What does "this" refer to?
— Fooloso4

I was quoting PI 389. — Luke

Right, but you said:

I don't see why the mental image must correspond to any object. — Luke

At PI 389 "this" refers to the mental image of a particular object. If you disagree with the interlocutor then we are in agreement.

But you also said:

However, this need not imply that Wittgenstein rejects the interlocutor's statement that "it is an intrinsic feature of a mental image that it is the image of this and of nothing else". — Luke

He does reject it. He rejects it for the same reason you now seem to be rejecting it.

I think Wittgenstein might take issue with your use of "see" here. You don't really see or look at your mental image; it is what you imagine. — Luke

Take the example @Banno discusses from Zettel 14 here

"Say a picture of him suddenly floated before me."

He does not simply imagine or produce an image he sees it.

That's an obvious assumption to make (just like the assumption of a private language), but how does it relate to the text or to what Wittgenstein says at PI 389? — Luke

I am well aware that they may not look like this. It is just an image in my mind, a picture that occurs to me.

The claim made at PI 389 is that:

A mental image must be more like its object than any picture.

The point of my example is that it shows that this is not true. A photo of the person [added: I only talked to on the phone] is more like that person than my mental image of that person.

As you say, first we come up with a few questions (which the Investigations does do), then we hypothesise a theory or two (which the Investigations doesn't do) and then we test out our hypotheses by comparing them to what happens in the world (which the Investigations doesn't do). — RussellA

I like this summation.

. The user of a scientific language game would not be able to judge the religious language game, and the user of the philosopher's language game would not be able to judge the language game of the ordinary man. — RussellA

While I agree to an extent on Kuhn's idea of a shift in how language is used in scientific revolutions, I don't know if incommensurability is quite as you are describing. I think of incommensurability as the inability to describe the world in an older framework because there weren't even ideas for the new findings. The geocentric world had epicycles and fixed points of light. The heliocentric had elliptical motions and such. This doesn't mean that the incommensurability was between understanding of the different worldviews, just the use of them to describe the natural world. In a world without relativity, there cannot be an understanding of gravitational distortions of space-time, or even space-time at all. It is just Newtonian three-dimensional space, etc. Light is not seen as carried by a packet of energy, etc.

Such would be exemplified by the instance of showing Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea to either a dog or cat, who would not even recognize that there was a different language game to the one they know. As Wittgenstein wrote: If a lion could talk, we could not understand him. — RussellA

This kind of incommensurability makes more sense for I think what you are saying with extreme relativism. I think you are trying to convey the theory that there are some language games impossible for people to penetrate unless they are already in that community (by birth or enculturation, one would assume).

The Investigations in moving between Language Games must be that of Moderate Relativism, whereby all Forms of Life are cognitively accessible. The problem is, of course, is that we don't know what we don't know, as was the case with the dog or cat when presented with a copy of a Hemingway novel, in that there may well be a language game outside of ours whose existence we cannot even contemplate. — RussellA

I would agree. I don't think Witt was posing any kind of failure to learn and perform language games, though this may break down for various participants in various contexts (people who are not academically trained in theoretical mathematics might not understand much from a theoretical math lecture aimed at mathematics professors, for example).

Each language game has a foundation that cannot be justified but must be accepted, and are, in effect, hinge propositions
PI 217 If I have exhausted the justifications I have reached bedrock, and my spade is turned. Then I am inclined to say: "This is simply what I do." — RussellA

That's fine, it's usually historically contingent as to how it happened. It just takes a generation or two of users of the language game to make it an informal rule of that game.

My point about hinge propositions was that language itself can be studied further as to why we have language games, how it developed, what part of the brain is involved, how it evolved differently from other animals, what its evolutionary use was, etc. It is those ideas that I am more interested in regards to language. These are a combination of theory, observation, and experimentation to find the right model that seems to fit. Michael Tomasello's intentional theory of language is a good candidate for example.

Presumably, things like tool use, hunting, understanding the social standing of others was an evolutionary pressure and an effect of having the ability to be able to collaborate in a space of shared intentionality. It is this shared intentionality that is one of the main pre-linguistic frameworks for language. Now, if this can be proven to connect with not only behavior and child development, but also the regions of the brain that were necessary to evolve this cognitive trait, THEN you have a holistic theory of language.

You first have to define what the parameters for a working theory are, and then provide evidence that the model fits. For example, animals like dogs have a great capacity for associative learning. Is associative learning a substrate for linguistic learning, or is it another mechanism? That is an example of discerning where the boundaries of the parameter lies.

Apes can make tools, but it dies out in a generation. They don't have shared intentionality, so tool-use may be a substrate of language, but it may just be an effect of the substrate, or a dead-end in terms of its necessity for how language evolved.

Children learn words sometimes one at a time, but at a certain point, gain a greater context for word meaning without explicit instruction. There seems to be something akin to a grammar module in the brain (i.e. Chomsky's Universal Grammar module). Is this akin to the broca's and wernike's region interacting with the hippocampus for episodic memory formation? Were these regions developed in homo sapiens, homo erectus, homo habilis, etc? Why would they form in one and not the other? What were the evolutionary pressures causing the difference?

If the model is "shared intention", and we know that broca's region is involved in syntax formation let's say, are these ideas commensurate or do they have nothing to do with each other? If not, then how does the theory of shared attention account for the broca's region? Etc. etc. etc....

And speaking of use. Is there some sort of connection with motor functions. Did verbs come first, or nouns? Pointing to something or perhaps drawing attention to what one is doing (gathering, making tools, hunting technique, etc.). Did these words come together all at once or were they piecemeal? We do know that pigeons can turn into creoles, but that's after the capacity for language evolved.

Edit, added more.

What does "this" refer to?
— Fooloso4

I was quoting PI 389.
— Luke

Right, but you said:

I don't see why the mental image must correspond to any object.
— Luke

At PI 389 "this" refers to the mental image of a particular object. If you disagree with the interlocutor then we are in agreement.

But you also said:

However, this need not imply that Wittgenstein rejects the interlocutor's statement that "it is an intrinsic feature of a mental image that it is the image of this and of nothing else".
— Luke

He does reject it. He rejects it for the same reason you now seem to be rejecting it. — Fooloso4

Allow me to be more clear. I will number the sentences of PI 389 and state which I think Wittgenstein agrees and disagrees with:

389.
1. A mental image must be more like its object than any picture.
2. For however similar I make the picture to what it is supposed to represent, it may still be the picture of something else.
3. But it is an intrinsic feature of a mental image that it is the image of this and of nothing else.”
4. That is how one might come to regard a mental image as a superlikeness.

Firstly, I don’t read there as being any necessary correspondence with an object in sentence 3. “The image of this” is just whatever is the content of one’s mental image.

I believe Wittgenstein disagrees with sentences 1 and 4 but agrees with sentences 2 and 3. Sentence 4 seems little more than a restatement of sentence 1. Sentence 1 (together with 3) could be a definition of “superlikeness”. Incidentally, Hacker relates this concept to the terms “super-order” and “super-concepts” mentioned at PI 97.

I think PI 380-388 (especially 380 and 382) supports my reading and does not support your reading (where you take the point of PI 389 to be that a picture can equally or more closely resemble an object than does a mental image). I also believe these passages support my position against your assumption/reading that a mental image (like a picture) can be compared with an object for the purpose of determining the image’s resemblance or correspondence to that object.

Take PI 380 for example:

380. How do I recognize that this is red? — “I see that it is this; and then I know that that is what this is called.” This? — What?! What kind of answer to this question makes sense?
(You keep on steering towards an inner ostensive explanation.)
I could not apply any rules to a private transition from what is seen to words. Here the rules really would hang in the air; for the institution of their application is lacking. — PI 380

Or PI 382:

382. How can I justify forming this [mental] image in response to this word?
Has anyone shown me the image of the colour blue and told me that it is the image of blue?
What is the meaning of the words “this image”? How does one point at an image? How does one point twice at the same image?

Or this excerpt from PI 386:

I say without hesitation that I have done this calculation in my head, have imagined this colour. The difficulty is not that I doubt whether I really imagined anything red. But it is this: that we should be able, just like that, to point out or describe the colour we have imagined, that mapping the image into reality presents no difficulty at all. — PI 386

I believe this context shows that the point of PI 389 is not what you seem to think. You read W as saying that a mental image can be compared to an object in order to determine its resemblance to that object, just like a picture can. I see W as attacking this assumption.

I don't think Witt was posing any kind of failure to learn and perform language games, though this may break down for various participants in various contexts (people who are not academically trained in theoretical mathematics might not understand much from a theoretical math lecture aimed at mathematics professors, for example). — schopenhauer1

The position of the Investigations is clearly that of Moderate Relativism, as Wittgenstein discusses different types of language games, such as that of the philosopher and that of the ordinary man.

But Wittgenstein seems to wilfully ignore what the ordinary man knows. When the ordinary man says "I know your pain", Wittgenstein treats this as a literal belief on the part of the ordinary man, yet even the ordinary man knows that he is using this as a figure of speech in place of "I believe you are in pain". The ordinary man knows that when I see you behaving in a particular way, and as I behave in the same way when I am in pain, I thereby infer that you are also in pain. Even my grandmother who left school at 14 knows that the expression "I know you are in pain" is being used figuratively. Yet Wittgenstein seems to take it as literal when said by the ordinary man.

Even the ordinary man knows that one word can have different meanings, in that that slab can mean cake in a bakery and concrete on a building site. The ordinary man knows to use the word appropriately in different situations. It is more the case that these so-called language games dissolve into one, and within this one language game an individual word may have more than one meaning.

Perhaps Wittgenstein should also have tried to come up with a few answers to his questions in order to make a more rounded case. For example, the nature of cause and effect. If I observe someone behaving in a particular way, this is presumably the effect of a cause, and even though the cause may be unknown, we know that there must have been one. Even an unknown cause can be named, in that the name "pain" is not the name of something that is inherently unknowable, but is the name of an effect that is directly knowable.

But this is not something Wittgenstein does, making his work incomplete and thereby ultimately unsatisfactory.

But Wittgenstein seems to wilfully ignore what the ordinary man knows. — RussellA

Willfully ignore, or be autistically oblivious to?

The

But this is not something Wittgenstein does, making his work incomplete and thereby ultimately unsatisfactory. — RussellA

Exactly.

Firstly, I don’t read there as being any necessary correspondence with an object in sentence 3. — Luke

Sentence 1 is the interlocutor's claim - the mental image is more like its object than any picture.
Sentence 2 provides his support for this claim.
Sentence 3 is provides further support.

These three sentences are enclosed in quotation marks.

Sentence 4 is Wittgenstein's response to this chain of reasoning leading to the claim of a superlikeness. If we reject the claim of a superlikeness we should reject the whole argument chain. When the interlocutor claims that it is an intrinsic feature of a mental image that it is the image of this and of nothing else, he is referring to the object it is a mental image of.

where you take the point of PI 389 to be that a picture can equally or more closely resemble an object than does a mental image — Luke

The point of PI 389 is to reject claims 1 -3 and thus a superlikeness.

I also believe these passages support my position against your assumption/reading that a mental image (like a picture) can be compared with an object for the purpose of determining the image’s resemblance or correspondence to that object. — Luke

It is, as you quoted in sentence 1, the interlocutor who makes the comparison and concludes that a mental image must be more like its object than any picture. You, I, and Wittgenstein all reject that claim.

Once again, our disagreement is over sentence 3. If not the object then what is it the mental image an image of?

Willfully ignore, or be autistically oblivious to? — wonderer1

:smirk:

:smirk: — schopenhauer1

Feel free to elaborate.

I think of incommensurability as the inability to describe the world in an older framework because there weren't even ideas for the new findings. — schopenhauer1

True, even though Einstein's theory may be incommensurable with Newton's theory, Einstein would be able to understand Newton's theory. However, Newton would not be able to understand Einstein's theory, not because he was intellectually incapable of doing so, but because he was not aware of Einstein's theory in the first place. One cannot know what is unknown.

As Wittgenstein wrote: If a lion could talk, we could not understand him. The incommensurability is in the alien nature of a being whose particular thoughts and feelings are more than likely incomprehensible to us.

This kind of incommensurability makes more sense for I think what you are saying with extreme relativism. — schopenhauer1

The Investigations discusses human language, and because of the similarity between humans - all descended form the same Mitochondrial Eve - even though human language may vary, any difference may be explained within Moderate Relativism.

However between species, between humans and dogs, between humans and Martians, differences between languages are probably so great that they can only be explained by Extreme Relativism.

It just takes a generation or two of users of the language game to make it an informal rule of that game. — schopenhauer1

Yes, when someone says "here is one hand", the hidden rule is that this is a hinge definition not a description, and as a definition is founding the language of which it is a part.

My point about hinge propositions was that language itself can be studied further as to why we have language games, how it developed, what part of the brain is involved, how it evolved differently from other animals, what its evolutionary use was, etc. — schopenhauer1

There are two main theories as to how language evolved, either i) as an evolutionary adaptation or ii) a by-product of evolution and not a specific adaptation. As feathers were an evolutionary adaptation helping to keep the birds warm, once evolved, they could be used for flight. Thereby, a by-product of evolution rather than a specific adaptation.

Similarly for language, the development of language is relatively recent, between 30,000 and 1000,000 years ago. As the first animals emerged about 750 million years ago, this suggests that language is a by-product of evolution rather than an evolutionary adaptation.

As with Kuhn's paradigms, evolution can be rapid. For example, even though it may have taken 100 million years for feathers to have evolved in order to keep the animal warm, it could only take a week for the animal to discover that it can use these feathers for flight.

Presumably, things like tool use, hunting, understanding the social standing of others was an evolutionary pressure and an effect of having the ability to be able to collaborate in a space of shared intentionality. — schopenhauer1

Yes, Language can only be understood by knowing not only what it is but also why it is as it is. The Investigations may have asked questions about what it is, but would have been more rounded if it had asked questions about why it is as it is.

For example, animals like dogs have a great capacity for associative learning. Is associative learning a substrate for linguistic learning, or is it another mechanism? — schopenhauer1

Personally, I believe associative learning is at the foundation of language. In other words, Hume's theory of constant conjunction. This is the relationship between two events, where one event is invariably followed by the other: if the occurrence of A is always followed by B, A and B are said to be constantly conjoined. As described by the Lancaster University article on Hume, our belief in causality is a projection onto the world of a habit of our minds.

In the case of language, I see many different particular examples of things in the world and discover a family resemblance between them. I can then name this family resemblance "slab", but noting that it is not the case that any particular example has been named "slab", but rather the family resemblance between them has been named "slab". In other words, a constant conjunction that originates in the mind when observing two seemingly different events occurring in the world.

Apes can make tools, but it dies out in a generation. T — schopenhauer1

Yes, language is crucial in sharing knowledge between different individuals. Even though Caesar died more than 2,000 years ago, I still have knowledge of him through the medium of language. I can have intentionality about something by description about which I have no knowledge by acquaintance.

Did verbs come first, or nouns? — schopenhauer1

By looking at many examples of physical things or physical events that exist in the world , when we discover a family resemblance between them, we can give this family resemblance a name such as "slab" or "running". The same principle applies to both, things that exist at one moment of time such as the object slab or things that exist through time such as the event "running".

Both verbs and nouns exist in the form of physical things, regardless of whether they exist at one moment in time or through time.

Michael Tomasello's intentional theory of language — schopenhauer1

One feature of evolution is the human propensity to form into groups or tribes. This is an understandable evolutionary trait allowing us to maximise our co-equal co-ordination. But as Tomasello points out, human evolution has not caught up with the sheer number of humans on the planet, such that the actual number of humans today is more than what any individual has been evolutionary programmed to cope with. This must inevitably lead to strife between these tribes, not as a result of deliberate intention on the part of the individuals but because it is in their evolutionary makeup.

Willfully ignore, or be autistically oblivious to? — wonderer1

According to www.grizzalan.com: Ludwig Wittgenstein was almost certainly autistic. Several notable psychiatrists, such as Christopher Gillberg in A Guide to Asperger Syndrome, have written extensively about the evidence backing this assertion.

As Wittgenstein writes in the Preface to the Investigations: After several unsuccessful attempts to weld my results together into such a whole, I realized that I should never succeed.

Wittgenstein refers many times to the ordinary use of a word: But do I parade the meanings of the words before my mind when I make the ordinary use of them?

In the Investigations, Wittgenstein seems to suggest that the ordinary man is only able to use words in the literal sense. Such that when the ordinary man says something like "I know your pain", the ordinary man is not aware that this is a figure of speech. It is then the philosopher who comes along and complicates matters by asking "how can I know another person's pain".

But it is surely the case that the ordinary man is well aware that some of the words they use are figures of speech, possibly metaphors and can only be understood in the context they are spoken. They don't need a philosopher to explain this to them.

In the Investigations, Wittgenstein seems to be making a distinction between the language of the ordinary man and the language of the philosopher, but surely he knew that this distinction didn't exist in practice in the ordinary people he came across in his daily life.

don't think this gets past this critique:

Just using Wittgenstein against himself perhaps, what if every person in the community had an idea wrong such that every correction was actually never correct. How would you know any differently than the private sensation case? Diving in further in skepticism, how do you know that every supposedly public correction is not distorted by one’s own view? At some point you can keep drilling downward and you start getting to Decartes Demon again. Using public or practice or community as a way out doesn’t suffice. — schopenhauer1

So am I to assume that you would agree with my characterization that I must trust your personal testimony that whatever you are doing in the hidden recesses of your mind, it is a language and all sort of judgments are occurring. This sounds more like a philosophical mystic preaching his Word from Divine revelations, then serious philosophical discourse.

To address the "past critique", which I must confess, I don't see its relevance to my point, I will say the following:

1. I think this example may be hiding your philosophical assumption. Is this community going around using words, using them to act on, and seeing and judging that it is being used correctly, but somehow never using it correctly. But how is this "never using it correctly" being presented here. That there is a correct use that is established outside the community and if they could just tap into this method of determination they would see that even though there public use is correct, they would come to see it is incorrect. But how? Thru private introspection of "meaning" of words?

I think two Wittgenstein quotes would be useful here from "On Certainty":

204. "Giving grounds, however, justifying the evidence, comes to an end; - but the end is not certain propositions' striking us immediately true, i.e. it is not a kind of seeing on our part; it is our acting, which lies at the bottom of the language-game."

613. "If I now say "I know that the water in the kettle on the gas flame will not boil", I seem to be justified in this "I know" as I am in any. 'If I know anything I know this".-Or do I know with still greater certainty that the person opposite me is my old friend so-and-so? And how does that compare with the proposition that I am seeing with two eyes and see see them if I look in the glass?-I don't know confidently what I am to answer here.-But still there is a difference between cases. If the water over the gas freezes, of course I shall be astonished as can be, but I shall assume some factor I don't know of, and perhaps leave the matter to physicists to judge. But what could make me doubt whether this person here is N.N., whom I known for years? Here doubt would seems to drag everything with it and plunge it into chaos."

In the Investigations, Wittgenstein seems to be making a distinction between the language of the ordinary man and the language of the philosopher, but surely he knew that this distinction didn't exist in practice in the ordinary people he came across in his daily life. — RussellA

Having spent much of his time correcting philosophers he surely did know that they are not using terms in the ordinary sense. This is a mistake he attempts to correct by pointing to the ordinary use of terms such as 'know'. If they did not make these inordinate demands on language the problems that arise as a result would dissolve.

The point of PI 389 is to reject claims 1 -3 — Fooloso4

Sentence 2 states:

2. For however similar I make the picture to what it is supposed to represent, it may still be the picture of something else. — Luke

This tells us that there is not a necessary correspondence between a picture and its object (or “what it is supposed to represent”). If W rejects this, as you say, then it is W’s position that there is a necessary correspondence between a picture and its object. To what object does the picture of the duck-rabbit necessarily correspond?

Personally, I believe associative learning is at the foundation of language. In other words, Hume's theory of constant conjunction. This is the relationship between two events, where one event is invariably followed by the other: if the occurrence of A is always followed by B, A and B are said to be constantly conjoined. — RussellA

What is also interesting i find, is that the kind of very very very basic description of hebbian learning / spike timing dependent plasticity in the brain actually mirrors Hume's talk about causality quite well in terms of learning due to conjunctions and one event having to precede the other, things like that.

2. For however similar I make the picture to what it is supposed to represent, it may still be the picture of something else. — Luke

It does not follow from a) the fact that there is not a necessary correspondence between a picture and what it is supposed to represent, that b) there is a necessary connection between a mental image and what it is an image of. It does not follow that a mental image must be more like its object than any picture.

It is a tautology to say that a mental image of X is an image of X. But this does not mean that my mental image of X is anything like X. If I describe my mental image of X it may become clear that the image as described is nothing like X. It may be that it is an image of something else.

It does not follow from a) the fact that there is not a necessary correspondence between a picture and what it is supposed to represent, that b) there is a necessary connection between a mental image and what it is an image of. — Fooloso4

I agree. That’s not what I said.

I said it follows from the rejection of a) the fact that there is not a necessary correspondence between a picture and what it is supposed to represent, that b) there is a necessary correspondence between a picture and what it is supposed to represent.

If W rejects sentence 2 of PI 389, as you suggest, then his position is that b) there is a necessary correspondence between a picture and what it is supposed to represent.

I don’t believe that is W’s position. Therefore, I don’t believe he does reject sentences 1-3 as you say. (At least, not sentences 2 and 3.)

It is a tautology to say that a mental image of X is an image of X. But this does not mean that my mental image of X is anything like X. If I describe my mental image of X it may become clear that the image as described is nothing like X. It may be that it is an image of something else. — Fooloso4

That’s right. That may explain W’s definition of a mental image at PI 367.

I think Tomasello is developing important models and is rigorous in his methods. You turned me on to him last year (or so).

You acknowledge that such work is theoretical in a way that Wittgenstein's is not. Tomasello's work does not seem to cancel Wittgenstein's observations as other views might. Is your objection to Wittgenstein to say there is no such thing as a "non-theoretical" approach?

Would you accept that such a question is, at least, "meta-theoretical?"

I think Tomasello is developing important models and is rigorous in his methods. You turned me on to him last year (or so). — Paine

:up:

You acknowledge that such work is theoretical in a way that Wittgenstein's is not. Tomasello's work does not seem to cancel Wittgenstein's observations as other views might. Is your objection to Wittgenstein to say there is no such thing as a "non-theoretical" approach? — Paine

Wittgenstein is armchair philosophizing, of course it's not going to be the same kind of theorizing.

I have a few issues:

1) Wittgenstein engages in armchair anthropology and linguistics, primarily relying on contemplation rather than empirical evidence. If Wittgenstein's contemplations alone are considered valid, it would negate the necessity of disciplines such as anthropology, linguistic neuroscience, or cognitive psychology related to linguistics. Essentially, he suggests that we can think our way to answers that are observable and suitable for rigorous empirical study. I have no doubt that Tomasello drew inspiration from Wittgenstein, considering you can't avoid him when delving into the study of language. However, Tomasello's empirical approach to understanding how humans are evolutionarily grounded in their cognitive abilities holds more value.

2) Many individuals on this forum hold Wittgenstein in very high regard, bordering on reverence. Such strong admiration raises my natural skepticism. While we typically analyze and critique philosophers' ideas, comparing them with others or our own perspectives, the approach with Wittgenstein seems to be more of a desire to interpret him "correctly". There's a strong emphasis on precise interpretation of Wittgenstein's somewhat loosely connected philosophical expressions, almost as if accessing an absolute Truth. Few question or critique his ideas here, and I find this lack of critical examination reminiscent of disciples following a prophet.

3) Also, Wittgenstein's approach, characterized by presenting language errors and usage cases without explicit theory, can be seen as overly simplistic and aligned with common sense. It lacks the weightiness of a comprehensive theory and remains non-committal, catering to a specific personality type. It's as if there's an inherent depth that readers ascribe to it beyond what the author originally intended, akin to interpreting an I-Ching. People seem inclined to extract more significance from it than what the author has actually provided.

There are two main theories as to how language evolved, either i) as an evolutionary adaptation or ii) a by-product of evolution and not a specific adaptation. As feathers were an evolutionary adaptation helping to keep the birds warm, once evolved, they could be used for flight. Thereby, a by-product of evolution rather than a specific adaptation.

Similarly for language, the development of language is relatively recent, between 30,000 and 1000,000 years ago. As the first animals emerged about 750 million years ago, this suggests that language is a by-product of evolution rather than an evolutionary adaptation. — RussellA

Some refer to this concept as an "exaptation" rather than a specific adaptation. Chomsky supports this notion, suggesting that language's emergence was somewhat accidental in the way the brain evolved—a unique event not necessarily specifically favored through natural selection.

It could be a combination of both perspectives. Just as some dinosaurs potentially developed feathers primarily for warmth, later finding an advantage in their aerodynamic properties for intermediate stages of flight (with wings evolving from arms), language (or more likely a "proto-language" or basic aspects of language) might have initially emerged for a different purpose and then later gained significance and complexity through various evolutionary pressures.

So remember, this was specifically a critique of the Private Language argument. Wittgenstein's contention is that the foundation of language is communal, but this doesn't exclude the potential for internal reflection. Nonetheless, if we accept that meaning in language comes from communal understanding and practice, a misinformed or mistaken community could indeed perpetuate misconceptions and faulty language use indefinitely, mirroring the scenario where each individual might harbor a private language incapable of self-correction.

This skepticism illustrates how doubts about the accuracy of corrections can lead to an unsettling spiral of skepticism, that cannot get out of the solipsism of Descartes' doubt.

In other words, the communal theory of meaning doesn't overcome the same critiques as a private one.

In a way, I see a tie in with the Kripke thread about quus and plus. What happens if a whole community came across a book that said that "use" of plus was actually quus or whatnot?

See here:


Then you will inevitably snort and retort that this doesn't matter about accuracy. That is Witt's point, that correction, even on wrong use, is still a use, even if corrected wrongly.

My response would be that then, the person not being able to self-correct their private language would be no worse (or better) off.

Having spent much of his time correcting philosophers he surely did know that they are not using terms in the ordinary sense. This is a mistake he attempts to correct by pointing to the ordinary use of terms such as 'know'. If they did not make these inordinate demands on language the problems that arise as a result would dissolve. — Fooloso4

It is right to point out when someone misuses a word, whether a philosopher or an ordinary man, because that is when problems arise.

But there is no one ordinary use of a word. A word can have a range of meanings, but such a range cannot be prescribed. The boundaries of the acceptable use of a word can be fuzzy. In effect, there is a family resemblance of different meanings about the same word. This family resemblance is impossible to be determined within a public language, but can only be determined in the minds of the individual users of the language. It is also the case that where each individual places the fuzzy boundary of meaning of a particular word is unique to that particular individual.

There is no ordinary sense of any word, something that is known to both the philosopher and ordinary man, as illustrated by Homer Simpson's remark that “Donuts. Is there anything they can’t do?”

My response would be that then, the person not being able to self-correct their private language would be no worse (or better) off. — schopenhauer1

This is precisely to point of the private language argument.

If W rejects sentence 2 of PI 389, as you suggest, then his position is that b) there is a necessary correspondence between a picture and what it is supposed to represent. — Luke

What is rejected is not that the picture could be of something else. What is rejected is that it follows
from the fact that it could be an picture of something else that a mental image must be more like its object than any picture.

That’s right. That may explain W’s definition of a mental image at PI 367. — Luke

Here's the problem. I describe my mental image of an object, a summer house by the lake. When I am finished by brother tells me that my mental image is not the same as his mental image of that house. We talk to my sister and dig out some old photos. It becomes clear to me that my mental image was not of image of this house and of nothing else, it was a composite image of different houses we stayed in over the years.

The same tautological claim about a mental image of X being an image of X can be made about a picture of X. A picture of X is an image of X. For the same reason that we should not conclude from this that it is an intrinsic feature of a picture that it is a picture of this and of nothing else, we should not conclude that a mental image is an image of this and nothing else.

Suppose I give you a description of my mental image of X. "It looks like this 'Y' " Someone else chimes in and describes her mental image of X: "It looks like this 'Z'". In each case the mental image of the same object is different. It is then not an intrinsic feature of a mental image of X that it is the image of this (X) and of nothing else. The mental images are both an image of X but it turns out that my mental image is actually an image of Y and her's of Z.

It is right to point out when someone misuses a word, whether a philosopher or an ordinary man, because that is when problems arise. — RussellA

It is not a matter of a misuse of a word but of a misguided demand being made on the concept "know" which leads to a denial that we know the things we know.

What is rejected is not that the picture could be of something else. — Fooloso4

Right, but earlier you said:

The point of PI 389 is to reject claims 1 -3 — Fooloso4

Now you are saying that claim 2 is not rejected.

What is rejected is that it follows from the fact that it could be an picture of something else that a mental image must be more like its object than any picture. — Fooloso4

And, as I said earlier:

I believe Wittgenstein disagrees with sentences 1 and 4 but agrees with sentences 2 and 3. — Luke

So I agree with what you say here; that he rejects sentence 4. But I believe he also rejects sentence 1. I believe he does not reject sentence 2 and 3, but that they are misunderstood by the interlocutor to reach the conclusion of sentence 4.

Here's the problem. I describe my mental image of an object, a summer house by the lake. When I am finished by brother tells me that my mental image is not the same as his mental image of that house. We talk to my sister and dig out some old photos. It becomes clear to me that my mental image was not of image of this house and of nothing else, it was a composite image of different houses we stayed in over the years. — Fooloso4

It's not your mental image that your brother tells you is different to his mental image. It's your description of your mental image that your brother tells you is different to his mental image. You might ask him how his mental image is different and he would then describe his mental image. The point is that one's mental image is not part of the language game; only a description of one's mental image is. The description is like a picture that you can use as an object of comparison - to compare against your actual house(s), for example; the mental image is just the (private) mental image.

A picture of X is an image of X. — Fooloso4

I assume you mean mental image, but if that were true, then sentences 2 and 3 of PI 389 would contradict each other, and I don't think that's the point.

For the same reason that we should not conclude from this that it is an intrinsic feature of a picture that it is a picture of this and of nothing else, we should not conclude that a mental image is an image of this and nothing else. — Fooloso4

A reminder of PI 389:

389.
1. A mental image must be more like its object than any picture.
2. For however similar I make the picture to what it is supposed to represent, it may still be the picture of something else.
3. But it is an intrinsic feature of a mental image that it is the image of this and of nothing else.”
4. That is how one might come to regard a mental image as a superlikeness. — Luke

Sentence 3 would be a tautology if it said 'a mental image of X is a mental image of X', but that's not what it says.

If, as you claim, sentence 3 tells us that a mental image is the image of object X and of nothing else, then I don't see how it's any different to sentence 1. The interlocutor would just be repeating himself.

This is how I read it:

1. A mental image must be more like its object (X) than any picture.
2. A picture can be of something else.
3. A mental image cannot be of anything else (but itself).
4. This is how one might come to regard a mental image as most like object (X).

I take it you don't wish (sentence 3) to say that it is an intrinsic feature of a mental image that it is the image of object X and of nothing else, because then all mental images would be of object X. Otherwise, Wittgenstein could have limited sentence 3 to say "it is an intrinsic feature of a mental image that it is the image of its object and of nothing else." But I don't believe it is an intrinsic feature of a mental image that it must be the image of a particular object.

It is not a matter of a misuse of a word but of a misguided demand being made on the concept "know" which leads to a denial that we know the things we know. — Fooloso4

It is more the ordinary user than the philosopher who puts demands on our use of the word "know" when, according to the Evening Standard, they might say things like:

"I know that Aliens exist and have deal with Donald Trump’ claims ex-Israeli space official. They don’t want to start mass hysteria. They want to first make us sane and understand. The UFOs have asked not to publish that they are here, humanity is not ready yet."

Right, but earlier you said:

The point of PI 389 is to reject claims 1 -3
— Fooloso4

Now you are saying that claim 2 is not rejected. — Luke

When the interlocutor says at the start of 2: "For ..." the claim is that because a picture may be a picture of something else, the mental image is more like its object than any picture. This is not the same as simply saying a picture may be a picture of something else. Something specific is supposed to follow from the interlocutors claim that need not follow from the observation that a picture may be a picture of something other than what it is supposed to represent.

The point is that one's mental image is not part of the language game; only a description of one's mental image is. — Luke

And what follows from this?

A picture of X is an image of X.
— Fooloso4

I assume you mean mental image — Luke

No, I mean a picture, a painting or photograph.

3. A mental image cannot be of anything else (but itself). — Luke

The interlocutor's claim is not a mental image is a mental image of a mental image. It is an image of the object it is an image of.

The interlocutor would just be repeating himself. — Luke

1 makes no claims about an intrinsic feature of a mental images.

3. A mental image cannot be of anything else (but itself). — Luke

A mental image is not a mental image of a mental image.

I take it you don't wish (sentence 3) to say that it is an intrinsic feature of a mental image that it is the image of object X and of nothing else, because then all mental images would be of object X. — Luke

???

But I don't believe it is an intrinsic feature of a mental image that it must be the image of a particular object. — Luke

Good. Then we are in agreement on that point, but then we are back to your questionable interpretation of 3.

It is more the ordinary user — RussellA

Does the ordinary user make this claim about aliens and Trump? There is nothing ordinary about that claim.