I don't think the trail of text above this post supports that. It has been suggested (in so many words, seems to me) that pain refers to a sensation, that signs refer to ideas. Private substances. The controlling picture seems to be that of the soul in unmediated contact with pain-stuff and meaning-stuff. Or perhaps of the soul as a self-referential bundle of such stuff.

This morning it occurs to me that the first great 'triumph' of the logical form approach was something called, oddly enough, the "theory of descriptions". And then here's LW opposing description to theory.

Among other things, the theory of descriptions embeds a universally quantified conditional --- i.e., an hypothesis --- in denotative phrases like "the present king of France":

$\exists x(Fx \wedge \forall y (Fy \to y = x))$

So could be just a little reminder to insiders, with a mischievous wink, that he's not doing that anymore. In certain quarters at the time, the word "description" alone carried a whole theory along with it.

I personally have less problems understanding invisible things than visible things. Note that I'm avoiding the terms "physical", "material" and "immaterial" because I do not quite understand or trust what they mean. I do understand the distinction between visible and invisible, so that's what I use here.

So for me, speaking of ideas or concepts is not a problem at all, but speaking of visible ("material") things is sometimes more triky, as it involves "thinging" for instance.

So could be just a little reminder to insiders, with a mischievous wink, that he's not doing that anymore. In certain quarters at the time, the word "description" alone carried a whole theory along with it. — Srap Tasmaner

Ha. Entirely possible. Although Witty mischievously winking is a very weird image.

don't think the trail of text above this post supports that. It has been suggested (in so many words, seems to me) that pain refers to a sensation, that signs refer to ideas. Private substances. The controlling picture seems to be that of the soul in unmediated contact with pain-stuff and meaning-stuff. Or perhaps of the soul as a self-referential bundle of such stuff. — hanaH

Look at the trail again. That's you going on and on about metaphysical issues. What would Witt say about that?

It gives philosophers a special domain, often take to be eternal and offering a kind of ideal, "direct" access. I "can't" be wrong about what I think I mean. I "can't" be wrong about my pain. This "can't" is more grammatical than logical ( — hanaH

I think it's simply false to assume that "I can't be wrong about what I think I mean." We are not fully transparent to ourselves IMO.

In Wittgensteinian, you don't necessarily know all the beetles you have.

[Witt's idea of expression allowing for the personal] seems we are borrowing the Wittgenstein avatar for different projects. Yours reminds me of a therapist. — hanaH

Not to maybe address your comment directly, but my point is that Witt is replacing the internal referent of the essence of a sensation with the ordinary workings of our sensations/experience (that they still are important to us individually, interpersonally, culturally). To say this is therapeutic is to imply he was solely focused on "curing" the desire of the skeptic to leapfrog our ordinary criteria in place of certainty (the temptation for which he leaves open in each of us).

The characterization as "therapy" also misses the goal of bringing back the essence of our ordinary criteria, here, of sensations and experience; that there is a categorical logic of the conditions, possibilities, and structure (grammar) of sensations--based on the idea of expression--which is specifically addressed in the PI (see below).

The reason it may appear imposed or external is that, rather than seeing the point as simply that sensation and experience have a different structure than word-referent, people jump to (stop at) taking the goal as eradicating sensations themselves, or that we cannot talk about my experience at all--with the fact that talking in general is based on public concepts; or that we are still stuck in the Tractatus so that of which one cannot speak, one must be silent (not seeing that, there, the reasoning is that "speech" is being limited only to logical certainty). But saying that language is public is not to say I can't try to express a solely personal experience:

But could we also imagine a language in which a person could write down or give vocal expression to his inner experiences—his feelings, moods, and the rest—for his private use?——Well, can't we do so in our ordinary language?—But that is not what I mean. — Witt, PI #243 (emphasis added)

My point is that the answer to the bolded question is, yes, I can "write down or give vocal expression to [my] inner experiences—my feelings, moods, and the rest", even "for [my] private use"--only here "private" is not the term that Witt makes of "private" (that no one else would understand), but with the ordinary criteria of personal, secret. I can even express my experience individualistically, say, poetically:

We speak of understanding a sentence in the sense in which it can be replaced by another which says the same; but also in the sense in which it cannot be replaced by any other. (Any more than one musical theme can be replaced by another.) In the one case the thought in the sentence is something common to different sentences; in the other, something that is expressed only by these words in these positions. (Understanding a poem.) — Witt, PI # 531

The fact you may not accept it--care, be interested, be understanding, ask for clarification--as it were, to find it meaningful, is the fact that I may be isolated, alone in the world, not treated as "alive" (#284) or as having a "soul" (#179). The person could "understand the language"--it is public language--but they would not, I might feel, understand me.

"Cries" is an intentionally jarring metaphor. "Just" cries suggests meaninglessness, where I'm simply looking at relationships of stuff in the world (stuff that includes our sounds and scribbles) for meaning. — hanaH

And this is the depth of the concept of expression, which includes the non-verbal, the non-linguistic (cries), but also that our ordinary language is much more expressive than we give it credit for, as we only picture it as word=single referent. Thus the analogies to music (#527) in that there is much more going on than may be grasped instantly (taking meaning as simply the individual word's definitions); that we may go back and forth to draw out endless depth in the expression of our experience.

The claim that we cannot get between pain and its expression (#244-245) is to show us that the structure (the grammar) of our sensations is not that they are known, but that they are expressed or not. That they are meaningful to me is in releasing them into the world (or hiding them); that they are meaningful to you is the extent to which you accept them, that you accept me as a person in pain. "If I see someone writhing in pain with evident cause I do not think: all the same, his feelings are hidden from me." (p. 223 3rd.)(emphasis added) I do not know their pain (use a "criterion of identity" #288), I reject them, or I help them--as it were, beyond knowledge (Emerson's reliance, Nietzsche's human). This is the essence of experience/sensation. ( @TheMadFool ) The picture of a word-referent mistakes this limitation of knowledge as the vision that no one could know me (my "sensation"/"experience"); that I am essentially, always unique/special--that the only failure/solution is a matter of epistemology.

I agree that one can say there are many different frameworks. — hanaH

With acknowledging the possibility of multiple uses/senses in a concept (apart even from one context), Witt's claim is not one theory (as if, among others) of the framework of sensations/experience; it is a universal claim on all of us, for all of us to see and accept. The point is there are different frameworks (grammar) for each different concept: thinking, reading, rule-following, sensations, justification, etc.

It seems we are borrowing the Wittgenstein avatar for different projects. Yours reminds me of a therapist. I'm not objecting or mocking. — hanaH

Indeed. I would t say Antony is borrowing Witt for some side interest. He is putting forth an interpretation in which ‘therapy’ is absolutely central to ( although not the only thing) what Wittgenstein is doing. This is the reading of Wittgenstein I embrace alongside writers like G.P. Baker:

“ Baker's post-1990 ‘position’ is that Wittgenstein's method is radically therapeutic: therapeutic in that the aim is to relieve mental cramps brought about by being faced with a seemingly intractable philosophical problem; radically so in that how this aim is achieved is person relative, occasion sensitive and context dependent.”

Note that I'm avoiding the terms "physical", "material" and "immaterial" because I do not quite understand or trust what they mean. — Olivier5

We're on the same page there. That's part of why I give the reference theory hell.

If our marks and noises get their "meaning" from the world at large (something like the role they play in it as worldly objects among other worldly objects), then it should be no surprise that we don't "really" (exactly) know or control what we are talking about, anymore than a dog can give an exhaustive account of how the wagging of its tail will affect other dogs.

I think it's simply false to assume that "I can't be wrong about what I think I mean." We are not fully transparent to ourselves IMO.

In Wittgensteinian, you don't necessarily know all the beetles you have. — Olivier5

I agree that we are not transparent to ourselves, but I think that the beetle is typically understood to symbolize what we do have perfect access to. There's an old joke about atonal music: it's better than it sounds!

The crude view is something like box as 'pain' and beetle as pain itself, directly but privately experienced.

The point is there are different frameworks (grammar) for each different concept: thinking, reading, rule-following, sensations, justification, etc. — Antony Nickles

That's a reasonable assertion, but perhaps you'll agree that there's nothing final about those categories. Why not 23,546 categories? Why not a grammar for each word, for each finite sequence of words? Are you cutting nature at the joints here? Or is this just a handy improvised system, heuristic and traditional?

As I see it, the map will never do justice to the teeming territory. The world which includes, among so many other things, almost 8 billion brains...is not going to be mapped or mastered in detail by any single brain. Or with a finite string of words.

Why not 23,546 categories? Why not a grammar for each word, for each finite sequence of words? Are you cutting nature at the joints here? Or is this just a handy improvised system, heuristic and traditional?

As I see it, the map will never do justice to the teeming territory. — hanaH

I don’t think Witt ( or Antony) is interested in cutting nature at its joints. This notion of nature implies an extant empirical realm that we ‘map’. It s a representational approach to determining sense.
But for Witt lamguage isnt about adequating one’s understanding to a world or ‘territory’ by mapping it , but about producing or enacting a world.

My point is that the answer to the bolded question is, yes, I can "write down or give vocal expression to [my] inner experiences—my feelings, moods, and the rest", even "for [my] private use"--only here "private" is not the term that Witt makes of "private" (that no one else would understand), but with the ordinary criteria of personal, secret. I can even express my experience individualistically, say, poetically — Antony Nickles

Sure. We have a rich 'mentalistic' vocabulary, which we use for such things all the time. The question is whether animals coordinate their behavior 'materially' or by all gazing on the same immaterial referent, with the same immaterial organ. Do I know what 'pain' means because of some private experience? Or because my body has been trained by the bodies of those around me in the world we share to react to and employ the token in multifarious ways?

I don’t think Witt ( or Antony) is interested in cutting nature at its joints. — Joshs

My point was that there's nothing magical or necessary about our current categories. We have the signs 'reading', 'thinking', and so on, each with their own grammar, we might say. That's still a massive simplification (which we can't avoid but which we can keep in mind.) 'Rules' are discovered out there in the world by looking. It's not chess but sociology, linguistics.

If our marks and noises get their "meaning" from the world at large (something like the role they play in it as worldly objects among other worldly objects), then it should be no surprise that we don't "really" (exactly) know or control what we are talking about, anymore than a dog can give an exhaustive account of how the wagging of its tail will affect other dogs — hanaH

No, but a dog has expectations of what will ensue when it barks in a particular way or gestures with its paw.

We know what we are talking about to the same extent that we know what any of our behavior is about. Aboutness is presupposed by the normative functioning of a self-organizing system. We always behave into our world on the basis of ongoing concerns , aims and goals. That makes us sense-making creatures. Sense-makers are anticipative, not simply reactive. This is what makes the world recognizable to us, and means that grunts barks and hisses are motivated and emerge out of a background context of anticipations.

It s a representational approach to determining sense.
But for Witt lamguage isnt about adequating one’s understanding to a world or ‘territory’ by mapping it , but about producing or enacting a world. — Joshs

Funny that you should say that when I've been comparing our speech to barks, the movements of limbs, and so on. Mouths shake the air, hands smear liquids on solids or scrape shapes in stone. Cloth is sewn so that it can be waved prominently, guns are fired to start a race.

'Rules' are discovered out there in the world by looking. It's not chess but sociology, linguistics. — hanaH

I don’t think rules are discovered out there in the world. They are enacted. This is a different concept.

We always behave into our world on the basis of ongoing concerns , aims and goals. That makes us sense-making creatures. Sense-makers are anticipative, not simply reactive. This is what makes the world recognizable to us, and means that grunts barks and hisses are motivated and emerge out of a background context of anticipations. — Joshs

:up:

I agree, but who said we were merely reactive?

Mouths shake the air, hands smear liquids on solids or scrape shapes in stone. Cloth is sewn so that it can be waved prominently, guns are fired to start a race. — hanaH

What is the genesis of these associations? Did these events just so happen to be fortuitously paired in temporal proximity at one point and then this created an association between the two? Or was there a pre-wired inherited association in some cases?

I don’t think rules are discovered out there in the world. They are enacted. This is a different concept. — Joshs

You are just telling me what I've been saying, that meaning is in the 'material' world. What people call 'rules' aren't binding but merely low-resolution descriptions of social life.

Grammar is beat and tickled into us.

The rules of a game are not a description of the game.

What is the genesis of these associations? Did these events just so happen to be fortuitously paired in temporal proximity at one point and then this created an association between the two? Or was there a pre-wired inherited association in some cases? — Joshs

I don't pretend to deduce the details from what's merely a general approach to the problem of meaning. I'd like to read more about biosemiotics. I suspect that something like a continuum makes the most sense here.

Earlier I mentioned caloric efficiency. It makes sense that an animal would use a "cheap" motion to coordinate its behavior if possible (like shaping the air as it exhales anyway.)

The rules of a game are not a description of the game. — Srap Tasmaner

OK, perhaps, but what's the status of that sentence? Are you not describing how one uses 'rules'? Or something like that?

Also I think rules can function at least as the ideal description of a game. Hide & seek, chess.

I’m curious. Has Charles Peirce played any role in your thinking? I also
think I recognize some Deleuzian language, although I may just be reading that in.

I've read some Peirce, and he is indeed an influence.

Never got that deep into Deleuze but wet my toes once.

Are you not describing how one uses 'rules'? — hanaH

Maybe, but not excluding normativity. It's a reminder, but a reminder from one member of our speech community to another. If description alone is not enough for you to know what such a reminder means, how you should respond, or what you should do next, then we have a problem

That [each concept has different grammar is] a reasonable assertion, but perhaps you'll agree that there's nothing final about those categories. — hanaH

I'm not sure what I said that you took as "final" (what the implications are in saying that); as you point out in #23--Witt would say endless; that our lives change. I would also say, not complete; as there are further contexts for concepts to be extended into.

As I see it, the map will never do justice to the teeming territory. — hanaH

As part of dismantling the word--internal-referent picture, Witt can be seen as offering a picture of word-public "form of life" or "language game", but this is merely to substitute one "meaning" for another, when he is dismantling the entire picture/theorizing about meaning.

One problem is that because Witt is using an investigation of our history of expressions as data to formulate claims about the workings of each concept, that he is taken to be always (or only) discussing language/meaning. But the imagined gap between an expression and the world is in order to insert theoretical order (rationality, certainty) and/or account for our failings in communication, description, agreement. We abandon our ordinary criteria for our concepts (the limited, fallible nature of moral claims say) and picture a universalized split between our language and the world. But a concept is a living thing, embedded with the history of our interests, criteria for judging, identity, etc. To say "I apologize" is to apologize; our expressions are normative to the extent our lives are. Yes, there are mistakes, lies, empty words, descriptions that fall short, but that is why there are excuses, the endless depth of language; it is not that our words systematically fail us as much as we fail them, to continue to be responsible for them, answer to make ourselves intelligible.

I would also say, not complete; as there are further contexts for concepts to be extended into. — Antony Nickles

:up:

As part of dismantling the word--internal-referent picture, Witt can be seen as offering a picture of word-public "form of life" or "language game", but this is merely to substitute one "meaning" for another, when he is dismantling the entire picture/theorizing about meaning. — Antony Nickles

Perhaps you'll agree that that anyone can emphasize the destructive or constructive mode in Wittgenstein and cherrypick quotes to that purpose. Folks will connect the dots he left behind differently.

I found this one earlier, which happens to fit my focus lately.

475. I want to regard man here as an animal; as a primitive being to which one grants instinct but
not ratiocination. As a creature in a primitive state...Language did not emerge from some kind of
ratiocination. — OC

I also like this one.

How does it come about that this arrow >>>––> points? Doesn’t it seem to carry in it something besides itself?—”No, not the dead line on paper, only the psychical thing, the meaning, can do that.—That is both true and false. The arrow only points in the application that a living being makes of it.

As in an animal, you or me, being trained to look to the right when we see this token. Mommy can't see the magic meaning of the arrow flashing or not flashing in our developing mind. She can react to whether we do or do not turn our head.

We can apply this kind of demystification to "God" and "truth" and so on.

"It seems we are borrowing the Wittgenstein avatar for different projects. [Antony's] reminds me of a therapist."
— hanaH

Indeed. I would say Antony is borrowing Witt for some side interest. He is putting forth an interpretation in which ‘therapy’ is absolutely central to ( although not the only thing) what Wittgenstein is doing. — Joshs

I am not describing the periphery of Witt's investigation--just deeper into it, farther along. If we stop at the first idea we hear that we feel we understand, isn't that just to take the text on our terms? for our interests? I am willing to respond to and back up my reading and explain its relationship to what I take as superficial grasping at the text to solve the project of everything at once.

As I responded to @hanaH, the goal of Philosophical Investigations was to understand our desire for seeing everything in one way (word-object). This is not the "therapy" of us (our "mental cramps"--or language's bewitchingness), it is the identification of how and thus why we insist on seeing everything the same way: our desire for the criteria of certainty, universality, pre-determined, strictly logical, etc. There is no "cure" for this temptation, and thus the repeated methodology applied across multiple examples--games, rule-following, sensations, pain, aspects, etc.--pointing out the variety of our overlooked ordinary criteria, the categorical logic of the conditions, possibilities, and structure (grammar) of our lives. This doesn't fit the desire for a generalized theory of meaning to end skepticism? the examples don't show that rules, or knowledge, are the nature and solution of all our problems? huh? wonder why?

Indeed. I would say Antony is borrowing Witt for some side interest. — Joshs

I meant to say ‘I WOULDNT SAY’

“ Baker's post-1990 ‘position’ is that Wittgenstein's method is radically therapeutic: therapeutic in that the aim is to relieve mental cramps brought about by being faced with a seemingly intractable philosophical problem — Joshs

the goal of Philosophical Investigations was to understand our desire for seeing everything in one way (word-object). This is not the "therapy" of us (our "mental cramps"--or language's bewitchingness) — Antony Nickles

That wasn’t my phrasing , but from Phil Hutchinson and Rupert Read.

Do I know what 'pain' means because of some private experience? Or because my body has been trained by the bodies of those around me in the world we share to react to and employ the token in multifarious ways? — hanaH

We don't learn how to employ tokens, or use words (I don't teach you all the things to say). There is our whole human life with pain, part of the essence of which is that we do not "know" pain, we have it (or we suppress it). It may be meaningful because it is mine--I can keep it to myself (torture myself with it, pity myself because of it), or I can express it (to try to have it attended to, to atone for what pains me, simply for the catharsis of expressing it, as in releasing it). We "learn" all of these things as it were by osmosis, "trained" as you say, but this is not in "reacting" or "employing" tokens, but in taking in the "multifarious ways" themselves (the other way around in that sense).