We're approaching a point of difference, perhaps, in that for me, there is a place, if not for certainty, then at the least for confidence in our understanding, a foundation found in the very actuality of these considerations. We are not utterly adrift. I'm not sure you will agree. — Banno

I do, but--and this is Cavell reading Wittgenstein, so I'll keep it short--there is knowledge, and then there is our relation to that knowledge, to our criteria. You may know the right thing to do, but not do it, but then you are responsible for doing so. We may have confidence in our criteria, but we still have to live our lives by them, or not. Pure (only) knowledge is the attempt to remove any doubt, thus the possibility of human failing, remove the need for "our bond".

His is a misinterpretation of the Tractatus. Where Wittgenstein honoured what could only be shown, not said, Ayer thought we could dispense with it. Much of the best philosophy from the fifties and sixties is a reaction against Ayer, especially the stuff from the four Ladies of Oxford - Anscombe, Foot, Midgley and Murdoch - who returned ethics to centre stage.

Ok. Let's set this aside, but only for now. It's where all these considerations either come together or burst. But if we go there now we may never finish Sense and Sensibilia.

Ok. :smile:

I don't think it's a dismissal of Austin to fail to see anything of metaphysical import — frank

We're getting off the rails. I thought you were dismissing my claim that Austin "is providing evidence of how the world works." Thus my bolded quote where he is making claims about how the world works. As far as metaphysics goes, I'm not sure what you mean by that term. He's dismantling metaphysics (in all its hydra-head of forms), not trying to substitute an answer to the same skepticism.

We're getting off the rails. — Antony Nickles

Yeah, there's a need to go back to the text.

It seems perhaps Malcolm is creating his own opponent, but I don’t think it is Austin. — Antony Nickles

Malcolm is not creating his own opponent, but is addressing an assortment of historical figures, for example:

Descartes, "all the same thoughts and conceptions which we have while awake may also come to us in sleep"

Aristotle, "'the soul' makes 'assertions' in sleep, giving in the way of example a dream that 'some object approaching is a man or house' or that 'the object is white or beautiful'"

Kant, "In deepest sleep perhaps the greatest perfection of the mind might be exercised in rational thought. For we have no reason for asserting the opposite except that we do not remember the idea when awake. This reason, however, proves nothing."

Moore, "We cease to perform them only while we are asleep, without dreaming; and even in sleep, so long as we dream, we are performing acts of consciousness"

Russell, " What, in dreams, we see and hear, we do in fact see and hear, though, owning to the unusual context, what we see and hear gives rise to false beliefs."

All of these quotes are from his book Dreaming.

So, should we count Austin amongst this very esteem group? Let's take a look at another quote about dreams from Sense and Sensibilia, pg 42

"And we might add here that descriptions of dreams, for example, plainly can't be taken to have exactly the same force and implications as the same words would have, if used in the description of ordinary waking experiences. In fact, it is just because we all know that dreams are throughout unlike waking experiences that we can safely use ordinary expressions in the narration of them; the peculiarity of the dream-context is sufficiently well known for nobody to be misled by the fact that we speak in ordinary terms."

In this paragraph, he states the we "know" dreams are unlike waking experience, and we know "the dream-context" sufficiently to not be confused. As stated before, in "Other Minds", he states, "There are recognized ways of distinguishing between dreaming and waking..." But the problem here is that he does not specify these "recognized ways". This has not gone unnoticed by a Barry Stroud, in his book, The Significance of Philosophical Skepticism, "Austin does not say much about what he thinks the 'procedures' or 'recognized ways' of telling that one is not dreaming actually are. He seems content with the idea that there must be a procedure or else we would not be able to use and to contrast the words 'dreaming' and 'waking' as we do".

What could be these 'procedures' or 'ways'? I think it would be useful to understand how we come to learn such a concept as 'dreaming'. Malcom describes it as such, "If after waking from a sleep a child tells us that he saw and did and thought various things, none of which could be true, and if his relation of these incidents has spontaneity and no appearance of invention, then we may say to him 'It was a dream'. We do not question whether he really had a dream or if it merely seems to him that he did." and "That this question is not raised is not a mere matter of fact but essential to our concept of dreaming."

I believe Austin may be thinking that we know the concept of dreaming from 'one's own case'. From 'one own case' we know, somehow, that this case cannot be the case of a waking experience. However, Wittgenstein in Philosophical Investigation attack this notion that one learns what thinking, remembering, mental images, sensations, and so on, are from 'one's own case'. Malcolm says the following:

"One may think to overcome these difficulties by allowing that the descriptions that people give of their private states provides a determination of what those states are and whether they are the same. But if one takes this line (which is correct) one cannot then permit a question to be raised as to whether those descriptions are in error or not-for this would be to fall back into the original difficulty. One must treat the description as the criterion of what the inner occurrence are. 'An "inner process" stands in need of the outward criteria' (Wittgenstein, PI 580)."

However, could Austin believe that the 'recognized way' of knowing comes from remembering how we learned "dreaming' in the first place. That we wake up with the impression of having done certain things, and understanding that they are not true. But is anything really being compared here? Are we contrasting the dream experience with an awake experience, or are we simply applying the concept of dreaming in the way we learned it?

mulligan

Did you see this reply?

I take him in the current work only to be pointing out that words can have different import given a context of expectations and shared understandings, rather than assumed to be interchangeable wherever they are until proven otherwise.

I believe Austin may be thinking that we know the concept of dreaming from 'one's own case'. — Richard B

It doesn’t sound like anything I’ve read of his. Even in Other Minds he is debunking Moore’s argument from analogy (I would like to know the page of your quote, as I could not find it). I would say that “the recognized ways of distinguishing” (not “knowing”) dreaming from waking are the criteria for differentiation of the two, one of which I claimed would be that we only remember dreams; another would be we don’t have control over the events of our regular life in the same way. I also think it bears pointing out that “recognized” is meant: by society, and is not a conscious acknowledgement or reasoned application of criteria. Our lives ordinarily happen as a matter of course and our criteria are only applied when there is something unexpected, “phishy”, “phoney” as Austin says. I believe I gave some examples of those circumstances above as well.

The quote by Wittgenstein is very easy to take in multiple ways. But, if our “descriptions” are the outward criteria, then there doesn’t need to be anything “inner” in the sense of something I know. Wittgenstein calls them “expressions” because I am in no better position to “describe” (or know) something than you are (I may be blind to myself, or say something that reveals more about me than I realize). This may be, of course, off the topic of Austin, other than he is also discussing criteria, and it does have a fallout for what processes are “inner”.

Of course you can ask that. But you are asking whether your cell phone as real. Maybe it's a dummy or a toy. But you can't ask if everything you see is real.

The classic case is produced by Ryle. You can ask of each coin in your pocket, whether it is a forgery. ;But you can't ask if all coins are forgeries. Because no coin can be a forgery unless there is a definition of what it is to be not forged. Actually, and more relevantly, you can't ask in general whether all x's are imitations, because what an imitation is, is defined by defining what is not an imitation.

I did try to explain here and here why Austin and Wittgenstein do not overtly argue for a certain case. — Antony Nickles

I'm sorry. Things go so fast here that I sometimes don't check as carefully as I should.

One point, however, is that we all want to get at the truth, find (explicate) something illuminating about ourselves and the world. — Antony Nickles

You make a good point in this paragraph.

Has anybody here actually read any Ayers? — frank

Good question. I've read various things that he wrote, but not this specific text. Now I know where to get hold of it. I will certainly read it - and I expect to change my views somewhat.

How would you characterize his metaphysics? — frank

Actually, that is a more difficult question than you might have thought. His first book, Language, Truth and Logic introduced Logical Positivism to the UK. That was already a movement that rejected traditional metaphysics and proposed logical analysis as the new method for philosophy, so Ayer would himself have claimed that his theory is not metaphysical. Nor was he the first to do so. Both Berkeley and Descartes made the same claim.

PS. On reflection, I think there is something important in the observation that Ayer also rejected (traditional) metaphysics. That means that we should look more carefully at Austin's critique of Ayer's "two languages" theory. I don't have time to do this now, but it seems to me now that his suggestion that Ayer assumes that the sense-datum language is more fundamental, more accurate, preferable to what he calls "material object language". He sees it as a version of traditional (i.e. metaphysical) views and references Berkeley. But Berkeley was against (traditional, for him) metaphysics and arguably also has a "two language" version of his theory. I don't have time to work this out right now, but it is more complicated that I had recognized. (Hume, so far as I recall, doesn't have a "two language" account of his system.)

This post might seem cruel, but you were insistent. It very much seems that although you are commendably struggling with this material, you haven't yet seen how it undermines much that you take as granted. — Banno

The contents of your post doesn't seem to have any points against the fact that language is a tool to describe, express, criticise and diagnose the objects and world.

In other words, adding and listing all your points to the already stated fact, that language is a communication tool, does not change anything of the point.

Read your post again. It is filled with illogical and emotional conjectures - "you will be doing this, you would be doing that ..." It doesn't state any objective fact either on perception, or language.

With these words, we don't just percieve the world, we change it. — Banno

See your imaginative conjectures? Who are "we"? Do we always change the world? With language?
Can you change the tree on the road with your words?

There's a copy of Ayer's Foundations at https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.46395/ . — Banno

There it is!

But I'm running Norton's Anti-virus software. It warns me that connections to this site are not secure. Can you re-assure me that nothing disastrous will happen if I follow the link anyway?

I'm sorry, but I'm risk-averse, especially in the environment of the internet.

Thanks.

He might then point out that we don't only "express", we also hide, conceal and camouflage; we don't only "describe", we misdescribe, mislead, misdirect; we don't only "communicate", we deceive, mislead and beguile. Where we do one thing with words, we also do the opposite. — Banno

All these activities you listed are just part of the communication, description, expression and criticisms ... so on and so forth. You just listed these items to fill in the space. I could have done that, but what is the point? Everyone knows that they are part of the communication and interaction.

A first step might best be to look at the variety of ways in which we do things with words and build a picture of what language does from that. Look, first. — Banno

Misunderstanding and getting mixed up is evident here. "what language does from that."? Language doesn't do anything. It is a tool. Humans do things. Language just gets used to communicate and interact their thoughts, feelings and intentions.

Look, first. — Banno

You deny and criticise giving Prima Facie on perception leaning on Austin's shoulder, as if perception doesn't count. But here you seem to be acknowledging that you must perceive first before you can speak. Wouldn't it be a case of self-contradiction?

And if Austin were writing this, there would be a thread running through the text that shows how the very approach you have taken presumes wrongly that a complete answer can be given, an account of language in its entirety, as if the whole of language dwelt within itself. — Banno

First of all, I think you should learn to think and speak for yourself, not hiding behind Austin or whoever when expressing your points in Philosophy. But more importantly, I think you seem to be wrong again on that point. What is the point trying to create a well with just Austin's linguistic analysis on Ayer? Wouldn't the water in the well go stale soon with the prejudice and narrow mindedness rejecting all the relating issues, analysis and criticisms?

Should we not try to look wider? OK we cannot grasp the whole world or universe, let's presume, but should we not try to look at the issue at least from the perspective of Language in general? From my perspective, it would be more constructive to do so, otherwise you cannot comment on anything which is buried and hiding in the artificially dug-up wells.

So there, against my better judgement, is a beginning of what might be said about just your first point. As Anthony says, the whole picture and every word in it is either confused or wrong. — Banno

Here, one cannot fail to notice the impression that the whole motivation seems to prove the opposing interlocutors views are either confused or wrong, rather than trying to see the issue from a fair, reasonable and constructive point of view. 

See your imaginative conjectures? Who are "we"? Do we always change the world? With language? Can you change the tree on the road with your words? — Corvus

Well, the answer to your last question must be No. If you define the problem as the connection between words and the world, you have built that answer in to the question.

But what is at stake is not merely words and things, but how we think of things, and how that affects how we live. The concept of "the lived world" or, better, "the world as we live in it" is helpful here.

I suggest that we can recognize that the distinction between words and things may be useful and appropriate in certain contexts (A rose by any other name would smell as sweet) and that a generalization to everything in every context is extremely dubious, not to say puzzling.

Words are not separate from the world, but part of it; they are also things in the world. In any case, the focus on the relationship between words and (other) things is not always helpful. Not all words, to put it as constructively as I can, stand in the same relationship to things. How do you apply this idea to "and", "if", "not"? Anyway things are not the only things in the world (events, states, processes, etc. etc.). Are mental objects things in the world? Numbers? (No, they are not just words. Different languages use different words to refer to the same numbers.)

I note here that Austin also refers to "non-verbal" reality. In one way this is perfectly natural, and is provided for in natural (ordinary) language. In another way, it is very puzzling, because it can be taken as suggesting that no language can "fully describe" or "fully capture" the whole of reality. I'm sure Austin is fully aware of all that, so I assume that he intends to take advantage of what is provided for in natural language without saying anything about the generalization. I don't have an answer here and suspect that there can't be one. My preferred solution is that this is a false dilemma, but I don't know how to prove it.

You are right to point out that words don't do things. People do. But communication can only take place because they use words in the same way. Humpty Dumpty was partly right (think of that rose again) but also partly wrong. Communication would break down if you decided to use "platypus" in the way the rest of us use "rose" (without telling us) - and so on. Call it objective or inter-subjective, it is meaningful to talk about what "rose" and "platypus" mean.

The revolutions of Copernicus and Newton were not simply discoveries. They involved thinking about things in a different way. The effect on how (Western European) people thought of themselves in the world was dramatic. The revolutions of QM and Relativity also involved changing how we think of things and also profoundly affect how we think of ourselves in the world. Nor is it just a question of science. Religious and cultural movements can also bring about profound change and change the world that we live in. Luther's Reformation. Paine's defence of the common man. Capitalism. Marxism. That's where philosophy comes in.

Here, one cannot fail to notice the impression that the whole motivation seems to prove the opposing interlocutors views are either confused or wrong, rather than trying to see the issue from a fair, reasonable and constructive point of view. — Corvus

I think that is a bit unfair. Austin undoubtedly thinks that he is treating Ayer's view in a fair and reasonable way. "Constructive" is a bit more complicated. If someone claims to have devised a perpetual motion machine, what is the constructive way to treat their idea? (BTW, I think that Austin goes to impressive lengths to consider Ayer's views carefully, but, for the most part, is also right to criticize them.)

Well, the answer to your last question must be No. — Ludwig V

Therefore you cannot change the world or objects in the world with your words.

I think that is a bit unfair. — Ludwig V

For Austin, maybe it was. But that was the impression being created and propagated by his blinded followers.

But you can't ask if everything you see is real. — Ludwig V

If you're contemplating the possibility that you're in the Matrix, you can. It's just a matter of imagination. There's nothing illogical about it. Descartes leads us through a list of possibilities for it.

I think the argument you're thinking of won't allow global skepticism, that is, you can't wonder if everything is unreal, because the meaning of real will breakdown if you do. Questioning everything you see is not global skepticism, though. You can allow the reality of something you aren't seeing.

If you define the problem as the connection between words and the world, you have built that answer in to the question. — Ludwig V

It was who claimed that you perceive the world, then change it with words. I was just asking a question expressing doubts on his claim.

By the way, there is no connection between words and the world. There is connection between words and mental events and activities.

Therefore you cannot change the world or objects in the world with your words. — Corvus

Hey! There is something we agree on. So can we also agree that how we think about (conceptualize) our world changes us and therefore it? Or are we not part of the world?

But that was the impression being created and propagated by his blinded followers. — Corvus

OK. I have no brief to speak for his followers. Either we deal with them separately, or we ignore them.

There is connection between words and mental events and activities. — Corvus

.. and mental events are not part of the world?

If you're contemplating the possibility that you're in the Matrix, you can. — frank

If I'm contemplating the possibility that I'm in the Matrix, I'm also contemplating the possibility that the Matrix doesn't work. In fact, all those clever scientists have already informed me that the world is very different from what I think it is, so I know it doesn't work. But then, the whole business gets upset because I'm already in a brain in a vat.

Can you re-assure me that nothing disastrous will happen if I follow the link anyway? — Ludwig V

I am running Safari on an iPad 6 and nothing seems to have gone wrong, but, and here’s a question, how would one know they are hacked when the point is for the hacker not to reveal they are hacking someone?

.. and mental events are not part of the world? — Ludwig V

Well you could assert it is part of the world. I won't challenge you on that.

I, personally see my mental events / state totally separate from the world. When I go to sleep, the world disappears into non-existence.

There is no logical ground for me to believe the world exists during my sleep, because I no longer perceive the world until waking up to consciousness. Therefore perception is prior to language. Language only operates when the mind is in gear, and able to see the world, as a communicating and interacting tool with other minds.

Yes, it is a tool, like I would use a wrench to pull out the nails from the broken door. Language is a tool to transfer my contents of thought to you to mean "This is what I think on the issue. What do you say to that eh? alright mate?". Nothing more or less.

Whatever Banno says to the tree in the field he sees, the tree will not change. It will just keep growing at his own pace ignoring him totally. 

Suppose, we have no language at all. The world will keep going on albeit with no or limited communications between all the living beings.  We might have to wave hands to each other to mean Yes or No, or use our fingers to count the apples in the market, but the world will remain silent, and just keep going about with its business like it has done for millions of years.

fail, again

There is no logical ground for me to believe the world exists during my sleep, because I no longer perceive the world until waking up to consciousness. — Corvus

Well, if you are asleep, I would have thought that you are not in a position to believe (or disbelieve) anything.

Well, what about dreams, you say? If dreams prove anything, they prove that if you do believe anything in your sleep, you would be well advised to review it when you wake up.

"because I no longer perceive the world until waking up to consciousness." You'll enjoy Berkeley's Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human knowledge or Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous. You'll be disappointed in the end, though. The thing is, given that you cannot prove that things exist when you do not perceive them, you cannot prove that they don't, either.

I don't say that there are no cases where things cease to exist when I no longer perceive them. But I do say that there are some things that continue to exist when I no longer perceive them. On your account, you have decided that "exists" and "perceive" mean the same thing. I accept what I understand to be normal usage. We use the words in different ways. Why does it matter?

It is not something a priori problem. — Corvus

Sorry, I don't understand this. Typo somewhere?

I think the back of my head exists when I don't perceive it - which is most of the time. I think the other side of the coin I'm holding exists even though I don't perceive it. Will that do?

I don't say that there are no cases where things cease to exist when I no longer perceive them. But I do say that there are some things that continue to exist when I no longer perceive them. On your account, you have decided that "exists" and "perceive" mean the same thing. I accept what I understand to be normal usage. We use the words in different ways. Why does it matter? — Ludwig V

See I have noticed the linguists always go on at "use the words in different ways. Why does it matter?" But it is just matter of habits, customs and choices of the different groups of people or individual. It is not something a priori problem.

So, let me ask you first what is the logical ground that things exists when you don't perceive them?

@Banno @Ludvig @Corvus @javi2541997 @Ciceronianus @frank @Richard B


A p.s. to the reference to ways of distinguishing between dreaming and awaking in Other Minds. I found the quote (p. 87). Based on the surrounding text, I take it that Austin feels that the situation is one that philosophy has removed from the attendant contexts of the two things.

The doubt or question 'But is it a real one?' has always (must have) a special basis, there must be some 'reason for suggesting' that it isn't real, in the sense of some specific way, or limited number of specific ways, in which it is suggested that this experience or item may be phoney. Sometimes (usually) the context makes it clear what the suggestion is... If the context doesn't make it clear, [only] then I am entitled to ask 'How do you mean? .... — Austin, Other Minds, p.87 (emphasis in bold added) this is a link to the text

The fallout here is that asking the question "Am I awake or dreaming?" assumes that we are asking how we "know" if our experience is "real" in situations where we are able to distinguish between the two solely on the difference in the situations (their separate contexts)--Austin puts it rather arrogantly that I am not "entitled" to ask, but he just means it would never come to whether dreaming was a phoney version of being awake. Now, how the situations are different is a matter we could discuss, as I think I have, but that can be elaborated as ordinary, recognized distinctions of the surrounding circumstances.

@Banno @Ludvig @Corvus @javi2541997 @Ciceronianus @frank @Richard B

Lecture VIII: I first realized here that Austin is very bent out of shape that someone can just "prefer to say" things one way or another, depending on their "preferences" (p.78); which made me look back at words being "invented ad hoc" (p.75), or "fooled around with" (p.62), and his guard against distinctions seeming "arbitrary" (p. 63), and particularly his insistence that some things can be "wrong" (p. 63), leading to:

...if Ayer were right here, then absolutely every dispute would be purely verbal. For if, when one person says whatever it may be, another person may simply 'prefer to say' something else, they will always be arguing only about words, about what terminology is to be preferred. How could anything be a question of truth or falsehood, if anyone can always say whatever he likes? — Austin p. 60

Which makes me consider that one of Austin's motivations, that I grant appear hidden, is to find (or defend) a truth between metaphysical certainty and radical skepticism (which would make his concerns less than trivial). This may come later.

What he does say is that Ayer is fixated on the case where we think something is there but nothing is, which sounds like when philosophy thought that ethics was possible, but determined there was nowhere from which to judge right and wrong (the way it wanted). Leaving that be, Austin counters with the case where we “see something where something else really is.” (Id.) This sounds similar to a case where one thing is limiting our ability to pick out another, say, seeing the cross-pieces of a window as a swastika (PI, #420). Austin also points out cases where “something is or might be taken to be what it isn’t really.” (P.80) This error comes from the possibility to focus/judge on parts of a thing ("aspects" Wittgenstein will say) for which there are criteria (thought of by philosophy as "particulars", or, here, "my perception"), and thus, as he points our here, the possibility to be fooled sometimes in the process. The fact there are certain public possibilities, is why “seeing” is not a mental process but is simply recognizing or identifying (“taking” says Austin) something as something, say, seeing a wing as a way for a bird to retain body heat, rather than seeing it as a means of flight. (One could almost say we “perceive” it that way, but this makes it sound like only we can, or know we have.) I’ll leave my thoughts on “general accounts” and “predictive value” for another time.

If the context doesn't make it clear, [only] then I am entitled to ask 'How do you mean? . — Austin, Other Minds, p.87 (emphasis in bold added)

Somehow I think that Austin has not quite got his act together. I take it that he is concerned about, for example, the difference between appearance and reality, where there is a claim that nothing is real except appearances and the distinction between between the real and the unreal has been (in our view) over-generalized. He wants (needs to) rule that distinction out, (i.e. show that the question "How do you mean?" cannot be answered in this context). But he doesn't quite get that far.

But then, the whole business gets upset because I'm already in a brain in a vat. — Ludwig V

Whatever you may say about brain in vat, it's not illogical, and neither is indirect realism.

Can you change the tree with words? Ordering it cut down will certainly change it.