The justification is that you found the key on the table. Everything that follows the word "that" is a proposition. — frank
This sounds like you're misunderstanding what a proposition is. — frank
Perhaps. What is it about a proposition that I misunderstood? — Fooloso4
They don't have to be uttered. — frank
I think what Witt is saying there is that he demonstrates confidence in the existence of a certain chair by his behavior. Isn't that what you see there? — frank
7. My life shows that I know or am certain ...
8. The difference between the concept of 'knowing' and the concept of 'being certain' isn't of any
great importance at all, except where "I know" is meant to mean: I can't be wrong.
I think what Witt is saying there is that he demonstrates confidence in the existence of a certain chair by his behavior. Isn't that what you see there? — frank
He does say:
7. My life shows that I know or am certain ...
he goes on to say:
8. The difference between the concept of 'knowing' and the concept of 'being certain' isn't of any
great importance at all, except where "I know" is meant to mean: I can't be wrong. — Fooloso4
If I say "the key is on the desk"...the only thing that justifies it is not a proposition but finding the key on the table. — Fooloso4
Yep.This sounds like you're misunderstanding what a proposition is. — frank
But7. My life shows that I know or am certain that there is a chair over there, or a door, and so on. - I tell a friend e.g. "Take that chair over there", "Shut the door", etc. etc.
12. - For "I know" seems to describe a state of affairs which guarantees what is known, guarantees it as a fact. One always forgets the expression "I thought I knew".
We have to be careful to recognize distinctions in the sense of ‘existence’. For instance, if we ask ‘does this chair exist?’, we might mean , does it persist as relatively self -identical over time for me when I observe it. Or we might mean, does it exist objectively such that its existence does not depend on an observer. The kind of certainty of existence that Wittgenstein has in mind with respect to the chair is the certainty of the intelligibility of the scheme of understanding underlying any and all senses of the word ‘existence’. — Joshs
If you say "I know the key is on the desk" and ↪frank asks how you know, asks for a justification for your claim, do you think Frank will find "Because I will find it there when I go in" satisfactory? — Banno
"I left it there and no one has been in the room" is a justification for your claim. And a proposition. — Banno
But
12. - For "I know" seems to describe a state of affairs which guarantees what is known, guarantees it as a fact. One always forgets the expression "I thought I knew". — Banno
Frank is righ; there is a chair over there if it can be moved, sat on, sold at auction and so on. — Banno
There is a difference between knowing the key is on the desk and being certain that the key is on the desk.
That's kinda the topic of On Certainty.
The justification for a claim to knowledge is the answer to "How do you know?" It will not do here to simple repeat your claim - I know the key is on the table because the key is on the table; I know this is a hand because it is a hand.
This is what is being said in the first few pages of On Certainty. Moore is unjustified in claiming that he knows this is a hand. Yet, it is true that this is a hand; and he is certain that this is a hand. The remainder of the book is an exploration of this oddity. — Banno
There is a difference between knowing the key is on the desk and being certain that the key is on the desk. — Banno
8. The difference between the concept of 'knowing' and the concept of 'being certain' isn't of any
great importance at all, except where "I know" is meant to mean: I can't be wrong.
It will not do here to simple repeat your claim — Banno
How about I know this is a hand because I am pointing to it, we both see it, and we both understand what I am talking about. — Richard B
Again, the justification for "I know the key is on the table" cannot be "The key is on the table"; that's just a repetition of the claim. — Banno
Wittgenstein takes it as read that knowing requires justification, and hence were there is no proposition to supply the justification, one cannot be properly said to know. — Banno
I suspect that this sort of philosophical meandering would not have impressed Wittgenstein. Frank is right; there is a chair over there if it can be moved, sat on, sold at auction and so on. But this is not about phenomenology, not just about perceptions. It is about the interactions between you, the chair and the folk around you. — Banno
The concept of 'seeing' makes a tangled impression. Well, it is tangled.—I look at the landscape, my gaze ranges over it, I see all sorts of distinct and indistinct movement; this impresses itself sharply on me, that is quite hazy. After all, how completely ragged what we see can appear 1 And now look at all that can be meant by "description of what is seen".—But this just is what is called description of what is seen. There is not one genuine proper case of such description—the rest being just vague, something which awaits clarification, or which must just be swept aside as rubbish.
Here we are in enormous danger of wanting to make fine distinctions.—It is the same when one tries to define the concept of a material object in terms of 'what is really seen'.—What we have rather to do is to accept the everyday language-game, and to note false accounts of the matter as false. The primitive language-game which children are taught needs no justification; attempts at justification need to be rejected.
Take as an example the aspects of a triangle. This triangle
can be seen as a triangular hole, as a solid, as a geometrical drawing; as standing on its base, as hanging from its apex; as a mountain, as a wedge, as an arrow or pointer, as an overturned object which is meant to stand on the shorter side of the right angle, as a half parallelogram, and as various other things.
"You can think now of this now of this as you look at it, can regard it now as this now as this, and then you will see it now this way, now /j-." — What way? There is no further qualification. But how is it possible to see an object according to an interpretation? — The question represents it as a queer fact; as if something were being forced into a form it did not really fit. But no squeezing, no forcing took place here. (PI p.200)
yetI know" is meant to mean: I can't be wrong
One always forgets the expression "I thought I knew".
Good question, despite the mixed tense.Why isn't showing the key on the table sufficient to conclude that I knew where the key is? — Fooloso4
Supose that you had guessed that the key was on the table. Then "the key is on the table" is not sufficient evidence to conclude that you knew where the key is. A guess will not suffice - it is not a justification for your claim to know.13. For it is not as though the proposition "It is so" could be inferred from someone else's utterance: "I know it is so". Nor from the utterance together with its not being a lie. - But can't I infer "It is so" from my own utterance "I know etc."? Yes; and also "There is a hand there" follows from the proposition "He knows that there's a hand there". But from his utterance "I know..." it does not follow that he does know it.
The big difference is the Wittgenstein rejects the solipsism of phenomenology by insisting on the place of perception as communal activity. — Banno
↪Joshs Sure. The big difference is the Wittgenstein rejects the solipsism of phenomenology by insisting on the place of perception as communal activity — Banno
” My friend Paul and I point out to each other certain details of the landscape; and Paul's finger, which is pointing out the church tower, is not a finger-for-me that I think of as orientated towards a church-tower-for-me, it is Paul's finger which itself shows me the tower that Paul sees, just as, conversely, when I make a movement towards some point in the landscape that I can see, I do not imagine that I am producing in Paul, in virtue of some pre-established harmony, inner visions merely analogous to mine: I believe, on the contrary, that my gestures invade Paul's world and guide his gaze. When I think of Paul, I do not think of a flow of private sensations indirectly related to mine through the medium of interposed signs, but of someone who has a living experience of the same world as mine, as well as the same history, and with whom I am in communication through that world and that history.”(Merleau-Ponty, Phenomenology of Perception, p.471)
“ In the experience of dialogue, there is constituted between the other person and myself a common ground; my thought and his are inter-woven into a single fabric, my words and those of my interlocutor are called forth by the state of the discussion, and they are inserted into a shared operation of which neither of us is the creator. We have here a dual being, where the other is for me no longer a mere bit of behavior in my transcendental field, nor I in his; we are collaborators for each other in consummate reciprocity.
I think we would find it very hard to explain "internal" here, apart from contrasting it with "communal".The internal aspect can’t just simply be communal activity. — schopenhauer1
No. but this does:Does this sound solipsistic to you? — Joshs
You might instead have said something about the chair being constituted at least in part by a common dialogue. Then there may have been some agreement.We have to be careful to recognize distinctions in the sense of ‘existence’. For instance, if we ask ‘does this chair exist?’, we might mean , does it persist as relatively self -identical over time for me when I observe it. Or we might mean, does it exist objectively such that its existence does not depend on an observer. — Joshs
I think we would find it very hard to explain "internal" here, apart from contrasting it with "communal". — Banno
...capacity for senses a priori... — schopenhauer1
I do want to comment on what I was saying about hinges in relation to Godel's proofs. All I was trying to say is that instead of looking at certain axioms within a particular system as something that can't be proven within the system, we could look at them as endpoints not needing proof or justification, like Witt's hinges. — Sam26
I think this idea has ramifications beyond epistemology. I think it solves the problem posed by Godel's two theorems. These hinge beliefs seem to exist in any system where proofs are required, whether epistemological or mathematical. This of course goes beyond anything Witt talked about in OC, but I think it has merit. — Sam26
The biology of the human eye is not a social practice, but it is a practice. The eye exists by functioning, and its functioning takes place within an integrated internal and external milieu which continually shape how it functions, in a way not unlike the way that linguistic practices shape the meaning of concepts for humans. We know now that environmental factors directly shape genetic structures, so any attempt to locate a pre-cultural explanation for the origin of an eye will be lacking.
This doesn’t mean that linguistic practices directly influence the nature of DNA functioning in rats. It means that the physiological and environmental culture within which genes operate influence how they operate, and the environment within subatomic processes occur shape the nature of those processes and even their ‘lawfulness’.
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