You can use Wittgenstein's ideas as a line in the sand between philosophical and non-philosophical use of thought - what counts as bewitched and right thinking. — fdrake

I agree. It can be used as a blunt instrument or where it is an inappropriate instrument, but we can and should consider whether the expectations and demands put on terms is appropriate. This leaves unaddressed the problem whether "ordinary everyday language" can lead to bewitchment as well.

More broadly, I think the emphasis on language can lead us to overlook something fundamental to Wittgenstein, namely, the distinction and connection between saying and showing or seeing, which remains throughout his writings, as can be seen it his discussions of such things as seeing aspects, aspect blindness, seeing-as, and seeing connections.

We find certain things about seeing puzzling, because we do not find the whole business of seeing puzzling enough.

(Philosophy of Psychology - A Fragment. [aka Part II of Philosophical Investigations] 251)

The concept of an aspect is related to the concept of imagination.
In other words, the concept ‘Now I see it as . . .’ is related to ‘Now I am imagining that’.
Doesn’t it take imagination to hear something as a variation on a
particular theme? And yet one does perceive something in so hearing it.

(254)

Seeing an aspect and imagining are subject to the will. There is
such an order as “Imagine this!”, and also, “Now see the figure like
this!”; but not “Now see this leaf green!”.

(256)

The question now arises: Could there be human beings lacking the ability to see something as something a and what would that be like?
What sort of consequences would it have? —– Would this defect be comparable to colour-blindness, or to not having absolute pitch? a We will call it “aspect-blindness” a and will now consider what might be meant by this. (A conceptual investigation.)

(257)

Aspect-blindness will be akin to the lack of a ‘musical ear’.

260)

The importance of this concept lies in the connection between the concepts of seeing an aspect and of experiencing the meaning of a word. For we want to ask, “What would someone be missing if he did not experience the meaning of a word?

(261)

In his own metaphorical terms, I think when Wittgenstein says that his spade is turned when he hits the bedrock of "forms of life," many would simply suggest that he buy himself a shovel or a pick axe. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Well, even the expanded metaphor makes a good point. Foundations need to be in a different category from what is founded. More logic doesn't give you the foundations of logic and so forth. However, I do agree that the "bedrock" metaphor doesn't challenge foundationalism itself, and that's always puzzled me. The radical issue is whether foundations are always necessary. After all, it turned out that there are no foundations of the planet.

If our culture and language impact brain development in early childhood, there is not just an abstract difference between individuals of different cultures, but a physical one. — Lionino

But even that accepts that we are the product of our environment as well as our genes, and so undermines one form of essentialism. However, if I embed myself in second culture, that will affect what got embedded with my first culture and change that. The brain continues to change and develop throughout life.

Wittgensteinians often make claims that are the opposite of "common sense." For example, the claim that a man who washes ashore on desert Island loses his ability to make and follow rules, but then regains this capacity when a second person washes ashore later. Obviously, a great many Wittgensteinians (as well as people generally) find this to be somewhat absurd. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Does Wittgenstein appeal to common sense? He certainly relies on our intuitions, since we are expected to think things our for ourselves, but that's not the same thing, is it?
That claim is indeed absurd. Robinson Crusoe didn't forget everything he learnt when he washed ashore. On the contrary, he continued to embody the culture he came ashore with. No doubt, as he continues alone, he is very likely to adapt and develop what he has learnt and may move away from the starting-point without being aware of the fact. (In the fiction, Defoe ensures that doesn't happen.)

That's one way of framing it in the "Tarzan Versus Crusoe," discussion at least, but there is also the idea that Crusoe cannot make new rules so long as he is alone, and any continued rule following can only be judged by an absent community. — Count Timothy von Icarus

That's not wrong. But it is likely that after enough time, his rescuers will find deviations and adaptations in his way of life.

Unless some "tribe" (a favorite thought example of Wittgenstein) is in possession of the truth itself and the rest itself, we are dealing with opinions and beliefs held at that time and place to be true. The truth is, we are not in possession of the whole of the immutable truth. Throughout history human beings have held things to be true that turn out not to be. This is not something to be solves by attacks on the truth of relativism so understood. — Fooloso4

There's a lot of scary rhetoric about relativism. But it seems to me the greatest danger is precisely believing that one is in possession of the absolute truth and therefore does not need to compromise. That has serious real-world consequences.

all of Wittgenstein's complaints about "philosophers using language wrong," can be waved away by simply claiming that Wittgenstein is not privy to the language game used by these philosophers. Perhaps being a metaphysician, a Thomist, etc. are all discrete "forms of life?" — Count Timothy von Icarus

You're not wrong. I would rather say "discrete language-games" or, in the case of religion and science "discrete practices". But there's always the common ground of human life to appeal to. After all, if we can agree that we disagree, we must have something in common. Mapping that is always a useful first step.
That confidence - that there are rights and wrongs about how to use language - seems to me to be something of a hangover from the Tractatus. But his practice seems to have been different. Anscombe's story about why it looked as if the sun goes round the earth indicates a rather different practice.

Nevertheless when people use Wittgenstein's ideas, they have to interface with other arguments. Perhaps you can do that solely in his terms, but honestly trying to do it equitably makes it very difficult for Wittgenstein. Which is a weakness of his, rather than of philosophy. — fdrake

Quite so. In fact, if you want to engage in debate, you need to meet on common ground, and starting from a Wittgensteinian position is unlikely to do that.

Despite the theories about forms of life, I do not think it is vague unless one treats it as a theory. He has no theory about forms of life, he is simply pointing beyond language as something existing in and of itself to our being in the world and all that entails conceptually and practically. The boundaries between one way of life and another or one practice and another are not fixed and immutable. — Fooloso4

I agree with that. I prefer to think of those notions as ways of approaching problems, needing to be adapted to apply to specific situations, rather than doctrines or protocols.

More broadly, I think the emphasis on language can lead us to overlook something fundamental to Wittgenstein, namely, the distinction and connection between saying and showing or seeing, which remains throughout his writings, as can be seen it his discussions of such things as seeing aspects, aspect blindness, seeing-as, and seeing connections. — Fooloso4

They're discussed in terms of speech acts and gesturing towards new ways of seeing though, right? There's little psychology in it. Or to put it better, the only things he seems interested in are those elements of perception which are mediated by not just involving acts of speech. The eye under the aspect of language.

there is also the idea that Crusoe cannot make new rules so long as he is alone, and any continued rule following can only be judged by an absent community. — Count Timothy von Icarus

There seem to be a number of issues involved here. First, what takes place when we use words to communicate with each other? Second, how does this compare with what happens when we use words by ourselves? We could go down the rabbit hole of the private language argument of private pains and beetles in boxes, but I would rather argue that both private language and public language involve
the use of words to enact new senses of meaning. In social
communication this takes place as a result of the mutual
affecting among the participants. In the case of my talking to my self, my present and past selves affect each other to produce new senses of meaning of the words and the criteria of rules I invoke.

However, I do agree that the "bedrock" metaphor doesn't challenge foundationalism itself, and that's always puzzled me. The radical issue is whether foundations are always necessary. After all, it turned out that there are no foundations of the planet. — Ludwig V

I think it does challenge foundationalism, which is why Lee Braver named his book on Wittgenstein and Heidegger ‘Groundless Grounds’. Take this quote from On Certainty:

96. It might be imagined that some propositions, of the form of empirical propositions, were hardened and functioned as channels for such empirical propositions as were not hardened but fluid; and that this relation altered with time, in that fluid propositions hardened, and hard ones became fluid.
97. The mythology may change back into a state of flux, the river-bed of thoughts may shift. But I distinguish between the movement of the waters on the river-bed and the shift of the bed itself; though there is not a sharp division of the one from the other.

I interpret this to mean that bedrock assumptions are like the river bank. They change along with the river itself, but more slowly.

I interpret this to mean that bedrock assumptions are like the river bank. They change along with the river itself, but more slowly. — Joshs

That's how I understand them: "hinges" are almost too mechanical for foundations: and in a way hinges can only be placed upon structures build on foundations... hrm. The up-down metaphor

They're discussed in terms of speech acts and gesturing towards new ways of seeing though, right? There's little psychology in it. Or to put it better, the only things he seems interested in are those elements of perception which are mediated by not just involving acts of speech. The eye under the aspect of language. — fdrake

I think that he is trying to clear away conceptual misunderstanding that stand in the way of seeing. In the Tractatus seeing/showing is clearly distinguished from saying/propositional thinking. In his later works the distinction is blurred. What we say can influence what we see and what we see can influence what we say. His talk of possibilities is about new ways of thinking and seeing:

… our investigation is directed not towards phenomena, but rather, as one might say, towards the ‘possibilities’ of phenomena.

(PI 90)

The name “philosophy” might also be given to what is possible before all new discoveries and inventions.

(PI 126)

The aspects of things that are most important for us are hidden because of their simplicity and familiarity. (One is unable to notice something a because it is always before one’s eyes.) The real foundations of their inquiry do not strike people at all. Unless that fact has at some time struck them. And this means: we fail to be struck by what, once seen, is most striking and most powerful.

(129)

I think it does challenge foundationalism, which is why Lee Braver named his book on Wittgenstein and Heidegger ‘Groundless Grounds’. — Joshs

As it happens, I'm in the middle of reading this. However, I was hoping to find something that questioned the need for bedrock assumptions. I was also commenting on this metaphor. Wittgenstein seldom relies on just one metaphor. I like the river-bed much better. Nonetheless, if I ask myself what the river-bed is founded on, I find myself confronted with the planet earth. No bedrock there.

That's how I understand them: "hinges" are almost too mechanical for foundations: and in a way hinges can only be placed upon structures build on foundations... hrm. The up-down metaphor — Moliere

I think he presents the hinge metaphor in the context of analysing a debate - elaborating the idea that the debate turns on a fixed point. I would assume that this only applies to the context of the debate, and that what was a hinge may become a bone of contention in another context.

I think he presents the hinge metaphor in the context of analysing a debate - elaborating the idea that the debate turns on a fixed point. I would assume that this only applies to the context of the debate, and that what was a hinge may become a bone of contention in another context. — Ludwig V

I'm being too poetic for the conversation. I'd take your or anyone elses reading over mine -- just some silly thoughts that came to mind.

I'll let A.C. Grayling describe this one: — Count Timothy von Icarus

Where? Citation?

I'm being too poetic for the conversation. I'd take your or anyone elses reading over mine -- just some silly thoughts that came to mind. — Moliere

I didn't think your comment was silly. And we are discussing metaphors.

I agree that there must be some commonality that allows us to move between games. Obviously people can become fluent in new languages and cultures.

This is why I considered the idea of overlapping, and perhaps somewhat hierarchical "forms of life." Pace Wittgenstein, I think we can often understand Chinese gestures quite well. Hell, we can understand when a dog, lion, or badger is upset because mammals signal aggression in similar ways. The reason "reptilian" and "insect-like," have the negative connotations they do is because these animals don't signal their "emotions" to us in the same way, leading to them seeming unpredictable and alien.

I imagine coming to understand extraterrestrial or synthetic lifeforms capable of language would end up being a good deal more difficult than learning a new human language, although perhaps not impossible. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Something I have wondered recently about what Wittgenstein calls "forms of life" is whether this is the limit of language to function. Isn't technology, computation and information the way in which language extends beyond organic life? In informational language we are constantly confronted with concepts and notions such as "code", "programming language", "transcription", "decoding", "information". I wonder whether or not it is correct to state that it is a given or a fact that language extends to reach the non-living and mechanical. From my point of view (which is that of a certain independence of signification-process that prevents it from being confined to intention, to context, and ultimately to forms of life), it is more than valid what computation (even artificial intelligence) can reveal to us about language and about what can perhaps be called "the freedom of the sign".

Ah ok in that case I'm just being a sensitive-something.

think he presents the hinge metaphor in the context of analysing a debate - elaborating the idea that the debate turns on a fixed point. I would assume that this only applies to the context of the debate, and that what was a hinge may become a bone of contention in another context. — Ludwig V

In the context of him analyzing a debate: debates turn on fixed points, and foundations are below those fixed points: a hinge can be replaced, but the foundations take time to change.

‘internal’ cognitive system receiving inputs from, computationally representing and spitting out outputs to an ‘external’ world. — Joshs

Yes, I just mean chains of causal interactions. There is no explicit objective notion of representation, just cascades of neural impulses which then can generate outputs. My use of internal was just alluding to the fact we cannot observe most of what is going on. At the same time I think internal is justified in the sense that a brain can be separated from the external world in some sense with its sensory inputs and motor outputs as intermediaries. And that brain is the seat of our experiences. I have to say I am definitely not as much of an extended cognition person as you are though I don't necessarily disagree with it per se. I am just lezs inclined to view things that way.



Sorry, I don't think I am following any of this but to me what makes something a sign is depend on its reception by something that can use it as a sign.

In the case of my talking to my self, my present and past selves affect each other to produce new senses of meaning of the words and the criteria of rules I invoke. — Joshs

Yes, I have thought before that a.nice counterexample to Wittgenstein's private language argument is someone writing a note to themself to remind them to do something in the future, a scenario that requires someone to enforce some relationship between words and things in the world for the sake of reminding themselves.

On some views, the relevant "form of life," is something common to all humanity. It is something like "what we all share by virtue of being human and of living in the same world." Advocates of this perspective often pay a lot of attention to Wittgenstein's comments on pain. When it comes to pain, it seems to be our natural expressiveness, something we share with other mammals, that is the scaffolding on which language about pain is built. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Interesting. I take it as something that Wittgenstein could not fully elucidate; but, negated the concept of a form of life (by implication) into a private aspect of language, which he denied. Obviously, Wittgenstein was not a cognitivist (there are hints at it, yes); but, rather an early behaviorist at the time, influenced by Russell's own thoughts about psychology.

I find it hard to reconcile (something I consider Wittgenstein struggling with) the comments about the talking lion which we could not or would not be able to understand and the private language argument. What are your thoughts on the matter?

I'd like to further point out a perhaps stronger point against Wittgenstein the 'cognitivist,' with the beetle-in-the-box concept. It would be hard to assume, on the beetle in the box example that Wittgenstein would have been a cognitivist.

Further reading associated with this matter:

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11229-007-9172-y

Yes, I have thought before that a.nice counterexample to Wittgenstein's private language argument is someone writing a note to themself to remind them to do something in the future, a scenario that requires someone to enforce some relationship between words and things in the world for the sake of reminding themselves. — Apustimelogist

I'm afraid few decent philosophical arguments can easily be refuted by counter-example. Someone else can read the note, so it doesn't count as private language - even if it's in cipher.

Obviously, Wittgenstein was not a cognitivist (there are hints at it, yes); but, rather an early behaviorist at the time, influenced by Russell's own thoughts about psychology. — Shawn

There's a lot that makes him look like a behaviourist, because his target is what we might now call qualia. But what form of behaviourism does he sign up to? He doesn't use any of the appropriate language - stimulus/response, for example. (Even though the example of pain is wide open to that kind of model.) If he was a verificationist, it would not be unreasonable to read behaviourism into what he says. But he is equivocal.

Asking whether and how a proposition can be verified is only a special form of the question “How do you mean?” The answer is a contribution to the grammar of the proposition — Phil. Inv. 353

A contribution, not an answer.

I imagine coming to understand extraterrestrial or synthetic lifeforms capable of language would end up being a good deal more difficult than learning a new human language, although perhaps not impossible. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I guess the first problem is how we might come to understand that an extra-terrestrial or synthetic form was alive. We would have to apply the idea of a common humanity in a new context. We can do that, but I don't think we can work out the answer in advance.
I think it is helpful to look at what has been involved in decoding unknown scripts, starting with how we recognize that particular marks are a script, as opposed to a natural phenomenon or a decoration. It all depends on the assumption of a common humanity. But that won't apply to decoding the human brain. How that might apply in those circumstances is really not at all clear.

In the context of him analyzing a debate: debates turn on fixed points, and foundations are below those fixed points: a hinge can be replaced, but the foundations take time to change. — Moliere

Yes, that's true. But both have their uses in a building. Whether the same proposition can be a hinge and a foundation is hard to say. We could perhaps say that the same proposition might be used as a hinge in one context and a foundation in another. But not, I think, at the same time. Case studies would be interesting.

I've always found invocations of the private language argument strange because it's hardly clear that there is one coherent argument on this topic or what its conclusion is supposed to be.

I don't think I'm alone in this though. From the SEP article on "the argument:"

Even among those who accept that there is a reasonably self-contained and straightforward private language argument to be discussed, there has been fundamental and widespread disagreement over its details, its significance and even its intended conclusion, let alone over its soundness. The result is that every reading of the argument (including that which follows) is controversial. Some of this disagreement has arisen because of the notorious difficulty and occasional elusiveness of Wittgenstein’s own text (sometimes augmented by problems of translation).But much derives from the tendency of philosophers to read into the text their own preconceptions without making them explicit and asking themselves whether its author shared them. Some commentators, for instance, supposing it obvious that sensations are private, have interpreted the argument as intended to show they cannot be talked about; some, supposing the argument to be an obvious but unsustainable attempt to wrest special advantage from scepticism about memory, have maintained it to be unsound because it self-defeatingly implies the impossibility of public discourse as well as private; some have assumed it to be a direct attack on the problem of other minds; some have claimed it to commit Wittgenstein to behaviourism or verificationism; some have thought it to imply that language is, of necessity, not merely potentially but actually social (this has come to be called the ‘community view’ of the argument).

So I'm always a bit of a loss on that one, especially when "violating the private language argument," gets invoked as if it is the same thing as being contradictory (something one sees not uncommonly).

I had a thread a while back that no one was interested in on the idea of "mentalese" or "the language of thought," and the private language argument. I don't think the private language argument even rules mentalese out, nor does it really give us much to go on with claims like Chomsky's, that the primary function of language is to organize our own thoughts (as opposed to communication). On the view that mentalese underpins all "public language," it wouldn't seem to count as "private" under some definitions

My personal view is that thought is syntactical and combinatorial in the way that language is. Thought emerges from communication between different specialized areas of the brain. I think there is a lot of evidence from people with brain injuries to suggest something like this is true. Language can, and often is used to structure and present these communications within phenomenal awareness. High level functions, like language processing and production, reach down into lower level functions and color them, and everything ends up very interconnected. Rule following behaviors, or at least "rule-like" behavior (if we assume "rule" → social), underpins these relations.

I would take the private language to be at its strongest when it is a straightforward rejection of Cartesian absolute privacy. There are always outward signs of any "inner" experience. These can be more or less obscured for any outside observer, but in practice there are very many ways in which other people's experiences are present to us, even when they attempt to obscure them. At the limit, on pain of dualism, there should be no "inner difference," without some, in principle, observable outer difference. This jives with a broadly enactivist view.

But then the private language argument(s) are not a great way to make this point. If a stronger formulation is taken, e.g. that private rule following is impossible because of the possibility of unknown error, this seems to actually follow on for social rule following too, and at any rate it simply doesn't jive with experience.

So, with the lion, it seems clear we should know what "please bring more zebra steaks sir," means if the lion says it. However, there also seems to be a sense in which the lion's inner experience, which corresponds to outward signs, is more hidden from us because we do not share the same "form of life." Yet per the topic of this thread, I do think mammals might be said to share some sort of "form of life;" we can recognize each other's emotional states decently after all.




This would be the last chapter of his "Wittgenstein: A Very Short Introduction."

I'm afraid few decent philosophical arguments can easily be refuted by counter-example. Someone else can read the note, so it doesn't count as private language - even if it's in cipher.

And this seems true for any thought to me. Suppose in the far future it would be possible to equip a person with an extremely high resolution fMRI, CAT, PET, etc. type scan set up to continually monitor them from before birth. We also record this person's surroundings. We then use an AI to correlate inner state changes with outer state changes.

In theory, it seems possible that given enough observations we might be able to determine to some degree "what a person is thinking about." But then the person's body is itself a sign of inner changes, which of course Wittgenstein seems to suggest. The body is just an imperfect sign in this respect, in part because we have a useful capacity for deception.

This is in line with Augustinian semiotics. The body is sacramental, an outward sign of inner/higher realities.

Scott Soames did a pretty detailed analysis of the private language argument and concludes that it's not an argument per se. It's more of an exploration of the consequences of ever morphing memory, the open endedness of the patterns of thought, and the nature of confidence.

In line with that is the pretty fascinating issues Kripke sees arising from it. It's not everyone's cup of tea, but it's not just misinterpreted voodoo either. One interesting idea related to it is that just as we model the world around us in the present and create hypotheses about the future, our accounts of the past are also constructed. It's like: you're not just modeling the world out there, you're modeling yourself!

High level functions, like language processing and production, reach down into lower level functions and color them, and everything ends up very interconnected. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Quite so. Nature and nurture are so intertwined that we should be very cautious about what distinctions we want to make.
It is even possible, isn't it, that when we decode the brain, we may find that the structure of thought mirrors the structure of the language we speak - and I do not mean any universal grammar, but the grammar of specific languages.
I'm may be naive, but I've always thought of thought as talking to oneself, like reading to oneself silently. It may be that language not only helps us to get our thought in order, but enables us to do so. I've encountered people who tell me that they can think in visual images.

I would take the private language to be at its strongest when it is a straightforward rejection of Cartesian absolute privacy. There are always outward signs of any "inner" experience. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I agree with that - whole-heartedly. But, coming back to philosophy after a long break, it seems clear to me that the philosophical context has changed.
There's a group of arguments dating back to the last century (which is not so long in philosophy) that I think of as neo-dualist. They seem to ignore the PLA, but nonetheless not so easily refuted by it. Bats, Mary's room, philosophical zombies. Not to mention the advances in neurology.

This jives with a broadly enactivist view. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Yes. I'll sign up to that.

If a stronger formulation is taken, e.g. that private rule following is impossible because of the possibility of unknown error — Count Timothy von Icarus

That's not quite how I take it, though I admit that W says much that looks as if that's what it's about. I would argue that the real point is that there is nothing that would count as error. There's no distinction between right and wrong, which means that "right" and "wrong" have no application to a private rule. Which makes it difficult to explain what the force of the rule is.

this seems to actually follow on for social rule following too, — Count Timothy von Icarus

Well, I would accept that if there is social agreement on how a rule applies in a new situation, that's how it applies. Rules of etiquette, for example. Linguistic rules.

So, with the lion, it seems clear we should know what "please bring more zebra steaks sir," means if the lion says it. However, there also seems to be a sense in which the lion's inner experience, which corresponds to outward signs, is more hidden from us because we do not share the same "form of life." Yet per the topic of this thread, I do think mammals might be said to share some sort of "form of life;" we can recognize each other's emotional states decently after all. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Quite so. The lion is, perhaps, not a typical example. Our interaction with lions is, perhaps, a bit limited. I'm sure you know that there are many other cases where we can already distinguish what many in the field are happy to call linguistic behaviour - even in bees.

And this seems true for any thought to me. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I wouldn't disagree with that.

In theory, it seems possible that given enough observations we might be able to determine to some degree "what a person is thinking about." But then the person's body is itself a sign of inner changes, which of course Wittgenstein seems to suggest. The body is just an imperfect sign in this respect, in part because we have a useful capacity for deception. — Count Timothy von Icarus

There's no doubt that looking at it more closely shows a much closer relationship between body and mind than traditional dualism would want to recognize.

This is in line with Augustinian semiotics. The body is sacramental, an outward sign of inner/higher realities. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I'm not sure that I understand this. But if you are saying that the Augustinian view that W seems to posit as his target has a bit more to be said for it than is usually recognized, I'll agree with you. It must be right that we learn language by observing and imitating the people around us. It's the focus on names that's the big issue.
Higher/lower realities are a bit mysterious to me. They're all equally real, after all.

We can understand the meaning of a word, say the German word for "village" and have not the first clue how to use it in a sentence. — Count Timothy von Icarus

If there is a word for "village" in the German language then its use/meaning must be very similar to its use/meaning in English, because that's what it means for there to be 'a German word for "village"'. The only sense in which a fluent English speaker does not have "the first clue" how to use the German word for "village" in a sentence is that they do not speak German.

Yet we can also know how to use words without knowing what they mean. For example, plenty of people use "e.g." "QED," "i.e.," or "amen," correctly without knowing what they mean. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Arguably, if they know how to use these terms then they know what they mean, so in what sense do they not know what these terms mean? The fact that they do not know the origins of these terms or what "e.g." or "QED" stand for? I'm sure most of us do not know the etymology for most of the words we use, but I wouldn't consider that to be the only or the best measure of knowing their meanings.

Bats, Mary's room, philosophical zombies. — Ludwig V

I will quote myself quoting someone else:

would probably be that analytics cut themselves off from most pre-analytic philosophy, did everything "in-house" which entailed a lot of reinventing of the wheel in ways that look horribly philistine and only appeal to a very specific niche of people who like goofy decontextualized thought experiments, [...] — Lionino

Well, I would accept that if there is social agreement on how a rule applies in a new situation, that's how it applies. Rules of etiquette, for example. Linguistic rules.

Right, but you see the problem here right? How does any individual ever know that they are properly chastising someone for following a rule wrong? Per Wittgenstein, they can't be sure that they ever understand a rule.

Also how do people let someone know that they are following a rule wrong? For a person to know that they are being told that they are in error they must already be following at least enough of the rules to be able to get the message. More importantly, how can the individual be sure that they are being corrected, and that they are being correctly corrected instead of being corrected in error?

Wittgenstein has left the door open on a new sort of radical skepticism, one where a member in a language community can never be sure if they are really following a rule or just think they are. After all, for any rule someone thinks they are following there are infinitely many other rules that would dictate the same exact behaviors. Rule following is always underdetermined. But this is true for every member of the community, both as a whole and as individuals. People can never be sure if others are actually agreeing with them, if they are misinterpreting the rules, or if others are misinterpreting the rules. Everything is underdetermined in the private case, but the public case doesn't actually resolve the issues brought up to indict private rule following.

I personally think Wittgenstein never fully got away from Russell and Hume's influence re causation. That is, the influence that made him write:

5.1361 The events of the future cannot be inferred from those of the present. Superstition is the belief in the causal nexus.

Part of what helps cement rules though is causal consequence. Bad applied math results in bad consequences regardless of what the majority thinks for instance.

Hence he could never really pin down rules outside of "custom," which in turn leaves them floating free from the world in an infinite sea of "possible rules." He thinks he can rely on a sort of "democratization" to fix this problem and it isn't clear that it can do the job. And when it comes to cognitive relativism, he seems to have just recreated Cartesian skepticism with extra steps.

The "form of life," might be able to solve this issue, but not if people can be skeptical about which forms of life they belong to.

Per Wittgenstein, they can't be sure that they ever understand a rule. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I do not think he is a skeptic with regard to rule following. There is, for example, a right way of following the rules of addition. If someone does not add correctly they are corrected. If someone makes a move in chess that violates the rules they are corrected. It does not matter what they might or might not understand as long as what they do follows the established rules. But it would be quite odd if someone did not understand the rules and yet consistently acted in accordance with them.

5.1361 The events of the future cannot be inferred from those of the present. Superstition is the belief in the causal nexus.

There is a difference between human beings acting in compliance with established rules and the question of whether nature obeys rules. It makes sense to say that if someone does not follow the rules of a game she may be playing a different game, but does it make sense to say that if the sun does not rise tomorrow it is playing a different game?

Hence he could never really pin down rules outside of "custom," which in turn leaves them floating free from the world in an infinite sea of "possible rules." — Count Timothy von Icarus

Are you claiming that there are transcendent, fixed, eternal laws that human beings should follow that Wittgenstein fails to account for? One possibility might be prohibitions against killing, but although I would not say that there is an infinite sea of possible rules regarding killing, distinctions are made with regard to such things as species, war, self-defense, and euthanasia, and on which side one comes down on has not been adequately determined. None of this should be placed at the feet of Wittgenstein.

How does any individual ever know that they are properly chastising someone for following a rule wrong? Per Wittgenstein, they can't be sure that they ever understand a rule — Count Timothy von Icarus

It is not that we forget what we have learned concerning how to follow a rule, it’s that the initial information is always inadequate to continually follow it. Wedon’t apply a rule like a picture, we USE it in contextually changing circulate that require us to go beyond the original instructions. Lee Braver explains:

Take the example of telling someone to follow a rule, say, repeatedly adding two. It isn’t that when we teach this procedure to her we don’t know what we want her to do, but that this knowledge shouldn’t be mod­eled on the picture of a mind encompassing the range of the function “Add two” in its gaze, even though our reflexive correction of a wrong answer makes it appear as if we were comparing the series coming out of her mouth
with a written list.
“When I teach someone the formation of the series . . . I surely mean him to write . . . at the hundredth place.”—Quite right; you mean it. And evidently without neces­sarily even thinking of it. This shews you how different the grammar of the verb “to mean” is from that of “to think.” And nothing is more wrong-headed than calling
meaning a mental activity! The interlocutor here argues that since we know that 1,002 should follow 1,000 when we issue the order “Add two,” a sequence not explicitly consid­ered at the time the order was issued, something queer must be plugging us into the entire series. Wittgenstein reverses the polarity of the argument.
We know what should follow 1,000 and the humble cogitative actions we find do not consciously anticipate every step—so understanding the rule must enable us to correct immediately without explicit thoughts. The mirage of the meaning-object’s containment of all future applica­tions shimmers into existence here to supplement the woefully underpow­ered act of comprehension.

In most situations, we simply follow a rule without reflection. It is only when an unexpected consequence ensues that we shift from unreflectively following a rule (or unreflectively observing someone else following it) to analytically dissecting it.

Lee Braver discusses the unreflective following of rules:

The standard view has the PLA resting on verificationism: the objection is that the private linguist cannot reliably verify the recurrence of the same sensation, since all he has to go on is his feeling that the present instance is of the same type as the previous one. Without an external check on my reidentification of the Gorignak, I cannot satisfactorily determine whether I have applied the term correctly or not, that is, whether this entity here now is a token of the same type as the one previously so baptized. My attempts to evaluate the consistency of my own applications cannot suffice because, being at the same level as the acts of identification themselves, they provide
no justification of these acts; on my own, I’m just buying multiple copies of a given newspaper to check the headlines of the first. Without such an external check, then, the difference between merely believing I am following a rule correctly and actually doing so collapses, taking the very notion of a rule, and that of language in general, with it.

Some commentators have denied that this argument appears in Witt­genstein’s discussion of PLA at all, but I find it expressed too clearly in too many texts to dismiss it entirely. However, as has been pointed out, this kind of verificationism clashes with many of his other ideas, in particular his frequent claims that we neither have nor need justification to carry out many rule-governed activities perfectly well, a claim that, in fact, often appears within his discussions of private language. For example: “‘but when I in my own case distinguish between, say, pretending that I have pain and really having pain, surely I must make this distinction on some grounds!’
Oddly enough—no!—I do distinguish but not on any grounds.” Wittgenstein believes that every interpretation must bottom out in some unjustifiable immediate reaction in order to escape the infinite regress of interpretive rule-following, so demanding an overt justification for the correct recognition of sensations even to be conceiv­able seems odd. I believe that Wittgenstein uses verification to indicate the purposelessness rather than the intrinsic incoherence of private language­ games, as clearly stated here: “you have to remind yourself of the use to get
out of the rut in which all these expressions tend to keep you. The whole point of investigating the ‘verification,’ e.g., is to stress the importance of the use as opposed to that of the picture.”

I personally think Wittgenstein never fully got away from Russell and Hume's influence re causation. That is, the influence that made him write:

5.1361 The events of the future cannot be inferred from those of the present. Superstition is the belief in the causal nexus.

Part of what helps cement rules though is causal consequence. Bad applied math results in bad consequences regardless of what the majority thinks for instance — Count Timothy von Icarus

I think Wittgenstein is closer to the phenomenologists and poststructuralists in his critique of efficient causation that he is to Hume or Russell. The contextually sensitive, unreflective kind of skilled behavior he is pointing to in actual rule following behavior involves reciprocal causality, a back and forth adjustment of meaning sense between the unfolding matter and one’s conceptually informed response to it. Efficient cause ignores the shifts in sense that contextually unfolding situations produce. The shift from one language game to another is merely a more exaggerated kind of reciprocally developing change in sense than what occurs in any interchange.

Metaphysics attempts to escape one’s worldview or form of life in order to latch onto something that transcends all perspectives, something that can rule on and rule over all individual views; but the entities posited as
transcending all systems, such as Truth or Reality in-itself or God are, like Hegel’s thing-in-itself-for-us, posited by and only function within systems. These systems or games can be incommensurable, with no possibility of common measurement or neutral judge, a Great Umpire in the Sky. “Some­body may reply like a rational person and yet not be playing our game.”
We should say no more than that their behavior is just not what makes sense to us: “there’s only one thing that can be wrong with the meaning of a word, and that is that it is unnatural . . . unnatural for us. . . . We just don’t go on in that way.”182 While we cannot take up a wholly external point of view, we can inhabit ours critically, without the illusions of metaphysical grounding.

This incommensurability also means that we cannot get the players of strange language-games to start acting normally (that is, as we do) simply by reasoning with them, since the very thing we’re trying to teach them is
our way of reasoning. Just as a child isn’t rationalized through arguments— were she susceptible to arguments, she would already be rational—but through training, so bringing others to think as we do happens through
nonrational means. Supposing we met people who did not regard [the propositions of physics] as a tell­ing reason. Now, how do we imagine this? Instead of the physicist, they consult an oracle. (And for that we consider them primitive.) Is it wrong for them to consult an oracle and be guided by it?—If we call this “wrong” aren’t we using our language­ game as a base from which to combat theirs? (Lee Braver)

I do not think he is a skeptic with regard to rule following. There is, for example, a right way of following the rules of addition. If someone does not add correctly they are corrected. If someone makes a move in chess that violates the rules they are corrected. It does not matter what they might or might not understand as long as what they do follows the established rules. But it would be quite odd if someone did not understand the rules and yet consistently acted in accordance with them.

This is almost certainly correct. His entire later philosophy would collapse if we couldn't follow rules.

The problem as I see it is that his arguments (if they can be called that) for rejecting private rule following don't seem to limit the problems he identified to private rule following. They apply equally to public rule following.

Of course we can say: "but this is no issue. It would be a total violation of common sense to say we can't follow public rules. When someone violates a rule in chess we can see it and point it out to them."

But of course this is entirely true of private rule following too. Private rules are pretty common sensical. We can make up our own rules, write them down, try to follow them, and when we break them we seem to be able to determine when this has occured.

Now some Wittgenstein commentators might have it that all that is required is that we learn "what a rule is," in a social context. This seems much more agreeable to me, but I don't think it's what Wittgenstein is saying.

There is a difference between human beings acting in compliance with established rules and the question of whether nature obeys rules. It makes sense to say that if someone does not follow the rules of a game she may be playing a different game, but does it make sense to say that if the sun does not rise tomorrow it is playing a different game?

Right, but the questions I think his philosophy points to is: "from whence rules? Why are they useful? How do we come to understand them? Why are they natural to human behavior?"

Presumably, if nature "follows rules" it is in a way that is at best analogous to how we follow them.

Are you claiming that there are transcendent, fixed, eternal laws that human beings should follow that Wittgenstein fails to account for?

No, what can't be accounted for is "why do we have the rules we do? Why do they evolve the way they do? Why do disparate cultures that developed in relative isolation often develop similar rules? What is the relationship between our preferences, the world, and how we change our rules?"

Since the rules are presumably not springing forth from our heads like Athena from Zeus it seems like an explanation is wanting here as a sort of obvious "next steps for inquiry."

Wittgenstein believes that every interpretation must bottom out in some unjustifiable immediate reaction in order to escape the infinite regress of interpretive rule-following, so demanding an overt justification for the correct recognition of sensations even to be conceiv­able seems odd.

Indeed. Although the question: "where do rules come from?" would seem to offer another route away from the infinite regress.

The problem as I see it is that his arguments (if they can be called that) for rejecting private rule following don't seem to limit the problem to private rule following. They apply equally to public rule following. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I don't understand the shift from the problem private rule following to public rule following.

"from whence rules? — Count Timothy von Icarus

I think the answer is one that you seem to reject - convention. Given our species nature the rules from one group to another will have much in common based on our needs and characteristics as a species.

Presumably, if nature "follows rules" it is in a way that is at best analogous to how we follow them. — Count Timothy von Icarus

One fundamental difference is that we can choose to follow certain rules or not.

Why do disparate cultures that developed in relative isolation often develop similar rules? — Count Timothy von Icarus

Speaking generally, as a social species it is likely that there are norms of living together that promote the success of the group. These can be codified, but I do not think they are the result of prior agreement between members of the group. Other social species have their own rules and norms.

I think the answer is one that you seem to reject - convention. Given our species nature the rules from one group to another will have much in common based on our needs and characteristics as a species.

I don't reject it. It's a fine answer. It's just incomplete. It's like if someone asked for an explanation of rain and stopping at "it falls from the clouds."

"Clouds" is a fine answer, although perhaps trivial. The interpretation I dislike is the one that says that to ask "why are their clouds and why do they produce rain?" is to have become bewitched or fallen into incoherence.