But what actually settles the issue in this case are the criteria you asked for, not the flower itself. — Manuel

But I asked you to bring me the flower itself. The criteria are only a means to an end.

If the flower I give you does not satisfy the conditions you have, then it does not match what you have in mind. The problem is not in the object, but our interpretation of it. — Manuel

"Have in mind" is a problematic phrase in this context. Let's say "it is not what you asked me to bring you." The blue flower that I bring you is not a problem in itself. But there is a problem with it in the context of your request to me. It's true that my interpretation of your request is a misinterpretation. Is that what you mean?

Yes, that's why I'm suggesting that scepticism/certainty is not the only issue in play in this text. BTW, I'm a bit puzzled by "all states of affairs" are objects. — Ludwig V

I agree but he is taking his time drawing out this side here first. And my recollection of TLP is shoddy but I was trying to draw the parallel of his, as you say Atomism there, and the “queer”-ness of the mechanism here.

I agree but he is taking his time drawing out this side here first. And my recollection of TLP is shoddy but I was trying to draw the parallel of his, as you say Atomism there, and the “queer”-ness of the mechanism here. — Antony Nickles

I don't quite understand the parallel. But perhaps it's better if I just wait and see how things develop. As you say, it's at a very early stage.

Yes, Descartes thought his way through to radical skepticism, but what we are dealing with here is the first part, which is wanting certainty (thinking of the whole world as objects we should be able to “see”, or know, as we do trees, etc.), which is the desire that starts the spinning. — Antony Nickles

Very much so - it is a big problem (certainty). And maybe phrasing it a bit harder that Wittgenstein (so far), certainty (100% no doubts at all) is impossible in the empirical world.

For me "mental image" is just pictorial stuff. The semantic stuff is not inherent in the image, but is the use we make of it. I don't think he denies that there are such things or that we might make use of them. But he does insist that this is only one way that we might find the red flower. — Ludwig V

Well, the most immediate example would be of a blind person asking for a red flower. But then since they can't see, it would be strange for them to ask for a red one, as opposed to just a "flower".

But I asked you to bring me the flower itself. The criteria are only a means to an end. — Ludwig V

And I did. But if I have poor vision, or confused red with pink then you are the one who needs to correct me, right? So, I give you the pink flower, you see the flower and judge it not to be red. It is your judgment of your perception triggered by the flower that corrects my mistake.

The flower is the stimulus, but without judgments ascertaining if what I gave you is correct, then the flower is quite useless.

"Have in mind" is a problematic phrase in this context. Let's say "it is not what you asked me to bring you." The blue flower that I bring you is not a problem in itself. But there is a problem with it in the context of your request to me. It's true that my interpretation of your request is a misinterpretation. Is that what you mean? — Ludwig V

To be clear I do believe in mental content and am a quite fanatical innatist and ardent believer in innate ideas. I am quite skeptical of "externalism" in most areas in philosophy.

I was somewhat surprised to be invited to discuss this, but it is welcome.

So, I don't find the phrase "have in mind" to be particularly problematic in the least.

You can interpret what you say in that manner if you wish, no problems at all from my part.

We are up against one of the great sources of philosophical bewilderment: a substantive makes us look for a thing that corresponds to it.

(1)

A substantive is some thing named:

We feel that we can't point to anything in reply to them and yet ought to point to something.

(1)

What is at issue is a critique of the Tractarian metaphysics of mind. The logical necessity of the connection between names and the existence of corresponding objects, and, by extension, propositions and facts.

One difficulty which strikes us is that for many words in our language there do not seem to be ostensive definitions; e.g. for such words as "one", "number", "not", etc.

(1)

This is followed immediately by the question:

Need the ostensive definition itself be understood?--Can't the ostensive definition be misunderstood?

That “tove” can ostensibly mean pencil or round or wood might seem to be veering off on a tangent, but it raises a related question about the logical connection between language and the world. Language lacks the precision assumed in the Tractatus. That 'tove' means ‘this’ (pencil)and not ‘that’ (wood) is something that is clarified in practice by the activity of using language.

This activity may involve mental processes but is not reducible to them.

We are tempted to think that the action of language consists of two parts; an inorganic part, the handling of signs, and an organic part, which we may call understanding these signs, meaning them, interpreting them, thinking. These latter activities seem to take place in a queer kind of medium, the mind; and the mechanism of the mind, the nature of which, it seems, we don't quite understand, can bring about effects which no material mechanism could.

(3)

Why does the mind seem to be a queer kind of medium? This happens when the mind is taken to be a substantive, a thing with its own mechanism, but a mechanism that can bring about effects that no material mechanism could.

But here we are making two mistakes. For what struck us as being queer about thought
and thinking was not at all that it had curious effects which we were not yet able to explain (causally). Our problem, in other words, was not a scientific one; but a muddle felt
as a problem.

(5-6)

Consistent with the Tractatus, Wittgenstein maintains the distinction between philosophy and natural science.

Now if it is not the causal connections which we are concerned with, then the activities of the mind lie open before us.

(6)

The flower is the stimulus, but without judgments ascertaining if what I gave you is correct, then the flower is quite useless. — Manuel

Yes, but without the flower, judgements about it are meaningless.

Well, the most immediate example would be of a blind person asking for a red flower. But then since they can't see, it would be strange for them to ask for a red one, as opposed to just a "flower". — Manuel

Some blind people have visual images - it depends whether they have had vision earlier in their lives. People born blind, I'm not so sure. But Wittgenstein's point is that one can bring you a red flower without a visual image.

So, I don't find the phrase "have in mind" to be particularly problematic in the least. — Manuel

Well, I think you'll find that not everyone interprets that phrase in the same way - especially in philosophy.

@Banno @Paine @Ludwig V @Jamal @Manuel @Astrophel @Joshs @Kurt Keefner @Shawn

Section 2: 5-8 Two Mistakes

a process must be happening organically that makes thinking, speaking, and listening possible but sees his work as something entirely different from investigating that: — Paine

Unraveling what is “different” here, one point is that, yes, there are things happening in the brain. And vision, hearing, imagining, talking to ourselves, all have objects that we experience. But meaning, understanding, and thinking (like problem solving) are not structured around objects. Now, sure, there are things happening in the brain when those things happen, but they are not actual mechanisms of the brain “that we were not yet able to explain” (p. 6). Another way to put this is that science isn’t going to tell us what thought or meaning or understanding are. Thus, “it is misleading to talk of thinking as of a ‘mental activity’.”

The reason these “queer” mechanisms are imagined is because we want to say: instead of just ordinary error (random, unpredictable, but correctable), we create an issue that must have a solution with certainty (thus an object), and so we create a “problem” (p.6). So instead of a regular goof-up, we now imagine a problem of knowledge (a scientific one), to be solved by an (casual) object in us (by a “certain, definite mechanism”), or being able to explain that. But what was “queer” was not something scientifically peculiar, it was just a mistake, a “muddle” because “here are things hidden, something we can see from the outside but which we can't look into”. Thus the reason he says trying to find the place of thinking must be rejected “to prevent confusion”. (p.8)

From here he makes a radical statement that only plays out through the rest of the book. “I can give you no agent who thinks.” (p.6) This seems speculative at this point (and needlessly provocative), and I take it to mean so far that if there is no casual scientific mechanism, then it is the (“external”) judgment of thought that matters, not its agent (though this belies responsibility).

Another note on method. In addition to advising we take our ordinary expressions seriously (p.7), in the PI he gives the impression all our problems are caused by what he says here is the “mystifying use of our language” (p.6). But it is clear here that it is not language which fools us, but our temptation to treat words as objects (like “time”), and it is this desire that mystifies us, as, on page 7, he shows how analogy allows us to mistakenly infer there is a place for thought because there is a place for words.

Yes, but without the flower, judgements about it are meaningless. — Ludwig V

I don't think that's true as a matter of principle.

If we knew enough about the brain, we - the scientists - could stimulate a flower without us - the experimentee - ever having seen one. In this case, the "external object" merely verifies our criteria, the flower itself is not the ground of our judgment (or our asking about it), rather the "red flower" is something which fits our criteria.

I could give you a plastic red flower, indistinguishable from a real red flower, and it would still fit your criteria.

But Wittgenstein's point is that one can bring you a red flower without a visual image. — Ludwig V

I agree, I think it's possible in some cases.

Well, I think you'll find that not everyone interprets that phrase in the same way - especially in philosophy. — Ludwig V

Which is why I said I was a bit surprised to be included in this discussion. I'm well aware I'm quite likely in the minority view.

Nevertheless, Wittgenstein's argument here is ok. I think it's on the right track compared to his earlier views.

If we knew enough about the brain, we - the scientists - could stimulate a flower without us - the experimentee - ever having seen one. In this case, the "external object" merely verifies our criteria, the flower itself is not the ground of our judgment (or our asking about it), rather the "red flower" is something which fits our criteria. — Manuel

But there is no external object, so there is nothing to verify. There is no "flower itself" to be the ground of our judgement, so there is no ground for our judgement and nothing that fits our criteria. There is a temptation to fill the gap, but the fillers are mysterious magical objects and we end up with a philosophical labyrinth that we cannot escape from. Best not to start.

I could give you a plastic red flower, indistinguishable from a real red flower, and it would still fit your criteria. — Manuel

If it is a plastic red flower, then it is distinguishable from a real red flower. Of course, I might be deceived and treat it as a real red flower, but it isn't one. So my judgement that I'm holding a red flower is false.

Which is why I said I was a bit surprised to be included in this discussion. I'm well aware I'm quite likely in the minority view. — Manuel

Nothing wrong with being in the minority. What matters is the discussion.

What does Wittgenstein mean when he says?

I can give you no agent that thinks.

(6)

He is not denying that we think, but rather that the mind is the agent that thinks:

It is misleading then to talk of thinking as of a "mental activity". … This activity is performed by the hand, when we think by writing; by the mouth and larynx, when we think by speaking; and if we think by imagining signs or pictures, I can give you no agent that thinks.

(6) [emphasis added]

He continues:

If then you say that in such cases the mind thinks, I would only draw your attention to the fact that you are using a metaphor, that here the mind is an agent in a different sense from that in which the hand can be said to be the agent in writing.

(6-7)

Elsewhere he says:

I really do think with my pen, because my head often knows nothing about what my hand is writing.

(CV 17)

This is, of course, metaphorical. Contrary to the Tractatus, however, metaphors although not propositions of natural science, are no longer regarded as nonsense. The logical structure of language and thought that was fundamental to the Tractatus has been rejected.

Another way to put this is that science isn’t going to tell us what thought or meaning or understanding are. Thus, “it is misleading to talk of thinking as of a ‘mental activity’.” — Antony Nickles

This is an extra ordinary remark. Thinking is a paradigm of a mental activity. Surely, what he needs to argue is that mental activities, in particular thinking, is not the kind of activity it suggests, because of the contrast with physical activities. Is doing a calculation with pencil and paper a mental or a physical activity?

Thus the reason he says trying to find the place of thinking must be rejected “to prevent confusion”. (p.8) — Antony Nickles

But on the previous page he says:-

Now does this mean that it is nonsensical to talk of a locality where thought takes place? Certainly not. This phrase has sense' if we give it sense. — Blue Book p.7

His suggestion is a way of giving "the locality of thinking" a sense that many people would find perfectly satisfactory.

“I can give you no agent who thinks.” (p.6) This seems speculative at this point (and needlessly provocative), and I take it to mean so far that if there is no casual scientific mechanism, then it is the (“external”) judgment of thought that matters, not its agent (though this belies responsibility). — Antony Nickles

His use of "agent" here is unusual. When I think by writing, the agent is my hands. When I think by imagining, there is no agent. I don't know why the obvious agent - me - doesn't count.

But it is clear here that it is not language which fools us, but our temptation to treat words as objects (like “time”), and it is this desire that mystifies us, as, on page 7, he shows how analogy allows us to mistakenly infer there is a place for thought because there is a place for words. — Antony Nickles

Yes. His concluding remarks about one's visual field nicely demonstrate how that is possible.

Is doing a calculation with pencil and paper a mental or a physical activity? — Ludwig V

Wittgenstein takes up this question in the PI:

236. Calculating prodigies who arrive at the correct result but can’t say how. Are we to say that they do not calculate? (A family of cases.)

(364) Is calculating in the imagination in some sense less real than calculating on paper? It is real calculating-in-the-head. Is it similar to calculating on paper? I don’t know whether to call it similar. Is a bit of white paper with black lines on it similar to a human body?

His use of "agent" here is unusual.When I think by writing, the agent is my hands. When I think by imagining, there is not agent - for some reason the obvious agent - me - doesn't count. — Ludwig V

It does count. As he says, "we think by writing", "we think by speaking" (6). But then:

... and if we think by imagining signs or pictures, I can give you no agent that thinks.

(6)

There is no agent here that is analogous to the hand that writes or mouth that speaks. We might say that in this case it is the mind that imagines, but we do not think with the mind in a way that is analogous to thinking with the hand or mouth.

We are misled by language, or, more precisely, the grammar of our language, when we regard 'mind' as we do 'hand' or 'mouth'. Grammatically all are substantives. They are nouns. As such we may be led to assume that they all name particular things.

What we must do is: understand its working, its grammar, e.g. see what relation this grammar has to that of the expression "we think with our mouth", or "we think with a pencil on a piece of paper".

Perhaps the main reason why we are so strongly inclined to talk of the head as the locality of our thoughts is this: the existence of the words "thinking" and "thought" alongside of the words denoting (bodily) activities, such as writing, speaking, etc., makes us look for an activity, different from these but analogous to them, corresponding to the word "thinking". When words in our ordinary language have prima facie analogous grammars we are inclined to try to interpret them analogously; i.e. we try to make the analogy hold throughout.

(7)

There is no agent here that is analogous to the hand that writes or mouth that speaks. We might say that in this case it is the mind that imagines, but we do not think with the mind in a way that is analogous to thinking with the hand or mouth. — Fooloso4

Yes. I had read all that when I posted. My problem is quite simple, Normally, we would say, when I calculate using pen and paper, that I am calculating, not that my hand is calculating. Why? Because my hand does not understand mathematics and so is incapable of calculating. So I'm interpreting W as saying that when I imagine calculating there appear to be nothing that fills the blank in "I calculated by..." (except possibly imagining that I was calculating). That's why there's a temptation to talk about mental acts or events. You quote PI 364, which amplifies a bit.
I'm also a bit confused by what he means by calculating by imagining I am calculating. Do you think he means what I would call "calculating in my head"?
It isn't a big thing. It's just that he so rarely says things that are not clear (in my opinion), that this paragraph stood out as unusual. It could be a translation glitch - not a problem at all in German..

We are misled by language, or, more precisely, the grammar of our language, when we regard 'mind' as we do 'hand' or 'mouth'. Grammatically all are substantives. They are nouns. As such we may be led to assume that they all name particular things. — Fooloso4

Yes. But...

But it is clear here that it is not language which fools us, but our temptation to treat words as objects (like “time”), and it is this desire that mystifies us, as, on page 7, he shows how analogy allows us to mistakenly infer there is a place for thought because there is a place for words. — Antony Nickles

I think this puts it better.

Another way to put this is that science isn’t going to tell us what thought or meaning or understanding are. Thus, “it is misleading to talk of thinking as of a ‘mental activity’.”
— Antony Nickles
This is an extra ordinary remark. Thinking is a paradigm of a mental activity. Surely, what he needs to argue is that mental activities, in particular thinking, is not the kind of activity it suggests, because of the contrast with physical activities. Is doing a calculation with pencil and paper a mental or a physical activity? — Ludwig V

Wittgenstein, like Heidegger, is substituting a practice theory for a cognitivist account. Thinking isn’t in the head, it is in the interactive performances that co-determine both the person and their world via our patterns of engagement with each other.

So I'm interpreting W as saying that when I imagine calculating there appear to be nothing that fills the blank in "I calculated by..." (except possibly imagining that I was calculating) — Ludwig V

I take him to be saying that the question: "What I am calculating by?" is misleading. There is not this something that is analogous to the hand or mouth. I imagine. I calculate. In some cases this involves the hand or mouth, but in others there is not some other agent or thing to be identified. And, of course, as you point out, it is not the hand that does the calculating.

The temptation is not to treat words as objects, but to assume that there must be some object that corresponds to the word:

But it is the use of the substantive "time" which mystifies us.

(6)

This is worth repeating:

We are up against one of the great sources of philosophical bewilderment: a substantive makes us look for a thing that corresponds to it.

(1)

When we look for the meaning of the word 'cow', for example, there is no inexplicable temptation to treat the word as an object. But there is an object, an animal that we can point to that explains the meaning of the word 'cow'. We cannot, however, explain the meaning of 'time' by pointing to something. There is no thing that corresponds to it.

Both 'cow' and 'time' are substantives, but grammatically they do not function in the same way. When the grammar is understood we are no longer misled by the language of substantives.

From here he makes a radical statement that only plays out through the rest of the book. “I can give you no agent who thinks.” (p.6) This seems speculative at this point (and needlessly provocative), and I take it to mean so far that if there is no casual scientific mechanism, then it is the (“external”) judgment of thought that matters, not its agent (though this belies responsibility). — Antony Nickles

I think the key point is that giving to us an 'agent who thinks' is standing on the outside trying to look in:

We are most strongly tempted to think that here are things hidden, something we can see from the outside but which we can't look into. And yet nothing of the sort is the case. — Blue Book, page 6

Science does try to uncover what is hidden but Wittgenstein sees his enterprise differently. The problem of describing the agent while being that agent is prominent in the Tractatus:

The subject does not belong to the world: rather, it is a limit of the world.
Where in the world is a metaphysical subject to be found?
You will say that this is exactly like the case of the eye and the visual field. But really you do not see the eye.
And nothing in the visual field allows you to infer that it is seen by an eye. — Tractatus, 5.633

In the Blue Book, Wittgenstein abandons the explanatory éclat of Tractatus but there is a bridge between the two. He goes from saying this:

There is no a priori order of things.
Here it can be seen that solipsism, when its implications are followed out strictly, coincides with pure realism. The self of solipsism shrinks to a point without extension, and there remains the reality coordinated with it.
Thus there really is a sense in which philosophy can talk about the self in a non-psychological way.
What brings the self into philosophy is the fact that ‘the world is my world’.
The philosophical self is not the human being, not the human body, or the human soul, with which psychology deals, but rather the metaphysical subject, the limit of the world—not a part of it. — Tractatus, 5.64

to talking about the "craving for generality" The fifth example he gives is:

Our craving for generality has another main source: our preoccupation with the method of science. I mean the method of reducing the explanation of natural phenomena to the smallest possible number of primitive natural laws; and, in mathematics, of unifying the treatment of different topics by using a generalization.
Philosophers constantly see the method of science before their eyes, and are irresistibly tempted to ask and answer questions in the way science does. This tendency is the real source of metaphysics, and leads the philosopher into complete darkness. I want to say here that it can never be our job to reduce anything to anything, or to explain anything. Philosophy really is 'purely descriptive'. (Think of such questions as "Are there sense data?" and ask: What method is there of determining this? Introspection?) — Blue Book, page 18

This is all in aid of my saying Wittgenstein is inverting the perspective of Kant and Hume in how he talks about what is immediately given as 'internal' versus 'external'. Their versions of solipsism do not lead to sentences like: "The self of solipsism shrinks to a point without extension, and there remains the reality coordinated with it."

But it is clear here that it is not language which fools us, but our temptation to treat words as objects (like “time”), and it is this desire that mystifies us, as, on page 7, he shows how analogy allows us to mistakenly infer there is a place for thought because there is a place for words. — Antony Nickles

Are those the two mistakes in your headline for this section? I mean the temptation to follow the grammar of language (as opposed to philosophical grammar) and the temptation to be fooled by false analogies - or by over-extended analogies.

Thinking is a paradigm of a mental activity. Surely, what he needs to argue is that mental activities, in particular thinking, is not the kind of activity it suggests, because of the contrast with physical activities. Is doing a calculation with pencil and paper a mental or a physical activity? — Ludwig V

I am trying to get at his separation between what are the general activities of the brain, and what would enlighten us as to what is essential about thinking. I concede that @Paine had something in saying that the brain makes thought “possible” but that Witt

sees his work as something entirely different from investigating that — Paine

. The problem of the mechanics of the brain “does not interest us” (p.6) because thinking is not a “curious effect” which is the result of “casualty”—something science could explain.

Thinking is a paradigm of a mental activity. Surely, what he needs to argue is that mental activities, in particular thinking, is not the kind of activity it suggests, because of the contrast with physical activities. Is doing a calculation with pencil and paper a mental or a physical activity? — Ludwig V

I take him to be saying that what thinking IS, is what is important about thinking, which is entirely different than physical causality. Sure, you could explain what is happening in the brain, but it would not matter to what we care about with “thought” (as people (culturally), or as philosophers). The reason science gets confused that it will be important here is that it is working under the misplaced analogy that thought is an object, and thinking is the mechanism that creates that object (and here I am not talking about speaking to ourselves). Now is it actually physical or mental? I don’t think those words matter much in the case of thought. As he implies, we CAN make it matter, but in a number of ways. “I’m thinking through this problem on paper.” Is the thinking mental or physical? The locality is clearly”on the paper”, that is where it is happening, and how; so, physical, right? And then mental could just be: without tools to help the process (say, problem solving), so, to yourself and only with your imagination, memory, self-talk, etc.

@Ludwig V @Joshs @Manuel
“We are most strongly tempted to think that here are things hidden, something we can see from the outside but which we can't look into. And yet nothing of the sort is the case.”
— Blue Book, page 6

I think the key point is that giving to us an 'agent who thinks' is standing on the outside trying to look in: — Paine

This is an important connection than my merely trying to record the aghast commonly felt at what is seen as removing the self (just, as an object), when he is just following through the categorical error of the ‘strong temptation’ of causality. I would only add that we would be “standing on the outside trying to look in” to ourselves as well if we imagine we can “look into” our own casual object (agent, “self”). Not to move further from the text but to place this in company, the PI will treat the other as opaque and talk of boxes with things hidden, etc.

I am curious about @Paine’s thoughts on the relation to Hume/Kant. Obviously there is Hume’s “agent” and Kant removing the object (but not dismantling the framework that held it).

Immediately after your quoted sentence he says:

"It is not new facts about time which we want to know. All the facts that concern us lie open before us."

Let's replace "time" with anything, say a tree or an idea. It is not the case that "all the facts" are open to us, only those facts which we are of aware of at the given time and (crucially) those facts which we may have no access to.

We are limited on our observations about trees relative to the capacity of our senses and the capacity of our cognitive components.

This applies to our mental powers, or mind as well and much else. He is problematizing something like mental mediation here, which is not clear to me what the problem is.

This is an important connection than my merely trying to record the aghast commonly felt at what is seen as removing the self (just, as an object), when he is just following through the categorical error of the ‘strong temptation’ of causality. I would only add that we would be “standing on the outside trying to look in” to ourselves as well if we imagine we can “look into” our own casual object (agent, “self”). Not to move further from the text but to place this in company, the PI will treat the other as opaque and talk of boxes with things hidden, etc. — Antony Nickles

I see him saying that we are not concerned with the "causal connections" here, not that they are a category error. We can discuss this if we want, rather, we are choosing not to do so now.

I would agree that we can't - despite (some of) us wanting - peer more into the nature of the self than something like what Hume describes. In this part, I do agree with the example and the general outlook.

Are those the two mistakes in your headline for this section? — Ludwig V

we are tempted to say "the mechanism of the mind must be of a most peculiar kind to be able to do what the mind does". But here we are making two mistakes. For what struck us as being queer about thought and thinking was not at all that it had curious effects which we were not yet able to explain (causally). Our problem, in other words, was not a scientific one; but a muddle felt as a problem. — (pp.5-6)

The two mistakes are: 1. What the mind does (thought) is strange; so 2. How the mind works must be a mystery. Thus, we create the “problem” that we just need to get to where we can explain how it causes “thought”. But the “muddle” we got ourselves into was because we pictured thought as an object. Thought is not an object, and so is not “caused”; thinking is not a mechanism to be explained. If I even have that right, there is much to say about: Why? and other fallout I would think.

I think the key point is that giving to us an 'agent who thinks' is standing on the outside trying to look in: — Paine

This is an important connection than my merely trying to record the aghast commonly felt at what is seen as removing the self (just, as an object), when he is just following through the categorical error of the ‘strong temptation’ of causality. — Antony Nickles

This reminds me of the reaction to Berkeley's "removal" of matter or the entire physical world. A modern case is the outrage caused by "illusionism". I've never been quite sure whether the authors of those ideas deliberately chose a shocking formulation rather than the mundane version. What's that French phrase about upsetting the bourgeoisie?

I am curious about Paine’s thoughts on the relation to Hume/Kant. Obviously there is Hume’s “agent” and Kant removing the object (but not dismantling the framework that held it). — Antony Nickles

I have to confess, that I didn't really understand the connection that he identifies. I'm not saying that there isn't one.

“We are most strongly tempted to think that here are things hidden, something we can see from the outside but which we can't look into. And yet nothing of the sort is the case.” — Blue Book, page 6

There's a very strong echo of Hume's argument against scholastic "powers" here, isn't there? But Hume's argument has been generally taken to apply to scientific explanations, not to distinguish between philosophical and scientific explanations. (Saving the point that, in Hume's day, what we now call science was called "natural philosophy).

Now if it is not the causal connections which we are concerned with, then the activities of the mind lie open before us. ...... All the facts that concern us lie open before us. — Blue Book p.6

In his immediately preceding argument, W does say that there is further work to do and I can see that. We live in a different intellectual climate now, and the excitement about neurological discoveries is often taken to be philosophically significant. Indeed, if brain studies can indeed supply - not necessarily objects, but physical processes associated with thought - it will make his arguments here considerably less convincing. Or is this another demarcation criterion between philosophy and science.

Coming back to this, I'm finding myself really confused.

The two mistakes are: 1. What the mind does (thought) is strange; so 2. How the mind works must be a mystery. Thus, we create the “problem” that we just need to get to where we can explain how it causes “thought”. But the “muddle” we got ourselves into was because we pictured thought as an object. Thought is not an object, and so is not “caused”; thinking is not a mechanism to be explained. — Antony Nickles

It seems to me that these mistakes are a different argument from the argument against hidden objects. My problem here is that I'm not sure that W can take for granted that the traditional dualistic conception of thought involves strange or queer objects. Traditional philosophers didn't find them strange, but entirely familiar. His tactic of taking seriously the idea that a thought is an object, and then showing that such objects cannot do what thought does is itself that argument that the traditional conception is wrong. Now, my question is whether that interpretation of the traditional idea counts as a new fact or not.

This reminds me of the reaction to Berkeley's "removal" of matter or the entire physical world. A modern case is the outrage caused by "illusionism". I've never been quite sure whether the authors of those ideas deliberately chose a shocking formulation rather than the mundane version. What's that French phrase about upsetting the bourgeoisie? — Ludwig V

Berkeley's version of solipsism is precisely what is discussed in the latter portion of the Blue Book. Wittgenstein's effort differs from Kant who worked to counter the arbitrary quality of causality as presented by Hume. Kant put forth that all of our thinking requires the intuitions of space and time. This places the Cogito of Descartes in a particular "set of facts" that is psychological in nature. Wittgenstein, however, argues that solipsism results from misuse of language:

Now when the solipsist says that only his own experiences are real, it is no use answering him: "Why do you tell us this if you don't believe that we really hear it?" Or anyhow, if we give him this answer, we mustn't believe that we have answered his difficulty. There is no common sense answer to a philosophical problem. One can defend common sense against the attacks of philosophers only by solving their puzzles, i.e., by curing them of the temptation to attack common sense; not by restating the views of common sense. A philosopher is not a man out of his senses, a man who doesn't see what everybody sees; nor on the other hand is his disagreement with common sense that of the scientist disagreeing with the coarse views of the man in the street. That is, his disagreement is not founded on a more subtle knowledge of fact. We therefore have to look round for the source of his puzzlement. And we find that there is puzzlement and mental discomfort, not only when our curiosity about certain facts is not satisfied or when we can't find a law of nature fitting in with all our experience, but also when a notation dissatisfies us--perhaps because of various associations which it calls up. Our ordinary language, which of all possible notations is the one which pervades all our life, holds our mind rigidly in one position, as it were, and in this position sometimes it feels cramped, having a desire for other positions as well. Thus we sometimes wish for a notation which stresses a difference more strongly, makes it more obvious, than ordinary language does, or one which in a particular case uses more closely similar forms of expression than our ordinary language. Our mental cramp is loosened when we are shown the notations which fulfil these needs. These needs can be of the greatest variety.

Now the man whom we call a solipsist and who says that only his own experiences are real, does not thereby disagree with us about any practical question of fact, he does not say that we are simulating when we complain of pains, he pities us as much as anyone else, and at the same time he wishes to restrict the use of the epithet "real" to what we should call his experiences; and perhaps he doesn't want to call our experiences "experiences" at all (again without disagreeing with us about any question of fact). For he would say that it was inconceivable that experiences other than his own were real. He ought therefore to use a notation in which such a phrase as "A has real toothache" (where A is not he) is meaningless, a notation whose rules exclude this phrase as the rules of chess exclude a pawn's making a knight's move. The solipsist's suggestion comes to using such a phrase as "there is real toothache" instead of "Smith (the solipsist) has toothache". And why shouldn't we grant him this notation? I needn't say that in order to avoid confusion he had in this case better not use the word "real" as opposed to "simulated" at all; which just means that we shall have to provide for the distinction "real"/"simulated" in some other way. The solipsist who says "only I feel real pain", "only I really see (or hear)" is not stating an opinion; and that's why he is so sure of what he says. He is irresistibly tempted to use a certain form of expression; but we must yet find why he is. — Blue Book, 59

This confirms the observation made by Fooloso4:

The temptation is not to treat words as objects, but to assume that there must be some object that corresponds to the word:

"But it is the use of the substantive "time" which mystifies us. — Fooloso4

The last two sentences of Blue Book:

Let's not imagine the meaning as an occult connection the mind makes between a word and a thing, and that this connection contains the whole usage of a word as the seed might be said to contain the tree.

The kernel of our proposition that that which has pains or sees or thinks is of a mental nature is only, that the word "I" in "I have pains" does not denote a particular body, for we can't substitute for "I" a description of a body. — ibid. page 79

Let's replace "time" with anything, say a tree or an idea. It is not the case that "all the facts" are open to us, only those facts which we are of aware of at the given time and (crucially) those facts which we may have no access to. — Manuel

I agree that our access to facts is limited. I don't think "tree" applies in this case because "time" is being compared to other ideas with no body:

But it is the use of the substantive "time" which mystifies us. If we look into the grammar of that word, we shall feel that it is no less astounding that man should have conceived of a deity of time than it would be to conceive of a deity of negation or disjunction. — Blue Book, page 6

I see him saying that we are not concerned with the "causal connections" here, not that they are a category error. We can discuss this if we want, rather, we are choosing not to do so now. — Manuel

I agree with this view of a choice. Separating the activities brings new interest to why "time" came to be conceived as a deity where 'negation' and 'disjunction' are just ideas.

@Banno @Paine @Ludwig V @Jamal @Manuel @Astrophel @Joshs @Shawn

Section 2B: 8-10 Analogy

Some of these sections are a little bumpy so I don’t think we should feel compelled to go through all of it, but I do find the term “grammatical analogy” interesting as in the PI it plays the role of the ‘language’ that confuses us and makes something “nonsense”, here specifically (pp.8-9) “you have not yet given this question sense; that is, you have been proceeding by a grammatical analogy, without having worked out the analogy in detail.” So ‘nonsense’ is not a derogatory dismissal, but a unspecific, imposed framework.

Thus:

It is misleading to talk of thinking as of a ‘mental activity’. We may say that thinking is essentially the activity of operating with signs. — (p.6)

So we can “think” “mentally” (to ourselves) with words or numbers (or images). Again, my answer to which “different sense” (p.7) of “agent” we could point, is not to a casual agent, but the sense or use of agent as one who acts on behalf of something, thus, the designated one who is responsible.

Also, another note on method: when he is saying “if we talk about” or “talk of”, he is coming up with the things we might say, the expressions already there we ordinarily use or made up ones, for example, that there are already “senses” (what he also calls “uses”) of “‘locality of thinking’” such that one could be physical location, like on paper. Additionally, those expressions allow us to “examine [our] reasons”, reflect on ourselves in “understand[ing] its working”, or grammar. I also think it’s important to recognize the unintended logical force that compels us to complete a explanatory picture a certain way because of the inertia of thought and the desire to run an analogy “throughout” the explanation, as it were, creating things to fill missing spots (the ‘thing-in-itself’/‘forms’/‘queer mechanisms’).

As we’ve learned (though perhaps not fully accepted), the analogy of an “activity” is wrong because thinking is not a mechanism nor caused (though we can be “observing thought in our brain”, which is simply “corresponding” (p.7)). He also takes apart the analogy that thought is words/sentences while alluding to a yet-to-be-discovered “use” or ‘sense’ of the word thought, not ”criticizing” or judging “inappropriateness”, nor “hold[ing] throughout”. In fact, he appears to be creating an ethical standard for philosophy, or, ‘thought’, to be, at least, “worked out in detail”, not forced, with an individual/particular framework and workings.

I don't think "tree" applies in this case because "time" is being compared to other ideas with no body — Paine

Then let's speak of an idea of a tree then. Are we going to say that an idea of a tree exhausts what a tree is?

Or let's take his example of time, does our idea of time exhaust itself by being present to our minds? That's doubtful, unless you believe an idea is all there is to the thing you are having an idea about.

.Wittgenstein asks:

Now does this mean that it is nonsensical to talk of a locality where thought takes place? Certainly not. This phrase has sense' if we give it sense.

(7)

The idea of giving a phrase sense marks another departure from the Tractatus. It is a rejection of the idea that:

The correct method in philosophy would really be the following: to say nothing except
what can be said, i.e. propositions of natural science—i.e. something that has nothing to do
with philosophy—and then, whenever someone else wanted to say something metaphysical, to demonstrate to him that he had failed to give a meaning to certain signs in his propositions.

(6.53)

There are two different senses of the expression “locality of thinking” (7) We give a phrase sense when we use it in the right way, otherwise it is nonsense. Wittgenstein distinguished between two phenomena. The first involves might contain such things as:

... a train of images, organic sensations, or on the other hand of a train of the various visual, tactual and muscular experiences which he has in writing or speaking a sentence. (8)

The second:

The other experience is one of seeing his brain work. Both these phenomena could correctly be called "expressions of thought"; and the question "where is the thought itself?" had better, in order to prevent confusion, be rejected as nonsensical.

(8)

The confusion arises when the distinction between them is not maintained. The distinction is between what is experienced and an explanation of what happens.

If however we do use the expression "the thought takes place in the head", we have given this expression its meaning by describing the experience which would justify the hypothesis that the thought takes places in our heads, by describing the experience which we wish to call "observing thought in our brain".

(8)

Berkeley's version of solipsism is precisely what is discussed in the latter portion of the Blue Book. Wittgenstein's effort differs from Kant who worked to counter the arbitrary quality of causality as presented by Hume. Kant put forth that all of our thinking requires the intuitions of space and time. This places the Cogito of Descartes in a particular "set of facts" that is psychological in nature. Wittgenstein, however, argues that solipsism results from misuse of language: — Paine

OK. I think I understand that. Thanks.

In fact, he appears to be creating an ethical standard for philosophy, or, ‘thought’, to be, at least, “worked out in detail”, not forced, with an individual/particular framework and workings. — Antony Nickles

I'm not clear why you call it an ethical standard. It looks to me more like a method - no, an approach - designed to clarify the use(s) of the terms at play and to enable us to see things in a less misleading way.

But we have to start from accepting that the solipsist, for example, is seeing things in a misleading way. How do we do that? It looks to me as if his diagnosis of solipsism is itself the reason for finding solipsism misleading. (Not that I disagree with it.)

The only other possibility is that solipsism contradicts common sense. But common sense is probably not a reliable criterion for misleading or not.

There is no common sense answer to a philosophical problem. — Blue Book, 59

That doesn't necessarily mean that common sense is immune from philosophical problems. Indeed, it may be common sense that gives rise to (some) philosophical problems.

What I'm suggesting is that W here is starting from philosophy as he finds it, and not paying enough attention to what gets philosophy started - which must be muddles that arise from common sense - or perhaps from science's search for causes.

Thus we sometimes wish for a notation which stresses a difference more strongly, makes it more obvious, than ordinary language does, — Blue Book, 59

If our disagreement with solipsism is just a question of notation, we seem to have no way of persuading solipsist to change their view. There must be more to it than that. (The same applies to the more persuasive analogy of the puzzle pictures, which I see turn up in the Brown Book (p.162).)

For clarity, I ask these question in the spirit of Augustine puzzlement about the nature of time. I do think that W is identifying important truths about philosophy and its practice. But that's not to say that I am not puzzled about them.

@Ludwig V

Wittgenstein, however, argues that solipsism results from misuse of language: — Paine

I haven’t gotten as far as your quote from the end of the book, but I think I’ve shown sufficient evidence in the text that the vehicle of confusion may be things like: that words can still have meaning imposed on them despite being removed from context, and that analogy can force a conclusion simply because of shared premises, which are both logical errors, but that the cause, more motivation, which “results” in solipsism is the desire for certainty (e.g., wanting everything to have a reference like objects). The common reading that normally we misuse language or get tricked by it is usually followed by the conclusion that philosophy simply needs to impose its own, better, more logical, clearer, more certain, etc., criteria (though distinctions sometimes must be made). I think this argument plays out through the work.