then I think we are at an impasse. — Janus

Sounds good. :up:

Your comment might be useful if it was augmented by some explanation as to how this discussion relates to the private language argument. — Janus

From the OP:

This challenge comes from Saul Kripke’s Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language (1982) — frank

:grin:

This whole subject is a non-subject as far as I can tell, and no one has been able to come up with anything to convince me otherwise, — Janus

It's probably the most widely discussed angle on the private language argument. :wink:

I agree, and would add that this understanding of the self as "asserted" (as it were along or against the backdrop of our practices and culture) is what creates the possibility of the moral realm. — Antony Nickles

Assertion is a voluntary action, so it kind of requires a self of some kind, doesn't it? If you mean the self is drawn out of events post hoc, I think I agree? Likewise, morality is always a post hoc construction (I think) where we judge an event according to some standard or rule. That event was screwed up, so it's bad, and anything in the future that's like that would also be bad. But we can't really judge events in the future because we don't have access to them. We only have access to hypotheticals and past events.

So the self goes forward in time, propelled by a drive to live, even if it's a little organism with hardly a nervous system at all, if it moves by itself, we say it has volition, one of the cornerstones of selfhood.

That, past trying to set out what we "ought" to do and beyond deciding on a goal, the sense of a place where we are lost at the edge of our culture or that our society as it stands has lost our interests, is the limit of knowledge, where we must, as you say, "materialize" our future (self, culture). — Antony Nickles

Exactly.

Curiously, something as murky as the self, is crucial for things like criminal law, which depend on such notions. Also, our moral intuitions come into play, in terms of, if John hit Bob, if John is provably sleepwalking, we can't blame him for such an act. But if he merely angry, then we do penalize him, etc. — Manuel

So there's a conundrum. If John was sleepwalking, he did it, but he's not responsible. But what if we're always sleepwalking in a manner of speaking? Always playing out the same habits and grinding the same axes, or maybe only doing what we think we're supposed to do. That's a kind of loss of selfhood.

It could be that this is one of those problems in which our folk-intuition cannot do without, but which we cannot uncover through the most strenuous of efforts. Something can be an actual phenomenon, which we cannot delve into, nor explain, as I think is also the case of free will. — Manuel

Or infinity. We can't fathom it, but it's always there lurking in the contours of thought. When I think of the self I seem to fall into thinking of it as the primal dividing line: between me and not-me. All other division seem to follow, me and the perceived, the real and the not-real, the good and the bad, something and nothing, etc.

It would be awesome if this kind of conflict could be resolved by this kind of discussion. But in the real world, it's settled by bloodshed. When it's over, we'll all know who owns what.

Plus, if you're a determinist, you don't stand apart from the rest of the universe. Whatever impels the universe in general impels you. You sort of disappear into a monolith.

I think the domain where the idea of you, as a thinking, feeling actor on the world stage is the most potent is the moral realm. When you're victimized or when you hurt others, that's when you materialize in four dimensions to feel the pain, regret, or for some, the joy and dopamine of being hurtful.

I don't disagree with the private language argument, at least as I interpret it, which is to say that if you tried to construct a private language, you would always be relying on the public language you know in order to tell yourself what your novel language means. So. I'm not seeing the relevance in this context. — Janus

You don't see the relevance of the private language argument to Kripke's skeptical challenge? :chin:

If you came up with some kind of rationalist attack on the private language argument that would be cool.

I also see that fact as dispelling Kripke's skeptical challenge. — Janus

I don't see how.

:up:

The natural logic of addition includes infinitely many iterations simply because in principle there is no reason why you cannot just keep adding. Anything counter to that is a completely arbitrary stipulation. — Janus

That may be true.

The question is, how can an intensional definition of addition such as an inductive definition, that is finitely specified and only provides an inductive rule for performing a single step of computation, imply an unambiguous and extensionally infinite table of values? — sime

That's an interesting question, but it's not Kripke's skeptical challenge. His challenge is simpler: what fact is there regarding how you were using the word plus.

If you mean the mathematical justifications of the rule, that's true - within the rules (practices, language games) of mathematics. But what justifies those? "This is how we do it. You need to learn that. — Ludwig V

The question of how mathematical rules are justified is also interesting, but Kripke's challenge is about the use of the English word plus. What fact is there about how you were using it?

Kripke allows that mathematicians can adequately specify the rules of addition. That's not being called into question.

Kripke's challenge isn't about finding proof of something. It's not an epistemic question. It's metaphysics.

But as for Jenny, what you want to do is sneak in that magical phrase "for all practical purposes." For all practical purposes, Jenny has followed the rules.

Peace out, guys! Thanks for the discussion.

I think I'm tempted to simply accept the conclusion: there are no rule-following facts. Same with Hume and causation, though I really do admire Kant's attempt to overcome Hume's skepticism towards causation. — Moliere

I think the question is reaching for something beyond the limits of language, so I think you've got the right idea. :grin:

Oh, yes that's Kripke. I guess I just don't see it as resolution per se. He's just explaining why we expect rule following. Hume's problem of induction is primarily about why we expect contiguity past to future. This expectation isn't empirical, not rational, so why? One potential answer is habit. Another answer is Kant: we expect contiguity because it's coming from us in the first place.

So again, why do we expect rule following? It can't be empirical because there are no facts to observe. A rational answer would only mean something to a rationalist like Leibniz. So why do we expect that there is rule following and that this accounts for meaning? Could be habit.

You see, in both cases, the fundamental issue isn't resolved. Answering "habit" doesn't create rule-following facts for us. As with the problem of induction, we still have the gaping hole where we expected empirical data to support our assertions. Obviously, since Hume's problem attracted Kant's approach, we might expect that Kripke's problem would do something similar. Meaning isn't based on objective rule following, so maybe there's something innate about it. Maybe this innateness is a touchstone that meets each episode of communication, including this one.

The target audience seems to be philosophy professors because he advises bringing the challenge up for consideration by students. Kripke isn't a philosopher who preaches, so he doesn't really deal in dogma, like say, Nietzsche does. Is that what you mean?

If I'm understanding the argument: in place of truth-conditions Kripke resolves the sceptical problem with the sceptical solution that the community provides assertability-conditions. There's no fact which justifies the assertability-conditions, though. — Moliere

I don't believe Kripke is offering a resolution. He's just explaining why we think we're justified in picking out rule-following. I think he leaves us free to reshape our conceptions of meaning in anyway we might want to. :grin:

I think what I'd say is that there are ways of detecting if someone is following a rule, it's only that these ways are not a state of affairs in the world. Rather it's an acceptance by a community. At least this is the solution I see Kripkenstein offering. The conditions of assertability aren't in truth-conditions, but there are still conditions of assertability. You just have to learn what they are. — Moliere

I think what he's saying in the passage you quoted is that we have to look to the language community to discover why we ever talked about rule following in the first place.

On the other hand, if an individual passes enough tests, the community (endorsing assertions of the form (i)) accepts him as a rule follower, thus enabling him to engage in certain types of interactions with them that depend on their reliance on his responses.Note that this solution explains how the assertions in (i) and (ii) are introduced into language; it does not give conditions for these statements to be true.

So we still don't have any basis for determining that S followed a particular rule. We just treat certain circumstances as if she did.

So not quite an undermining of all normativity, but possibly a re-adjustment on philosophical interpretations of meaning. — Moliere

I agree. My bringing rationality into it was just a side effect of studying the link between meaning and normativity. You end up falling into discussing rationality with that topic.

Kripke's mind is wild to ride along with. — Moliere

Very true.

I don't think I'd reduce rationality to rule-following either. — Moliere

But what would you look for in an extraterrestrial signal if you were assessing for rationality? You'd probably want to see intention, right? What tells you that an action was intentional?

Some would say we want to see some signs of judgement. For instance if we would take a sequence of constants as a sign of intelligence, that would tell us that the aliens consciously chose those numbers. Choice entails normativity. They picked this number over that one.

All of this is wrapped up in rule following, which is normativity at its most basic. To follow a rule means to choose the right action over the wrong ones.

If it turns out that there's no detectable rule following in the world, normativity starts to unravel and meaning along with it. Is that how you were assessing the stakes here?

So maybe a more plain-language way of putting the question frank opened with (though I haven't read the text he's supplied, so I could be wrong): the skeptic might be asking how do you know the answer is not "the time is about 10:25" given that 125 divides into 12 10 times with a rough estimate of 25 minutes. — Moliere

The challenge is about rule following, specifically about rule following activity that's now in the past. It's not an epistemic problem. It's not about what a person knows about which rule they followed. It's that there's no fact (a situation existing in the world) even in terms of mental states that satisfies Kripke's criteria for a rule-following-fact.

The idea of quadition was just to convey the problem. Kripke wasn't trying to do philosophy of math, although there have apparently been philosophers of math who were interested in it.

My thoughts on it (so far) is that it fits pretty well with my belief that we aren't as rational in practice as we tend to think we are. I think some people would assume that means I end up a behaviorist, but I'd say they're making the same mistake again. They think their post hoc rationalizations are the way the world really is. It's not.

I wish you well :blush: — Merkwurdichliebe

thank you!

Regardless...those in leadership positions did not hide their covid scam — Merkwurdichliebe

That damn covid scam! It's still killing people! Not as many as it used to tho. It doesn't really rate much higher than flu these days. I'm taking a break from this forum for a while. Thanks for the discussion. :smile:

You didn't talk to everyone. And I imagine, given the hyper-sensorship and public stigma towards anyone who might have opposed the official narrative, it would have been practically impossible to talk to everyone. — Merkwurdichliebe

I meant we healthcare workers talk to each other. There wasn't any official narrative that conflicted with what was happening on the ground as far as I'm aware. I didn't realize how deeply suspicious a large chunk of the population had become until I talked to one of my friends and found that he'd escaped to a dystopian nightmare. I'm not really sure what accounts for that belief that those in leadership positions are perpetrating a giant fraud. I mean, when they give massive tax breaks to the rich, it's wide out in the open. They aren't trying to hide it. They don't have to.

But that wasn't the case in the hospitals in my area — Merkwurdichliebe

It happened everywhere in the US. We talk to each other, you know. :razz:

We all maxed, vasked, and locked down, what else can we be expected to do? — Merkwurdichliebe

Nothing. As soon as the virus went AWOL in NY it was a foregone conclusion that we were headed for herd immunity. All over America, hospitals adjusted to devote all their resources to dealing with covid, and we still ran out of room and equipment.

You locked down to try to slow the spread so the hospital system wouldn't be more overloaded than it was.

Without the lockdowns, you would have gone outside in the morning to see what the people in 1918 saw: dead people laying in their yards.

I understand why nobody gets this. You didn't see what was happening in the hospitals. How could you know?

I suppose the covid policy that we were all forced to comply with did him no good. — Merkwurdichliebe

All spin, no substance. That's our world!

Cool. I'm discussing normativity elsewhere, so I probably won't be adding to this thread. :up:

I also believe there's ginormous room for improvement in the way things were handled. My list reflects my time working in the hospital.

You remember public frenzy, I remember the dying old man who doesn't believe it when people tell him he has covid. I think his words were: "You just hear so many different things", or something like that. He's dead.

Exactly. My entire political orientation has been completely revolutionized in the past 3 years because of exactly this. It is interesting to see how the left and right are constantly worked into irreconcilable conflict over these "official narratives", while the "brokers" sit back and consolidate more power and wealth into their own hands. — Merkwurdichliebe

A large number of people actually did die from COVID-19. Is that the part you didn't believe? Or what?

think her older brother is theboy who cried wolf — Merkwurdichliebe

His cousin was little Red Ridinghood.

Doomsaying is probably on par with flattery as the most pathetically overused gimick in human history. — Merkwurdichliebe

Yea but Cassandra was right.

You don't have to answer the question if you don't want to or can't find anything to say. — Janus

Darn tootin'

I think it would be huge philosophically.
— frank

What difference would it make to philosophy in your view? — Janus

What do you think I was referring to there?

All true

The climate is already very variable when you look at summer and winter. Animals and plants have evolved to cope with this variability. — Agree-to-Disagree

No, it's stuff like bigger droughts and destructive storms. And remember we talked about the potential shutdown of the AMOC. That would essentially destroy western Europe.

Humans can move the plants that they want to move. This solves the problem for plants that can't move themselves. All of our food crops etc will be easy to shift. — Agree-to-Disagree

I think the main threat to global stability will be climate volatility. A few punches in the face we can handle. But if they just keep coming we'll eventually fall.

O Canada! Our home and native land!
True patriot love in all thy sons command.
With glowing hearts we see thee rise,
The True North strong and free!
From far and wide, O Canada,
We stand on guard for thee.
God keep our land, glorious and free!
O Canada, we stand on guard for thee;
O Canada, we stand on guard for thee — wonderer1

:nerd:

Russia and Greenland will open up as well. North Dakota will be nice.