not clear what your point is there. — Janus
Why would Wittgenstein then say some philosophical problems are psuedo-problems, not real but actually instances of "bewitchment by language"? By the way, none of the articles I read on Wittgenstein provide concrete examples of this happening in actuality. — TheMadFool
The man who is philosophically puzzled sees a law in the way a word is used, and, trying to apply this law consistently, comes up against cases where it leads to paradoxical results. Very often the way the discussion of such a puzzle runs is this: First the question is asked "What is time?" This question makes it appear that what we want is a definition. We mistakenly think that a definition is what will remove the trouble (as in certain states of indigestion we feel a kind of hunger which cannot be removed by eating); The question is then answered by a wrong definition; say: "Time is the motion of the celestial bodies". The next step is to see that this definition is unsatisfactory. But this only means that we don't use the word "time" synonymously with "motion of the celestial bodies". However in saying that the first definition is wrong, we are now tempted to think that we must replace it by a different one, the correct one.
Compare with this the case of the definition of number. Here the explanation that a number is the same thing as a numeral satisfies that first craving for a definition. And it is very difficult not to ask: "Well, if it isn't the numeral, what is it?"
Philosophy, as we use the word, is a fight against the fascination which forms of expression exert upon us.
For me the meaning of definition is given by the uses and purposes of dictionaries. Dictionaries catalogue common current usages (and sometimes past, obsolete usages for the sake of those who might be interested). So, I'm not seeing a problem here. — Janus
What does this mean? It's like saying bringing a fish in the ocean closer to water or taking it farther way. :roll: — 180 Proof
I hear you, but if the proposed referent of "pain" is uncheckable, then there's no reason to even assume that it's singular (or that you and I have the same referent in mind in this very conversation.) — hanaH
I don't think this exceptional situation cancels the concept's dependence on behavior in general though. — hanaH
In the spirit of not wanting to indulge in back and white thinking, I am not seeking to deny that the concept is at all dependent on behavior, I just want to say it is not (in its fullness) wholly dependent on behavior, as I think I've already acknowledged and explained. — Janus
Do not mistake the finger pointing at the moon for the moon. — Some Guy
That's a function of our brains' perceptual cognitive & psychological biases and not just, or even principally, our a function of semantics. Scientific, rather than "mental", models (i.e. theories) seem the best approximations of reality we have (or need). The Scientific Image accounts for our Manifest Image but not the other way around. And so to which does philosophy belong? Both, I think, but only in the gaps where they overlap. — 180 Proof
https://www.britannica.com/topic/philosophy-of-mind/Radical-behaviourism
Irreferentialism
It has been noted how, in relation to introspection, Wittgenstein resisted the tendency of philosophers to view people’s inner mental lives on the familiar model of material objects. This is of a piece with his more general criticism of philosophical theories, which he believed tended to impose an overly referential conception of meaning on the complexities of ordinary language. He proposed instead that the meaning of a word be thought of as its use, or its role in the various “language games” of which ordinary talk consists. Once this is done, one will see that there is no reason to suppose, for example, that talk of mental images must refer to peculiar objects in a mysterious mental realm. Rather, terms like thought, sensation, and understanding should be understood on the model of an expression like the average American family, which of course does not refer to any actual family but to a ratio. This general approach to mental terms might be called irreferentialism. It does not deny that many ordinary mental claims are true; it simply denies that the terms in them refer to any real objects, states, or processes. As Wittgenstein put the point in his Philosophische Untersuchungen (1953; Philosophical Investigations), “If I speak of a fiction, it is of a grammatical fiction.”
Of course, in the case of the average American family, it is quite easy to paraphrase away the appearance of reference to some actual family. But how are the apparent references to mental phenomena to be paraphrased away? What is the literal truth underlying the richly reified façon de parler of mental talk?
Although Wittgenstein resisted general accounts of the meanings of words, insisting that the task of the philosopher was simply to describe the ordinary ways in which words are used, he did think that “an inner process stands in need of an outward criterion”—by which he seemed to mean a behavioral criterion.
Once this is done, one will see that there is no reason to suppose, for example, that talk of mental images must refer to peculiar objects in a mysterious mental realm. Rather, terms like thought, sensation, and understanding should be understood on the model of an expression like the average American family, which of course does not refer to any actual family but to a ratio. This general approach to mental terms might be called irreferentialism. It does not deny that many ordinary mental claims are true; it simply denies that the terms in them refer to any real objects, states, or processes.
it is interesting that a lot of the time there is the picture that thought is alive until it is put into language, and then, having been cemented in an expression, it is thus dead. — Antony Nickles
Scientific, rather than "mental", models (i.e. theories) seem the best approximations of reality we have (or need). The Scientific Image accounts for our Manifest Image but not the other way around. And so to which does philosophy belong? Both, I think, but only in the gaps where the Scientific & Manifest overlap. — 180 Proof
Well, arguably, what happened to all that essence and substance talk, was that it was transformed into the basis for modern science.
— Wayfarer
That's why, it seems, I instinctively used H2O, the chemical formula for water, in my post. It seems so natural to do so, as if that, the chemical composition of water, is its (water's) essence but...is it? I suppose it is - everything about water can be explained with how the molecule H2O would/does behave. I wonder if Wittgenstein had anything to say about science and what seems to be its focus on the thing-in-itself (the referent e.g. water) rather than the sign (the word "water"). Could we then say that to deal with the Wittgensteinian problem of language games we could switch our perspective to a scientific one? I'm shooting in the dark here so do bear with me. — TheMadFool
Actually even the word "knowledge" is problematic, to such an extent that we even say that justified true beliefs constitute knowledge. But this is highly problematic. One can have a justified true belief, but not have knowledge:
Imagine you watch the finals in the NBA and team A beats team B. You saw it and reached this conclusion. Unbeknownst to you, what you were watching was a replay of a previos game in which the same team wins (team A) against the same opponent (team B). In the actual finals team A does beat team B, but you were watching a replay, not the actual game. So you had justified true belief, but it wasn't knowledge. — Manuel
Ah, Fool buddy, you've shot yourself in the dark again. :smirk:Could we then say that to deal with the Wittgensteinian problem of language games we could switch our perspective to a scientific one? I'm shooting in the dark here so do bear with me. — TheMadFool
What's meaningless in one language game is meaningful in another? — TheMadFool
Why would Wittgenstein then say some philosophical problems are psuedo-problems, not real but actually instances of "bewitchment by language"? — TheMadFool
-Witt, Blue Book, from @hanaHPhilosophy, as we use the word, is a fight against the fascination which forms of expression exert upon us.
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