...and I don't think it does. I think the idea Wittgenstein expresses is somewhat like the Polythetic definition, but there's more to it. True, a family resemblance might at first be set out in disjunctive normal form, so we might get a family like:

Someone is a member of our family iff they are a child of (John and Jenny) v (John and Jill) v (Jenny and Steven) v (Ben and Pam)

...to whatever level of complexity one wishes. SO there is no single criteria that is common to all members of the family.

But I think family resemblance captures more than this, because it emphasises use over what can be explicitly stated - that is, the way we use the notion of "our family". SO when Jenny and Steven adopt Fred, who is not their child, Fred nevertheless is considered a family member. And that wonderful woman who babysits the kids and always remembers their birthdays is called Aunty Sue and considered to be family, despite not being related by blood or marriage or adoption. And after that indiscretion Uncle Tom is no longer mentioned, no longer considered family.

So a family resemblance can be put in disjunctive normal form, but is extensible or retractible, changing the criteria with use.

Disjunction instead of Conjunction? Yeah, that explains a lot, but, sadly, it amounts to violating the rules of good definitions (as a list of sufficient and necessary conditions for a word to apply).

Does it cause problems in philosophy? Well, yes because we could be talking past each other e.g. to me religion could mean anything to do with god while to you it might mean moral codes sans a deity.

Is there a solution? We could focus on the common aspects and ignore the differences. So, if we were to discuss Christianity and Buddhism as religions, we could concentrate our efforts on morality, something that's in the overlap zone.

So a family resemblance can be put in disjunctive normal form, but is extensible or retractible, changing the criteria with use. — Banno

Well, I could never wrap my head around Wittgenstein's "meaning is use" statement. How does one explain the overlap zones that aren't empty? People have been using meaning as that which picks out an essence, it's just that they've been doing it rather loosely.

it amounts to violating the rules of good definitions (as a list of sufficient and necessary conditions for a word to apply). — Agent Smith

Well, so much the worse for that understanding of definitions. It doesn't;t match what we actually do.

People have been using meaning as that which picks out an essence, it's just that they've been doing it rather loosely. — Agent Smith

Or was it that they thought they were picking up essences, misled by a picture - a theory of definition - that held them captive; while all along they were just getting on with making use of their words to get stuff done?

Or was it that they thought they were picking up essences, misled by a picture - a theory of definition - that held them captive; while all along they were just getting on with making use of their words to get stuff done? — Banno

:up:

:up:

This takes us back to what Wittgenstein said about ostensive definitions.

Suppose X has the "essential" features a, b, c. I point to a coupla instances of X and say "this is X", basically defining X.

Person p looks at X's and thinks a is the essential feature. Person q thinks it's b and to person r, it's c.

We have now, in our hands, the recipe for confusion aka family resemblance:

The person p sees something that has feature a and concludes that's an X; the same goes for persons p and q with their own understanding (b, c) of X. Yet these things aren't exactly X's, oui?

To get to the point, ostensive definitions are (hopelessly?) inadequate unless done so with the greatest care, something we don't have the time for. Plus, it looks like misusing words (being lax with the definition of "definition" i.e. disjunction replaces conjunction) bears a striking resemblance to bad ostensive definitions.

And this happens. So what?

Further conversation might well reveal their differences.

Alternately, which of them is right? How will you decide?

All those infernal threads that start "what is..." reduced to froth.

And this happens. So what?

Further conversation might well reveal their differences.

Alternately, which of them is right? How will you decide?

All those infernal threads that start "what is..." reduced to froth. — Banno

I threw the bathwater. There was no baby in it. — Dan Barker

Well, if we view philosophy as simply a conversation, then it doesn't matter much whether we agree or not, right?

If, on the other hand, we deem philosophy to be some kind of journey of discovery, finding truths, we have a problem, because if Wittgenstein is correct, we're a hair's breadth away from commiting the fallacy of equivocation; lost in a world ruled by a function (sense/meaning $\to$ word) that has no inverse!

Well, I could never wrap my head around Wittgenstein's "meaning is use" statement. — Agent Smith

Don't want to detail the thread, but maybe consider the possibility that meaning isn't mental, that it's out there in the world with our bodies, between us instead of in us.

But if we had to name anything which is the life of the sign, we have to say that it is its use.
If the meaning of the sign (roughly, that which is of importance about the sign) is an image built up in our minds when we see or hear the sign, then first let us adopt the method we just described of replacing this mental image by some outward object seen, e.g. a painted or modelled image. Then why should the written sign plus this painted image be alive if the written sign alone was dead? -- In fact, as soon as you think of replacing the mental image by, say, a painted one, and as soon as the image thereby loses its occult character, it ceased to seem to impart any life to the sentence at all. (It was in fact just the occult character of the mental process which you needed for your purposes.)

This is the picture picture, I suppose. Imagine that Beckett wrote a play where characters who live in a junkyard hold conversations by silently taking turns lifting up this or that piece of junk. If that's all they ever did, not much meaning perhaps, but start integrating such a 'language' into practical activities and I think even abstractions will develop. The alternator will represent representation or something.

Edit: oh, and there's ↪I-thou, but what that might look like remains unclear. — Banno

From the I and Thou wiki:

In Buber's view, all of our relationships bring us ultimately into relationship with God, who is the Eternal Thou. Martin Buber said that every time someone says Thou, they are indirectly addressing God. People can address God as Thou or as God, Buber emphasized how, “You need God in order to be, and God needs you for that which is the meaning of your life.”

Buber explains that humans are defined by two word pairs: I–It and I–Thou.

The "It" of I–It refers to the world of experience and sensation. I–It describes entities as discrete objects drawn from a defined set (e.g., he, she or any other objective entity defined by what makes it measurably different from other entities). It can be said that "I" have as many distinct and different relationships with each "It" as there are "Its" in one's life. Fundamentally, "It" refers to the world as we experience it.

By contrast, the word pair I–Thou describes the world of relations. This is the "I" that does not objectify any "It" but rather acknowledges a living relationship. I–Thou relationships are sustained in the spirit and mind of an "I" for however long the feeling or idea of relationship is the dominant mode of perception. A person sitting next to a complete stranger on a park bench may enter into an "I–Thou" relationship with the stranger merely by beginning to think positively about people in general. The stranger is a person as well, and gets instantaneously drawn into a mental or spiritual relationship with the person whose positive thoughts necessarily include the stranger as a member of the set of persons about whom positive thoughts are directed. It is not necessary for the stranger to have any idea that he is being drawn into an "I–Thou" relationship for such a relationship to arise. But what is crucial to understand is the word pair "I–Thou" can refer to a relationship with a tree, the sky, or the park bench itself as much as it can refer to the relationship between two individuals. The essential character of "I–Thou" is the abandonment of the world of sensation, the melting of the between, so that the relationship with another "I" is foremost.

Ok, so what is this "core insight"? — Banno

Key to this question is the notion of the sacred. What is it that makes an object, a person, a behavior (a ritual), etc, sacred (in the eye of the beholder)?

Can there be religion without the sacralizing power of the human mind?

The spiritual quest for awakening, enlightenment, illumination, is the quest to sacralize every aspect of experience.

Or, to paraphrase Nikos Kazantzakis: To transubstantiate matter, to transform it into spirit. (Supposing all of this to occur within the human mind, with no actual effect on molecules, atoms, etc....)

Choose your judge well; and your interpreter... — Banno

On a secular level, in the US there are accusations from both sides of judges acting as legislators.

In hermeneutics there is the question of the extent to which an interpretation creates meaning rather than explicates the meaning found in the text.

Somewhere Nietzsche reverses the meaning of "seek and you will find". To what extent is what we find a matter of what we put there to be found?

To what extent does religion give us meaning as opposed to us giving meaning to religion?

Can there be religion without the sacralizing power of the human mind? — ZzzoneiroCosm

Ok, so what is this "core insight"? — Banno

The transition from the I-It to the I-Thou relationship may reflect a universal access to the sacralizing power of the human mind.

In short, one's religion is centered on what one holds sacred. The human mind - I would think in every case - has a sacralizing potency. One's tabernacle can be sacred, as can one's favorite football team. (Two profoundly different sacrednesses. But both reflect the sacralizing power of the mind.)

Is the sacralizing power of the human mind what separates us, culturally speaking, from the animals? A gradient works well here for me since we're trafficking in unknowns.

In support of what you said:

Only man placed values in things to preserve himself—he alone created a meaning for things, a human meaning. Therefore he calls himself 'man', which means: the esteemer. To esteem is to create: hear this, you creators! Esteeming itself is of all esteemed things the most estimable treasure. Through esteeming first is there value: and without esteeming, the nut of existence would be hollow. Hear this, you creators! — Thus Spoke Zarathustra, On the Thousand and One Goals

Alright, so for all here who have settled upon relativistic morality, explain the basis of your moral outrage against the rapist and why I should find your reasons compelling.

Alright, so for all here who have settled upon relativistic morality, explain the basis of your moral outrage against the rapist and why I should find your reasons compelling. — Hanover

In order to address this it is necessary to identify what it is that you think a relativistic morality entails. One need not posit an absolute moral authority in order to regard rape as wrong.

Yet that's not an answer, but only an argument there could be an answer.

So, assuming moral truths are relative to society, the times, the culture, one's idiosyncratic upbringing and experiences, tell me why the rapist ought be judged wrong despite his view it is right?

So, assuming moral truths are relative to society, the times, the culture, one's idiosyncratic upbringing and experiences, tell me why the rapist ought be judged wrong despite his view it is right? — Hanover

If for no other reason, because the society judges it to be wrong.

You elide from society to idiosyncrasy as if it is all the same.

You are looking for an absolute where one cannot be found. The truth is that every absolute moral claim rests on shifting ground.

Do you think that rape is wrong because this is what you have been told by a higher authority? If you had never been told this would you still think it wrong if someone raped you?

It is apparent that it is not possible to set out what it is to be a religion, any more than for what it is to be a game. — Banno

This for me brought up an old phrase “everybody worships” - for some it’s a god, others money, fame, influence and power, beauty, love, skill, etc but everybody worships. When framed in that way doctrines abound and religions are endless in shape and form.

Religious truth is, therefore, a species of practical knowledge.
— Wayfarer

Given the results of that practice, I can't help but see this as special pleading, as seeing what one wishes to see and not all that is there. Can what is good in religion - charity, ritual, what you will - not happen without the mythical background? — Banno

:smirk: :up:

Surely there must be a reason not to murder, else what makes it wrong?
— Hanover

Leaving aside empathy, morality seems to be created by humans to facilitate social cooperation in order to achieve their preferred forms of order. Murder fucks up order. — Tom Storm

:fire:

Murder doesn't fuck up order unless people can't be convinced it's necessary.

Societies of all sorts clicked along with slavery, with its dissolution fucking up everything.

If your basis for ethical rules is pragmatic, you'll have to concede such things as slavery, subjugation of women, and stoning of the guilty and all sorts of other now considered barbaric norms were ethical within their context.

Do you think that rape is wrong because this is what you have been told by a higher authority? If you had never been told this would you still think it wrong if someone raped you? — Fooloso4

Had I lived 200 years ago. I'd have thought my race entitled to hold slaves and if I lived 80 years ago in Germany, I would have thought the Nazis monsters, unless of course I was one.

We either deny morality and just claim it's a matter of perspective, or we state what we both think: the slave holders and the Nazis were wrong. Now that we've stated what we believe, let's figure out what that belief entails, and I'd submit it demands a morality that transcends time and place.

I'd submit it demands a morality that transcends time and place. — Hanover

Does this include what we find in Deuteronomy?

When you go forth to war against your enemies, and the Lord your God has delivered them into your hands, and you have taken them captive,
And you see among the captives a beautiful woman, and desire her, and take her for a wife -
Then you shall bring her home to your house, and she shall shave her head and do her nails,
And she shall remove the garment of her captivity from her, and remain in your house and weep for her father and mother a for month, and after that you may approach her and have intercourse with her, and she shall be your wife.
And if you do not want her, you shall send her out on her own; you shall not sell her at all for money, you shall not treat her as a slave, because you "violated" her. — Deuteronomy 21:10-14

If the role of religion is really to bind people in a tribal group then dependency on the group is essential. Personal development of virtue leads to independence and is therefore at odds with the purpose of religion. — praxis

:cool: :up:

Murder doesn't fuck up order unless people can't be convinced it's necessary.

Societies of all sorts clicked along with slavery, with its dissolution fucking up everything. — Hanover

Sure, the social order is set by what the culture determines as valuable. If a rights based view, or a religious morality predominates, the order is likely to reflect those values. And those values may shift as the culture changes.

Now that we've stated what we believe, let's figure out what that belief entails, and I'd submit it demands a morality that transcends time and place. — Hanover

Belief in a morality that transcends time and place requires belief in some kind of "afterlife" (such as in the sense of the Christian afterlife, the Hindu reincarnation, or Buddhist rebirth).

Without God's judgment or karma, the notion of justice doesn't apply, and without justice, morality is unintelligible.

If I attempt to relate that - even considering I possess it, which I don't - if you're not even open to the possibility that it is so, then there's nothing to discuss. — Wayfarer

That's how you shoot yourself in the foot, and why so many here don't take you seriously.

Such a self-deprecating remark as you make above is either a sample of false humility (which is offputting), or just a plain declaration of incompetence (which is also offputting).

This or that authority must be chosen, may be disregarded. — Banno

No. The whole point of authority is that one's subjugation to it is not a matter of one's choice. Authority imposes itself, and it does so totally. Anything that is less than that is not authority, just someone or something with currently more power than oneself.

If the role of religion is really to bind people in a tribal group then dependency on the group is essential. Personal development of virtue leads to independence and is therefore at odds with the purpose of religion. — praxis

I've long thought the solution to climate change is a new global religion. The binding and what not.