That is a predominantly psychological observation. — Paine

The critique of “psychological”, as I understand it, is not to say: affected by the unconscious (neurosis or insecurity, etc.), but on par with “emotive” or “subjective” or otherwise irrational. Part of what Witt is doing is showing that we are not divorced from our rationality; that even “objectivity” is a product of our (“subjective”) desire.

Looking at what we would say when doing… for example: (following) rules, meaning (what we say), understanding (a series), seeing (an aspect), knowing (as being certain), etc., reveals the criteria (standards) of a practice (its grammar), because what we say expresses us. Our expressions show how and why we are interested in our practices. And these criteria are not individual (psychological, or “self”) interests (or feelings, being persuaded), but all our history of human lives of distinguishing and identifying and judging, i.e., what is essential to us about a practice, the various reasons that count with/to it.

Where does the philosophy start? — Paine

For one thing, Cavell follows Witt at the end to be drawing a different kind of limit for knowledge (than say Kant’s). As with others’ souls (p. 178) or the pain causing another to writhe in front of us (p. 235), we do not know it, because that is not how knowledge works. We respond to them (or ignore them). That is how humanity and pain are treated, the way in which they matter to us, their grammar. A philosophical implication of this is that we are responsible for our actions and words, rather than the only alternatives being knowledge and certainty or doubt and interpretation. The alternative to privacy is not publicness but personally answering for what we say. Where our knowledge (beforehand) ends, we carry (on) the weight of our acts.

As with others’ souls (p. 178) or the pain causing another to writhe in front of us (p. 235), we do not know it, because that is not how knowledge works. We respond to them (or ignore them). — Antony Nickles

This may not be the appropriate place to make this comment, but Wittgenstein says otherwise. At PI 246, he says that: “other people very often know if I’m in pain.”

As you like.

I think the question is interesting: what does philosophy want? Not: what do philosophers want? Not: what do people hope to achieve by doing philosophy? But what does philosophy "itself", as we might say, want? And should we understand "philosophy" here to mean a particular tradition? A practice? A discipline?

@Antony Nickles says philosophy wants certainly, which he glosses (or does he?) as "purity". Is that a good answer? Is it the right kind of answer? What does it mean to say that philosophy wants certainly?

Do you have an answer straight off to what philosophy wants? I have a feeling you do, but are you sure it's the answer to this question?

- "To examine why philosophy wants X," is to intentionally step outside of philosophy and into psychology (or else anthropology). It is to say, "I am no longer doing the thing that philosophy does."

Wittgenstein says otherwise [than (my claim -Antony): that another’s pain is not an object of knowledge]. At PI 246, he says that: “other people very often know if I’m in pain.” — Luke

I walked into that. But at the start of the sentence he says “If we are using the word ‘to know’ as it is normally used…” (emphasis added) which is to say “not with… certainty” (as the interlocutor wants for the standard for knowledge) but as: say, for example, in its role as recognition, like “I know they are in pain because I saw their pain on their face” or when we can confirm without signs, as “I know they are in pain because I learned their best friend died and they are hiding it to be strong for the kids”. These other versions (“uses”) have different standards and means of determining when they can be said than the (philosophical) sense of knowledge as identical or constant or unmistakable (certainty), which would make our inner lives indistinguishable.

But the question isn't why you or I do, or don't do, what philosophy does, but why does philosophy do what it does? According to @Antony Nickles, philosophy does what it does because it wants certainty. If you then ask, "Why does philosophy want certainty?" that's still not a question about what you or I or Antony want. You can, of course, just deny that it makes sense to talk about "what philosophy wants" or even "what philosophy does." Would like to do that?

"To examine why philosophy wants X," is to intentionally step outside of philosophy and into psychology (or else anthropology). It is to say, "I am no longer doing the thing that philosophy does." — Leontiskos

Well now the walls are truly up and the gate is closed, and without any explanation of what they are and why. As I pointed out here, this claim doesn’t even mean actual “psychology”, nor is looking at what we might say in a situation really “anthology”, and so it is unclear what the actual critique consists in other than name-calling at this point. What even is “the thing that philosophy does”?

But yes, Witt is revolutionizing philosophy by seeing the human within it—history, interest, our limits, and, ultimately, how and when we make a stand rather than hoping knowledge will solve everything. His first claim being that our desires and interests were already involved in the very act of trying to eradicate them. Plato wanted something specific in only accepting a certain criteria for knowledge, in his fear of the sophists, who he characterizes as only persuading people. After relegating away the world, Kant still sought a standard that would be complete without our involvement. Descartes no longer wanted to be surprised by (the possibility of) being wrong, and so imposed a criteria that sets the standard for what he will accept before he even begins (the same for the author of the Tract). We are falible, limited, but, instead of aiming to be reasonable, maybe reconciliable, we turn our human condition with the world into an intellectual problem.

I have claimed the primary focus in the PI is to examine why philosophy wants certainty (“purity”), and, even more, to learn something about ourselves in the process. — Antony Nickles

Isn't this an example of "totalizing"?

107. The more closely we examine actual language, the greater becomes the conflict between it and our requirement. (For the crystalline purity of logic was, of course, not something I had discovered: it was a requirement.)

Certainty and the crystalline purity of logic are two different but related things.

This distinction is clearest in the almost uniformly misinterpreted PI #109. “Philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of language.” It is not that language is the “means” of our bewitchment, so we just need to get clear about language in order not to be bewitched. Language is the means of “battling”; looking at our expressions is the method by which we battle. — Antony Nickles

It is our understanding (Verstandes) not our intelligence that is bewitched. The Revised 4th Edition makes this correction.

At the root of that misunderstanding is the relation of names and objects.

These words, it seems to me, give us a particular picture of the essence of human language. It is this: the words in language name objects a sentences are combinations of such names. —– In this picture of language we find the roots of the following idea: Every word has a meaning. This meaning is correlated with the word. It is the object for which the word stands.

(PI 1)

Language lacks the precision and exactness that the philosopher expects and demands of it. It is not language itself but this misunderstanding of how language works, this particular picture of language, that is what has bewitched philosophers, including the early Wittgenstein.

For philosophical problems arise when language goes on holiday. And then we may indeed imagine naming to be some remarkable mental act, as it were the baptism of an object. And we can also say the word “this” to the object, as it were address the object as “this” a a strange use of this word, which perhaps occurs only when philosophizing.

(PI 38)

When Socrates asks: "What is 'x'" he is looking for what everything that is 'x' has in common that distinguishes it from all else. It is in response to such demands and expectations of language that Wittgenstein introduces the concept of language-games.

The word “language-game” is used here to emphasize the fact that the speaking of language is part of an activity, or of a form of life.

(PI 23)

Added:

The bewitchment of language runs deep. It is found in the search for universals and essences. Language is both the means of bewitchment and the means by which it can be overcome. Simply looking at our expressions is not sufficient. We often find expressions, as we often do here, that ask for the essence of religion or morality or the self or consciousness.

Language lacks the precision and exactness that the philosopher expects and demands of it. It is not language itself but this misunderstanding of how language works, this particular picture of language, that is what has bewitched philosophers, including the early Wittgenstein. — Fooloso4

I see that as a broad-reaching strawman for all philosophers in general. For example, how could Schopenhauer not be aware of the ineptness of language to capture something like Nirvana, or that the world is both unified and individuated? These are inherently contradictory concepts. That didn't "bewitch" him, but rather he just sought out various ways to explain it in both Western notions and (newly published) Eastern notions.

Witt is solving a problem for many philosophers, that simply wasn't there to begin with, EXCEPT for certain ones demanding various forms of rigorous world-to-word standards.. And those seem to be squarely aimed at the analytics, if anyone at all.

But the question isn't why you or I do, or don't do, what philosophy does, but why does philosophy do what it does? — Srap Tasmaner

I am pointing out the fact that, according to their own intentional frame, the one who asks this question is no longer doing philosophy.

Because it's a question about philosophy?

Watch out @schopenhauer1 the Wittgensteinians will take over the thread. :yikes:

Because it's a question about philosophy? — Srap Tasmaner

Yes, and this is particularly true in the case where one is distancing themselves from philosophy. One could raise the question without leaving the philosophical frame, but it seems clear that that is not what is happening here. This would be the difference between the question, "What is it that we are doing as philosophers?" and the question, "What is it that those philosophers are doing?"

(And the reification of "philosophy" does not change this point, nor does asking about the motivation behind philosophy as opposed to asking about the activity of philosophy.)

Witt is solving a problem for many philosophers, that simply wasn't there to begin with, EXCEPT for certain ones demanding various forms of rigorous world-to-word standards.. And those seem to be squarely aimed at the analytics, if anyone at all. — schopenhauer1

I agree, and an interesting subtopic regards the distinction between the kind of philosophy which constructively builds on what has come before, versus the kind of philosophy which is a rupture with all that came before. I want to say that the latter kind is a weak in various ways. It also tends to walk hand in hand with hubris. And I am willing to concede that Wittgenstein is following this trend, not inaugurating it all by himself.

Help me understand why it is SPECIFICALLY Wittgenstein where I see this?? — schopenhauer1

Well, I took a class on Wittgenstein years ago in undergrad from very much a Wittgensteinian asshole. Early Wittgenstein (Tractatus-era) is very different from the later Philosophical Investigations Wittgenstein. Basically a 180. We studied later Wittgenstein.

I think it partly stems from the fact that Wittgenstein's followers consider his work as brilliant yet underappreciated by mainstream philosophers & academics. Anyway, Wittgenstein challenges an Augustinian approach to language which undergirds or is presupposed by not only by much modern philosophers but in other fields as well.

But it was an interesting class. I remember one day one of the topics we discussed wasn't "did Moses exist" but "what would it mean for Moses to exist?" and this still resonates with me. The biblical Moses does A, B, C, D etc. -- according to the Bible -- that is the "biblical moses." But if he only did e.g. A & C would he still be "Moses?" Or what if his name wasn't even Moses but something else but maybe he did "A"? I think this to myself everytime someone says Moses wasn't a "real."

Witt is solving a problem for many philosophers, that simply wasn't there to begin with, EXCEPT for certain ones demanding various forms of rigorous world-to-word standards.. And those seem to be squarely aimed at the analytics, if anyone at all. — schopenhauer1

Wittgenstein quotes Augustine:
“quid est ergo tempus? si nemo ex me quaerat scio; si quaerenti explicare velim, nescio”. (PI 89)

"What, then, is time? I know well enough what it is, provided that nobody asksme; but if I am asked what it is and try to explain, I am baffled.”

This is a question philosophers and scientists still grapple with today.

You responded before I could add:

We often find expressions, as we often do here, that ask for the essence of religion or morality or the self or consciousness. — Fooloso4

Cool, but I just don’t see the demand for certainty with these concepts as a problem to begin with. They are jumping off points for critical thinking. If one sets up a straw man against all philosophers, one can set oneself up as doing the “real” deconstruction, humbly offering oneself as “just showing the way” (out of the bottle that wasn’t there).

Edit: for example, Schopenhauer’s WWR isn’t because he is frightfully uncertain about reality (perhaps Descartes used this thought experiment but I can probably defend that as well simply as a tool), but rather using ideas from Kant and eastern philosophy to answer various questions, presumably knowing words are mere words but can still convey ideas that can elucidate the subject without being stated of affairs thus empirically verified.

One could raise the question without leaving the philosophical frame, but it seems clear that that is not what is happening here. This would be the difference between the question, "What is it that we are doing as philosophers?" and the question, "What is it that those philosophers are doing?" (And the reification of "philosophy" does not change this point.) — Leontiskos

Well, the form in which the question is posed, "What does philosophy want?", has neither a first nor a third person pronoun, so it is a matter of interpretation, of context, of intention.

--- Perhaps here it's worth mentioning that @Antony Nickles offered a statement; I take responsibility for the question his statement would serve as an answer to. ---

Why do you think it was clear the question was not asked within the "philosophical frame"?

What would persuade you it was a philosophical question? Can you clarify what does and what does not belong within the philosophical frame?

Well, the form in which the question is posed, "What does philosophy want?", has neither a first nor a third person pronoun, so it is a matter of interpretation, of context, of intention. — Srap Tasmaner

Yes, I edited my post to include this idea. I don't think it changes my point.

--- Perhaps here it's worth mentioning that Antony Nickles offered a statement; I take responsibility for the question his statement would serve as an answer to. --- — Srap Tasmaner

A statement about a question, "I have claimed the primary focus in the PI is to examine why philosophy wants certainty (“purity”)..." ().

Why do you think it was clear the question was not asked within the "philosophical frame"? — Srap Tasmaner

When someone engages in the psychoanalysis of philosophy they are surely not in a self-consciously philosophical frame. I'm not sure how you could think that someone who claims to be examining the motives of philosophy tout court is at the same time thinking of themselves as a philosopher. In Wittgenstein's case he will reject those motives after analyzing them, and then profess to be doing something different from what philosophy had previously been doing, which makes my point all the more plausible.

Yes, and this is particularly true in the case where one is distancing themselves from philosophy. One could raise the question without leaving the philosophical frame, but it seems clear that that is not what is happening here. This would be the difference between the question, "What is it that we are doing as philosophers?" and the question, "What is it that those philosophers are doing?" — Leontiskos

I agree that Wittgenstein presumes to step outside of philosophy, as he characterizes it, in order to critique it. But what if he had instead claimed that a desire for certainty was made possible by the emergence of the very conception of certainty as a peculiarly modern philosophical invention, a development which formed the basis of the modern sciences? In this case he would be making neither a psychological claim, nor a metaphysical claim (desire for certainty somehow being a universal a priori, as Heidegger claimed that falling prey to the world is an a priori), but rather an assertion concerning a movement within history of philosophy.

- If the critique is only a critique of a particular epoch or school of philosophy, and not a critique of philosophy tout court, then my point is moot. However, many Wittgenstenians would not accept this appraisal, and the words used in the quotes from this thread which we are considering do not reflect such an appraisal.

But it was an interesting class. I remember one day one of the topics we discussed wasn't "did Moses exist" but "what would it mean for Moses to exist?" and this still resonates with me. The biblical Moses does A, B, C, D etc. -- according to the Bible -- that is the "biblical moses." But if he only did e.g. A & C would he still be "Moses?" Or what if his name wasn't even Moses but something else but maybe he did "A"? I think this to myself everytime someone says Moses wasn't a "real." — BitconnectCarlos

Is this not a reformulation of the Ship of Theseus? Yes, the analytics were/are indeed caught up on the definition of "is". The Morning Star is the Evening Star right? Or is it?

Identity and essence are the stuff of Plato and Aristotle, the "modern" spin is putting in the linguistic context I guess, and using "possible worlds" for necessity and contingency.

I walked into that. But at the start of the sentence he says “If we are using the word ‘to know’ as it is normally used…” — Antony Nickles

Were you not using the word “know” as it is normally used when you said that we do not know the pain causing another to writhe in front of us (because that’s not how knowledge works)?

"To examine why philosophy wants X," is to intentionally step outside of philosophy and into psychology (or else anthropology). It is to say, "I am no longer doing the thing that philosophy does." — Leontiskos

When does one step outside of philosophy into psychology? What in earlier editions of the PI was called "Part II" is in the revised 4th edition called "Philosophy of Psychology". Is he here no longer doing philosophy? Or is he not doing psychology?

Plato made no such distinction.

I think the questions of what philosophy wants and why it wants this or that are misguided. Philosophy is an activity. These questions are analogous to asking what baseball wants and why.

Distinctions between disciplines are not hard and fast. Rather than maintain these distinctions there has been a move toward cross-disciplinary or inter-disciplinary practices - philosophy of science, neurophilosophy, and so on.

In the Tractatus Wittgenstein says:

Psychology is no more closely related to philosophy than any other natural science.

Theory of knowledge is the philosophy of psychology (4.1121)

Is there anywhere in the later works where he makes such a distinction?

In any case, one need not step outside philosophy to ask about philosophy. When Wittgenstein reflections on what we do and want and expect when we are doing philosophy he is asking this from within his philosophical practice.

Wittgenstein quotes Augustine:
“quid est ergo tempus? si nemo ex me quaerat scio; si quaerenti explicare velim, nescio”. (PI 89)

"What, then, is time? I know well enough what it is, provided that nobody asksme; but if I am asked what it is and try to explain, I am baffled.” — Fooloso4

That's a wonderful quote. And adaptable to a range of matters.

True, Kant doesn't tell us that the only truth is synthetic a posteriori, but then neither does Wittgenstein. I mean he doesn't talk in those terms, and neither is it implicit in his philosophy as far as am aware. So, it's not clear what you think you are taking aim at here. The distinction I referred to was not confined to synthetic a posteriori propositions. — Janus

He doesn't talk in those terms (which to me is a problem if you don't acknowledge what came before), but I don't agree that it is not implicit in his philosophy. Empirical observation is basically the kind of "justification" or "truth condition" or "judgement" that equates to synthetic a posteriori in Kant. Tractatus seems to really take the distinction that matters (THIS kind of judgements is SENSE!), whereas other judgements are either nonsense or simply how language syntax must operate. But there is no explanation of how other truths cannot be philosophically valuable (not just POETRY or whatever dismissive thing you give other forms of philosophical writing)..

I agree that there are parallels between what Kant's and Wittgenstein's philosophies, but the foci are quite different, the former being epistemological and the latter semantic, and even in the latter's later philosophy, phenomenological. Both do treat traditional metaphysics as being impossible as sciences of the determinable because both reject the idea of intellectual intution being able to provide knowledge or testable porpositions. — Janus

Indeed, I am at a loss why, when working in academic philosophy, you wouldn't do a much more thorough look at Kant who wrote about this, and is re-writing as if Kant's ideas don't readily address this. In other words, making the turn to linguistics without any EPISTEMOLOGICAL or METAPHYSICAL underpinnings is a bereft endeavor because it is precisely how it is that language can map onto reality, the mind of the observer, and such that is at question, not simply making fiat distinctions between this kind of epistemological justification and that kind of epistemological justification, making pronouncements that those that aren't empirical are nonsense and should be relegated to poetic status or some such nonsense. And again, I know he drops the pretense in PI, but we were talking Tractatus.

The idea of sense and reference incompletely in line with how I was treating the ideas of sensicality and non-sensicality. When we refer to logical or mathematical terms or empirical objects, then we have determinable referents. when we refer to God or Will or Karma or the Absolute, we do not have determinable referents. — Janus

"incompletely in line".. not sure what you meant there. You are repeating what I said, but I was saying that you seemed to indicate it was about what can be "sensed" which is not what he meant by "sense" and thus I was correcting that to my understanding of what he meant.

It doesn't follow however that such non-sensical terms are nonsensical in the sense of being utterly meaningless, to repeat, they are non-sensical only in the sense that they lack determinable referents. Wittgenstein did not reject the ineffable, in fact he accorded it the greatest importance in human life, and that was precisely where he diverged from the Logical Positivists. — Janus

Then Schopenhauer, Kant, Plato, the German Idealists, the French Rationalists, The Berkeleyan Empiricists, even the classic empiricists, should all be considered as valid forms of philosophical writing.. and not relegated as anything else.. My issue isn't simply that he called things nonsense, but the implication that certain things SHOULDN'T be said, because they can only be felt or shown, or revealed or whatnot.. Which of course, flies against much of philosophical writing which does try to EXPLAIN various "non-empirical" ideas.

And then here you are contradicting that Wittgenstein is discounting philosophical DISCOURSE and relegating it to something else.. thus doubling down on his point:

This doesn't seem to me to be the point at all. We clearly can know well enough what we are talking about when it comes to empirical, logical and mathematical matters; with religion, aesthetics and ethics, not so much, because the latter are groundless. We can get each other in aesthetic, ethical and religious discourse, but we do so in terms of canonicity, tradition and feeling, and the subjects we discuss are really ineffable when it all boils down. — Janus

That's my general take on the human situation, and I think it accords fairly well with both Kant and Wittgenstein, insofar as I am familiar with their philosophies. — Janus

Well, I would think because Kant is WRITING in WORDS in explanatory language, his ideas on non-empirical types of philosophical topics, that it would fall under the critique you and Wittgenstein had on such type of philosophical writing.

But there is no explanation of how other truths cannot be philosophically valuable (not just POETRY or whatever dismissive thing you give other forms of philosophical writing).. — schopenhauer1

You assume that other "truths" can be established to be so, presumably in some way other than emprically, logically, mathematically. Can you give an example of such a truth, show how it is established to be such, and show its philosophical value?

For me, to say something is poetry is the furthest thing from being dismissive. You are doing some excellent misreading!

"incompletely in line". — schopenhauer1

Typo...should have been "is completely".

My issue isn't simply that he called things nonsense, but the implication that certain things SHOULDN'T be said, because they can only be felt or shown, or revealed or whatnot.. Which of course, flies against much of philosophical writing which does try to EXPLAIN various "non-empirical" ideas. — schopenhauer1

I think all that is your own projection.

Were you not using the word “know” as it is normally used when you said that we do not know the pain causing another to writhe in front of us (because that’s not how knowledge works)? — Luke

The insight is based on the fact that certain philosophy has a special requirement for knowing (identity), while ordinarily we would just say we know in that we see they are in pain, recognize it (or ignore it). Another’s pain is not known, it is responded to, which might shift our thought on the position we are in with each other, and the role certainty plays in it.

When does one step outside of philosophy into psychology? — Fooloso4

The point that I have been making over and over again is that the one making the criticism of philosophy is intending to step outside philosophy. This seems obvious, unless someone wishes to claim that when Wittgenstein criticizes philosophy he is at the same time criticizing himself? It is neither here nor there whether someone who intends to step outside philosophy is still unknowingly and unintentionally doing philosophy.

When someone engages in the psychoanalysis of philosophy they are surely not in a self-consciously philosophical frame. — Leontiskos

Philosophy has always been about making explicit, or reflecting on, what is normally not considered or examined (the “unconscious” in a sense). Witt couldn’t be more of an analytical philosopher in that regard because he is looking at what we normally say and drawing out the criteria that are contained in those expressions. He only sees that logic and interest are tied together. But Cicero argued that a good speaker had to be a good man. Plato just didn’t trust individuals to be up to the task.

To examine why philosophy wants X," is to intentionally step outside of philosophy — Leontiskos

Philosophy is in the business of asking why we want something. What benefit is the good? Why is the categorical imperative superior to Humean naturalism? Perhaps this is just icky because it is imagined to involve “feelings” or some such, or does not remove us from what we say.

This would be the difference between the question, "What is it that we are doing as philosophers?" and the question, "What is it that those philosophers are doing?" — Leontiskos

But Witt was one of the “philosophers” he is examining. The history of philosophy is rife with one camp picking apart another and calling into question what philosophy actually is. What do you imagine is being lost here that can’t be without destroying philosophy? I am not claiming Witt is calling for the end of philosophy, nor an abandonment of its issues (in keeping open the threat of skepticism).

(And the reification of "philosophy" does not change this point, nor does asking about the motivation behind philosophy as opposed to asking about the activity of philosophy.) — Leontiskos

Yes, the history of philosophy is one attempt after another of trying to remove the human, though it is easy enough to restate the claim without motivation: that it is a logical error to create a standard before investigating a topic and impose it as a requirement because it will narrow and limit the form of answer you are going to get.

And drawing a limit around knowledge is exactly what Plato and Kant did, except Plato created the metaphorical perfection of the forms, and Kant simply denied that solution while retaining a similar standard. Witt just reaches a new conclusion (claiming knowledge is not our only relation to the world), while showing the reason philosophy wants to reject it (the need for certainty).

Witt is solving a problem for many philosophers, that simply wasn't there to begin with, EXCEPT for certain ones demanding various forms of rigorous world-to-word standards.. And those seem to be squarely aimed at the analytics, if anyone at all. — schopenhauer1

Yes, analytical philosophy is the ground, for sure. But “world-to-word” being only one form (one example) of rigorous, demanded standard, and those “certain ones” including not just correspondence theory, but Plato, Descartes, Kant, the positivists, Hegel, metaphysics, neuroscience, and any other philosophy/field that believes it can solve our human condition through knowledge and explanatory theory. I would argue a large swath of modern philosophy is still either thinking it has or can “solve” skepticism or is working on the premise that it doesn’t matter.

If the critique is only a critique of a particular epoch or school of philosophy, and not a critique of philosophy tout court, then my point is moot. — Leontiskos

I would argue Witt is saving the true nature of philosophy from itself. But yes, he is not denigrating all philosophy, nor even all of the philosopher’s efforts that fall prey to the error he did.