I like this image. I believe it is important to understand that the learning process, therefore knowledge in general, begins in our relationships with others, mother, father, and other authority figures. This knowledge is developed through the use of words, therefore the "outer experience" gains primacy in our knowledge. — Metaphysician Undercover

Yep. Wittgenstein and Davidson are much closer to your way of putting it than Kant is, since they emphasize other people, whereas Kant is thinking about the lonely subject perceiving objects. Davidson adds another element to make it a three-way relation, a "triangulation" ...

. . . that requires two creatures. Each interacts with an object, but what gives each the concept of the way things are objectively is the base line formed between the creatures by language. — Davidson, Rational Animals

So instead of subject and object you have an object plus at least two persons who share a language.

So I see Kant as pioneering this approach while being unable to escape his philosophical milieu entirely.

If as Wittgenstein believed, there is a one-to-one correspondence between what can be said about the world, and the facts of the world, then everything that can be said about the world, would give us a complete picture of the world. We would have completely described the world, given we have everything that can be said. So, if this is true, then the limits of our language, i.e., everything that can be stated about the world, would completely describe the limits of our (or my) world. — Sam26

This is misleading. We would not have completely described the world. The reason is twofold:

First, given all the simple objects we know all their possible configurations but do not know their actual configurations. Simple objects make up the substance of the world (2.021) They determine a form and not any material properties. It is the configuration of objects produce the material properties. (2.0231) The substance, the simple objects, subsist independently of what is the case, independently of the facts. (2.024)

Second:

There is no compulsion making one thing happen because another has happened. The only necessity that exists is logical necessity.

(6.37)

Sam starts out looking in the right direction with the limits of what can be said, but continues in the wrong direction. The limits of my language does not mean that we have completely described the world, but rather, that what can be said about the world is limited by what it makes sense to say, by propositions that have meaning. Propositions picture the world. An illogical picture would represent an illogical world. The world is logical and so what is pictured in language must be logical.

So instead of subject and object you have an object plus at least two persons who share a language. — Jamal

Well, I don't see the need even for an "object" at this point. We have the subject, and the subject's relations to what is outside, or external, to it. The supposition of "objects" or "an object" appears to be a tool of the learning process, we individuate the outside, distinguishing objects which can be named and spoken about. The individuation is based in the temporal extension, continuity of sameness, which validates an object with an identity.

But then the question gets much more difficult, when we ask whether it may be the case that this idea of continuity of sameness which justifies the naming of objects, as "objects", is inherent, innate within the subject, validated by one's relations with oneself (phenomenological approach to "being" I suppose) and this would be why language makes sense to the individual subject. In that case, the primary object would be the subject, as proposed by Descartes. Or, is it the case that the naming of objects is validated by one's relations with the external, the temporal persistence of what is sensed, along with the language, the knowledge, and the learning of identifiable objects which goes along with this. There appears to be a coincidence of the two, which makes assigning primacy to one or the other very difficult. So these routes of analysis, which separate object from subject, tend to hit a road block.

Well, I don't see the need even for an "object" at this point. We have the subject, and the subject's relations to what is outside, or external, to it. The supposition of "objects" or "an object" appears to be a tool of the learning process, we individuate the outside, distinguishing objects which can be named and spoken about. The individuation is based in the temporal extension, continuity of sameness, which validates an object with an identity. — Metaphysician Undercover

Davidson distinguishes three kinds of knowledge: subjective, intersubjective, and objective, and he doesn’t reduce any of these to any of the others. Intersubjective knowledge is not just a subset of objective knowledge or subjectivity multiplied but is something else: knowledge of other minds. Objective knowledge is knowledge of the world that the subject shares with others (or rather, that the subjects share), which has a bunch of objects in it.

I’ll avoid your other thorny issues.

When I say, “…there is a one-to-one correspondence between what can be said about the world, and the facts of the world…” I’m referring to true propositions. If you have all the true propositions, then you have completely described the world.

To describe the world accurately, in terms of the Tractatus, a proposition, which is a picture, must have the correct form (T. 2.2). The picture, and thus its form must correspond with a fact (an actual state of affairs) as opposed to a possible fact or possible state of affairs. Think of the form of the picture as the arrangement of things in the picture. If a proposition is true, then the picture, which depicts a particular form, correctly matches reality. If the proposition is false, then the picture, and thus its form, incorrectly matches reality. All propositions represent possible states of affairs. I’m not talking about true and false propositions (all propositions).

My point, again, is that if you have all the true propositions, then you have completely described the world. I’m sure it could have been said more clearly.

If you have all the true propositions, then you have completely described the world. — Sam26

Right, but you never will have all true propositions. All that we say does not limit what there is.

If a proposition is true, then the picture, which depicts a particular form, correctly matches reality. — Sam26

The picture does not depict a particular form.

A picture cannot, however, depict its pictorial form: it displays it.

(2.172)

You are conflating form and content.

The fact that the elements of a picture are related to one another in a determinate way represents that things are related to one another in the same way.
Let us call this connexion of its elements the structure of the picture, and let us call the
possibility of this structure the pictorial form of the picture.

(2.15)

Pictorial form is the possibility that things are related to one another in the same way as
the elements of the picture.

(2.151)

What any picture, of whatever form, must have in common with reality, in order to be able to depict it—correctly or incorrectly—in any way at all, is logical form, i.e. the form of reality.

(2.18)

A picture has logico-pictorial form in common with what it depicts.

(2.2)

What a picture represents it represents independently of its truth or falsity, by means of
its pictorial form.

(2.22)

Right, but you never will have all true propositions. All that we say does not limit what there is. — Fooloso4

That's not the point. The point is that all true propositions according to W. would completely describe reality or the world, and that's all I was saying. Quit trying to put words in my mouth.

The picture does not depict a particular form. — Fooloso4

I'm using depict in reference to what the picture displays, i.e., the content of the picture. Wittgenstein is saying that a picture doesn't represent its form, it shows or displays it. I'm not disagreeing here.

So far nothing you've added does anything to falsify what I've said. If you want to say that I'm not using depict as W. did, fine, I agree.

Right, but you never will have all true propositions. All that we say does not limit what there is.
— Fooloso4

That's not the point. — Sam26

It is pointless to say that what can never be said can be said.

Quit trying to put words in my mouth. — Sam26

Your words:

If as Wittgenstein believed, there is a one-to-one correspondence between what can be said about the world, and the facts of the world, then everything that can be said about the world, would give us a complete picture of the world. We would have completely described the world, given we have everything that can be said. — Sam26

Everything that can be said about the world would not give us a complete picture of the world but rather a complete picture of the possibilities of the world, both true and false. From this picture we would not know what is the case.

We cannot determine which propositions are true by looking at language . Within the limits of language we do not arrive at a true picture of the world.

I'm using depict in reference to what the picture displays, i.e., the content of the picture. Wittgenstein is saying that a picture doesn't represent its form, it shows or displays it. — Sam26

The form is not the content.

Everything that can be said about the world would not give us a complete picture of the world — Fooloso4

Then I do not see how you can make sense of Tract 1.1

I may get around to replying to you down the line.

For those of us watching at home, are you referring to:

The world is the totality of facts, not of things. — Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, 1.1

We have an audience? Cool.

Yep. If the world is the totality of facts, then how could everything that can be said about the world not be a complete picture? Supposing this would imply that there are facts that cannot be said, which would be anathema to the theme of the Tractatus.

What if one does not know the facts well enough to speak about them?

What if one does not know the facts well enough to speak about them? — Paine

If there is a fact you don't know, then there is a fact.

It's not about things that haven't been said, but things that cannot be said.

Everything that can be said about the world would not give us a complete picture of the world
— Fooloso4

Then I do not see how you can make sense of Tract 1.1 — Banno

Everything that can be said about the world includes saying things that are not true. A complete picture of the world would not include an equal number of true and false statements. What is false is not a fact. From this description of the world that says everything that can be said you would not know what the facts are.

Everything that can be said about the world includes saying things that are not true. — Fooloso4

There's an equivocation in this. Everything we might say includes saying things that are not true. But if you say something about the world, it would be odd if what you said about the world were not true...

I'd say that if you tell me something about the world, you are undertaking that what you say is true.

But if you say something about the world, it would be odd if what you say about the world were not true... — Banno

What would be odd is if everything you say about the world is true.

Davidson distinguishes three kinds of knowledge: subjective, intersubjective, and objective, and he doesn’t reduce any of these to any of the others. Intersubjective knowledge is not just a subset of objective knowledge or subjectivity multiplied but is something else: knowledge of other minds. Objective knowledge is knowledge of the world that the subject shares with others (or rather, that the subjects share), which has a bunch of objects in it. — Jamal

I assume that these three kinds of knowledge are the reason for the triangulation. As you might be able to tell from my post, I object to the objective type. I see "an object" as something created by the systems of a subject, or subjects. Whether a subject could create an object, or it requires many subjects, is not answerable. This brings that line of inquiry to a close, without resolution. That we cannot accurately determine whether a subject could create an object, or it requires a number of subjects to create an object, doesn't warrant a third category "objective knowledge", as knowledge of the world. Isn't that what all knowledge is, knowledge of the world? And doesn't all knowledge have objects in it? The third category is perhaps an attempt to get beyond the road block, but it seems to be just a sort of redundancy, which leads backward instead of forward.

Then I'm not seeing a cogent point in your remark to Sam.

You said

We would not have completely described the world. — Fooloso4

But how could the facts about the world not be complete description of the world?

I dunno. I can't make sense of your remark.

Of course the propositions do not give a compete description of the world, but surely the facts do.

Of course the propositions do not give a compete description of the world, but surely the facts do. — Banno

Facts are not descriptions.

If we knew the totality of facts we would be able to give a complete description of the world, but we do not have the totality of facts. And so we do not have all true propositions. Without having all true propositions we do not have a complete description of the world.

just to be sure, is this what you think Wittgenstein is claiming in the tractatus?

just to be sure, is this what you think Wittgenstein is claiming in the tractatus? — Banno

Is what what I think Wittgenstein is claiming? That facts are not descriptions? That we cannot give a complete description of the world? That we cannot derive the content of the world from its form?

Yep.

I think he is claiming that facts are not descriptions. That we cannot give a complete description of the world. That we cannot derive the content of the world from its form.

Just to be sure, do you think he is denying one or more of these things? If so, which ones and on what textual basis?

That we cannot give a complete description of the world — Fooloso4

Where?

The problem is that in the Tractatus Wittgenstein was demonstrating a very strange conception of "the world". For a seasoned philosopher it's very difficult to believe as true, the propositions which compose the conception. You would have to accept them in the way you would accept mathematical axioms, as propositions not meant to express truth, but proposed for some other purpose. The questions to be asked of the book then, is what is that goal, and whether Wittgenstein is successful in that intention.

In order to give a complete description of the world one would have to know all the facts of the world. Is there anyone who knows all the facts of the world?

I recommend reading the introduction written by Bertrand Russell to get a sense of the "world" as a boundary rather than as a "thing."

I don't agree with Russell's framing of many issues, but he does reflect the distance from the "totality of facts" given in the descriptions:

More interesting than such questions of comparative detail is Mr Wittgenstein's attitude towards the mystical. His attitude upon this grows naturally out of his doctrine in pure logic, according to which the logical proposition is a picture (true or false) of the fact, and has in common with the fact a certain structure. It is this common structure which makes it capable of being a picture of the fact, but the structure cannot itself be put into words, since it is a structure of words, as well as of the facts to which they refer. Everything, therefore, which is involved in the very idea of the expressiveness of language must remain incapable of being expressed in language, and is, therefore, inexpressible in a perfectly precise sense. This inexpressible contains, according to Mr Wittgenstein, the whole of logic and philosophy. — ibid. page 18

One need not put aside the question of truth, but the question of whether what he says is true should not come before the question of what it is he is saying. What he is saying is what is at issue.

Nowhere does Wittgenstein say that we cannot know all the facts. Nowhere is that relevant to his argument.

He does say "The world is the totality of facts".

Hence Sam is correct here:

if you have all the true propositions, then you have completely described the world. — Sam26

Note that this is a contingent sentence. Its truth is not dependent on our having a complete description.