What does "this" refer to?
— Fooloso4
I was quoting PI 389. — Luke
I don't see why the mental image must correspond to any object. — Luke
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
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
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
A mental image must be more like its object than any picture.
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
. 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
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
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
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
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
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
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?
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 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
But this is not something Wittgenstein does, making his work incomplete and thereby ultimately unsatisfactory. — RussellA
Firstly, I don’t read there as being any necessary correspondence with an object in sentence 3. — Luke
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
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
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
This kind of incommensurability makes more sense for I think what you are saying with extreme relativism. — schopenhauer1
It just takes a generation or two of users of the language game to make it an informal rule of that game. — schopenhauer1
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
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
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
Apes can make tools, but it dies out in a generation. T — schopenhauer1
Did verbs come first, or nouns? — schopenhauer1
Michael Tomasello's intentional theory of language — schopenhauer1
Willfully ignore, or be autistically oblivious to? — wonderer1
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
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
The point of PI 389 is to reject claims 1 -3 — Fooloso4
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
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
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. — Fooloso4
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
:up:I think Tomasello is developing important models and is rigorous in his methods. You turned me on to him last year (or so). — Paine
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
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
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
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
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
That’s right. That may explain W’s definition of a mental image at PI 367. — Luke
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
What is rejected is not that the picture could be of something else. — Fooloso4
The point of PI 389 is to reject claims 1 -3 — Fooloso4
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
I believe Wittgenstein disagrees with sentences 1 and 4 but agrees with sentences 2 and 3. — 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. — Fooloso4
A picture of X is an image of X. — Fooloso4
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
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
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
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
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
A picture of X is an image of X.
— Fooloso4
I assume you mean mental image — Luke
3. A mental image cannot be of anything else (but itself). — Luke
The interlocutor would just be repeating himself. — Luke
3. A mental image cannot be of anything else (but itself). — Luke
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
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