Philosophy has never shown any inclination to roll over and die. — Srap Tasmaner

Quite.
A history of philosophy as endless mistakes is as much a mistake as a history of philosophy as endless progress.
One might think that, though philosophy never dies, philosophies can, and do, die. But I doubt even that. Can we really say that the philosophy of Plato or Aquinas is dead? There are plenty of people who not only study them as historical documents, but seem quite happy to adopt them.
The New Science developed a way (or ways) of not only asking questions, but finding answers. Almost everybody since then has been hypnotized by its success - which, I grant you, is impressive. But that model does not seem to apply to the arts or more accurately to our thinking about the arts - not even to history itself. I'm pretty sure that, to understand philosophy, we need to look away from science towards other models.
Of course, that way of thinking about it needs to recognize that the new science was originally simply Natural Philosophy. It took a good deal of work to establish it the distinction between philosophy and science and some sort of (uneasy) diplomatic relationship.

But there may be a third sort of philosophy, which is the more or less deliberate cultivation of perplexity — Srap Tasmaner

Yes. That would be a good description of the agenda of any Philosophy 101 course. It seems to me that it is now an essential step in learning about philosophy or, better, how to philosophize. Perhaps we should assess our students' success in such courses by their level of bewilderment. Look at how carefully Descartes instils his doubt at the beginning of the Meditations.

If I give someone the order "fetch me a red flower from that meadow", how is he to know what sort of flower to bring, as I have only given him a word?
— p. 3
Where does this question come from? It's not an ordinary question, not the sort of problem people raise in everyday life. ..... Frege says that we have to get behind the signs to the meaning, precisely what Wittgenstein notes it never occurs to anyone to say about the signs we exchange in everyday life. — Srap Tasmaner

That's true, so far as it goes.
But I don't see how philosophy could have got started - in history or in individual consciousness - unless it has roots in ordinary life.

Recognizing the difference between the word as a noise and the word as an order is the critical step. But I would suggest that it does have roots in everyday life, such as encountering people who not only don't understand me when I speak - even when I speak slowly and loudly - but also make odd noises themselves, which seem to function for their friends and neighbours as my language does for me. The Ancient Greeks were very impressed by this phenomenon.

It requires a particular sort of imagination to notice what people do not do and what they do not worry about, and a particular sort of imagination to make it plausible that they would. ...... Now we have something a bit like a problem to work on, philosophically. A deliberately induced perplexity. — Srap Tasmaner

I would put it as a particular perspective, but imagination seems to work as well. Perhaps philosophy arises from a disruption of ordinary life.
But it doesn't follow that finding an answer would necessarily return us to everyday life. Doubts about the existence of the gods started very early in the history of (what we can recognize as) philosophy. Returning the doubters to everyday life would not have been a good idea. On the contrary, those doubts amounted to a new perspective on everyday life. Or, to put it another way, everyday life is a bit of a mess and sometimes a new perspective is what is required. I'm very fond of that quotation from TS Eliot about travelling the world and returning home, and "knowing the place for the first time."

there are the oddball questions which lead either to science (why does the second ball move? is also a very good question) or to philosophy. — Srap Tasmaner

Yes. Oddball questions are sometimes just muddles or fantasies (nightmares). But sometimes they are more than that.

Recognizing the difference between the word as a noise and the word as an order is the critical step. — Ludwig V

A critical step of what? Of understanding an order? Does it go "Step 1: recognize the other person is not just making a noise; Step 2: ... "?

What if you forget to do step 1? Or do people just always remember?

When you give an order, do you worry that the other person might forget, and think you were just making a noise? -- Or maybe it will just happen at random: "I understood some of what you said, but there were a couple times you were just making noises."

(As a matter of fact, written exchanges like this differ from spoken conversation by leaving out the noises -- and the gestures -- we habitually make while talking. Those noises are also communicative, but in a different way.)

A critical step of what? Of understanding an order? Does it go "Step 1: recognize the other person is not just making a noise; Step 2: ... "? — Srap Tasmaner

I meant a critical step in getting perplexed about understanding carrying out an order.

If I give someone the order "fetch me a red flower from that meadow", how is he to know what sort of flower to bring, as I have only given him a word? — Srap Tasmaner

If you casually said that in the middle of a battle, I think you would be met by astonishment and bewilderment. W's question needs to be prepared for; it involves abandonment of our ordinary understanding and a peculiar way of thinking about the whole process.

When you give an order, do you worry that the other person might forget, and think you were just making a noise? -- Or maybe it will just happen at random: "I understood some of what you said, but there were a couple times you were just making noises." — Srap Tasmaner

My default position is that the other person will understand me. If things go wrong, I cope in one way or another. I don't worry, because I am confident that I can cope. Normally, if I did worry about those possibilities, I would be already doing philosophy.

If I give someone the order "fetch me a red flower from that meadow", how is he to know what sort of flower to bring, as I have only given him a word? — p. 3

W's question needs to be prepared for; it involves abandonment of our ordinary understanding and a peculiar way of thinking about the whole process. — Ludwig V

Normally, if I did worry about those possibilities, I would be already doing philosophy. — Ludwig V

The question here ― how can the word "red" be any help getting a red flower ― is wrong-footed, a question that seems to involve selectively forgetting what words are for. (In that sense, it's a little like what he says later on about the question "How can one think what is not the case?")

Useful for Wittgenstein as an example of philosophy going wrong, but maybe helpful in another way, because if we can see we can see how it goes wrong, we can learn something about language.

Part of what's going on here, I think, is that Wittgenstein wants to say that looking for a psychological explanation for how words work is looking in the wrong place. The wrong place not because psychology (or anthropology or linguistics) doesn't work, but because that kind of explanation is not the business of philosophy.

That is, the problems philosophy worries over arise not because we don't know enough ― about the psychology of language, the nature of reality, whatever ― but because we misunderstand the nature of language or the grammar of particular words.

I don't at all like the phrase "the nature of language" there, but I'm not sure how else to put that. By pointing at use itself, Wittgenstein is offering no theory at all. Even to talk about someone understanding the grammar of a word is just another way of saying they know how the word is used, what it's role in the language is. 'Grammar' is an important word for him, but it's descriptive, not explanatory.

So to come back to the death of philosophy, on the one hand there will be criticism of philosophical positions that derive from misunderstandings of grammar, but there is also room to do this on purpose as a first step in exploring the grammar of our expressions, and you could maybe still call this "philosophy".

One might say that the subject we are dealing with is one of the heirs of the subject that used to be called "philosophy." — p. 28

At least that's what I think he's up to.

the question "How can one think what is not the case?" — Srap Tasmaner

Now that is a very good question and distinctively philosophical. I shall look forward to that discussion.

That is, the problems philosophy worries over arise not because we don't know enough ― about the psychology of language, the nature of reality, whatever ― but because we misunderstand the nature of language or the grammar of particular words. — Srap Tasmaner

I think there are problems with this.
In the first place, it is suspiciously tidy, and does not reflect the dialogue that goes on between philosophy and the sciences. I came across an egregious example of this in the psychological approach to empathy through a concept of "theory of mind". (See Wikipedia - Theory of Mind)
In the second place, categorizing the philosophical problem as a problem about language works if one has a certain philosophical background. But many people seem to confuse the philosophical discussions with linguistics or even with logic-chopping. The real issues, they think, are about reality, not just the words that we use to describe it.

'Grammar' is an important word for him, but it's descriptive, not explanatory. — Srap Tasmaner

I see his use of this term as the remnant of the idea that language has a complete logical structure, which is quite clearly distinct from the world that we talk about. There's room for a lot of clarification, though most people (including me) seem to think that it is not difficult to graps his point. We silently ignore the traditional sense of grammar, though it plays its part in creating philosophical perplexity.

So to come back to the death of philosophy, on the one hand there will be criticism of philosophical positions that derive from misunderstandings of grammar, but there is also room to do this on purpose as a first step in exploring the grammar of our expressions, and you could maybe still call this "philosophy". — Srap Tasmaner

It occurred to me that anyone who thinks that a philosophical problem has, or should have, an answer or solution is implicitly committed to the death of philosophy. It may be that this illusion is the same illusion as the idea that a complete and final physics is a desirable aim - i.e. that the point of physics is the death of physics.

One might say that the subject we are dealing with is one of the heirs of the subject that used to be called "philosophy."
— p. 28
At least that's what I think he's up to. — Srap Tasmaner

I don't think you are wrong. But I do think that there are some puzzles and confusions in his explanations.

W thinks they are wrong about that, but that is a philosophical position, which needs to be demonstrated. — Ludwig V

His form of proof is logical, but it takes the acknowledgement of his premises, which are the expressions we have about a practice in a situation, and this may seem arrogant.

…W seems to start from our perplexity… everybody needs to start from somewhere - but it seems to rely on a wholesale dismissal of the philosophical tradition(s) — Ludwig V

Also, he is not engaging the tradition on its own terms, which does seem dismissive, but the two methods don’t hit at the same points and if he goes in too close, he gets tied up in the same structural issues as the tradition. It does feel like we joined the lecture halfway through the semester. No explanation of sense data, no history, no defense. But the muddles come from the tradition. Sense data is the modern version of age-old responses to skepticism, other minds, the self, etc.

there may be a different desire underlying scepticism, the desire to undermine baseless certainties. — Ludwig V

Absolutely, the skeptic is right that there is no fact that ensures universality, prediction, righteousness, etc. and so dogmatism is his house of cards. (PI #118) The fear of radical skepticism is that the possibility of overblowing a position leads to the conclusion that it is impossible to hold any position, even in our best case scenario of seeing something right in front of us.

@Banno @Paine @Ludwig V @Jamal @Astrophel @Joshs @Shawn @Srap Tasmaner

(If anyone else does not want to be “notified” when I read another section, just let me know.)

Section 4A (pp.16-17) “language games”

As he puts off until later in the book the actual discussion of whether a machine can think, I will defer until then as well, only to point out the form of argument that he takes here is, again: a fact making a logical exclusion (what “can”, and “cannot”), which is simply that a machine cannot think because it is not human (analogously it can’t have a toothache either). I don’t know that this would be convincing to those that believe that eventually machines will be capable of “being human” or that reduce their interest in “thinking” to replicating an activity, such as problem-solving, but we can take that up later. As well as the brief reference to the desire that thought be “private”.

Another note on method involves the misunderstanding of what “language games” are for him. Many believe these are, say, contexts of rules that underly or justify the meaning of words, but, clearly here, he is “looking closely” at simplified examples that are “particular”, which I take to be distinguishing enough to show facts that matter to the workings of a specific activity (the criteria of its grammar), with thinking with words involving uses of “comparison”, “difference”, “agreement”, etc. (Thus, the PI is not, for instance, arguing that using words is like following rules, but is drawing out the mechanics of rule-following as a case to study; there, to show how the grammar is different than (falls short of) a desire for pure logic.) Here it shows thinking to be more than merely “activity” but not necessarily “mental”. Importantly, so we are not “misled by… linguistic form into a false conception of… grammar” as we might be misled by the expression that “thinking is an activity... of our mind” into thinking that the mind is “the seat of the activity of thinking” (rather than just pointing out, say, that we did it in our head rather than worked it out physically, and not a matter of locality).

People using signs are alive. They give life to the signs through their use. Wittgenstein recognizes that 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

I'd like to come back to this for a moment. These are important milestones for Wittgenstein.

But if we had to name anything that is the life of the sign, we should have to say it was its use. — p. 4

And on the next page:

The sign (the sentence) gets its significance from the system of signs, from the language to which it belongs. Roughly: understanding a sentence means understanding a language. — p. 5

The latter passage does have a whiff of what we could call "structuralism" about it: as if to say, the sentences of a language ― however you imagine collecting them all ― form a system, and the meaning of a sentence is the role it plays within this system, its function. (Maybe not inconsistent with the Tractatus's sense of language.)

But this is not quite what Wittgenstein says, because before that we get the point about the life of the sign ― in response to Frege's dismissal of formalism in mathematics. And Wittgenstein's answer is not that mathematical signs form a system, and therefore mathematical propositions are meaningful because they have a specified role or function within that system. What brings those dashes on paper to life is that they are used to do mathematics.

So, what does using a sign consist of?

Speaking or writing it, certainly, or even thinking it, but we know that's not enough, if nothing else because we know the difference between use and mention ― if you're talking about a sign (or doodling mathematical symbols, whatever), you're not using it but mentioning it.

Something else is needed then. What? We know one answer Wittgenstein rejects: the other thing that makes an utterance (or inscription, or thought) a use is something special going on in the speaker's mind.

As part of the system of language, one may say, the sentence has life. But one is tempted to imagine that which gives the sentence life as something in an occult sphere, accompanying the sentence. But whatever accompanied it would for us just be another sign. — p. 5, the very next sentence

But one natural test of whether an utterance is a use is whether the speaker means it, or is just quoting or fooling around or something else. This is the sort of thing that context ― another candidate for what's needed ― can't really provide on its own. Wittgenstein does not ignore the issue of intentions.

Suppose that the question is "what do you mean by that gesture?" and the answer is "I mean that you must leave". The answer would not have been more correctly phrased: "I mean what I mean by the sentence 'you must leave'." — Philosophical Grammar, p. 40

"What did you mean by those words?" "Did you mean those words?" The first question is not a more precise specification of the second. The first is answered by a proposition replacing the proposition which wasn't understood. The second question is like: "Did you mean that seriously or as a joke?" — Philosophical Grammar, p. 41

So Wittgenstein is not going to ignore the fact that, generally speaking, to count as use we must mean what we say; but he is going to deny that meaning what we say is a mental phenomenon or a mental activity.

Much to argue about there, but we can be pretty clear that he is not looking for a psychological explanation of what use is, or of what makes an utterance of a sign a use of it.

So what does?

As we head with @Antony Nickles into language-games, we find this:

We are inclined to think that there must be something in common to all games, say, and that this common property is the justification for applying the general term "game" to the various games; whereas games form a family the members of which have family likenesses. — p. 17

To keep it short, I believe this is our answer regarding use: there is nothing common to all uses of signs that distinguishes them from mere utterances. Use has no essence. I don't happen to know how Wittgenstein got here ― after beginning to doubt that there is such a thing as the "general form of a proposition" ― but it would make sense if use was the very first case of "family resemblance"; language-games come along, after all, to explicate use.

And with that move, the whole world opens up. Now Wittgenstein can say things like this:

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. — p. 7

That doesn't mean every utterance is some kind of use, but it means that the uses of a sign are open-ended. Whatever 'grammar' describes, it is not a fixed set of rules that must be followed when using a sign; 'language games' illustrate use, but do not exhaust the possibilities of use.

I hope you will not mind if I post a comment on p. 15 - on causes and reasons - before progressing to p. 16.

If on the other hand you realize that the chain of actual reasons has a beginning, you will no longer be revolted by the idea of a case in which there is no reason for the way you obey the order. .....

The difference between the grammars of "reason" and "cause" is quite similar to that between the grammars of "motive" and "cause". Of the cause one can say that one can't know it but can only conjecture it. On the other hand one often says: "Surely I must know why I did it" talking of the motive. When I say: "we can only conjecture the cause but we know the motive" this statement will be seen later on to be a grammatical one. The "can" refers to a logical possibility.

The double use of the word "why", asking for the cause and asking for the motive, together with the idea that we can know, and not only conjecture, our motives, gives rise to the confusion that a motive is a cause of which we are immediately aware, a cause 'seen from the inside', or a cause experienced.- Giving a reason is like giving a calculation by which you have arrived at a certain result. — p. 15

The first bolded passage, it seems to me, turns on the distinction between an action being justified in principle, as it were, that is, whether or not it was performed and, if it was performed, it was performed from quite different reasons. Think of an umpire's correct decision being given, not because it was correct, but for some quite different reason. That is, W is concerned with the agent's reason(s), not whether the action is justifiable in principle. Fair enough.

The second bolded passage is confusing, at least to me. I can only suppose that he means that we may or may not know what the cause of an action is or whether a possible cause actually was the cause. I can see why he classifies the teaching process as a cause, not a reason - because it "drops out of consideration" - or, we don't need to know about it when considering how you responded to the order. But it isn't a cause like gravity or the impact of one billiard ball on another.

However, my problem is with his comparison of reasons with motives. I have to say, I think of a motive as a desire or wish or value - reasons map the path from there to the action. as in the third bolded passage. But set that aside. My question is how does this fit with the justification post hoc? It looks as if I may act for no reason, but then offer a justification post hoc, which suggests that I did act for a reason. But that doesn't fit with our immediate awareness of the motive.

if you're talking about a sign (or doodling mathematical symbols, whatever), you're not using it but mentioning it. — Srap Tasmaner

Yes, but it’s not a matter that words are tools we manipulate then of which “well established usage”(p.3) something is like, as he draws out the different uses of “This is a pencil” in the phrases which follow it (solved by imagining a context for that “use”, as if a crossword).

But one natural test of whether an utterance is a use is whether the speaker means it, or is just quoting — Srap Tasmaner

An utterance is not judged as, or as not, a ‘use’ of words; an utterance has a use—it is a plea, or a threat, or points out a difference; as are the examples regarding the pencil—depending on the context. Thus why words are not ‘meant’ by us, other than in contrast to when we jest.

That doesn't mean every utterance is some kind of use, but it means that the uses of a sign are open-ended. Whatever 'grammar' describes, it is not a fixed set of rules that must be followed when using a sign; 'language games' illustrate use, but do not exhaust the possibilities of use. — Srap Tasmaner

I agree. I read the book as confirming your statement when W says:

The sign (the sentence) gets its significance from the system of signs, from the language to which it belongs. Roughly: understanding a sentence means understanding a language. — p. 5

I think of that as asking why we are so good at doing it. The different models we come up with to explain it are no match for our ability.

The importance of "family resemblances" is not to deny any purpose to seeking general qualities. For example, the comparisons made between 'rules of chess' and what we are doing allow seeing a similarity and a difference. The objection to the 'occult' explanations is that they are too easy. We use them to make bread and frighten children.

I think of that as asking why we are so good at doing it. — Paine

if you're talking about our ability to improvise and make novel uses of signs, it's good point and one I think Wittgenstein ought to have given more emphasis.

On the other hand, I'm having trouble following this, @Antony Nickles:

but it’s not a matter that words are tools we manipulate then of which “well established usage”(p.3) something is like — Antony Nickles

Wittgenstein gives "this is tove" as an example of an ostensive definition, and then points out that ostensive definitions are, at the very least, ambiguous. It's a point worth making because sometimes people expect that the explanation of what a word means ― and we're only on page 2, so we're still on explanations of the meaning of a word ― will bottom out in ostensive definition. People think that for lots of reasons, but one is the evident role of something like ostension in teaching language, or explaining to someone who already has a language the meaning of a word they don't know. He covers that case as well ("this is a banjo").

Introducing the list with which he will make this point, he says

I will give a few such interpretations and use English words with well-established usage. — p. 2

He then discusses the issue of this approach just being more signs, and goes right into the question of whether we have to attribute an interpretation (of "this is a banjo") to someone based on their behavior, and then into whether this interpretation is a mental act, all that.

But you seem to be suggesting something else I don't quite understand. There would be no point in offering more words that either Wittgenstein's audience or the person being told "this is tove" don't understand; that wouldn't help explain "tove" to anyone. ― There's an issue here about how anyone can learn language from scratch, but the "banjo" discussion points at how we expect that to work: you have to look to behavior to see whether they're getting it. Does the two-year old pick out the red one when asked to, etc.

Do you think he was making some different point when he mentioned that he was using words his audience will understand?

An utterance is not judged as, or as not, a ‘use’ of words; an utterance has a use—it is a plea, or a threat, or points out a difference; as are the examples regarding the pencil—depending on the context. — Antony Nickles

And this too I'm not following at all. Do you take Wittgenstein to have been saying that "this is tove" might mean any one of

"This is a pencil",
"This is round",
"This is wood",
"This is one",
"This is hard", etc. etc. — ibid

depending on context?

But you're right that Wittgenstein generally asks what "the use" of an expression is, rather than asking how an expression is being used.

To the statement "I feel in my hand that the water is three feet under the ground" we should like to answer "I don't know what this means". But the diviner would say: "Surely you know what it means. You know what 'three feet under the ground' means and you know what 'I feel' means!" But I should answer him: I know what a word means in certain contexts. ... But the use of the expression "a feeling of water being three feet under the ground" has yet to be explained to me. — p. 9f.

He speaks of "the grammar" in a similar way:

The grammar of this phrase has yet to be explained to me. — p. 10

But he doesn't exclusively use "use" as a noun; introducing language games he uses the transitive verb:

These are ways of using signs simpler than those in which we use the signs of our highly complicated everyday language. — p. 17

So first he says, "I don't what this means", and then "The use of this expression has not been explained to me." The latter is, in essence, an explanation of the former. It's worth noting that we could go around again: having received an explanation from the diviner, Wittgenstein might find himself, in a completely different context, talking to someone else who uses the expression "a feeling of water being three feet under the ground", and he would have to say now that he knows the use of that expression by a diviner looking for water, but only in that context, not this one.

Even within a given context, it's plain that an expression can have more than one use, so we don't have to make too much of Wittgenstein's habit of saying "the use" or "the grammar".

What about my distinction between "mere" utterance and "genuine" use? For now, I'll stick by it, though these aren't Wittgenstein's words.

Consider the diviner: the first explanation given, the one quoted above, is not enough, as Wittgenstein points out. He goes on to consider other explanations the diviner might give, about how he learned to associate a feeling of tension in his hands with the presence of water below ground, and so on.

The importance of investigating the diviner's answer lies in the fact that we often think that we have given a meaning to a statement P if only we assert "I feel (or I believe) that P is the case. — p. 10

The implication here is that having given a meaning to a statement is something you can be mistaken about; this is roughly what he will say about many of the examples he draws from philosophy, that there is an assumption of sense where sense has not yet been given.

We could call such uses of signs "infelicitous" or "misfires" or something like that, as Austin does, in a different context. Or we could say, as I did, that when the grammar of what you're saying is all mixed up, it's not quite a use at all. The terminology is not all that important.

However, my problem is with his comparison of reasons with motives. I have to say, I think of a motive as a desire or wish or value - reasons map the path from there to the action. as in the third bolded passage. But set that aside. My question is how does this fit with the justification post hoc? It looks as if I may act for no reason, but then offer a justification post hoc, which suggests that I did act for a reason. But that doesn't fit with our immediate awareness of the motive. — Ludwig V

I think the comparison of motives with reasons is logical (grammatically similar) both compared to causes, which we may not know. But I can know my motives (though I may not), and I’m the only one that can know, and give, my reasons (“actual reasons” not being mistake for causes). I’m not sure we would act for a reason (seems like a motive, or a principle), but after the fact (post hoc) we could give reasons for acting as I did (which could include causes and motives, as it could include excuses and justifications).

Do you take Wittgenstein to have been saying that "this is tove" might mean any one of… depending on context? — Srap Tasmaner

Yes. Same statement (“This is pencil”), different “uses” (usages, made explicit), or as he also calls them: interpretations. Not that the use is given by me.

But he doesn't exclusively use "use" as a noun — Srap Tasmaner

True. Not sure if sometimes he is just writing “using” regularly or not, but it still bears keeping in mind the point that a usage/interpretation is more than something I do, what with history, context, others’ judgment, multiple uses, etc. (even though I can consider, choose words, plan, hope).

Same statement (“This is pencil”), different “uses” (usages, made explicit), or as he also calls them: interpretations. Not that the use is given by me. — Antony Nickles

Okay. I still can't tell if this is a minor verbal difference between us.

If he picks what we call a "banjo" we might say "he has given the word 'banjo' the correct interpretation"; if he picks some other instrument ― "he has interpreted 'banjo' to mean 'string instrument'".

We say "he has given the word 'banjo' this or that interpretation", and are inclined to assume a definite act of interpretation besides the act of choosing. — p. 2

So do you read Wittgenstein here as rhetorically casting doubt not only on the assumption noted ― about the separate, mental act of interpretation ― but also on the idea of giving a word an interpretation, or interpreting a word to mean something?

a usage/interpretation is more than something I do, what with history, context, others’ judgment, multiple uses, etc. (even though I can consider, choose words, plan, hope). — Antony Nickles

I would say that an interpretation is not private to me, certainly, because it is not a special mental act that I perform.

I want you to remember that words have those meanings which we have given them; and we give them meanings by explanations. — p. 27

Whenever we interpret a symbol in one way or another, the interpretation is a new symbol added to the old one. — p. 33

In the early example with the banjo, it is clear that the context does not determine the interpretation, because the person might give "banjo" this one or that one.

But there's something left unclear in the initial discussion of the banjo case, when he shifts from (1) explanations that translate from "banjo" (or "tove") to some other words to (2) the discussion of behavior when told to pick out a banjo. I think we're not asked to say that his behavior is another kind of wordless language; instead, we attribute to him an interpretation in words (such as "string instrument") we utter but he doesn't. We are the ones explaining his interpretation of "banjo", so we are the ones adding a new symbol to the old one.

This is the point where people say that understanding or meaning or interpretation "drop out", because Wittgenstein is insistent that anything you try to grasp as standing behind the words will be just another sign. There is something genuinely radical, or at least strange, going on here.

So do you read Wittgenstein here as rhetorically casting doubt not only on the assumption noted ― about the separate, mental act of interpretation ― but also on the idea of giving a word an interpretation, or interpreting a word to mean something? — Srap Tasmaner

Yes. You pick out the banjo. The picking results in a particular interpretation, or use, as: ‘This is pencil’ can distinguish the material, or the number, etc. depending on the circumstances.

I’m not sure we would act for a reason (seems like a motive, or a principle), but after the fact (post hoc) we could give reasons for acting as I did (which could include causes and motives, as it could include excuses and justifications). — Antony Nickles

I don't deny that. But I think W leaves a gaping hole in the demonstration that mental objects - in the "occult" sense, drop out of consideration as irrelevant. But what makes the reasons mine, as opposed to justifications after the event? Perhaps the fact that I give them as reasons after the event is what makes them mine. In giving them, I claim them, or perhaps acknowledge them. Either way, they are to be compared to "I am in pain" or "That tastes sweet". There is a complicated hinterland here, which is usually acknowledged only in passing, that one's authority in such cases is defeasible. We may be joking or pretending. But it's time to move on.

This is the point where people say that understanding or meaning or interpretation "drop out", because Wittgenstein is insistent that anything you try to grasp as standing behind the words will be just another sign. There is something genuinely radical, or at least strange, going on here. — Srap Tasmaner

That's right. It seems to me that this is why W ends up (in the PI) with the faintly despairing "But this is what I do!" or "When I have reached bedrock, my spade is turned.

An utterance is not judged as, or as not, a ‘use’ of words; an utterance has a use—it is a plea, or a threat, or points out a difference; as are the examples regarding the pencil—depending on the context. Thus why words are not ‘meant’ by us, other than in contrast to when we jest. — Antony Nickles

W doesn't give an analysis of his use of "use" in this context, but there is more than one use of words at stake here. Austin identifies some of them when he develops his concept of speech acts - which are, after all, uses of words. (I'm thinking of locutionary, illocutionary and perlocutionary acts) But he doesn't pay attention to two different ways of thinking about language. One is the approach through the idea that language is a structure and can be thought of as existing independently of speakers - much as a game can be thought of as a structured set of rules as well as in the playing of them. Here, we can say that speakers must conform to the rules, on pain of failing to communicate or saying something we did not mean to say. In this mode, we can speak of the "grammar" of language. But this approach doesn't pay attention to the various events of speakers speaking; here, breaking (or stretching) the rules is possible, because it turns on the intentions of the speaker and the reactions of the audience.
Of course, there is a sense in which the grammar of language only exists insofar as speakers conform to it. But that doesn't mean that anything goes.

This is the point where people say that understanding or meaning or interpretation "drop out", because Wittgenstein is insistent that anything you try to grasp as standing behind the words will be just another sign. There is something genuinely radical, or at least strange, going on here.
— Srap Tasmaner
That's right. It seems to me that this is why W ends up (in the PI) with the faintly despairing "But this is what I do!" or "When I have reached bedrock, my spade is turned — Ludwig V

But this having reached bedrock is precisely the way out of despair, or precisely, the way to free ourselves of the meaningless that confusing empirical with grammatical certainty leads to. The language game makes intelligibility possible by taking for granted a founding system of interconnected meanings that it would make no sense to doubt as long as one continued to move within that language game. This built-in normativity of our languaged practices is not a failure to properly ground meaning, but the condition for keeping meaning alive.

what makes the reasons mine, as opposed to justifications after the event? — Ludwig V

Aren’t justifications just a subset of reasons, like an excuse is a reason, as is acting on principal? Preparing them in advance to decide to act a certain way does not alter their category as a reason because they are given after the fact. And yes I think I am answerable for the reasons I give to you, as I am responsible for my actions.

there is more than one use of words at stake here — Ludwig V

Agreed, as evidenced by the pencil statement variations.

@Banno @Paine @Ludwig V @Jamal @Astrophel @Joshs @Shawn @Srap Tasmaner

Section 4B (pp.17-18) science vs. philosophy (generalizing)

Obviously, over-generalization leads to logical errors, but what’s interesting is how he ties it to traditional philosophical issues (however obliquely). It also seems clear that in saying “language” causes problems, he is referring to general problems in thinking, like the desire for simplicity, imprecision, mis-categorization, false analogies, etc., and not that we are pitting ordinary language against philosophy.

In (a) he brings up the abstraction of a quality into an independent property (creating an object) such as turning “real” into a thing that something either has or does not (as in his example of the “ideal” of beauty), which slides into the (not only Kant’s) idea of an (objective) “reality”.

In (b) is our main issue so far in a nutshell in that we turn the meaning of a word (leaf, or, say, thinking) into an object and take it to be what is common to particular instances (hello Plato). Not only that, but it is an image that resides “‘in him’”, creating ‘my’ ‘meaning’ for the solipsist (and the “mechanism” problem of (c)). What he sees is that we don’t actually put particulars together, but we learn (and reflect to make explicit) “certain features or properties which they have in common.” (p.18 my emphasis) These are the criteria for judging what is a leaf (say, from a seed that looks like one)—what is essential about it. (PI #371)

In (d) we see the creation of metaphysics (Plato’s forms; Descartes’ mind) as the product of science’s desire for an “explanation”, which is turning a “muddle felt as a problem” (p.6), into the “preoccupation” with ”answers” (not just never explaining anything @Paine), and here he clarifies, reduced to AN answer. This is the root temptation to solve the “problem” of skepticism, which blinds us (in “complete darkness”) from seeing our everyday criteria, which don’t unravel our “muddle” (once and for all) but unravel us so we can continue on.

But this is not to continue in the same manner, much less with the same goal. He doesn’t want to change the answer, he wants to change us, our interests. Our method is to look at “particular cases”, and our goal is to see what “distinguishes” them (our criteria for judgment).

While I recognize that W is taking a stance against the singularity of Plato's use of essence, he is oddly just like Socrates in accepting he has to live with the arguments he makes.

I don't read the issue he has with Plato as equivalent to his complaints about the temptations of modern science. The latter are the people he lives amongst.

I do think W urgently wants to get past the 'problem of skepticism' in regard to phenomena versus reality frames of discussion. He may eschew other explanations but he keeps taking aim at that one throughout his life.

But this having reached bedrock is precisely the way out of despair, or precisely, the way to free ourselves of the meaningless that confusing empirical with grammatical certainty leads to. — Joshs

In the context of philosophical scepticism or nihilism, that's so. The remark was, in a sense, only a flourish. But I was thinking of the parent trying to deal rationally with a child who has discovered the possibility of an infinite regress of "why". In the end, the authoritative. dogmatic, answer is the only possible one.

The language game makes intelligibility possible by taking for granted a founding system of interconnected meanings that it would make no sense to doubt as long as one continued to move within that language game. This built-in normativity of our languaged practices is not a failure to properly ground meaning, but the condition for keeping meaning alive. — Joshs

I agree with that, of course. That's the explanation that makes the authoritative answer not merely dogmatic.

I was thinking of the parent trying to deal rationally with a child who has discovered the possibility of an infinite regress of "why". In the end, the authoritative. dogmatic, answer is the only possible one.

The language game makes intelligibility possible by taking for granted a founding system of interconnected meanings that it would make no sense to doubt as long as one continued to move within that language game. This built-in normativity of our languaged practices is not a failure to properly ground meaning, but the condition for keeping meaning alive.
— Joshs
I agree with that, of course. That's the explanation that makes the authoritative answer not merely dogmatic. — Ludwig V

Of course, the flip side of operating within a language game is that its authoritative rules and pronouncements are at the same time normative and non-binding concerning future practices within it. As Joseph Rouse explains:

Wittgenstein's well-known remark that requests for justification of a practice must eventually encounter a stopping point at which one can only say, “This is what we do" is often read as appealing to a social regularity, but his remark can instead be heard with the inflection with which a parent tells a child, "We don't hit other children, do we?"

Such statements or rhetorical questions do not describe regularities in children's actual behavior. On the contrary, parents make such comments precisely because children do hit one another. Parents do so, however, in response to or anticipation of such "deviant" behavior in order to hold it accountable to correction. Children's behavior in turn is only partially accommodating to such correction: sometimes obeying, sometimes challenging or circumventing corrective responses, some-times disobeying and facing further consequences, and so forth. Remember that we cannot appeal to social regularities or collectively presupposed norms within a practice: there are no such things, I have argued, but more important, if there were they would not thereby legitimately bind us. Any regularities in what practitioners have previously done does not thereby have any authority to bind subsequent performances to the same regularities. The familiar Wittgensteinian paradoxes about rule following similarly block any institution of norms merely by invocation of a rule, since no rule can specify its correct application to future instances (Wittgenstein 1953). Practices should instead be understood as comprising performances that are mutually interactive in partially shared circumstances.

Brilliant. Thanks very much.

The familiar Wittgensteinian paradoxes about rule following similarly block any institution of norms merely by invocation of a rule,

It all goes back to this. But doesn't it follow that the authority of a pronouncement within the language is actually conferred on it by the (brute) fact that we accept it as authoritative - and our children accept their version of the practice after they have learnt ours?

@Joshs

In the end, the authoritative. dogmatic, answer is the only possible one. — Ludwig V

Cavell will point out that the teacher is only “inclined to say: ‘This is simply what I do.’” (PI #217] so of course we can shut the door to further teaching with dogmatism and authority, but we can always continue the conversation in order to reach agreement and compliance, because it’s the relationship—to each other, to society—that’s more important in this case than anything we might take (or force) as foundational.

Cavell will point out that the teacher is only “inclined to say: ‘This is simply what I do.’” (PI #217] so of course we can shut the door to further teaching with dogmatism and authority, but we can always continue the conversation in order to reach agreement and compliance, because it’s the relationship—to each other, to society—that’s more important in this case than anything we might take (or force) as foundational. — Antony Nickles

I don't know the texts well enough to comment on Cavell's comment. There is sense in what he says, but I'm not sure that it is what W wants to say.

In one way, you are right about what's important. However, the (not, perhaps, very clearly expressed) point of the ideas in the PI is (I think) that at the stage of learning how to argue and/or think, we are not in a position to make decisions about what is important, much less what is correct. We are inducted into the ways of what we do. It's not a question of argument, but of learning. That's the authority of "This is what I do". Paradoxically, my ability to dissent from and to question what I am taught (in any meaningful or relevant way) rests on my having learnt what it is to dissent and to question.

There's a moment in Plato's Laws, when he considers what to do with atheists - and he seems to mean this in the modern sense of not believing that gods exist. (There were such people among the pre-Socratics.) His answer is to corral them in a safe place outside the city and there to persuade them of the error of their ways. He is quite clear that the end of this process is only reached when the atheists recognize the error of their ways. This is not a conversation. A conversation is only meaningful if the conclusion of the conversation is open. Even refusing to end the conversation until agreement is reached is an authoritarian position.

The intertwining of authority and negotiation is very complicated, and I think it is misleading to insist that they are polar opposites.

[Witt] is oddly just like Socrates in accepting he has to live with the arguments he makes. — Paine

I’ve always thought they both start in the same place: asking what we say in a given situation, but Witt listens in a way where Socrates seems to already have something in mind. But they are very similar. Are you saying they both hold us responsible for what we say? or that they are somehow stuck with the arguments they make?

I don't read the issue he has with Plato as equivalent to his complaints about the temptations of modern science. The latter are the people he lives amongst. — Paine

I agree; he is specifically taking on ‘sense data’, and the paragraph about science is as vehement as he gets. I only bring Plato into it to say that the issue (of metaphysics) has followed philosophy all along.

I do think W urgently wants to get past the 'problem of skepticism' in regard to phenomena versus reality frames of discussion. He may eschew other explanations but he keeps taking aim at that one throughout his life. — Paine

Absolutely, that is the target of the times (as with Austin). Given our reading, I think I would phrase it as the “problematizing” of skepticism. That if we take skepticism as a problem, it leads to the desire for an answer, and he wants to show examples of the ordinary working rationality we have, to say that: when that comes to an end (as @Joshs @Ludwig V are discussing), we at least are on open, common ground to differentiate from, rather than fighting in “frames of discussion” of theoretical fantasy. As @Ludwig V says “my ability to dissent from and to question what I am taught (in any meaningful or relevant way) rests on my having learnt what it is to dissent and to question.”

It's not a question of argument, but of learning. — Ludwig V

And of course, as you say, “we are inducted into what we do”, but in the PI we are constantly brought up by the (seemingly irrational) rogue student. Here, just as we’ve resolved a misunderstanding about the locality of thought between science and philosophy (p.8), we are thrust back into disagreement: “But what if someone said ‘I can assure you I feel the visual image to be two inches behind the bridge of my nose’; what are we to answer him? Should we say that he is not speaking the truth, or that there cannot be such a feeling?” (p.9, emphasis added). And bringing in “feeling” tempts us to say the conversation is now hopelessly irrational, to say we perhaps have to rely on the force of (society’s) authority, but he says we “**don’t say that the [person] is telling a lie or talking nonsense” (p.10, my emphasis), just that it “has yet to be explained to us” (id.) how what they are saying makes sense. It is not the sense (truth) that has any power, but the people, open-endedly (or not “negotiation”, but rebellion), just needing to find our (a rational) way together to go forward (not ‘agree’). It doesn’t surprise me that Plato feels differently (though now I’m intrigued to go read that***).

**As I have taken the position before, I take this “don’t” as an ethical *admonition on Witt’s part (we can but shouldn’t), perhaps even political (as it would not be the first time he seems opposed to dogmatism (PI #426).
***turns out it’s the group who believe in the gods but that believe they don’t hold dominion of over us, as if rationality had no sway. They would be (this translation) “ministered to their souls salvation by [*]admonition” for five years then killed, for their “folly”. Laws, Bk 10, p. 909. (In America, it’s four years.)

The following from the Tractatus still seems to apply in the Blue Book:

The whole modern conception of the world is founded on the illusion that the so-called laws of nature are the explanations of natural phenomena.
Thus people today stop at the laws of nature, treating them as something inviolable, just as God and Fate were treated in past ages.
And in fact both are right and both wrong: though the view of the ancients is clearer in so far as they have a clear and acknowledged terminus, while the modern system tries to make it look as if everything were explained. — Tractatus, 6.371

The matter of what is right and wrong is not a single problem. Socrates and Witt are similar in looking for the limit to their arguments.

That if we take skepticism as a problem, it leads to the desire for an answer, and he wants to show examples of the ordinary working rationality we have, to say that: when that comes to an end (as Joshs @Ludwig V are discussing), we at least are on open, common ground to differentiate from, rather than fighting in “frames of discussion” of theoretical fantasy. — Antony Nickles

I do think Wittgenstein is looking for a way to help the solipsist find an answer to a problem:

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

I do think Wittgenstein is looking for a way to help the solipsist find an answer to a problem: — Paine

In a sense, but I’m making a finer distinction between kinds of “problems”. In my discussion of Sec 2 above I claimed he was pointing out how philosophy mixes up a conceptual confusion with the desire the solipsist has for a scientific answer because they want to see it only as an empirical problem.

“He is irresistibly tempted to use a certain form of expression; but we must yet find why he is.” Yes, he is trying to help find an “answer”, but just not a scientific answer to the problem the solipsist has framed. He is trying to find out why the solipsist is “irresistibly tempted”.

He is trying to find out why the solipsist is “irresistibly tempted”. — Antony Nickles

I'm sorry, but I had the impression that his explanation of the temptattion is the only answer that I found in the text. I must have missed something.

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. — Paine

I’ve always thought they both start in the same place: asking what we say in a given situation, but Witt listens in a way where Socrates seems to already have something in mind. — Antony Nickles

Yes, he tries hard to get to the heart of the problem. "A feeling that the water is three feet deep." But he doesn't deviate from his view that the solipsist is mistaken.
It's a side-issue, but Socrates' irony seems to me to be a product of Plato''s writing. I don't think we can conclude that the historical Socrates was always being ironic - that would contradict his claim in the Apology that he was testing the oracle.

***turns out it’s the group who believe in the gods but that believe they don’t hold dominion of over us, as if rationality had no sway. They would be (this translation) “ministered to their souls salvation by [*]admonition” for five years then killed, for their “folly”. Laws, Bk 10, p. 909. (In America, it’s four years.) — Antony Nickles

Thanks for that. I must have misremembered or misunderstood.

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'. — "p.18

I was struck by how confident he is about this. He doesn't seem to take into account that a description can be an explanation and can give us a new view of what we are already looking. Nor does he seem to be thinking of the ideas about interpretation (seeing as) that occur in the Brown Book and the PI. Maybe he only came up with those ideas after writing this.