haha! Good catch! :blush:Recruitment officer: We need soldiers!
Draftee: What's the qualification? A heartbeat? — TheMadFool
If you agree that the statement is nonsense, — Luke
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
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
Can you sensibly say that you don’t know you have a headache? — Luke
This doesn't seem right — Sam26
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
haha! Good catch — Caldwell
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
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 an amazing attempt at building up a distinction where none exists... Pain is objective.... — Olivier5
Depends on how we're using the term meaningful. — Sam26
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
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
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
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 know I have a headache" seems to entail, if not itself to be, a contradiction. — Srap Tasmaner
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
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
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
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. — Srap Tasmaner
How much do I have to play? How much knowledge do I have to demonstrate? — Srap Tasmaner
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
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
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
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
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
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
Ludwig Wittgenstein: Meaning is use. Check.
Therefore, I can use words as signs to refer to things, their essences. — TheMadFool
↪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
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