"Family resemblances" is not an "idea" or "theory" that can be proved wrong. It's a vague metaphor that one could call "true" so long as there are any shared similarities between whatever one considers to be a "language-game," (which is also a term that is left vague).

How could it possibly be "proven wrong?" Under what conditions could it possibly be said to be false? Surely all "language games" could always be said to share some constellation of features or they would not be 'all language games.' And this is particularly true because "language game" itself has no firm definition.

The question is not: "is it wrong? " but "is it so broad as to be trivial?" i.e. "all languages must share some things, but I shall not identify any," is a claim that really doesn't say anything of substance, (nor is it a novel claim). Perhaps it was less trivial when it was written. My point is that given advances in the study of language it is certainly now too trivial to warrant much attention. It's main 'benefit' is that it's so completely vague as to be a Rorschach test that theorists can paint anything on they'd like. But this is precisely what makes it a bad way of speaking with rigor, everyone can bring to it whatever meaning they like. That's what I can't imagine Wittgenstein wanting to stick with. The extreme vagueness always struck me as a way to avoid being open to criticisms, but I don't think it was a "feature" in and of itself the way it would be for later "Wittgensteinians."*

I'm not talking about: "this is a claim that has been disproven," I am saying "this level of vagueness is no longer necessary or helpful; there now exist ways to describe similarities in languages, animal communication, and codes with much more rigor—to actually say something beyond the trivial and banal." We might make a similar move in getting rid of the concept of "game" and moving to the broader concept of "system," (which seems to be far more common in linguistics). For one, games like chess pretty much just are their rules and it is not clear that this is true for languages. For languages, rules can be discussed in terms of more fundemental contrasts, limiting the combinatorial explosion of possible sentences, in terms of strengthening redundancy, etc. But then these are things posterior to the rules (and indeed rules seem more flexible and change more often than contrasts like the number of evidentials, plural vs singular vs dual, etc.)

*And I should note that plenty of Wittgensteinians make admirable attempts to dispell the vagueness, even at the risk of theories that sound wildly counterintuitive and implausible. It is only a certain type that seems to really thrive on the vagueness and the ability to avoid error by never really saying anything of substance.

"Family resemblances" is not an "idea" or "theory" that can be proved wrong. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I mean, it would be shown wrong if all concepts had precise, singular definitions that strictly characterized all their exemplars in the same way.

And I'm sure many concepts actually do have sufficiently precise definitions, maybe most saliently in scientific contexts. So I am not sure I would conflate "triviality" with generality.

I think you are confusing some type of pathological vagueness that exists in a theory with what is simply a statement about how we use language in vague and fuzzy ways.

My point is that given advances in the study of language it is certainly now too trivial to warrant much attention. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I don't really understand what you mean here by warrant attention. You either agree with the claim or you don't. People can do advanced, even rigorous, linguistics study about the structure of language and still agree with the notion of family resemblance. So unless you are suggesting that modern linguistic contradicts it, I don't understand the consequence of what you are saying. It's like saying that someone who studied the mating behavior of a certain kind of insect is not interested in questions about the definition of life - so what? People interested in specialist linguistic fields are not necessarily going to be interested in a more general concept from the philosophy of language. I suspect you conflate Wittgenstein's philosophical arguments and rhetoric against the logical positivism at the time for a full-blown scientific theory of language which it clearly is not.

We might make a similar move in getting rid of the concept of "game" and moving to the broader concept of "system," (which seems to be far more common in linguistics). — Count Timothy von Icarus

I mean, system is just as vague as "game". When you try to characterize concepts like "systems" or maybe something like "information" and then do a survey of all the kinds of concepts of something like "information" in various fields / perspectives / contexts and how they differ but may also have commonalities which do not have a single, rigorous definition - well then family resemblances speak for themselves.

So I am not sure I would conflate "triviality" with generality.

Not necessarily. That's why I asked the question: can you think of any conditions in which it could be judged false?

I have no idea why you thought I was referring to the vague concept of "family resemblance" in the first place and not PI65's far more provocative claim that there is no way to define what is common to all languages.

I don't really understand what you mean here by warrant attention. You either agree with the claim or you don't. People can do advanced, even rigorous, linguistics study about the structure of language and still agree with the notion of family resemblance. So unless you are suggesting that modern linguistic contradicts it, I don't understand the consequence of what you are saying. It's like saying that someone who studied the mating behavior of a certain kind of insect is not interested in questions about the definition of life - so what? People interested in specialist linguistic fields are not necessarily going to be interested in a more general concept from the philosophy of language. I suspect you conflate Wittgenstein's philosophical arguments and rhetoric against the logical positivism at the time for a full-blown scientific theory of language which it clearly is not.

I don't. My comments were specifically in the context of that section being supplied in defense of the cognitive relativism thesis, and my point is that it's too vague to usefully say anything about it on its own. The comment on PI65 was ancillary, but to explain:

Wittgenstein draws attention to his own vagueness in PI65. He says "yup, I am dodging the question and refusing to answer it," but then seems to imply that this is because the question cannot be answered, and this is what my objection is to. That is, "there is no one thing" languages share, no specific thing(s) to point to in categorizing and defining them. What I was objecting to is the idea that such vagueness has to be how we speak of language because it isn't possible to do better.

Hence the reference to information theory. It turns out there do seems to be things all physical systems of communication must share if they are to communicate at all. And there are lots of things we can say about the throughput of codes, redundancy, etc. and these do indeed seem to explain a good deal about human language and its structure.

Actually, TLP has some interesting things to say on this even if it was a massive oversimplification and couldn't explain how even the most basic sentences "map to the world." I think Wittgenstein's initial disappointment may have swung him a bit too far over towards seeing difficulties vis-á-vis language as insoluble, and cognitive relativism represents the interpretation of the late Wittgenstein that seems to make virtually every question insoluble.

there now exist ways to describe similarities in languages and codes with much more rigor." — Count Timothy von Icarus

Well, that may be so. I wouldn't want to comment on what linguistics does any more than I want to comment on what mathematics does. But if you are claiming that what linguistics has done replaces what philosophers do, that demands a different kind of consideration. I would expect to find that the agenda of linguistics is different from the agenda of philosophy. How far the ideas of one impact on the ideas of the other is a tricky question.

The question is not: "is it wrong " but "is it so broad as to be trivial," i.e. "all languages must share some things, but I shall not identify any," is a claim that really doesn't say anything of substance, (nor is it a novel claim). — Count Timothy von Icarus

I don't think that's quite fair to Wittgenstein.

In the first place, I don't think the idea of language-games is an analysis of language. He uses it and intends to use it, as a tactic or approach to high-light specific features of languages. In the second place, he doesn't apply this idea only to language. For example, he argues that all games must share some things. On the contrary, as he compares specific games, he can point out specific things that they share and other things that they don't share, case by case. There's not even any need for a comprehensive list of all the things that any two games might share; the concept is dynamic and new cases can come up at any time.

But there are cases where a similar vagueness suits the particular needs of other sciences. For example, the biological definition of life lists certain characteristics which are important to consider, without committing all of them being instantiated in any particular case. Or again, lists of symptoms in medicine are not always offered on the basis that all of them will be instantiated in every case. On the contrary, the symptoms are a range of considerations which it is relevant to consider when making a diagnosis. In the case of COVID there seems to be no expectation that the list will ever be closed.

Hence the reference to information theory. It turns out there do seems to be things all physical systems of communication must share if they are to communicate at all. And there are lots of things we can say about the throughput of codes, redundancy, etc. and these do indeed seem to explain a good deal about human language and its structure. — Count Timothy von Icarus

This suggests to me that language is being seen as an abstract structure. Which I don't object to. It can be very useful. But it is not the only approach and not always useful. The big differences between TLP and PI is that language is regarded as an abstract structure, subject to logical analysis. In the PI it is regarded as a collection of practices which are part of all the other practices that go to make up a life. True, there are departments of linguistics that are more like this, but you don't seem to be talking about them. But they stand a much better chance of producing more rigorous versions of Wittgenstein's idea.

I have no idea why you thought I was referring to the vague concept of "family resemblance" in the first place and not PI65's far more provocative claim that there is no way to define what is common to all languages. — Count Timothy von Icarus

That passage is clearly talking about family resemblances imo.

What I was objecting to is the idea that such vagueness has to be how we speak of language because it isn't possible to do better. — Count Timothy von Icarus

But surely "doing better" is just specifying the multifarious different ways language is used, which would only further validate rather than invalidate the idea.

My comments were specifically in the context of that section being supplied in defense of the cognitive relativism thesis — Count Timothy von Icarus

Fair enough. I don't view Wittgenstein in terms of relativism.

Hence the reference to information theory. It turns out there do seems to be things all physical systems of communication must share if they are to communicate at all. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I think think bringing information theory or any other framework into it only emphasizes the validity of family resemblances. Information theory is highly idealized and isn't specifically about language. Neither does information theory by itself does not deal with all the things language can do. It can only describe aspects of what characterizes language and I am sure in many areas of the study of language it is useless. Its more a tool someone can use for study rather than a way of defining what languages are.

I think Wittgenstein's initial disappointment may have swung him a bit too far over towards seeing difficulties vis-á-vis language as insoluble — Count Timothy von Icarus

I don't see the issue this way, similar to how the difficulties of defining life has nothing to do with the difficulties in studying the details of what living things do. They are not really related.

For example, the biological definition of life lists certain characteristics which are important to consider, without committing all of them being instantiated in any particular case. Or again, lists of symptoms in medicine are not always offered on the basis that all of them will be instantiated in every case. — Ludwig V

Very good point.

An aspect of form of life that is important here is that it is not just language.

Some folk mistakenly understand "language game" as referring to games played only with words. The examples - the builder, the grocer - show that language games inherently involve interaction with the things in the world, with blocks and slabs and apples and charts.

Also, the argument in the quote from Grayling in the OP is pretty much the argument Davidson presented in "On the very idea of a conceptual scheme". Davidson's triangulation of speaker, interpreter and truth comes in to play here, at least as a first approximation.

Forms of life cannot be incommensurable because they must all occur embedded in our activities in the world. So despite not being able to speak Chinese (an increasingly inappropriate example for all sorts of reasons) we will recognise a Chinese builder or grocer by their activities.

That someone is following a rule is shown by what they do. Indeed, there is in a strong sense nothing more to the rule than what one does in a particular circumstance. There is no "understand rules as we do... following the same rules, etc." apart from what we do in particular case. The rule is not understood by setting it out in words, but by enacting it.

What one says has less import than what one does. And what is meant by "this form of life" is displayed by what one does - don't look for a form of life just in language, look at what is being done.

Folk are following the same rule as you if they do what you would do.

The words of a "metaphysician" are not so much nonsense as irrelevant. It's what they do that counts. To take a hackneyed example, an extreme metaphysics might hold that we can say nothing about things outside of our perception. So they can say nothing about the cup when it is put in the cupboard - not even that the cup is in the cupboard. But if, when you ask them for the cup, they open the cupboard and retrieve it, they put the lie to their metaphysics by their acts.

Forms of life are fastened together by all of them occurring in the world.

"Family resemblances" is not an "idea" or "theory" that can be proved wrong. It's a vague metaphor that one could call "true" so long as there are any shared similarities between whatever one considers to be a "language-game," (which is also a term that is left vague). — Count Timothy von Icarus

I am saying "this level of vagueness is no longer necessary or helpful; there now exist ways to describe similarities in languages, animal communication, and codes with much more rigor—to actually say something beyond the trivial and banal." — Count Timothy von Icarus

*And I should note that plenty of Wittgensteinians make admirable attempts to dispell the vagueness, even at the risk of theories that sound wildly counterintuitive and implausible. It is only a certain type that seems to really thrive on the vagueness and the ability to avoid error by never really saying anything of substance. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Interestingly enough, Wittgenstein has some interesting things to say about vagueness of concepts.

From PI 71, "One might say that the concept 'game' is a concept with blurred edges. "But is a blurred concept a concept at all?" Is an indistinct photograph a picture of a person at all? Is it even always an advantage to replace an indistinct picture by a sharp one? Isn't the indistinct one often exactly what we need?
Frege compares a concept to an area and says that an area with vague boundaries cannot be called an area at all. This presumably means that we cannot do anything with it. But is it senseless to say "Stand roughly there?" Suppose that I were standing with someone in a city square and said that. As I say it I do not draw any kind of boundary, but perhaps point with my hand-as if I were indicating a particular spot. And this is just how one might explain to someone what a game is. One gives examples and intends them to be taken in a particular way. I do not, however, mean by this that he is supposed to see in those examples that common thing which I-for some reason-was unable to express; but that he is now to employ those examples in a particular way. Here giving examples is not an indirect means of explaining-in default of a better. For any general definition can be misunderstood too. The point is that this is how we play the game. (I mean the language-game with the word "game")."

Sometimes a concept works better with some degree of vagueness. This is an important quality to have with language. I can think of no better example of this than John Searle's analysis of "Proper Names."
In his analysis, he ask if proper names are just a set of descriptions. What follows in his conclusion is that proper names perform a great function in language by not being precise descriptions. He says (pg 171, Proper Names) "But this precision would be achieved only at the cost of entailing some specific predicates by any referring use of the name. Indeed, the name itself would become superfluous for it would become logically equivalent to this set of descriptions. But if this were the case we would be in the position of only being able to refer to an object by describing it. Whereas in fact this is just what the institution of proper names enables us to avoid and what distinguishes proper names from descriptions."

Interestingly enough, Wittgenstein has some interesting things to say about vagueness of concepts. ... Is an indistinct photograph a picture of a person at all? — Richard B

Bertrand Russell took this line in his essay on vagueness.

As a Peircean, one would point out that there is epistemic and ontic versions of the vagueness issue. Russell dismissed the ontic as bad picture of a person could always have been taken with proper lighting, the blurred face in the mirror can always be made clear by giving the mirror a proper polish.

Epistemic vagueness is not really much of an issue. What becomes the interesting issue is whether it is meaningful to describe reality itself as being ontically vague in any proper or useful sense. And a Peircean might rather think it does.

The whole of existence might be rooted in vagueness, and made dialectically crisp only to some pragmatic degree. Potentiality can be constrained into forms and so become substantial. Yet still any substantial state never fully erases its tychic capacity to surprise.

Quantum theory came along and rather illustrated that. We can renormalise the heck out of the quantum field theory representation of a particle. But eventually we must pragmatically "take the limit" and claim the exactness we can't actually demonstrate.

:up: :up: :clap: Pretty nice description, I thought.

Also, the argument in the quote from Grayling in the OP is pretty much the argument Davidson presented in "On the very idea of a conceptual scheme". Davidson's triangulation of speaker, interpreter and truth comes in to play here, at least as a first approximation.

Forms of life cannot be incommensurable because they must all occur embedded in our activities in the world. So despite not being able to speak Chinese (an increasingly inappropriate example for all sorts of reasons) we will recognise a Chinese builder or grocer by their activities… Forms of life are fastened together by all of them occurring in the world. — Banno

If I can’t persuade another to take on the form of life necessary to make my actions intelligible to them, then don’t those actions continue to appear incommensurable with their form of life? Do forms of life simply occur in a pre-given world , an objective world for all, or do different forms of life develop the world in different directions? Is there not a sense in which worlds are intersubjectively constructed through forms of life?

Fair enough. I don't view Wittgenstein in terms of relativism. — Apustimelogist

My problem is that I don't understand exactly what cognitive relativism is - the usual problem with an "-ism". I woud like to know what the alternative might be - cognitive absolutism?

To take a hackneyed example, an extreme metaphysics might hold that we can say nothing about things outside of our perception. So they can say nothing about the cup when it is put in the cupboard - not even that the cup is in the cupboard. But if, when you ask them for the cup, they open the cupboard and retrieve it, they put the lie to their metaphysics by their acts. — Banno

You draw that conlusion. I draw that conclusion. But do they drawn that conclusion? No. What follows?

Forms of life cannot be incommensurable because they must all occur embedded in our activities in the world. So despite not being able to speak Chinese (an increasingly inappropriate example for all sorts of reasons) we will recognise a Chinese builder or grocer by their activities. — Banno

The tricky bit is that divining a form of life may be, in many cases, a question of interpretation. As in anthropomorphization and personification.

Is there not a sense in which worlds are intersubjectively constructed through forms of life? — Joshs

I would rather have said that forms of life are intersubjectively worked out in the world.

I can think of no better example of this than John Searle's analysis of "Proper Names." In his analysis, he asks if proper names are just a set of descriptions. What follows in his conclusion is that proper names perform a great function in language by not being precise descriptions. — Richard B

I didn't know that's where it came from. Isn't it also relied on by Kripke? It seems to me a most plausible idea.

Epistemic vagueness is not really much of an issue. What becomes the interesting issue is whether it is meaningful to describe reality itself as being ontically vague in any proper or useful sense. And a Peircean might rather think it does. — apokrisis

"ontically" confuses me. It seems to me fairly obvious that "vague" is often a classification derived from the interaction of standards of clarify with the facts.

That someone is following a rule is shown by what they do. Indeed, there is in a strong sense nothing more to the rule than what one does in a particular circumstance. There is no "understand rules as we do... following the same rules, etc." apart from what we do in particular case. The rule is not understood by setting it out in words, but by enacting it.

What one says has less import than what one does. And what is meant by "this form of life" is displayed by what one does - don't look for a form of life just in language, look at what is being done.

Folk are following the same rule as you if they do what you would do.

Wouldn't this just be behaviorism?

But let's say two people are following different rules for some activity. They would both describe the ruleset in different ways and they understand these rules as well as anyone ever understands a rule.

Now lets say that whatever game or activity they are involved in just so happens to provoke identical responses from them. Are they then following the same rule because they had the same responses?

What if the activity has multiple "rounds." They do the same thing for the first two rounds, but in the third the conditions change and their rulesets each tell them to do different things. Now they do different things. Were they following the same rule right up until they began acting differently?

If not, then it seems like behaviorism is missing something.

This works for Turing Machines just as well. We can easily set up machines that will have identical outputs whenever the input is a positive number, but which will have differing outputs if the input is a negative number. You could achieve this very easily by just wrapping the initial input in an absolute value function in one of the computations.

In this case, I think it's pretty clear that they aren't the same Turing Machine setup, even when the input is a positive number and they have an identical output. The operations are different. And on any account similar to computational theory of mind (or really any sort of account of mental events in terms of superveniance) you will also always have differences when people understand rules in different ways. They just might not be easy to observe.

But there are cases where a similar vagueness suits the particular needs of other sciences. For example, the biological definition of life lists certain characteristics which are important to consider, without committing all of them being instantiated in any particular case.

There is no "One True Feature," to point to for defining life, but we generally don't have much disagreement over whether prions or self-replicating silicon crystals are alive. At least, I have never come across a biologist attempting to argue that silicon crystals are alive. But processes involving self-replicating crystals, "DNA computers," prions, etc. could certainly be said to share a "family resemblance," with life. Indeed, all sorts of thermodynamic processes that have selection-like effects could have some sort of resemblance to life. Is a fossil alive? Does it have the right sort of family resemblance? Obviously, to answer the second question means being a specific about what might constitute such a resemblance.

And this is the problem with vague metaphors, they seem to cover too much. If the relation in question is left vague it seems like it could stretch anywhere it wants.

Contrast this with something like computational theory of mind. CTM might very well be a bad theory, I sort of think it is. But it does say something definite enough to be disproven or supported.

"ontically" confuses me. — Ludwig V

Can Nature be actually indeterminate and not just always determinate? Is there a state where there is no fact of the matter, and thus not even properly any "state"?

What characterises the future in term of its unexpressed possibilities? What came "before" the Big Bang if the Big Bang was the start of everything, including time and space?

It could be quite useful in metaphysical discussion to have this dialectic of the vague and crisp as then you can see how the actuality of reality is always somewhere on the spectrum that thus exists in-between. Nothing is either completely determinate or completely undetermined. And this offers a different metaphysical frame for how we imagine Nature.

We shift from talking about yes or no absolutes – such as determinism – to graded relativities. That gives us more options that might better fit what we see. To exist can always be some mix of the definitely constrained and the radically free. As in chance and necessity.

Is there not a sense in which worlds are intersubjectively constructed through forms of life? — Joshs

Sure. In the world.

Wouldn't this just be behaviorism? — Count Timothy von Icarus

Well, no. It's not about conditioning.

You then go on to describe situations that differ yet to suppose that they are in some way the same. I don't see the relevance. You set up your Turing machines, and therefore set the differences.

If your point I that different "metaphysical positions" might produce identical actions, then I agree.

Can Nature be actually indeterminate and not just always determinate? Is there a state where there is no fact of the matter, and thus not even properly any "state"? — apokrisis

These questions don't help me much. What is Nature? What does "actually" mean in the phrase "actually indeterminate"? Where there is no fact of the matter, there is no state. By definition. Assuming conventional views about how language works.

We shift from talking about yes or no absolutes – such as determinism – to graded relativities. That gives us more options that might better fit what we see. — apokrisis

I'm sympatheric. But I'm not sure that "graded" necessarily implies "relativities". The colour spectrum is a series of graded stages in a continuum, all of which is, in a sense, deterministic (definite). To say that "exist" can always be something implies by the same token that it can always be something else.

To exist can always be some mix of the definitely constrained and the radically free. As in chance and necessity. — apokrisis

This doesn't convey any clear meaning to me. Perhaps I'm just being dense.

There is no "One True Feature," to point to for defining life, but we generally don't have much disagreement over whether prions or self-replicating silicon crystals are alive. — Count Timothy von Icarus

That's true. Family resemblances don't necessarily result in disagreement. It's just that decisions are made, not on the basis of a single, conclusive, criterion, but on various criteria, different in different cases. Think of how we talk about the resemblances between member of a family.

Is a fossil alive? Does it have the right sort of family resemblance? Obviously, to answer the second question means being a specific about what might constitute such a resemblance. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Pedantically, I think you must mean "was a fossil alive". You are right. We can be (but may not be) quite specific about the criteria that determine each case. It's just that different critieria apply in different cases.

My point is that if people are thinking about rules differently then there is a difference, regardless of whether or not their behaviors are identical. Your wife might act the same way if she feels duty bound or somehow coerced into acting like she loves you as if she really loved you, but surely her interpretation of what she is doing (playing the loving wife versus being in love) matters.

So, my disagreement would be with:

That someone is following a rule is shown by what they do. Indeed, there is in a strong sense nothing more to the rule than what one does in a particular circumstance. There is no "understand rules as we do... following the same rules, etc." apart from what we do in particular case.

Pedantically, I think you must mean "was a fossil alive". You are right. We can be (but may not be) quite specific about the criteria that determine each case. It's just that different critieria apply in different cases.

Actually, I meant "is." A fossil bears a close resemblance to the organism it is a fossil of. This could be considered a "family resemblance" in the metaphorical sense, no?

We can be (but may not be) quite specific about the criteria that determine each case. It's just that different critieria apply in different cases.

Right, well, this is precisely what my comment was on. Wittgenstein knows he is being vague. He calls himself out on it. And he seems to say "yup, but what can you do?" Well, I think we can do better. If you're vague enough, you can avoid ever being "wrong" (a plus I suppose), but potentially at the cost of triviality.

My point is that if people are thinking about rules differently then there is a difference, regardless of whether or not their behaviors are identical. Your wife might act the same way if she feels duty bound or somehow coerced into acting like she loves you as if she really loved you, but surely her interpretation of what she is doing (playing the loving wife versus being in love) matters. — Count Timothy von Icarus

This just shows a misunderstanding of "rule".

Well I agree, but I don't think it's on my part. A rule isn't just "whenever behavior is the same." I don't take it this is what PI is trying to say either.

But I'm not sure that "graded" necessarily implies "relativities". The colour spectrum is a series of graded stages in a continuum, all of which is, in a sense, deterministic (definite). — Ludwig V

Not a good example because colour vision is the outcome of three real cones and one virtual one that are dialectically structured into two opponent channel processes. And then mixed further with luminance information.

If we just stuck with the simplicity of luminance – the spectrum between white and black (as in the sun when it is out shining or hidden behind the horizon), then we can see how that becomes the middle ground of any number of shades of grey we find worth specifying.

And now if you want to add back hue, it could be all the reds from whitest pink to blackest scarlet. Or the same for green and blue.

This doesn't convey any clear meaning to me. Perhaps I'm just being dense. — Ludwig V

Its systems science. A system is the hierarchical story of top-down constraints shaping local degrees of freedom, and those local degrees in turn acting bottom-up to (re)construct the globally prevailing state of constraint. So in Peircean jargon, the continuity of global lawful synechism and the discreteness of local tychism or chance events.

Chance and necessity, flux and stasis, are various ways of saying the same thing, capturing the same systems logic, that should be familiar from Greek metaphysics.

A rule isn't just "whenever behavior is the same." — Count Timothy von Icarus

Yep. So where are we now?

Here is a pretty common experience if you play a lot of board games.

You play a new game. No one involved has ever seen anyone follow the game's rules before. You read the rule book and play. Eventually, there is a disagreement. Maybe even a heated one. Is x move against the rules? Should y be scored like that?

Well, not uncommonly this can be adjudicated by a close reading of the rules, such that the offended party acknowledges that they are wrong (even allowing that the rule might be a stupid one). But on an account that there is "nothing more to the rule than what one does in a particular circumstance," I'm not sure how you're supposed to explain these situations. What "one does" depends on the rules, that's the whole point of game's having rules in the first place.

You've completely reversed things, as if the reason "a bishop moves diagonally under the rules of chess," is "because people move the bishop diagonally." But quite obviously people move the bishop diagonally because they know that's the rule.

You posts do not come through on my mentions. That's somewhat discourteous.

But on an account that there is "nothing more to the rule than what one does in a particular circumstance," I'm not sure how you're supposed to explain these situations. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Learning the rules is not playing the game.

...people move the bishop diagonally because they know that's the rule. — Count Timothy von Icarus

And how does one demonstrate that they understand the rule, apart from moving the piece? There is a way of understanding a rule that is not found in stating it, but in following it or going against it in a particular case.

Learning the rules is not playing the game.

Right, learning the rules is a prerequisite to playing the game. When we play a game that is new to everyone we sit down with the rules to figure out how to play. This is because the rulebook tells you how to play. One could conceivably learn the rules of a game without ever playing a game, which is a problem for your description.

I am not aware of my mother ever playing baseball but she's been an avid fan of the Mets for their entire existence and I assure you she knows the rules of the MLB quite well, even esoterica like the infield fly rule and pitching balks.

And how does one demonstrate that they understand the rule, apart from moving the piece?

Notice you have moved to demonstration instead of understanding here. As if it would be absolutely impossible to understand a game without playing it. This is what the assertion that there is "nothing more to the rule than what one does in a particular circumstance," forces you into. Yet this is clearly not correct. If I am watching young children set up and play a simple game, e.g. Chutes and Ladders, I can very easily figure out how to play by watching them and/or consulting the rules without playing them. Likewise, I've never played or reffed NBA rules basketball with a three second violation, but I know the rules.

Plus, violating the rules does not mean you do not understand them, so the theory is broken in the other direction as well. I am sure a veteran like Jrue Holiday knows what constitutes a lane violation but he still committed an important one in the finals. Likewise, the Mavs defenders certainly know what a three second violation is and yet they still committed them and complained to the refs about it as if they hadn't broken a rule. Behavior ain't everything. Nor are refs and umps the final word; leagues have had to come out and admit to bad calls (calls contrary to the officials' behavior).

"But how do you validate that you really know them?" is, of course, a different question. By focusing solely on some sort of third party validation you end up in the same place as behaviorists and eliminitivists. Behaviorism has always struck me as very much "looking for the keys under the streetlight because that's where we can see."

A great deal of board games are developed and play-tested by people working in isolation. It seems quite odd to me to say that there are no rules until the person invites some friends or co-workers to try testing the game and that the rules only start to exist when the players begin playing, even though they are playing according to what the creator has told them. The rules only come into being when the game is played? This seems to be another case of philosophers wanting people to entertain strange ideas like Parmenides' "motion is impossible," in order to save some pet theory.

ou posts do not come through on my mentions. That's somewhat discourteous.

No idea, I just hit the reply button.

There is no "One True Feature," to point to for defining life, but we generally don't have much disagreement over whether prions or self-replicating silicon crystals are alive. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Yes, this is pretty much the point of family resemblances so I just don't really understand what you are criticizing about it when you agree with it. I feel like you are attributing more to this concept than required and criticizing it for things not intended.

Right, learning the rules is a prerequisite to playing the game. — Count Timothy von Icarus

But what is learning the rule? When they learn people are making observations, whether of behavior or via something like reading, and then subsequently there is the acting out of behavior and cognition. Thats all there is to it.

understanding — Count Timothy von Icarus

And what is understanding over and above the ability to enact or demonstrate understanding? I don't see problems here. You can say that you know that someone understands how a game works without having them doing anything at that moment. But what does that actually mean other than that you know that they will be able to enact an understanding when required to do so? Enacting may be playing the actual game correctly. Enacting may be verbally describing the rules. Enacting may be the ability to attend to an ongoing game in sequence and anticipate what will happen or be surprised when something unexpected happens. There are many ways one can enact an understanding but to me that seems to be nothing above how we behave and think in real time.

Attributing rules to the behavior is chronically underdetermined / indeterminate on some level, and this issue regresses chronically. You can observe some behavior whose description by a rule is completely indeterminate; nonetheless, a person attributes a rule anyway. But then the attribution of the rule itself corresponds to bundles of behaviors / thoughts / words which themselves can be described indeterminately... and the regression goes on. Social interaction imo doesn't necessarily validate, as such, that we indeed are following the these rules we attribute to ourselves; but it does constrain or regulate our behavior through things like agreement, disagreement, instruction, etc. Since rule attribution corresponds to behavior, then social interaction obviously also constrains or regulates our rule attributions.

(But it is not the only thing - we can obviously learn many things without social interaction, though we are still interacting with a world and trying to learn the behaviors that elicit the kind of perception / experiences / outcomes / events we want to see in the external world or even just our own internal thoughts when we are working through a problem in our own heads.)

Rule attributions never truly escape the indeterminacy and regresses, but nonetheless we learn to act anyway in appropriate ways depending on the context. For example we learn to act appropriately in regard to the context of a particular game, or some routine, or in the context of particular instructions, agreements and disagreements, etc. It doesn't matter if the rules are always in principle indeterminate, because we learn to act appropriately anyway in ways that avoid outcomes / events / experiences / perceptions we do not want to see.

I guess, from my personal perspective, the crux is that determinate rules from unshakeable foundations are not required for rule-following behavior - it does not matter if the determinacy of the word "gavagai" can always be questioned by the radical skeptic. What matters is that the word can be evoked appropriately in response or anticipation to particular events in the world. What is deemed appropriate depends on what kind of events we want to see, and attaining what we want to see will usually depend on our behavior and thought being sensitive to the actual structures of the world as accessible through our perceptions (e.g. view from anywhere to some extent). Insofar that a word like gavagai is usually used in a social context, what is appropriate for the word use then also depends on how other people use that word, and whether they agree with your use.

Yes, this is pretty much the point of family resemblances so I just don't really understand what you are criticizing about it when you agree with it. I feel like you are attributing more to this concept than required and criticizing it for things not intended.

It would be vacuous for a biologist to say "all life shares a family resemblance," and to stop there. Whatever "all life," is it must surely have some sort of resemblance to be deemed "all life" in the first place. What biologists do in reality is posit a constellation of features that make up this "family resemblance," e.g. having a metabolism, undergoing selection, etc. If one stops at the metaphor and introduces nothing else one hasn't said anything. All of being can be said to resemble all that is in some way or another.

And what is understanding over and above the ability to enact or demonstrate understanding?

Chat GPT can enact grammatical rules. Does it understand them? I would say no, understanding has a phenomenological element.

I am pretty sure every mentally capable adult has had multiple experiences where they have struggled to learn some game or set of rules and had an "oh, now I get it," moment. That's understanding. The issue of validating understanding is not the same thing as describing what understanding is, just as being in pain is not equivalent with wincing and grunting.

Attributing rules to the behavior is chronically underdetermined / indeterminate on some level, and this issue regresses chronically. You can observe some behavior whose description by a rule is completely indeterminate; nonetheless, a person attributes a rule anyway.

As a previous poster already pointed out, all empirical science is undetermined. The problem of underdetermination is about as broad as the Problem of Induction or the Scandal of Deduction. It would seem to make most knowledge impossible if one demands "absolute certainty." That's why I never found the arguments about rule following from underdetermination particularly convincing. You could make the same sort of argument about Newton's Laws, quantum mechanics—essentially all empirical claims, or about all induction. That the future is like the past is "undetermined," as is memory being reliable. Thus, the issue of under determination is as much a factor for any sort of social rule following as it is for some person designing their own board game and play testing it by themselves; democratization doesn't eliminate the issue.

But I don't think this warrants nescience vis-á-vis phenomena like "understanding a rule," that we are well acquainted with either. The demand for "absolute certainty" is the result of a good deal of ridiculousness in philosophy.

Chance and necessity, flux and stasis, are various ways of saying the same thing, capturing the same systems logic, that should be familiar from Greek metaphysics. — apokrisis

Well, the idea of interactive binary and contradictory oppositions is fairly familiar. Is it descended from the idea of dialectic? Are you saying that each term is relative to the other? In the examples you cite, that would seem to be right. But you can't mean that all systems have just two elements, surely?

Its systems science. A system is the hierarchical story of top-down constraints shaping local degrees of freedom, and those local degrees in turn acting bottom-up to (re)construct the globally prevailing state of constraint. So in Peircean jargon, the continuity of global lawful synechism and the discreteness of local tychism or chance events. — apokrisis

I'm not sure that there are not other kinds of system as well, where elements interact neither top/down nor bottom/up, but neighbour/neighbour. How does this connect to Wittgenstein?

Actually, I meant "is." A fossil bears a close resemblance to the organism it is a fossil of. This could be considered a "family resemblance" in the metaphorical sense, no? — Count Timothy von Icarus

Yes, of course you're right. It's just that that it isn't like the resemblances between one dog and another, but between a dog and a sculpture of it. We wouldn't confuse a fossil with a living member of the species, would we?

Right, well, this is precisely what my comment was on. Wittgenstein knows he is being vague. He calls himself out on it. And he seems to say "yup, but what can you do?" Well, I think we can do better. If you're vague enough, you can avoid ever being "wrong" (a plus I suppose), but potentially at the cost of triviality. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Yes, you're right. Vagueness is not necessarily OK. But I think that W has a point if he's saying that sometimes it is all you've got.
More seriously, isn't one of his targets the idea that language is a single, coherent system? There's that quotation comparing language to an old city, with an ancient mess in the middle and the regulated, systematic laying out of the suburbs. One pattern doesn't fit all here. If you reorganized your city to a single system of grids, you would have not just reorganized, but rebuilt, the city.

One could conceivably learn the rules of a game without ever playing a game, which is a problem for your description. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Here's my contention:That someone is following a rule is shown by what they do.

You seem to be addressing something else - perhaps that one could not understand the rules without showing that one understands them. Not my contention.

How does this connect to Wittgenstein? — Ludwig V

The point about vagueness in relation to the constraints of nested hierarchies was the OP issue. It was also an accusation quickly thrown at Wittgenstein's general position as – following Russell – vagueness tends to get dismissed as merely missing information. If we dig down, the information could be found.

But from my perspective – based on Peirce, systems science and hierarchy theory – that grounding presumption is quite wrong. Precisification follows instead from sharpening the constraints that limit the scope of our uncertainty. The ground of pragamatic truth becomes this top-down process of limiting our scope to be wrong. The nested hierarchy story where order arises by a relation of subsumption rather than composition.

That deals with epistemic vagueness – the natural structure of our thoughts. We apply schemata to the world in pragmatic fashion. Every division we impose on the world splits it into categories – a dialectical divide being the most informational. But every such division is also grounded in some pragmatic agreement that we "don't have any reason to care" about the details or particulars beyond the arbitrary point where we "lose interest". There are still differences to be found, but they have become the differences that don't make a difference.

Is that a lion or a tiger you ask? It is in fact a liger, I reply. Oh, then is it not more tion looking than liger looking because its mane is quite pronounced and the stripes are quite faded?

Well, I could say, at this point, do either of us really have a reason to give a stuff? The exact ratio can be consigned to a logical vagueness as the truth value for all that we say doesn't particularly matter in that general epistemic fashion.

So in a debate about nested hierarchies as epistemic representations of logical relations, vagueness does change up the game. Russell and Wittgenstein were wrong in dismissing it on the grounds they did.

And then, more interestingly to me, is the continuation of this little logical escapade into metaphysics and ontology.

Perhaps there might really be a reason that Bohr, Heisenberg and other quantum pioneers were concerned with "unsharpness" rather than "uncertainty". Maybe they were already thinking more in terms of missing global constraints rather than missing local information in their speculation about how the world could behave in its fundamental quantum way.

See for example this paper on quantum vagueness....

In classical physics, which is known to describe correctly macroscopic objects (to a hitherto practically unlimited accuracy) when quantum effects are imperceptible, all magnitudes have a definite value at any given time that can in principle be simultaneously known with certainty at that moment by their measurement, even though they may not always then be predicted with certainty; for example, when the classical evolution is chaotic, or may be difficult to measure. Hence, vagueness is considered alien to classical physics.

In the case of microscopic entities to which Quantum Mechanics pertains, there is vagueness the origin of which is substantially different. Vagueness in quantum mechanics appears endemic, arising directly from the indeterminate nature of quantum entities themselves rather than a choice of concepts within a flexible theoretical framework. Indeed, in quantum physics spatial location can be almost entirely indeterminate, such as when the momentum is specified with extremely high precision, say in the case of a free electron.

Unlike the situation of macroscopic entities with vague geographical characteristics, it is not the case that the concept electron is overdetermined in the sense that the criteria for it to have a unique spatial location—or for that matter, for it to be spatially dispersed—cannot be satisfied in principle; nor is the concept of electron underdetermined in the sense that the definitions of its physical properties are insufficiently precise.

In the case of quantum systems, properties can be considered objectively indefinite and sets of propositions regarding them complementary to specific other sets of propositions, so that it becomes impossible to jointly attribute them. Thus, quantum mechanics involves a unique form of vagueness distinct from those considered before.

It would be vacuous for a biologist to say "all life shares a family resemblance," and to stop there. Whatever "all life," is it must surely have some sort of resemblance to be deemed "all life" in the first place. What biologists do in reality is posit a constellation of features that make up this "family resemblance," e.g. having a metabolism, undergoing selection, etc. If one stops at the metaphor and introduces nothing else one hasn't said anything. All of being can be said to resemble all that is in some way or another. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I feel like this response is suspect to the same criticism I have already brought up:

I suspect you conflate Wittgenstein's philosophical arguments and rhetoric against the logical positivism at the time for a full-blown scientific theory of language which it clearly is not. — Apustimelogist

I feel like you are attributing more to this concept than required and criticizing it for things not intended. — Apustimelogist

Family resemblance isn't intended as a basis for biological theorizing. The notion of family resemblances is not intended to do any intellectual work for a biologist.

I would say no, understanding has a phenomenological element. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Not sure I would say that a lack of phenomenology is the reason why people say that chat-gp or a LLM does not have true understanding. Conversely i'm sure phenomenology can be devoid of understanding.

Neither was I ignoring phenomenology; in fact, I was always implying it. When I am thinking about my understanding, I am typically thinking about it through the lense of my own experiences when I understand something. I am thinking about understamding in terms of sequences of experiences which include my own behaviors and thoughts.

The "oh, now I get it, moment" you mention is definitely included as part of enacting or demonstrating understanding, and I have many times had that kind of thing in mind when thinking about it.

As a previous poster already pointed out, all empirical science is undetermined. The problem of underdetermination is about as broad as the Problem of Induction or the Scandal of Deduction. It would seem to make most knowledge impossible if one demands "absolute certainty." That's why I never found the arguments about rule following from underdetermination particularly convincing. You could make the same sort of argument about Newton's Laws, quantum mechanics—essentially all empirical claims, or about all induction. That the future is like the past is "undetermined," as is memory being reliable. Thus, the issue of under determination is as much a factor for any sort of social rule following as it is for some person designing their own board game and play testing it by themselves; democratization doesn't eliminate the issue. — Count Timothy von Icarus

The idea is not to resolve indeterminacy. The idea is that we enact appropriate behaviors even when a characterization of them is simultaneously indeterminate in principle. Social interaction doesn't make rules less indeterminate. We learn how to act appropriately by interacting with our environment, including the appropriate use of words when we interact socially, para-socially or whatever.

But I don't think this warrants nescience vis-á-vis phenomena like "understanding a rule," that we are well acquainted with either. The demand for "absolute certainty" is the result of a good deal of ridiculousness in philosophy — Count Timothy von Icarus

Not sure what you are saying here.