understanding”. Do you believe that Wittgenstein can only be refuted by better readings of Wittgenstein or could Wittgenstein just be wrong and refuted thus? — schopenhauer1

This point is interesting. Might it not be argued that until one has a robust reading of any writer it is not really possible to refute or acclaim them? This endlessly fecund, perhaps even Rabbinical reinterpretation of W does suggest that critique almost seems superfluous.

This endlessly fecund, perhaps even Rabbinical reinterpretation of W does suggest that critique almost seems superfluous. — Tom Storm

:lol:

The Talmud of Wittgenstein. Damn, I got the title of my new book deal. But your point oddly "shows" Wittgenstein's point that the usage of the language community (this instance around Wittgenstein himself), creates the meaning... Oh dear...

But to get out of the vicious circle of meaning in context of a community, and the layers of meanings it creates over time through its own usage..

You asked

Might it not be argued that until one has a robust reading of any writer it is not really possible to refute or acclaim them? — Tom Storm

It can become a game of dismissing the critic to not engage the critique...

Complete understanding itself is unfalsifiable in the context of a philosophical work...

It inherently assumes that the philosopher is right if you only knew him better...

It invites tactics like using the author's words as the only basis for accepting a valid argument to refute the author, thus becoming a kind of circular reasoning...

Often outside understanding can inform, even the best of specialists because they offer a different perspective...

Any refutation gets bogged down in hermeneutics, leaving no room for substantive critiques. Instead, it simply engages in endless layers of analysis and context refinement, similar to the Rabbinical idea you mention.

It undermines the principle of academic and philosophical dialogue, which relies on the exchange of ideas and critiques at various levels of understanding.

It can create an environment where philosophical works are revered rather than critically examined, which is contrary to the spirit of philosophical inquiry.

This tactic can prevent the identification of specific errors or weaknesses in an argument, which are valuable for the growth of understanding.

It can be a defensive mechanism to protect one's own interpretations from scrutiny by discrediting critics preemptively.

The argument often establishes a false sense of authority where only a select few are deemed capable of truly understanding the philosopher, which can lead to dogmatism.

This argument fosters echo chambers where only those who already agree with a particular interpretation are allowed to speak, reinforcing biases and preventing growth.

Understanding can evolve over time through critique and discussion. Insisting on complete understanding upfront denies this dynamic process.

It can obscure real flaws in the philosopher’s arguments by shifting the focus to the critic’s knowledge rather than the argument’s content.

Philosophy is about ideas and their implications, not just textual mastery. Reducing it to the latter by requiring exhaustive reading misses the broader purpose.

Some philosophical ideas, while complex, can be critiqued based on their core tenets without delving into every nuance, making the insistence on complete understanding unnecessary.

Valuable critiques often come from interdisciplinary perspectives. Dismissing these on the grounds of incomplete understanding of the philosophical text itself undermines interdisciplinary dialogue.

This tactic deflects from holding the philosopher accountable for the clarity and coherence of their arguments, which should stand up to critique regardless of the critic's breadth of reading.

And a bunch more stuff in the key of elitism and dogmatism..

It inherently assumes that the philosopher is right if you only knew him better... — schopenhauer1

And for soft-core pessimist like me, it inherently assumes we'll never know if the philosopher is right or wrong because we can't demonstrate that we've arrived at a correct reading. :wink:

This tactic deflects from holding the philosopher accountable for the clarity and coherence of their arguments, which should stand up to critique regardless of the critic's breadth of reading. — schopenhauer1

That's a fair perspective. I suspect however that postmodern thinking would consider this an anachronism. Clarity is so early 20th century.

Personally, one of the reasons I have never privileged philosophy (apart from the inherent dullness of the work) is the unlikelihood of gaining a robust reading of a given text unless one studies it with discipline and probably, with professional instruction. I have other things to be getting on with.

It can create an environment where philosophical works are revered rather than critically examined, which is contrary to the spirit of philosophical inquiry. — schopenhauer1

There may well be those who think philosophy is an enquiry dedicated to reasonableness and ongoing discourse. I suspect that much philosophy is faddish tribalism, dedicated to onanism, amongst other things. :grin:

[Wittgenstein] is not talking about language, as Rorty and Wayfarer’s Kenneth Taylor take it, he is looking at how we talk, in certain examples (calling out, rule following, pointing, continuing a series, seeing, understanding, and, even, “meaning”/language, but only as another example), because it is a window, a method, in order to see how different things do what they do differently (our criteria for judging can be seen in the ways we talk).

His goal is not to tell us the way the world works, e.g., by way of rules, or that this is how rules work. Initially he is trying to figure out why he got stuck on one solution (in the Tract[atus]), when the world works in so many different ways. What he learns first is that our desire for certainty narrows our vision (dictates the form of answer), and so, yes, it is a book about self-knowledge. It aims to show us how our interests affect our thinking. — Antony Nickles

:clap: :up: More or less this summarizes how I also read Witty's later thinking (re: recursively generated plurality of non-discrete discourses) which I interpret as contextualizing, not refuting or discarding, his early thinking (re: implicit nonsense of meta-discourses). In other words, implied by the PI, Witty's TLP exemplifies just one language-game (i.e. discursive way of making sense/meanings) among countless others; however, IMHO, this is also 'meta-discursive nonsense' too (i.e. a language-game of 'examples of language-games') and therefore (PI) internally critiques, or refutes, itself implicitly in the manner of the more explicit proposition 7 of the TLP. Witty doesn't propose a 'theory of language' so there aren't any 'claims' to argue against, only this reflective activity to perform ("red pill" ~ how to stop philosophizing) or not to perform ("blue pill" ~ to never stop philosophizing), and this groundless 'choice' is what, I suspect, aggravates many (scientistic or analytical or dogmatic) philosophers with its ordinariness ...

e.g. one hand clapping :fire:

@schopenhauer1

There may well be those who think philosophy is an enquiry dedicated to reasonableness and ongoing discourse. I suspect that much philosophy is faddish tribalism, dedicated to onanism, amongst other things. :grin: — Tom Storm

:lol:

See here:
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/905680

So it's the "blue pill" for you. :cool:

:smirk:

What happens if it’s just a sugar pill painted red?

[pointless or trivial] is the reciprocal of how their interests are regarded by him. — Wayfarer

Witt can be very dismissive (calling things “nonsense”) and high-handed (unceremoniously judgey), but what he’s interested in is the motivation of the skeptic, not showing them to be wrong or silly, nor merely lost. He takes skepticism seriously, but in seeing its discoveries, not by accepting or refuting its conclusions. Changing someone’s mind, in the sense of an opinion or knowledge—and so a matter of “proof”—is different than turning their head (to look a different way). Goals are not always shared; why isn’t that acceptable?

I get that. Speaking as one whose musings are often deprecated or ignored by analytic philosophers, I don't feel a sense of resentment or exclusion on that account - it’s a matter of diverging philosophical interests, which one has to accept in a pluralistic world. But then, I do sense the fact that many of the ‘analyticals’ are really pretty rigid in their concentration on ‘language games’ and the like and they often use the famous last words of the Tractatus to stifle discussion of what I consider significant philosophical questions. But, you know, c’est la vie. One moves on to another thread.

Getting someone to see something differently is harder than getting someone to admit something true, because the denial is a shutting out, rather than a disagreement, and apathy is just as sufficient as opposition. But I appreciate the kudos.

We do, however, find in the Tractatus a comment about two ways of seeing a cube. (5.5423) — Fooloso4

Interestingly, perhaps, though for another time, as we do in the PI (#139).

@Wayfarer @Joshs
One more thing I think is happening sometimes is people take everything Witt writes as if it was a statement, like a claim to knowledge or an argument for the purpose of having a conclusion admitted. But I hear them like conjecture, or even more, like characterizations of remarks, that only lead to asking: “why would we say that?” Or: “look at it in this way”. But the only way to treat a picture like a conclusion is to accept it whole hog, without justification and without means of refuting it, when the picture is just meant to say: “do you see what I see in this (by/for yourself)?”

Idk, I've only taken "the blue pill" and suspect that "the red pill" only shows that all pills are "blue".

How can it be that an approach which claims to privilege the common use of language does not use language in a common way? — Leontiskos

This is off-topic, but yours is a common and understandable question. Witt isn’t “privileging” “common usage”, he is looking at examples of a time and a place when we say something, to see what would be the implied means of deciding about it, like connotations; in order to find the ordinary standards (and situations) for judging that sort of thing (rather than just T/F or justified, etc.). He himself has a bunch of “terms”, like: concept, criteria, grammar, etc.

Do you believe that Wittgenstein can only be refuted by better readings of Wittgenstein or could Wittgenstein just be wrong and refuted thus? — schopenhauer1

But if you’re not doing a thorough reading of a philosopher (pointing to textual evidence, taking into account their terms, etc.), how can you be sure you are refuting “them” and not just how you superficially take them (isolated, on your terms)? If you misinterpret the premise, what point is saying the conclusion is ”wrong”?

Yes, I made pretty much the same point.

How many times can one philosopher have the glory of being saved by Appeal to Misunderstanding? Is that academic philosophy now? Is that this debate forums way of handling Witt specifically? Doesn’t seem to be as big a problem from devotees of other philosophers in quite the same way. Holy shit, this guy gets religious levels of obfuscation as a smokescreen.

Which is why I asked, can Witt be wrong, even just in principle? Because the way you describe it, he can’t be wrong, because he’s not making claims..

If one takes your approach, no person is speaking for themselves in response to the text but are parroting "so and so's" who speak for others. That means I am not speaking for myself but advancing someone else's view.

So, the humility you are asking from me is a keeping of a gate. And you have shopped out the work to a contractor. — Paine

You are not a solipsistic island dropped into the midst of society. Whether you know it or not, your reading of Wittgenstein will have enough overlaps and resonances with a particular community of Wittgenstein scholars that it will be useful to say , as shorthand, that you identify with the new Wittgensteinians or the old Wittgensteinians, with the therapeutic approach or the non-therapeutic approach, with the Oxford reading or the American reading. This doesn’t mean you think in lock step with any particular reading of Wittgenstein. To speak for oneself is already to speak in relation to a cultural perspective, Whether one feels in tune with it or in opposition to it, one is in both cases tied to it. Explicitly communicating this awareness when discussing philosophical ideas is not the same thing as advancing someone else’s view, but giving others a better sense of where you’re coming from.

I imagine that I can demonstrate that your objection to the quotes from my sources is the result of your opposition to a therapeutic reading of Witt. Whether or not that is the case, instead of wasting time telling me that so and so is misunderstanding him, let’s reveal the difference in underlying metaphysical commitments that separate your reading from mine. Once we locate the general region of scholarship that situates your approach, and differentiates it from mine, we can get into the nitty gritty of your thinking in its uniqueness. I think an approach to reading a philosopher that respects the value of what different communities of thinkers say about him is more productive, and less prone to the risk of gatekeeping, than one that is mainly interested in determining what is the ‘correct’ view of him , while ignoring the way any reading is ensconced within a community of practices.

Of course I prefer my approach, and you prefer yours , but there will never be just one Wittgenstein.

To speak for oneself is already to speak in relation to a cultural perspective, — Joshs

Did you just reciprocal co-constitution Wittgenstein scholarship?

To speak for oneself is already to speak in relation to a cultural perspective,
— Joshs

Did you just reciprocal co-constitution Wittgenstein scholarship? — fdrake

Was this an attempt to parody pomo? I’ll be back a bit later with my parody of your parody. For now, I’ll just suggest that an effective parody requires that one has first mastered the material one is parodying.

One more thing I think is happening sometimes is people take everything Witt writes as if it was a statement, like a claim to knowledge or an argument for the purpose of having a conclusion admitted. But I hear them like conjecture, or even more, like characterizations of remarks, that only lead to asking: “why would we say that?” Or: “look at it in this way”. But the only way to treat a picture like a conclusion is to accept it whole hog, without justification and without means of refuting it, when the picture is just meant to say: “do you see what I see in this (by/for yourself)?” — Antony Nickles

But this is part my frustration with him/reading him perhaps. If he is providing, not definitive claims but a methodology, one can always claim about him, that he really isn't "saying" this or that definitive thing, and thus we must tacitly just accept the implications of his methodology because it's just some innocuous observations of how we think and do philosophy. It is another side-step whereby let's take for the sake of example:

"Kant claims that synthetic a priori truths provide the groundwork for the cognitive conditions that make the possibility of experience possible."

This is literally a claim that one can try to do three things:
1) Refine the statement to be more accurate retelling of the philosopher/thinker.

2a) Say the claim Kant is making (not the interpreter of Kant) is true (to whatever extent), offering one's own insights or a synthesis from what others have said...

2b) Say the claim Kant is making (not the interpreter of Kant) is false (to whatever extent), offering one's own insights or a synthesis from what others have said...

What happens in Wittgenstein's debate seems to be a WHOLE lot of 1 only.. It stays on 1.. big droning, sylloquies of 1, without any room to move to 2a/b.

But to add even more frustration, if it does move to steps 2, it always seems that 2b seems an option that is off the table, because 2a will always refer back to 1, to tacitly refute that 2b is even an option. And this is helped along by way of saying that Wittgenstein is just a methodology and a demonstration, and thus is immune from 2b. This becomes at this point futile to debate anything but more 1 and 2a, otherwise one is ground down or dismissed. This can happen to any thinker, but it seems viciously pernicious in Wittgenstein's case, being the style, the ambiguity of the text, and the demand to believe that this is a sui generis type of philosophical discourse that cannot be dealt with in the same manner as other philosophers...

I invite you to the above comment as well...

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/905765

This can happen to any thinker, but it seems viciously pernicious in Wittgenstein's case, being the style, the ambiguity of the text, and the demand to believe that this is a sui generis type of philosophical discourse that cannot be dealt with in the same manner as other philosophers... — schopenhauer1

While framed as a denunciation, this amounts to an endorsement of the resounding success of a man who said

I should not wish to have spared anyone the trouble of thinking.

OF COURSE, all of this relies on even thinking his Old or New Testament matters or is the right approach.. Something that seems completely off the table to the adherents. You see, you can't directly attack Wittgenstein, only provide either primary sources (from the GURU himself), or from one of his approved sooth-sayers.. — schopenhauer1

You would enjoy Gellner’s Word and Things, he has very similar points throughout his book.

But you are right, Wittgenstein can give one mental whiplash, from solving all of the problems of philosophy to looking at philosophy as a mental disease needing a cure.

Thanks for your comments in the thread. I find them helpful.

I think 's thesis is in the process of being refined, so that it does not fall into 's “heads I win, tails you lose.”

What is the more precise problem at stake? I would say that it is a kind of double standard, where Wittgenstein can never be wrong but everyone else can. Everyone believes that their favorite philosophers are better than other people's favorite philosophers, but because this is not a shared premise it cannot be brought to bear in public dialogue. Wittgenstenians have a tendency to impose this premise on others, resulting in a double standard that is a form of unethical discourse.

What you say here is one way of getting at this idea:

One more thing I think is happening sometimes is people take everything Witt writes as if it was a statement, like a claim to knowledge or an argument for the purpose of having a conclusion admitted. But I hear them like conjecture, or even more, like characterizations of remarks, that only lead to asking: “why would we say that?” Or: “look at it in this way”. But the only way to treat a picture like a conclusion is to accept it whole hog, without justification and without means of refuting it, when the picture is just meant to say: “do you see what I see in this (by/for yourself)?” — Antony Nickles

Frank Ramsey's reply to Wittgenstein is on point, "What can't be said can't be said, and it can't be whistled either." Wittgenstein is either saying something or else he is not. It can't be had both ways. If he is saying something then he can be contradicted and he can be wrong; if he is not saying anything then he cannot. But obviously he is saying something, and along with Ramsey I'd say it is a farce to claim that he is not. (I have noticed that Wittgenstenians tend to miss the fact that conjectures and indirect locutions are also ways of saying something.)

There is something fundamental about this double standard in Wittgenstenian philosophy. "All philosophy is just language gone on holiday (except for mine, of course)." Even the very notions of subjecthood, linguistic intention, and opposing viewpoints seem to get subtly eclipsed in Wittgenstein:

The knower is as it were a mirror for the known (the microcosm). Whatever this relationship is, and however it is to be properly explained, it is not the kind of relationship which Wittgenstein's simple objects can enter into. The knowing subject is therefore not part of the world, or an object that can be met with in the world alongside the other objects in the world. The self is pure medium, pure mirror for the world; their limits coincide. The self is, in a sense, one with the world. It gives way to it. Solipsism collapses into realism. — Peter Simpson, Schopenhauer and Wittgenstein on Self and Object

Wittgenstein provides himself with no way to account for the knowing subject along with their intentions and locutions. Language becomes a fact, a given, which must be parsed according to "common use" and cannot be parsed vis-a-vis the intentions of individual subjects. What this means is that to disagree with Wittgenstein is a non-starter. Disagreement presupposes knowing subjects in the world, and Wittgenstein's theory provides no room for the existence of such a thing. To think that Wittgenstein is saying something or making a statement would be to fall into the trap of thinking that knowing subjects are part of the world. The effect is that Wittgenstein gets to say things without saying things. He gets to have his cake and eat it too. Perhaps this is part of the reason why the Wittgenstenian is so awkward when it comes to disagreement. They are imposing their own system and that system cannot even theoretically account for disagreement.

(Note that the problem is already implicit in my question, "How can it be that an approach which claims to privilege the common use of language does not use language in a common way?" If, as you say, we are not to interpret Wittgenstein's language according to common use, then how are we to interpret it without recourse to the categories of intention and knowing subjects? If solipsism were true and there were only one mirror of the world, none of this would be a problem for Wittgenstein.)

You would enjoy Gellner’s Word and Things, he has very similar points throughout his book. — Richard B

:up:

Wittgenstenians have a tendency to impose this premise on others, resulting in a double standard that is a form of unethical discourse. — Leontiskos

Frank Ramsey's reply to Wittgenstein is on point, "What can't be said can't be said, and it can't be whistled either." Wittgenstein is either saying something or else he is not. It can't be had both ways. If he is saying something then he can be contradicted and he can be wrong; if he is not saying anything then he cannot. But obviously he is saying something, and along with Ramsey I'd say it is a farce to claim that he is not. (I have noticed that Wittgenstenians tend to miss the fact that conjectures and indirect locutions are also ways of saying something.) — Leontiskos

The effect is that Wittgenstein gets to say things without saying things. He gets to have his cake and eat it too. Perhaps this is part of the reason why the Wittgenstenian is so awkward when it comes to disagreement. They are imposing their own system and that system cannot even theoretically account for disagreement. — Leontiskos

All great points along the lines I was thinking.. I think it actually informs and is informed by my articulation of the (same) problem you are discussing. See here:

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/905765

While framed as a denunciation, this amounts to an endorsement of the resounding success of a man who said

I should not wish to have spared anyone the trouble of thinking. — Srap Tasmaner

It is precisely this kind of self-referential back-patting that I am refuting. That his adherents make it frustrating to disagree with doesn't to me, make the measure of the philosopher, even if that was something they desired..

However, if you are judging "success" in that people are doing what one would like, (even if what one would like is what is being deemed as questionable), then I guess, good job Witt??

Shouldn't he? — Leontiskos

In my opinion he should not. An author does not maintain control over how his words are understood or used by others. In order to counteract this we can examine what the author is saying and discuss how he is to be understood. Some, however, object to this. Here specifically with regard to Wittgenstein while others are spared.