In that conception I'm speaking only about so-called propositional knowledge, not know-how, knowledge by participation or acquaintance.
Why would you use that definition? The way I see it it clarifies the difference between knowledge and belief. I'm not sure what you would count as knowledge. Would you say that you know that the big bang theory or the theory of evolution is true? I wouldn't, I'd say rather that I have very good reason to believe they are true, but that I don't know if they are true.
What do you think I am losing by thinking about it that way? — Janus
Since you bring in the mix scientific theories, I will go with that theme. Is Newtonian and Einsteinian physics knowledge? I think it would be difficult to argue with a scientist to say that it was not. — Richard B
I presume you would argue that Einsteinian physics proved Newtonian physics false. — Richard B
For example, I can imagine something faster than the speed of light therefore Einsteinian physics is only a belief not knowledge. If this is how one sows the seeds of doubt on a scientific theory, thank goodness most scientists would ignore it as a philosophical eccentricity and get on doing science. — Richard B
Since you bring in the mix scientific theories, I will go with that theme. Is Newtonian and Einsteinian physics knowledge? I think it would be difficult to argue with a scientist to say that it was not. — Richard B
I presume you would argue that Einsteinian physics proved Newtonian physics false. — Richard B
For example, I can imagine something faster than the speed of light therefore Einsteinian physics is only a belief not knowledge. If this is how one sows the seeds of doubt on a scientific theory, thank goodness most scientists would ignore it as a philosophical eccentricity and get on doing science. — Richard B
propositions provide for Moore a proof of the external world, — Sam26
It is believed that nothing can travel faster than light, we don't know that for sure, but if it turned out to be untrue it would not invalidate Einsteinian physics, because the latter demonstrably works to a very high degree of accuracy. — Janus
I like to explore this idea that "we don't believe(or know) nothing can travel faster than light" or "we don't know that for sure." One reason I have often heard is that you would need an infinite amount of energy to move a mass to the speed of light that makes it impossible, and no one knows where to get an infinite amount of energy — Richard B
Moore is replying to Kant, as is clear, and presumably the objection is to the argument that we never have access to the thing-in-itself. Moore's reply is to shake the thing in Kant's face.It seems to me that, so far from its being true, as Kant declares to be his opinion, that there is only one possible proof of the existence of things outside of us, namely the one which he has given, I can now give a large number of different proofs, each of which is a perfectly rigorous proof; and that at many other times I have been in a position to give many others. I can prove now, for instance, that two human hands exist. How? By holding up my two hands, and saying, as I make a certain gesture with the right hand, ‘Here is one hand’, and adding, as I make a certain gesture with the left, ‘and here is another’. And if, by doing this, I have proved ipso facto the existence of external things, you will all see that I can also do it now in numbers of other ways: there is no need to multiply examples. — Proof of an External World by G. E. Moore
The rule is enacted, not stated....there is a way of grasping a rule which is not an interpretation, but which is exhibited in what we call "obeying the rule" and "going against it" in actual cases. — PI §201
Moore is replying to Kant, as is clear, and presumably the objection is to the argument that we never have access to the thing-in-itself. Moore's reply is to shake the thing in Kant's face.
Wittgenstein had great sympathy for Moore's view. Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must remain silent; one can say nothing about the thing-in-itself; therefore leave it out of our conversation.
Yet W. was unsatisfied with Moore's response. OC is Wittgenstein working through the issues raised by that dissatisfaction. — Banno
We evict questions of meaning, looking instead to questions of use, and so trade silence for action. — Banno
... the confidence that this is a hand comes from communal agreement, not from the perception of a homunculus or solipsistic conviction. It is inherently a public activity. — Banno
But On Certainty does not present us with a "Third Wittgenstein". — Banno
(OC 402)In the beginning was the deed.
(OC 359)But that means I want to conceive it as something that lies beyond being justified or
unjustified; as it were, as something animal.
(OC 475)I want to regard man here as an animal; as a primitive being to which one grants instinct but
not ratiocination. As a creature in a primitive state. Any logic good enough for a primitive means of
communication needs no apology from us. Language did not emerge from some kind of
ratiocination.
Following or going against a rule allows us to implement practices, ways of doing things, that have a social role despite in a sense not having an empirical grounding. — Banno
26. But can it be seen from a rule what circumstances logically exclude a mistake in the
employment of rules of calculation?
What use is a rule to us here? Mightn't we (in turn) go wrong in applying it?
OC 139. Not only rules, but also examples are needed for establishing a practice. Our rules leave loopholes open, and the practice has to speak for itself.
OC 140. We do not learn the practice of making empirical judgments by learning rules: we are taught judgments and their connexion with other judgments. A totality of judgments is made plausible to us.
The remedy for this misunderstanding of On Certainty lie in Philosophical Investigations. — Banno
Presupposes as used in this context means there is a justification for believing X, or rather a justification for making the claim that one knows that X is the case. — Sam26
Following and going against a rule is recognisable by a community, and forms the way in which a community functions — Banno
What are the grounds for doubt? What are the grounds for knowing? Maybe part of the confusion lies in the fact that we can imagine situations were we can doubt such propositions. However, can we doubt the propositions Moore is using, and can we doubt them in Moore's contexts? — Sam26
Others might agree that there is more to silence than mere inactivity. — Banno
(6.422)There must indeed be some kind of ethical reward and ethical punishment, but they must reside in the action itself.
Hopefully in silence, baby sucks its fist, unawares of being a baby , or having a fist . That this is a fist arises as the baby takes its place in its family, in its linguistic community. — Banno
We need to go the step further and see why that silence needed to be broken by the Investigations. — Banno
Aware?In the builder's language there is no word for 'hand' but surely they are aware they have hands. — Fooloso4
...on Wittgenstein’s view, while chess is essentially a game for two players, this does not exclude the possibility of playing it against oneself provided such solitary games are not regarded as paradigm instances of chess. Similarly, he can claim that language is essentially social, but still allow the possibility of exceptions provided these are peripheral cases. — https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/private-language/#ComVieRev
There are deep differences between the aesthetics of the Tractatus and the Investigations:Is there anything he says in the Investigations that refutes the insight in the Tractatus that ethics and aesthetics are not matters to be resolved by linguistic analysis? — Fooloso4
For now, at this stage of Wittgenstein's development, where the complexity-accepting stance of the later Philosophical Investigations (1958) and other work is unearthing and uprooting the philosophical presuppositions of the simplification-seeking earlier work, examples themselves have priority as indispensable instruments in the struggle to free ourselves of misconception in the aesthetic realm. . And these examples, given due and detailed attention, will exhibit a context-sensitive particularity that makes generalized pronouncements hovering high above the ground of that detail look otiose, inattentive, or, more bluntly, just a plain falsification of experience. What remains is not, then—and this is an idea Wittgenstein's auditors must themselves have struggled with in those rooms in Cambridge, as many still do today—another theory built upon now stronger foundations, but rather a clear view of our multiform aesthetic practices. Wittgenstein, in his mature, later work, did not generate a theory of language, of mind, or of mathematics. He generated, rather, a vast body of work perhaps united only in its therapeutic and intricately labored search for conceptual clarification. One sees the same philosophical aspiration driving his foray into aesthetics. — Wittgenstein's Aesthetics (SEP)
The baby and the builder are not unaware of their hands, any more than aware of their hands. — Banno
Which comes first, meaning or mental content? Will we follow Sellers in taking mental content as deriving from linguistic meaning? Or Grice in taking linguistic meaning as deriving from mental content? — Banno
There are deep differences between the aesthetics of the Tractatus and the Investigations — Banno
By “entirely misunderstood”, it emerges that he means both (1) that aesthetic questions are of a conceptual type very distinct from empirical questions ... and (2) that the philosophically traditional method of essentialistic definition – determining the essence that all members of the class “works of art” exhibit and by virtue of which they are so classified – will conceal from our view more than it reveals.
Is there anything he says in the Investigations that refutes the insight in the Tractatus that ethics and aesthetics are not matters to be resolved by linguistic analysis? — Fooloso4
So again, it is perhaps a mistake to see any of Wittgenstein's writings as complete, and hence an exegetical error to attempt to set out a coherent and complete picture. — Banno
Saying that facts condition our grammar, as per Moyal-Sharrock, seems to diminish the autonomous nature of grammar, especially since it’s grammar that determines what we mean by fact, object, and reality. So, our grammar presupposes these concepts, but it’s not independent of reality. — Sam26
PI 497. The rules of grammar may be called “arbitrary”, if that is to mean that the purpose of grammar is nothing but that of language.
If someone says, “If our language had not this grammar, it could not
express these facts” - it should be asked what “could” means here.
(Zettel 352)Do I want to say, then, that certain facts are favorable to the formation of certain concepts; or again unfavorable? And does experience teach us this? It is a fact of experience that human beings alter their concepts, exchange them for others when they learn new facts; when in this way what was formerly important to them becomes unimportant, and vice versa. (It is discovered e.g. that what formerly counted as a difference in kind, is really only a difference in degree.
The logical role of hinges is that of being beyond doubt and therefore beyond truth and falsity. To bring in the idea that hinge beliefs are true and false is to miss one of the core points of On Certainty. It’s like trying to shove a square peg into a round hole. — Sam26
.357. One might say: " 'I know' expresses comfortable certainty, not the certainty that is still struggling."
358. Now I would like to regard this certainty, not as something akin to hastiness or superficiality, but as a form of life. (That is very badly expressed and probably badly thought as well.)
359. But that means I want to conceive it as something that lies beyond being justified or unjustified; as it were, as something animal. — OC
It is very clear here that it is certain propositions that are exempt from doubt. The game can only be played if certain propositions are, not exempt from truth or falsity, but treated as being true. I also think it worthy of note that "hinge belief" does not occur in OC.340. We know, with the same certainty with which we believe any mathematical proposition, how the letters A and B are pronounced, what the colour of human blood is called, that other human beings have blood and call it "blood".
341. That is to say, the questions that we raise and our doubts depend on the fact that some propositions are exempt from doubt, are as it were like hinges on which those turn.
342. That is to say, it belongs to the logic of our scientific investigations that certain things are in deed not doubted. — OC
My interpretation is that there is something foundational here, viz., that some propositions are foundational to our claims of knowledge or our claims of doubt. When you reach bedrock no part of the foundational structure is stronger. — Sam26
"'I know that I am a human being.' In order to see how unclear the sense of this proposition is, consider its negation. At most it might be taken to mean 'I know I have the organs of a human'. — Sam26
There is a difference between using one's hand to touch or move something, and being aware that it is one's hand one is using to touch or move something. — Banno
Just as a dog may be expecting his master to come, but not to come next Wednesday. — Banno
Much of our world is constructed within and by language, and the associated mental content. — Banno
Using one's hand is not physical so much as animal. — Banno
For Wittgenstein aesthetics and ethics are shown in performance, so that expressions of ethical or aesthetic preference are all but irrelevant — Banno
The suggestion that ethics and aesthetics are matters to be resolved by linguistic analysis badly misrepresents W.'s view. — Banno
Is there anything he says in the Investigations that refutes the insight in the Tractatus that ethics and aesthetics are not matters to be resolved by linguistic analysis? — Fooloso4
It is, rather, not to speak of such things as if they are the same as the propositions of natural science. — Fooloso4
One cannot move something with one's hand without using one's hand. But one can certainly - and indeed usually does - use one's hand without directing one's conscious awareness to one's hand...I do not think that one can use their hand to touch or move something without being aware that it is one's hand that one is using. — Fooloso4
Notice that it is the confidence that this is a hand that I am pointing to, not the confidence shown in using the hand. The baby may of course make use of its hand without awareness that what it is making use of is a hand."Here is a hand" - we behave in this way, we set up a way of doing things that takes "This is a hand" as granted, as enacted in the way we do things.
And notice that it's "we" and not "I" - the confidence that this is a hand comes from communal agreement, not from the perception of a homunculus or solipsistic conviction. It is inherently a public activity. — Banno
Notice the misrepresentation of what I have said - being aware that "this is a hand" is like being aware that the dog's master will come next Wednesday in that both require a level of language acquisition. Being aware that "this is a hand" is not the same as making use of a hand to perform some task.How is being aware of one's hand just like a dog expecting his master but not expecting him to come next Wednesday? — Fooloso4
I also think it worthy of note that "hinge belief" does not occur in OC. — Banno
The difference between what some of you are doing in this thread and what I'm doing is that I'm trying to go beyond OC to where it might lead. — Sam26
From here I will examine On Certainty, sometimes line-by-line, other times a section at a time. — Sam26
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