It’s #308. — Antony Nickles
looking so innocent. But see §48. What is the simple here? Here is a slab; there, a block, for the purposes of the game; what could it mean for there to be a slab and a block in some absolute sense? And that's where poor @RussellA gets caught, again and again, looking for the slab-in-itself or the concept-of-slab, when these are not only unnecessary but a hinderance to seeing what is happening here.1) There must be an X in the world — RussellA
42. But have even names that have never been used for a tool got a meaning in that game? —– Let’s assume that “X” is such a sign, and that A gives this sign to B a well, even such signs could be admitted into the language-game, and B might have to answer them with a shake of the head. (One could imagine this as a kind of amusement for them.)
Except the bit where it doesn't matter in the slightest what the builder and the assistant have "in their heads" so long as the assistant brings the slab to the builder.
That you made the same mistake in another thread is not a good thing. — Banno
The experience within my mind caused by a wavelength in the world of 700nm is a private experience, inexpressible to others, in the same sense as Wittgenstein's use of the word. — RussellA
Within the communal language game we can talk about the colour red. — RussellA
You (and the skeptic) want to be different so that you can be singular, have something unique (but it may be the case that you are not, as I said). But the definition of a self does not work the way you picture it. We all know you: you are stubborn as hell, a creative thinker (to the point of slippery), etc. — Antony Nickles
Schop's books are all about understanding the "inner" part of existence… — schopenhauer1
One can describe abstract ideas and felt sensations, intelligibly. …I don't think that [the possibility of error] disproves that communication about abstract ideas (non observational), are thus irretrievably hopeless — schopenhauer1
You (Witt perhaps) seems to be fitting all philosophers in this idea of trying to find a single standard, which creates a strawman that the Great Wittgenstein can then "show" is in error. — schopenhauer1
[The possibility of error] doesn't mean that we turn off our ability to think about the bigger questions of life. — schopenhauer1
…we don’t: “know” their pain, we react to it, to the person; their pain is a plea, a claim on us—we help them (or not); that’s how pain works. P. 225.
— Antony Nickles
— schopenhauer1
That is just describing forms of empathy… — schopenhauer1
Who said they are looking for exact certainty of someone’s pain? — schopenhauer1
It’s an assumption we are not zombies and that pain is roughly negative in similar ways. — schopenhauer1
Davidson address this again in A nice derangement of epitaphs; our jokes undermine the idea of language as following rules. — Banno
At least we agree that meaning is an important part of communication. — RussellA
For example, if you walk into a pub, and say to the barmaid "Bring me a slab.", then of course she knows what you mean by "slab", "bring" and "me", all the words you just uttered to her. But she will think you are talking nonsense, pulling her leg or just plain barmy. — Corvus
The assistant brings the builder a slab because he has been trained to do so. His training consists of being able to identify a slab and bring it to the builder. Being able to identify a slab does not mean forming an inner concept. All that is required is being able to distinguish this thing from the other things he has been trained to identify and bring. All with this one word "slab". — Fooloso4
I don't see why you would call your personal experience a concept. — Luke
And the intersubjectivity part, requires the mental aspect, exactly which supposedly doesn't matter in the beetle-box. But it does, sir. — schopenhauer1
I feel successful language use is only possible when you use language cogently to the situation. — Corvus
The other point is that the meaning of words is not learnt by pointing to the objects in the world exclusively, unless it is the case with a child learning language for the first time in her life, or in certain situations such as when you are ordering or buying an item in shops or market — Corvus
If everyone were zombies, and/or if no one had an internal understanding of a word that roughly corresponds to the concept, but its use (outward behavior way they expressed and acted when they spoke or heard the word) was always correct, would you really say that people understand the "meaning" of a word? — schopenhauer1
And the use of “private” is not Wittgenstein’s; it’s the skeptic’s, the interlocutor’s; it’s the “metaphysical use”; Wittgenstein contrasts that with its “ordinary use”, which has particular criteria and contexts in which it is used, which is, as I said, similar to personal, secret. — Antony Nickles
There is not some “color” in you that someone else cannot see. — Antony Nickles
When the builder calls "slab" the assistant does not bring a mackerel or an onion. Whatever theory you have about what you think must be going on in his mind, the fact is, he brings a slab. — Fooloso4
What you ignore is that in this language there is no word for 'bring'. "Slab" does not function simply as the name of an object. "Slab" means bring the builder a slab. "Slab" gets its meaning from its use. Its use is determined by the form or way of life. Nomads do not have the word "Slab". Not because there are no slabs but because they do not build, slabs are not used in this way. — Fooloso4
If the assistant had no intrinsic theory in their mind as to the meaning of words, they would be bringing onions as often as they brought slabs. — RussellA
This is circular. If "slab" gets its meaning from use, then how do you know how to use it before knowing what it means. — RussellA
I have worked with Bedouin nomads, and we were using the word slab all the time. — RussellA
But it can only do so because a human, who did know the meanings of those words, had programmed it in the first place. — RussellA
Use refers to the activity of building. The meaning is determined by the role of "slab" in this activity. — Fooloso4
Another is knowing the meaning of the words used, in that if the barmaid didn't know the meaning of "bring", she would never be able to bring you your pint of lager. — RussellA
We know the meaning of angst, not because we can point to angst, but because we can point to to the visible effect of angst in the world, such as a person's behaviour.
We can have the word "pain" in language because we can point to pain behaviour, whereby the word "pain" replaces pain behaviour.
If not by "pointing", how do we learn the meaning of words such as angst? — RussellA
Pain is used by philosophy as the “best case” of our knowledge of the other (because it’s hard for me to ignore, it’s constant, etc.). By “knowledge” here we are talking about a certain kind of “philosophical” knowledge, like an equating. Now, because there is error in the world, some philosophy (Hume for example) creates a thing between us and the world (appearances, your experience, your impressions, your sensations, etc.) which the philosopher then requires to have matched up exactly with the world, or for you and I to have an identical one or I can’t be said to “know” you (You might be an automaton! Or a zombie—which I also discussed with RussellA here).
It’s an assumption we are not zombies and that pain is roughly negative in similar ways.
— schopenhauer1
When has philosophy ever relied on common sense?—“assumed” anything? Plus, if we don’t investigate “knowledge” or “justice”, etc. we would never uncover all the things we have learned about the world (the assumptions, implications, criteria for judgment) but never drew out of ourselves (Wittgenstein and Socrates both say we all hold the knowledge of how our everyday world works in each one of us—Wittgenstein, because of our growing up together, by osmosis into our unconscious as it were. Hey, it’s a better metaphor than Socrates’.) — Antony Nickles
So what Wittgenstein uncovers is not an “error” (and he is showing us what he claims is evidence, not conclusions). His insight is that the fear of the uncertainty of being wrong, being immoral (“evil” Nietszche calls it), of the future, of others, is actually a primal fear created by the human condition of our separation (thus our basic responsibility to bridge it), and that the desire to overcome that fear (and attempt to remove our responsibility) is the motivation for intellectualizing our situation as a “problem” that can be “solved”. — Antony Nickles
A "slab" can refer to a slab of concrete used in a builder's yard or a slab of cake used in a cake shop. — RussellA
it may be described as ... — RussellA
But such as slab can have many uses ... — RussellA
But we know the meaning of "slab" even before we have decided what we want to use it for. — RussellA
Therefore, it is not the case that we have to use something in order to discover what its name is. — RussellA
(PI 43)And the meaning of a name is sometimes explained by pointing to its bearer.
Some of the error is to think of "mwanasesere" as having any meaning at all apart from the place it has in the games we play. As if our words all have meanings apart from what we do with them. — Banno
I have shown some example sentences which can be meaningfully used without knowing the meaning of the word in the sentence in the previous posts such as "I don't know what the word bring means." — Corvus
I would rather have thought one learns the word pain by feeling it oneself , or reading about the description of pain rather than looking at someone else's pain behaviour. — Corvus
If the barmaid doesn't know the meaning of X in the sentence "X me a lager", then the sentence cannot be meaningfully be used in the context of a pub, though it is true that it could be meaningfully be used in the context of a language class. — RussellA
Isn't learning the word pain by feeling it oneself the point of Wittgenstein's Private Language Argument?
Is it possible to learn the meaning of every word one uses just from a dictionary? — RussellA
[RussellA] poses a problem for "use" if it is just "use" without any internal mental states accompanying it. Hence I mentioned zombies and those who really don't understand internally a meaning, yet still "use" the word correctly (aping as Witt might say). I don't see "meaning" and "use" tied exclusively. It has to be use, but intersubjectively understood use. And the intersubjectivity part, requires the mental aspect, exactly which supposedly doesn't matter in the beetle-box. But it does, sir. — schopenhauer1
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