Recruitment officer: We need soldiers!
Draftee: What's the qualification? A heartbeat? — TheMadFool

haha! Good catch! :blush:

Right. If you can sensibly say one, you ought to be able sensibly to say the other. Negation also comes up here: if you can sensibly say you know you have a headache, you ought to be able sensibly to say that you don't know you have a headache.

One alternative might be to say that "I know I have a headache" is necessarily true, and that the apparent failure of the negations or of the 'doubt' version, regardless of context, show that. The peculiarity of saying "I know I have a headache" would not be, then, due to a semantic catastrophe (that it's nonsense) but something else.

That it is an odd thing to say, a thing perhaps one rarely has any reason to say, is not in question; whether the reasons not to say it are semantic, is the issue.

If you agree that the statement is nonsense, then wouldn’t you agree that it’s not truth apt? I don’t want to say that the statement is always nonsense. Perhaps there might be occasions where it would make sense to say. But I can’t think of any and I’d imagine they would be exceptional circumstances.

If you agree that the statement is nonsense, — Luke

As I understand the usual take on LW, if a sentence has a use, if it's useful, if it's a valid move in a language-game, then it's meaningful, because that's what meaning is--- use in a language-game. If a sentence is not useful, then it's nonsense.

That's the view I'm questioning, the complete identification of use and meaning.

So I don't assume the sentences in question are nonsense, even if they are odd or pointless or otherwise lacking an obvious usefulness. I'm suggesting such a sentence can still be meaningful and even true.

You said:

Right. If you can sensibly say one, you ought to be able sensibly to say the other. Negation also comes up here: if you can sensibly say you know you have a headache, you ought to be able sensibly to say that you don't know you have a headache. — Srap Tasmaner

Can you sensibly say that you don’t know you have a headache?

One alternative might be to say that "I know I have a headache" is necessarily true, and that the apparent failure of the negations or of the 'doubt' version, regardless of context, show that. The peculiarity of saying "I know I have a headache" would not be, then, due to a semantic catastrophe (that it's nonsense) but something else. — Srap Tasmaner

This doesn't seem right, viz., that "I know I have a headache," is necessarily true (not that you're necessarily saying this :smile:). So, the statement, "I know I have a headache," would be similar or the same as "All triangles have three sides," or "All bachelors are unmarried." In the case of "All triangles have three sides," what we mean by triangle is by definition, having three sides. However, you can't think that this is the same as, "I know I have a headache?" At least not in these cases. Is there something else you have in mind?

Can you sensibly say that you don’t know you have a headache? — Luke

Consider saying "2 + 2 = 5". Is that meaningless, is it utterly unclear what someone would mean if they were to say this, or is it just false? Or consider @Banno's example: "Paris is the capital of lemongrass." Is that meaningless or is it just false? (Lemongrass, not being a country, has no capital; a fortiori Paris is not that capital. )

Now for our example. It's supposed to be nonsensical to say "I don't know that I have a headache" and therefore nonsensical to say "I know I have a headache." What about other sentences nearby? Suppose someone said, "I don't know whether I have a headache." I would certainly find this a puzzling thing to say, and I'd be tempted respond, "How could you not know whether you have a headache? Surely, if you had a headache, you'd know it." To my ear, that's not only meaningful but true, and the negative I'm dismissing as if it were simply contradictory. I understand them to be saying they do not know something which, I believe, if it were the case, they would know it. "I don't know I have a headache" seems to entail, if not itself to be, a contradiction.

Again, it's not that there's nothing odd about a sentence like "I know I have a headache." The question is whether its defect is semantic. For instance, if that sentence can only be true, it's not perfectly clear it can be asserted, that saying it would count as a "claim" at all. Then what use can be made of such a sentence? Not altogether clear. (We haven't touched on one of the other uses of "I know ..." which I think of as 'concessive': "I know it's Saturday, and I know I said I wouldn't check my work email today, but I have to nail down a schedule for next week." That's not a claim to knowledge but admitting that you have it. And there are others. @Antony Nickles offered some possibilities too.)

The question I am focused on is whether, in denying that a sentence is useful in some circumstance, do we deny that it is meaningful? Do we deny that it could carry a truth-value?

This doesn't seem right — Sam26

No, it doesn't, and I'm not wedded to the "necessarily true" bit. I'm not sure how else to characterize sentences that we seem unable or unwilling or unmotivated to consider the contrary of. While writing the last post I began to suspect that it may be something entailed by such a claim that must be true.

I'm glad you flagged that --- I'll work on it tomorrow.

The question I am focused on is whether, in denying that a sentence is useful in some circumstance, do we deny that it is meaningful? Do we deny that it could carry a truth-value? — Srap Tasmaner

Depends on how we're using the term meaningful. In other words, I could use a sentence that isn't meaningful to demonstrate what is meaningful. So, in such a case the claim that, for example, "I know I have a headache," is meaningful in the sense that it's use shows where we go can go wrong. I would generally say though, that it has no truth-value, especially if the use is vacuous.

Skrpx tsiptb qlpch!

Update

Ludwig Wittgenstein: Meaning is use. Check.

Therefore,

I can use words as signs to refer to things, their essences.

In other words, philosophy as was done before the linguistic turn is a subfield of Wittgenstein's universe of language games. We're good!

haha! Good catch — Caldwell

Recruitment Officer: Mr. Forester… you’ve been elevated to Active-2 status.

Forester: What?

Recruitment Officer: You meet all requirements for conscription.

Forester: Wh-What… what are the requirements for conscription? A pulse? (sigh)

[Script from the movie Tommorow war]

With an object, we have the space (between us and it) to create the picture of a word and the thing it refers to. This kind of thing can be given qualities and must meet criteria like discrete, defined, perceivable, certain. And in this space I can have knowledge in the sense of what is true. This picture of an object is not how pain works; there is no pain that is true for me, there is no criteria to meet other than my awareness of it and my expression (description) of it to you. Now I can lie (to myself and you) and I can do a better or worse job of expressing my pain, but that will only matter to the extent of the context--doctor's appointment, request for sympathy, comparison to your pain, etc.--and not as knowledge, say, of Mars' atmosphere. — Antony Nickles

What an amazing attempt at building up a distinction where none exists... Pain is objective, it is a type of objects called a sensation. It imposes itself to us just as any other part of objective reality. It can be given qualities; it is certain and perceivable; one can take a distance from one's own pain. Pain is a serious issue, it matters, it can be a life saver or a misery. And nobody in real pain ever gave a rat's ass for, say, Mars' atmosphere.

There is a difference between "I have five dollars" and "I know I have five dollars". That difference is not found between "I have a headache" and "I know I have a headache".

I suspect Olivier will simply deny this; but that just implies he has failed to engage with the argument. — Banno

What argument is made here exactly? That you cannot see the difference between a sensation and the conscious examination and exploration of this sensation? Well, I kinda feel sorry for you about that, but I am not convinced your inabilities amount to any argument at all.

What an amazing attempt at building up a distinction where none exists... Pain is objective.... — Olivier5

This being said, and in the way I read Witty on the beetle in the box metaphor, there is a distinction to be made between phenomena that are apprehensible by many people independently (e.g. the phases of the moon) and therefore verifiable, and those that are perceptible by one person only (e.g. my pain). and not easily verifiable by other people.

The former type -- verifiable independently by several people -- is considered more objective than the latter -- the 'private' phenomena such as pain -- which are considered more subjective. I personally call the former type "intersubjective" aka perceived by several subjects. And indeed intersubjectivity is seen as the main pathway to objectivity, itself an impossible ideal.

Nevertheless, intersubjective phenomena are simply those perceivable by several subjects, and subjective ones are those perceivable only by one subject. The difference is subtle: intersubjectivity is not the opposite of subjectivity but simply its sharing.

Some parts of our subjective experience can be shared, and other parts not, or less readily so.

Depends on how we're using the term meaningful. — Sam26

I meant it just in the sense of 'has a meaning', 'can be understood', and, for these cases of indicative sentences, 'can be assigned a truth-value'.

One reason for distinguishing meaning (sentence meaning) from use (speaker's meaning) can be seen somewhat clearly in Antony's example:

Maybe when you've made it aware to me that you have a headache, then, when I see you a little while later and you have an ice pack on your knee, and I point to your head and shrug, saying "Don't you have a headache?", you might look at me (like I'm an idiot) and say "I know I have a headache." -- but this is in the sense of "Duh, I know", as in the use (grammatical category) of: I am aware. — Antony Nickles

There are a couple things to note about this. One is that "Don't you have a headache?" is a yes-or-no question, but does not receive a yes-or-no response. If we take "I know I have a headache" as an affirmative response, is that to say that, in this case, the sentence "I know I have a headache" means "Yes" because that's the use of it in this language-game? (If I know I have a headache, then I have a headache, etc. There's an entailment there we can work out.) We might also say that the point being made by saying "I know I have a headache" is something like, "You're being an idiot. Obviously I have also injured my knee. The two are unrelated." Should we say that's the meaning of "I know I have a headache" here?

The alternative, mainly deriving from Grice, is to say that the literal meaning of the sentence has not changed; if we take "I know I have a headache" as "Yes" or as "Don't be an idiot", it's for other reasons that have to do with how conversation works. "I know I have a headache" still just means what it usually means, but you can mean "Yes" by saying it.

On such an approach, the trouble with sentences like "Here is one hand" or "I know that is a tree" is not that they are meaningless, in fact both can be simply true; they usually ought not be said because to do so would violate a norm of conversation (Grice's maxims). That's the gist.

And this sort of analysis requires a distinction:

The precept that one should be careful not to confuse meaning and use is perhaps on the way toward being as handy a philosophical vade-mecum as once was the precept that one should be careful to identify them. — Grice

I’m wondering what
would say Wittgenstein’s response to this sentence would be:

Reality doesn't care if you are looking or not. — Banno

Does it have a sense or status outside of conxtual use?
If not, then perhaps it does care if we are looking.

It isn't gibberish, but you'd still probably ask for clarification because it's such a weird question.

I think anytime people ask for clarification, they're trying to make an utterance useful. They're trying to find the missing context. — frank

Right. The standard Grice 101 examples are nearby: I ask if you want to stop here to eat and you say, looking at your phone, it's more than two hours to the next town.

That implies a yes, but it's not definitely a yes -- it's "cancellable", you might follow up with "I can wait if you want to" -- but taken literally it's a non sequitur. Grice's theory is that when a maxim (in this case, "Be relevant") is violated, we look for an entailment that will maintain the cooperative spirit of conversation, so you reason your way from a comment about geography back to a response to the question, or a suggestion about what to do, and so on. That's "conversational implicature" in a nutshell.

It gives you another way of approaching that sense we might have that many of the things a philosopher might find herself saying would be very peculiar, pointless, or somehow inappropriate, in everyday conversation. That this is true, is not the same as the sentences in question being nonsense or not being truth-apt.

It gives you another way of approaching that sense we might have that many of the things a philosopher might find herself saying would be very peculiar, pointless, or somehow inappropriate, in everyday conversation. That this is true, is not the same as the sentences in question being nonsense or not being truth-apt. — Srap Tasmaner

I don't think it's just about philosophical discussion. Chomsky demonstrated that language acquisition has to be an innate ability.

Innate abilities like walking are developed through interaction with the world. Some bones necessary for walking are in seed form in an infant. The stress of trying to walk activates their growth.

If language is like that, there might be the seeds of language in infant cognition. Those seeds are activated by stress.

Chalmers talks about what the components of that 'language seed' might be. Can't remember where though.

Ah I see. :)

:smile:

Update

1. Having a headache: An experience, private but with public physical correlates (frowning, rubbing the temple region, etc.)

2. I have a headache: A report of a headache (1). It is a proposition, the conclusion of the following argument:

a) I have a sensation in my head.
b) The sensation in my head is called a headache
Ergo,
c) I have a headache (from a, b)

It looks like I have a headache = I (know) I have a headache.

"I don't know I have a headache" seems to entail, if not itself to be, a contradiction. — Srap Tasmaner

I'm not sure that I understand in what sense it's a contradiction.

The question I am focused on is whether, in denying that a sentence is useful in some circumstance, do we deny that it is meaningful? Do we deny that it could carry a truth-value? — Srap Tasmaner

It's not an easy question, but I think we could start by noting that claims to knowledge can typically be checked by others and ourselves. You might claim to be able to play the tuba or how to speak Russian, and we could test your knowledge by asking you to demonstrate. But how can we similarly discover or learn whether or not I have a headache? How could my knowledge be tested in order to demonstrate to myself and to others that I really do (or don't) know whether I have a headache?

When you say "Surely, if you had a headache, you'd know it", you appear to be using "know" in the sense of "be aware of". I could be wrong, but I think Wittgenstein might object to the notion of pain as an inner object that one is aware of and can check to confirm whether or not they are in pain, instead of pain as something which one simply has or expresses.

In a chapter of Readings of Wittgenstein's On Certainty, author Thomas Morawetz puts it this way:

An inner experience cannot show that I know p because knowing p is
something that others will conclude about me, and that conclusion will
be a judgement that I am qualified to do certain things, to give grounds
or evidence for my knowing p. I may not have to perform if others are
willing to concede the qualification to me, and in that sense knowing is
a state rather than an activity. The connection between knowing and
acting is logical and not causal. My knowing p is not an inner state of
being that causes me to act in certain ways, for example to give grounds,
but rather it is manifested when I act in such ways. My inability to give
adequate grounds is not simply evidence that I do not know p; it can be
tantamount to my not knowing p. Inability and failure to give grounds
are not the same because in the latter case I may be devious and try to
lead others to believe that I do not know p when in fact I do. — Thomas Morawetz

What an amazing attempt at building up a distinction where none exists... Pain is objective... And nobody in real pain ever gave a rat's ass for, say, Mars' atmosphere. — Olivier5

Oh good, you figured it out! Enjoy your Kant; we're done.

the meaning of a word, perhaps as well the meaning of a sentence, simply is the use one makes of it, or can make of it, as a move in a language-game.

Whether that paragraph represents Wittgenstein well, I'll pass on for now.

The question I am trying to raise is whether that view, LW's or not, is defensible. — Srap Tasmaner

As a definition (ontology) of meaning, I don't think it works. But as a technique to explore meaning, it does work.

claims to knowledge can typically be checked by others and ourselves. You might claim to be able to play the tuba or how to speak Russian, and we could test your knowledge by asking you to demonstrate. But how can we similarly discover or learn whether or not I have a headache? How could my knowledge be tested in order to demonstrate to myself and to others that I really do (or don't) know whether I have a headache? — Luke

Alright, so imagine I claim I can play the tuba, but there's not one handy to *prove* it. (Have to come back to this.) Suppose someone else says, "No really, I've heard him play the tuba." I think it's reasonable to take that as a claim to *know* that I can play the tuba, because they have experience that put them in a position to know. At this point, you can choose to trust them, to take their word for it, or demand further evidence. But that's the same choice you faced with my initial claim that I know how to play the tuba, and the presumption that I'm in a position to know whether I can. I'm not guessing.

Suppose someone finds a tuba and I play a bit of a song. All we know now is that I can play what I played, and maybe that's it. (Kind of a "Slumdog Millionaire" situation.) How much do I have to play? How much knowledge do I have to demonstrate? At some point, I think it comes back to trust that I possess still more knowledge and capability than I've actually demonstrated.

I think verification gives you reason to trust, but a claim to knowledge is a claim that, on the matter at hand, what I say can be trusted, can be relied upon.

This is why at least most reports about my current condition or my mental states, past and present, can readily be treated as matters of knowledge. When Sam Spade tells Brigid O'Shaughnessy, "Maybe I love you and maybe you love me," she responds, "You know whether you love me or not, Sam."

It's not that people cannot be confused or uncertain about this sort of thing, of course not. It's not even that when they make a claim about their mental state, they must be right. It's that we by and large accept each other as authorities on our own mental states, because, as the saying goes, "If you don't know, who should I ask?" We are the only ones in the position to know a great many things about ourselves.

Alright, so imagine I claim I can play the tuba, but there's not one handy to *prove* it. (Have to come back to this.) Suppose someone else says, "No really, I've heard him play the tuba." I think it's reasonable to take that as a claim to *know* that I can play the tuba, because they have experience that put them in a position to know. At this point, you can choose to trust them, to take their word for it, or demand further evidence. But that's the same choice you faced with my initial claim that I know how to play the tuba, and the presumption that I'm in a position to know whether I can. I'm not guessing. — Srap Tasmaner

You should theoretically be able to demonstrate (at some time) that you know how to play the tuba, whether one is handy or whether you can play one right now or not.

How much do I have to play? How much knowledge do I have to demonstrate? — Srap Tasmaner

I don't know. At what point do we say someone can play an instrument? Regardless of "at what point", we often do say these things about people. Can Eric Clapton play the guitar? Of course.

At some point, I think it comes back to trust that I possess still more knowledge and capability than I've actually demonstrated. — Srap Tasmaner

It's most likely that you do possess more knowledge and capability than you've demonstrated, but not necessarily with regards to playing the tuba. We might find that you struggle to make any sound at all with a tuba in your hands.

This is why at least most reports about my current condition or my mental states, past and present, can readily be treated as matters of knowledge. — Srap Tasmaner

But you cannot ever demonstrate that you know you have a headache - not even to yourself. You cannot theoretically, at some time, prove to anyone - including yourself - your knowledge of your headache. As Wittgenstein says at PI 246:

It can’t be said of me at all (except perhaps as a joke) that I know I’m in pain. What is it supposed to mean — except perhaps that I am in pain? — LW

It's not that people cannot be confused or uncertain about this sort of thing, of course not. It's not even that when they make a claim about their mental state, they must be right. It's that we by and large accept each other as authorities on our own mental states, because, as the saying goes, "If you don't know, who should I ask?" We are the only ones in the position to know a great many things about ourselves. — Srap Tasmaner

That may be true, but Wittgenstein shows us that all language is essentially behavioural, social and public, so the grammar of the word "know" is based on behavioural verifications, not on inner objects. You might think that you know all the words to Eleanor Rigby until you try to sing it and find out you really don't.

if you can sensibly say you know you have a headache, you ought to be able sensibly to say that you don't know you have a headache. — Srap Tasmaner

Perhaps there might be occasions where it would make sense to say. But I can’t think of any and I’d imagine they would be exceptional circumstances. — Luke

In this case, as I said earlier, that "I know I have a headache" is "know" in the sense of being aware. To decide what we can "sensibly say" is to imagine that we can understand the context and impact of what we say before it happens, which is not how language works. For example, before judging what use "know" has in the sentence "I don't know that I have a headache", we need a context (as anything does). Here, imagine that you see me wincing and holding my head, and ask "Do you have a headache?", and I turn my head and squint and say, "I don't know that I have a headache, it's more like my neck is sore and I'm getting shooting pain up through my scalp." So here we could say that "know" is related to its sense of what we would make a claim about, what we would stand behind to justify--"I wouldn't say I have a headache, so much as...". As @Banno pointed out though, if you asked "What justifies your knowledge?" I would be at a loss as to how to reply, but if you asked "Are you sure?", I could say "No, it's weird; let's go to the doctor". Now there is a sense of certainty that we want from the first question about justification, which is reliable (verifiable) truth. But in this use of know, the certainty (we can't claim) here is confidence, thus the turn to authority.

Now even the imagining of the context for a concept is not to tell if we can "sensibly say" it or whether we can judge it as nonsense--philosophy is not the arbitor of expression. The method is to be able to bring a concept back to its ordinary criteria to learn why we want to picture it another way, here as reliable, justified truth. Again, the importance for philosophy is its tendency to simplify by abstracting from the event of an expression at a time in a context to a world without criteria other than those that lead to an outcome that is predictable and certain.

As well, the converse or negation of a statement is not necessarily its opposite; Austin's example is that the opposite of "voluntary" is more like "under constraint" than "involuntary", the opposite of which is "on purpose".

There are a couple things to note about this. One is that "Don't you have a headache?" is a yes-or-no question... — Srap Tasmaner

Wouldn't we say it is more in the sense of "Hey, I thought you had a headache."--as in confused, requesting confirmation; rather than a question (despite the question mark).

The question I am focused on is whether, in denying that a sentence is useful in some circumstance, do we deny that it is meaningful? Do we deny that it could carry a truth-value?
* * *
that's what meaning is--- use in a language-game. If a sentence is not useful, then it's nonsense. — Srap Tasmaner

I don't want to run off topic here but the term "use" captures that language can not be meaningful beforehand (as if in a "meaning" or by anticipated rules), that concepts (knowing, pointing, threatening, believing) can have multiple possibilities and various conditions and criteria, so we have to wait until something is expressed at a time, in a place, to an audience, within the context of expectations and implications, etc. that are inherent in a real situation (a full context). The actual "context" does not even create something specific but just the variables of the moment to clarify or question the expression in relation to any number of unexplored contingencies. It may be that a concept is even extended to something new based on a new context (or in a moral moment).

So, "use" plays a part in what is meaningful because, once something is said, then we can look at the expression and the context, what the concept appears to be, its criteria, the possible judgments, etc. and see what sense of a concept we are talking about. And here sense is synonymous with use, and they are like options of the concept and expression, as we have talked about "I know" as in the sense of being aware (or I know in its use as: I can justify).

It is not a utilitarian judgement of what is useful, as in practical. It is not what I "use" my words for, as if I control how they will be meaningful (though I can control what I say).

So@Srap Tasmania, denying that an expression has a use (in the associated concept) does not mean it is meaningless, though its impact might just be to raise brows. And I wouldn't think we could consider every use of a concept as being normative like truth is, but we would need examples of both of these to even start a discussion.

Ludwig Wittgenstein: Meaning is use. Check.

Therefore, I can use words as signs to refer to things, their essences. — TheMadFool

You can refer to objects with words--say "Cat" when you see a cat; the use here could be naming, or identifying, or seeing. But this will not tell us anything about a cat's essence (what is essential to us about them) other than it is an object that can be seen, identified, and named (though even as: Fluffy).

↪Antony Nickles Happy I could help clear your confusion, though I suspect Wittgenstein's fans do actually enjoy confusion. O the dizziness, the exhilaration of seeing your old certitudes turned upside down by a gifted, elegant charlatan! Must be quite the thrill, like going to a magician show or taking QAnnon's red pill. — Olivier5

Come to think of it, there's something there that not a total waste of philosophy: precisely the fun of turning upside down old certitudes.

This is often useful, healthy and indeed fun. The means through which Wittgenstein does this shake-up are not entirely transparent; the arguments he uses are more often tricks to destabilise or freeze one's thought, than logical and convincing arguments. I often find his arguments nonsensical (not always of course -- sometimes he's on to something), which bothers me. But in a shrewd way, they often work in shaking up one's unexamined opinions.

Especially, I would think, his own. That is to say (a banality) that PI is largely addressed at Wittgenstein's own youthful attempts to formalize a positivist theory of knowledge in the Tractatus. The PI say: "Wait, it's not so simple as I once thought!" And that is useful. Too bad that his arguments in support of a less simplistic but more practical view are so ambiguous at times.