Typically, we don't each play our own individual language-games. It isn't that I have my own concept of slab and you have yours. — Luke
You wouldn't get very far in the builder's language-game if you repeatedly fetched a hammer in response to the command "Slab!". — Luke
You are talking about us each having our own private language. Wittgenstein took issue with that idea. — Luke
The next step in improving the theory that the meaning of a word is its use in language is to begin to incorporate the principles of Linguistic Idealism, and to clarify the consequences to language of the distinction between Indirect and Direct Realism. — RussellA
You are talking about us each having our own private language. Wittgenstein took issue with that idea. - @Luke
RussellA: Cavell in The Later Wittgenstein makes the point that Wittgenstein never denied that we have private thoughts and feelings… Having private thoughts and feelings is not the same as having what is called "a private language".
As the analogy of the beetle in PI 293 illustrates, private sensations do drop out of consideration within the language game, not that private sensations drop out of consideration. — RussellA
If concepts didn't exist in the mind, but only in a community, such a community would be a community of zombies, none having a private concept or private sensation. — RussellA
This is when he is saying classical philosophy abandons our responsibility to ourselves by abstracting to ensure myself, my relation to the world, to others. — Antony Nickles
But do all "philosophies" really do this, or just some? — schopenhauer1
I would say the crux of analytical philosophy has been the battle with skepticism, “moral relativism”, and the like. I can’t think of examples that don’t other than what people call “continental” philosophy, which I would categorize as: accepting the world and just investigating how it is (Foucault, Arendt, etc.)—more of just a social commentary. — Antony Nickles
That last quote is a good one for Fooloso4. — schopenhauer1
Your practice and experience with interpretation seems to be quite removed from mine. — Fooloso4
(CV, 24)Working in philosophy -- like work in architecture in many respects -- is really more a working on oneself. On one's interpretation. On one's way of seeing things. (And what one expects of them.)
I don’t see that at odds. — schopenhauer1
“Students and scholars of all kinds and of every age aim, as a rule, only at information, not insight. They make it a point of honour to have information about everything, every stone, plant, battle, or experiment and about all books, collectively and individually. It never occurs to them that information is merely a means to insight, but in itself is of little or no value.” - Schopenhauer — schopenhauer1
Every man takes the limits of his own field of vision for the limits of the world.” - Schopenhauer — schopenhauer1
How can you know my concept of Slab? How do you know that our concepts of a "slab" are the same? — RussellA
My Form of Life has been unique to me, — RussellA
What enables language to function and therefore must be accepted as “given” are precisely forms of life. In Wittgenstein’s terms, “It is not only agreement in definitions but also (odd as it may sound) in judgments that is required” (PI 242), and this is “agreement not in opinions, but rather in form of life” (PI 241)...Forms of life can be understood as constantly changing and contingent, dependent on culture, context, history, etc.; or as a background common to humankind, “shared human behavior” which is “the system of reference by means of which we interpret an unknown language” (PI 206); or as a notion which can be read differently in different cases – sometimes as relativistic, in other cases as expressing a more universalistic approach.
We can agree to the dictionary definition of a slab as i) a large, thick, flat piece of stone or concrete, typically square or rectangular in shape ii) a large, thick slice or piece of cake, bread, chocolate, etc, iii) an outer piece of timber sawn from a log, but many don't see the value in definitions. Definitions can end up circular and change with time. — RussellA
If concepts didn't exist in the mind, but only in a community, such a community would be a community of zombies, none having a private concept or private sensation.
Cavell in The Later Wittgenstein makes the point that Wittgenstein never denied that we have private thoughts and feelings
Other philosophers, I believe, are under the impression that Wittgenstein denies that we can know what we think and feel, and even that we can know ourselves. This extraordinary idea comes, no doubt, from such remarks of Wittgenstein's as: "I can know what 70 * MUST WE MEAN WHAT WE SAY? someone else is thinking, not what I am thinking" (II, p. 222); "It cannot be said of me at all (except perhaps as a joke) that I know I am in pain" (§5!46). But the "can" and "cannot" in these remarks are grammatical; they mean "it makes no sense to say these things" (in the way we think it does); it would, therefore, equally make no sense to say of me that I do not know what I am thinking, or that I do not know I am in pain. The implication is not that I cannot know myself, but that knowing oneself-though radically different from the way we know others--is not a matter of cognizing (classically, "intuiting") mental acts and particular sensations.
Having private thoughts and feelings is not the same as having what is called "a private language".
As the analogy of the beetle in PI 293 illustrates, private sensations do drop out of consideration within the language game, not that private sensations drop out of consideration. — RussellA
The meaning of the word "slab" derives from its context in the language game being used by the speaker.
When I say "bring me the slab", my concept of "slab" is part of from my language game. When you say "bring me the slab", your concept of "slab" is part of your language game. — RussellA
You may have been butting heads with people (and with understanding the Investigations) because you are saying the word “private” for two things. — Antony Nickles
So you have been correct to insist that we do have individual feelings, and even experiences that are inexpressible to others entirely (the awe of a sunset)—though ordinary language is perfectly capable of making us intelligible (for us to agree we are like others),..........most of the time your “experience” is just like mine — Antony Nickles
yes, we might be a “zombie”, a puppet, speaking only others opinions, etc. — Antony Nickles
I presume that your concept of "slab" is the same as mine, referring to one of the builder's building materials. — Luke
Is the first definition, i), your concept of slab a large, thick, flat piece of stone or concrete, typically square or rectangular in shape.................If so, then it is the same concept as mine (in this context). — Luke
Form of Life may allow for some relativism between different cultures or time periods, depending on your reading, but it does not allow for relativism between individuals. An individual does not have their own unique Form of Life, just as (and for the same reasons that) an individual does not have their own unique language. — Luke
As definition i) is your definition of a slab but not mine, then we don't agree as to the definition of a "slab". For me a "slab" can be "a large or small, thick or thin, flat or uneven piece of stone or concrete, typically square or rectangular in shape". — RussellA
I find it hard to believe that two people can have the same concept of any word. — RussellA
To follow a rule, to make a report, to give an order, to play a game of chess, are customs (usages, institutions).
To understand a sentence means to understand a language. To understand a language means to have mastered a technique. — PI 199
Even if you have lived a similar form of life to me — RussellA
Each individuals experience of the Form of Life will be different and unique to them. — RussellA
For many years, I have had the concept of a "peffel" as well as its name, part my pen and part the Eiffel Tower. This word I have found useful when thinking about the ontology of relations, and has been part of my private language, and so far, unique to me. — RussellA
One will never know what slab you are talking about, when you say to your assistant "Bring me a slab." over the phone or in a text message out of blue. However, if you and your assistant are talking facing the piles of slabs in the site, and when you point to a slab from distance "Bring me that slab.", he will know exactly what slab you are referring to. — Corvus
Once something has been pointed out, it can be referred to without needing to name it again.
Pointing at something in the world is a key aspect in our ability to use language. — RussellA
I guess defining Linguistic Idealism as saying that language is what shapes our understanding more than pre-linguistic or meta-linguistic faculties........However, I would argue there are things that need to be in place for language to even be a thing..............a history of human evolution leading to the ability to use language as humans do................. So in this sense, I would say that leads to a sort of "realism" that gets to a world that has preconditions for his Language Idealism to be a thing — schopenhauer1
Linguistic Idealism is a philosophical concept that explores the relationship between language and reality. It posits that our language is not founded on an empirical reality with which we are in contact through sense perception. Instead, it suggests that our language determines the kind of contact we have with such a reality and our conception of it. Linguistic Idealism is not a form of realism or idealism, but rather an attempt to undermine certain presuppositions of the realist/idealist debate.
In observing the world, we perceive different colours when looking at different wavelengths of light. For some inexplicable reason, even though we perceive the colours from the wavelengths 620 to 750nm as different, we find some similarity between them, and arrive at the concept that can be named "red". This is in a sense Idealism, as our concept only exists in the mind. But in another sense is Realism, as our concept depends on real examples of wavelengths existing in the world. As with Linguistic Idealism, the word "red" is a function of both concepts that only exist in the mind and examples that only exist in the world. — RussellA
Embodied embedded cognition (EEC) is a philosophical theoretical position in cognitive science, closely related to situated cognition, embodied cognition, embodied cognitive science and dynamical systems theory. The theory states that intelligent behaviour emerges from the interplay between brain, body and world.[1] The world is not just the 'play-ground' on which the brain is acting. Rather, brain, body and world are equally important factors in the explanation of how particular intelligent behaviours come about in practice. — Embodied embedded cognition Wiki
That's just quibbling over the definition — Luke
Individuals (humans) don't experience Form of Life differently; it's who we are. It's the shared human behaviours and judgements that are common to all humans; our human form of life. — Luke
Since you were able to explain the meaning of the "peffel" concept, then I don't believe this qualifies as a private language — Luke
The word "private" has many uses, as shown in the Merriam Webster Dictionary. — RussellA
If it is the case that neither of us can describe in words our personal experience of the colour violet, then how do we know that my personal experience is just like your personal experience? — RussellA
I have a friend who is colour blind. How would you describe to them in words your personal experience of the colour violet? — RussellA
yes, we might be a “zombie”, a puppet, speaking only others opinions, etc.
— Antony Nickles
From Wikipedia Philosophical Zombie: "A philosophical zombie is a being in a thought experiment in philosophy of mind that is physically identical to a normal person but does not have conscious experience." A philosophical zombie is not someone who doesn't have their own opinions. — RussellA
I would sack him for incompetence. — RussellA
I would sack him for incompetence. — RussellA
As Antony Nickles mentioned recently, what Wittgenstein means by "private" in relation to a private language is that the words of this language can, in principle, be understood by one person only and that nobody else can understand the language. — Luke
And the Wittgenstein I have read and read about is unrecognisable in ↪schopenhauer1's version. — Banno
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