They didn’t have to. They just wanted to. — NOS4A2

Yes, I expect that there were people who were keen to take advantage. But the question is, could cities have supported that many people in a hunter-gather life-style? It's a complicated question and I think that a definitive answer would be hard to impossible to get. So there may well have been an element of choice. In some way, cities must have offered something that was desirable to everyone. What could it have been. Agriculture arose around the same time, so that might have had something to do with it.

Now we have to adhere to the hierarchy or risk being punished. — NOS4A2

Do you seriously think that hunter-gather bands were all sweetness and light, with everybody doing exactly what they wanted and no force or compulsion?

By coincidence, I've been reminded that Wittgenstein discusses the difference between tacit and explicit knowledge - the paradox that one may know how to use a word perfectly well, but be unable to define it - Socrates' great mistake. In fact, this was a lynch-pin of his argument for meaning as use. Socrates thought that if you can't give an explicit definition of, say, courage, you didn't know what it is. But, for Wittgenstein, if you can behave bravely, you do know what courage is, even if you can't define it.
I think of tacit knowledge as like a sub-routine in a programme. It's the routine stuff that is delegated by consciousness, which is limited and lazy and prefers not to concentrate if it is not necessary. That does demand an explanation by reference to what's going on in the brain - and in the rest of the body as well. However, this is not a simple matter of physical laws, but requires an intervening layer, like the software in a computer.
Those sub-routines will involve implementation of rules - otherwise they cannot possibly be successful or even unsuccessful. So indeterminacy and blind action will apply.

There was no personal income tax anywhere in the world until around the first world war. — Tarskian

Income tax was levied in the UK from 1799 to 1802, and again from 1803 to 1816. It was brought back - on a strictly temporary basis - in 1842. Somehow, Parliament has never got round to abolishing it. In the USA personal income tax was imposed from 1872. A new income tax statute in 1894 was effectively struck down by the Supreme Court in 1895. The 16th Amendment reintroduced it on a firm legal basis in 1913. It's always been unpopular and bitter battles were fought over it in the 19th century. I can't quickly find information for other countries.

Also, government expenditure as a percentage of GDP is much lower. The government simply spends less. — Tarskian

That makes sense. You get what you pay for. It will be interesting to see how things develop as their economies develop. Hint - The first welfare state in the world was initiated by Otto von Bismarck in 1883 as a remedial measure to appease the working class and undermine support for his political opponents. For clarity, he was a conservative politician, deeply opposed to socialism.

Representation is an illusion anyway. Why pay for an illusion? — Tarskian

If one doesn't think it is an illusion, one might pay for it. Or even, perhaps, one might pay for it even it is an illusion because it is a useful illusion.

In politics and government the hierarchy is artificial and conventional, not natural. So this type of hierarchy is not inevitable or born of necessity, but the practical and logical consequence of synthetic political organization. — NOS4A2

Yes. As cities got larger, new forms of social organization had to be developed. You could always go back to hunting and gathering. Not my choice, though.

A well-structured operating system does not need a virus-checker. — Tarskian

Yes. If I had my time again, I would probably adopt Linux long before now. But it would be a big project for me and I think I have more pressing things to attend to. I'll have to manage as I am.

In all practical terms, personal income tax is not even implemented outside the West. — Tarskian

Fair enough. I thought there might be an answer along those lines. What about VAT or sales tax? It is not politically clever to apply taxes that each citizen must individually pay. The best taxes are not visible to voters. But then there's the moral argument that, just as there should be no taxation without representation, there should be no representation without taxation. So it's not easy.

I have used these principles since 2013. I have never had any security problem related to Bitcoin — Tarskian

I have not used either. I had no protection whatever until 10 years ago. Now, I have a virus-checker (Norton). I have never had any security problem.

The power of the local ruling mafia is continuously being challenged by other political clans who want to replace them. If you've got nothing to do with that, you are simply of no interest to them. — Tarskian

... apart from your ability to pay your taxes?

The truth is that the only real, inalienable wealth is your ability to deal with changes in fortune and, in the end, to walk away from everything you possess and start again, using whatever you have to hand. That's not entirely bullet-proof, but it's as near as one can get.

They are mostly a matter of self-discipline. — Tarskian

H'm. Perhaps self-discipline is freedom. An interesting thought.

However, that is typically not what any local ruling mafia is interested in. They have other politically more interesting people on their radar as well as limited resources to watch them. — Tarskian

So you know how far to trust them? Or do you just think you know? Put a foot wrong and you might become an object of great political interest.

I would have to distrust the math/cryptography. In fact, mathematicians and cryptographers generally do. That is why they invariably demand proof and then scrutinize it thoroughly. The method itself is already one of systematic distrust. — Tarskian

I'm really sorry, but the fact is that I have had many firm reassurances that IT is absolutely, finally secure, only to discover that it isn't. So I'm not buying.

when we posit conceptions of the physical and the mechanistic and attempt to found indeterminate intersubjective discursivity on these. — Joshs

Yes. One quibble. Our conceptions of the physical and mechanistic will originate with us (collectively). What would it mean to found our indeterminate inter-subjective discursivity on them? I would have thought that some sort of inter-subjective discursivity would have to be in place in order to develop any conceptions of the physical and mechanistic. But then, how could we not have a conception of the physical and mechanistic if we can discourse between ourselves?

The task of the philosopher is not to extract a common conceptual scheme from these myriad domains and to determine its faithfulness to some uncorrupted reality; it is, rather, to learn to navigate among the domains, and so to clarify their concerns in relation to each other. — Evan Thompson

I like that. It doesn't have a hierarchy and requires only an arbitrary starting-point.

The pragmatist insists that the world is both found and made: it is made in the finding and found in the making.

That's brilliant. Would you care to share the reference? Then I could quote it too.

It's based on a collection of math/cryptographic theories, that I investigated -- starting in 2013 -- and that are not easy to refute. Well, I am still waiting for someone to successfully do that. If someone really can, he will probably become a trillionaire. — Tarskian

It's certainly a protection in a different league. So I'm not saying you are wrong to trust it. How does that square with your policy of distrust?

I define true (or maximum) freedom as keeping just the laws of God. — Tarskian

Some people regard those as very restricting.

The local ruling mafia is actually a quite manageable problem. I am certainly not complaining. — Tarskian

I'm sure you're not. They might be watching. Anyway, that's the policy that most people go for, isn't it?

It's not just a press of the button to take your coins away from you. — Tarskian

... unless you are a fraudster!

Seizure-prone wealth is a form of slavery. It is not true freedom. — Tarskian

What is true freedom?

I trust that ultimately the true consensus will be to distrust. — Tarskian

Total trust in everyone is idiotic. Total distrust of everyone makes life impossible. The trick is, to know how far you can trust each person. You seem to trust Bitcoin.

A British official threatened to extradite Americans whose free speech offended him. There is no conceivable way you can spin this. It's disgraceful. — fishfry

Are you saying that US law should apply in the UK? How is that not imperialism?

In Britain a guy was arrested for "anti-establishment rhetoric." If that doesn't bother you, I won't further argue the point. — fishfry

Actuallly, it does
[quote=News report]the posts were alleged to contain anti-Muslim and anti-establishment rhetoric.[/quote]
They don't give details (no doubt for fear of being accused of spreading the words more widely), so I can't sort out what's going on. Anti-Muslim is a problem. Anti-establishment is not. It's interesting that the headlines all mention "anti-establishment" and don't mention "anti-muslim". That does puzzle me.

It's hard to believe they could actually do it; but a British official did threaten it. — fishfry

I don't think they could do it either.

The British government has gone full fascist. I'm sorry you can't see it. Maybe you're too close — fishfry

Perhaps I am. My parents fought WW2. So I think I have a real understanding of what full fascism is. Believe me, this isn't it.

You don't seem very keen on free speech as I understand the term. — fishfry

Perhaps we just have different ideas about free speech. You have yours. I have mine. Why is that a problem? I don't think anyone thinks there should be no restrictions at all. Even the US has libel laws, doesn't it?

I'm sure Europeans have been conditioned to hate and fear free speech, free expression, and free thinking. That's to their own ultimate detriment. — fishfry

Sadly, from my point of view, US citizens have been conditioned to hate and fear sensible controls to minimize the harm that some people will inflict on them by exploiting their freedoms - not only in free speech, but also in the matter of gun control. There may be detriments to control, but there are detriments to unlimited freedom. It's a choice. Nothing is pure benefit.

Lot of people in the States want the government control the Internet too. — fishfry

And have they been conditioned as well? Or just making a different choice from you?

Lot of people in the States want the government control the Internet too. — fishfry

And have they been conditioned as well? Or just making a different choice from you?

You're making an obscure and convoluted point. I'm fully aware of the dangers to illegal immigrants. But most just walk across (in the US) and are welcomed by an administration that refuses to enforce its own laws. — fishfry

Perhaps. So long as you are aware. The problem is that many people aren't as concerned about immigration as you are. So, to enforce immigration restrictions, you would need a police state. Indeed, I rather think that you would not be happy about that.
By the way, why are you so keen on freedom of speech and so much against freedom of movement?

I have a theory about why the Americans love the British Royals. We get to enjoy all the pomp, the circumstance, and the salacious scandals. And we don't have to pay for it! — fishfry

I suppose that works. But they are actually very boring people.

Kam's got the media on her side and a newly energized Democratic party. Trump is old, seems confused and out of sorts lately, and IMO may be suffering a touch of age-related dementia himself. The election could go either way. — fishfry

It's true. Kam has managed to revive the Democrats, and now it's more of an actual race. I did wonder, in all the fuss about Biden, whether the issue might come back to bite Trump.

The second-generation native born Muslims seem to manage to get themselves radicalized anyway. — fishfry

There's not that many of them. There will be fewer in the third generation.

By the way, 100,000 Hamas-loving maniacs are going to riot at the Democratic convention in Chicago this week. Should be something for the world to see. — fishfry

Ever since that business started off, I've been astonished how Israel has mismanaged the propaganda war. They started off with the moral high ground and have surrendered it almost completely.

You have the establishment view. .... In your country I'd be subject to arrest. — fishfry

Sometimes I agree with the mainstream (that's less pejorative than "establishment"), but not always. No, you would not be subject to arrest in this country on the basis of anything you have said to me.

I have no idea what would persuade us to accept that any machine, biological or not, is not working from any human-interpretable rules.
— Ludwig V
Its a well-established issue in machine learning and I already had posted a paper talking about it in the context of neuroscience this thread: — Apustimelogist

My statement there is badly written, I'm afraid. I'm relieved to hear that it is an issue. I'll have to read the article later, but the summary is interesting.

But in that case, we can certainly work out what's going on from the results.
— Ludwig V
Which is always our interpretation of what is going on and falls to the same kinds of rule-following issues as initially described - which inevitably would result in another appeal to blindness. — Apustimelogist

Of course. But blindness resolves the infinite regress of interpretation and underdetermination, so it is a feature, not a bug.
You think that the AI's hidden rules resolve the "problem" of blindness. I don't see how. If you are accepting that they are interpretable by humans, how do they not have the same problems as any other rules? To put the question another way, if the AIs rules cannot be understood by human beings (or even, if you insist, by other AIs, how would "correct" and "incorrect" have any meaning? To put the point yet another way, if the AIs rules really were uninterpretable by human beings, what meaning would "correct" and "incorrect" have?

If brains are in their environment then of course they can interact with other brains. — Apustimelogist

Of course they can. Everything interacts with everything else. The interesting questions are about how they interact and whether there are any limits. Surely brains don't interact directly with other brains, but only via a chain that connects them - roughly, via the bodies they live in. How do people and their interactions fit in to this chain?

Depends what you mean, I guess; but, not important. — Apustimelogist

That depends on whether you think people are important. They probably are not, at the level that you are talking about. Indeed, I wonder whether they exist at that level.

I mean, I don't understand how you could think this as some kind of over-reductive description when I literally said in the same paragraph the following:
And then, good understanding of whats happening here wants multiple levels of explanation spanning all fields from microbiology to evolution to linguistics, anthropology, social psychology to history and upward. No one field or level of explanation can do justice to everything.
This is one level of description, appeal, explanation - made necessary by the fact that it explains how people behave and think, at least in the proximal sense. — Apustimelogist

Yes. I did read that. This is the idea that all science will, in the end, be unified into a single over-arching structure. That's an article of faith, or perhaps a programme of research. It certainly isn't a fact. What's worse, is that, by eradicating people from your causal chain, you seem to be reducing people to their brains. Perhaps unintentionally, but nonetheless, there's no conceptual space for them.

Wasn't necessarily imply they weren't underdetermined; but the point was that rule behavior is not determined by rule abstractions floating about in a platonic dimension. — Apustimelogist

Certainly. We agree on that.

It is determined by extremely complicated mechanistic processes in the world and our brains, as is the behavior which translates to our agreements about the applications of words and categorizations of behaviors. — Apustimelogist

If the laws are underdetermined, how can they determine those mechanistic processes - except, perhaps, by some version of blind action? I do agree that there are complicated physical processes going on. But we do not know how to translate from the physical level of description to the human - it's called the hard problem. But if there were a translation how would it not be a matter of rules?

Yes, but most wealth is not seizure resistant. — Tarskian

That's true.

The wealth is yours until the government decides that it isn't anymore. — Tarskian

Nonetheless, in practice, it seems to last a lot better than political power.

Of course, words and concepts must be inherently evolved, developed, learned, used in a social context. Brains in some sense synchronizing with other brains as well as other parts of the environments they navigate. — Apustimelogist

I'm afraid that although I understand the first sentence, I think. I cannot understand the second sentence unless I substitute "people" for "brains". That's a bit puzzling because, of course, it's perfectly true that human people need functioning brains if they are to behave as people. I can't help wondering you are making the same mistake that people make when they say that my eyes see. They don't. Neither does my brain. People see, even though they cannot see without eyes or brains.

Forms of life and language games are all just appeals to the blind behavior produced by the brain - in terms of both cognitive and motor-acts - in an interacting community of brains all "acting blindly" together: — Apustimelogist

I take it that you are referring here to Wittgenstein's "We act blindly". So, again, I can only understand this by substituting "people" for "brain". Brains don't (cannot) walk or talk even though one cannot walk or talk without a brain. Whether they can be said to understand anything is not clear to me. Normally, we say that people understand or fail to understand, though we also accept that they could not understand anything if they did not have brains.

Plus, I have already mentioned how I think brains are a deeper explanation more fundamental - brains interacting with their environments, multiple brains interacting together. — Apustimelogist

Of course brains interact with their environments. But they don't interact with other brains, unless that's just a fancy way of saying that people interact with other people, in ways that they could not if they did not have brains. But you do have some definite claims.

It is the explanation of how we act blindly and is linked to the possible idea that brains and any kind of neurons learn to perform tasks without any human-interpretable rules. — Apustimelogist

I suppose you have in mind the (apparent) fact that AIs appear to be able to act on rules without being able to tell what rules they are following. But in that case, we can certainly work out what's going on from the results. I have no idea what would persuade us to accept that any machine, biological or not, is not working from any human-interpretable rules. If we can't identify the rule, we have no evidence that there is one. In any case, whatever the tasks are that brains and neurons are doing, they are not acting blindly in the sense that Wittgesntein had in mind - in fact they are not acting at all in the sense that people act.

The brain idea is that it doesn't matter if rules are underdetermined because what causes our behavior is not platonic representations of rules but a functioning brain acting under the laws of physics. — Apustimelogist

Well, we agree on platonic representations of rules (if I've understood you right), and certainly, we do not (cannot) violate the laws of physics when we act; nor can our brains. But the idea that the laws of physics are not underdetermined is a big jump. So far as I can see, it contradicts (without refuting) the classic argument against induction. What have I missed?

My thought is that as soon as you're "the representative" then, in the material sense of being-able, you're no longer the same as whom you represent. (one of the mechanisms of syndicalism is that representatives cannot re-present, so a new person has to go up to say what the people they represent think every time, whatever that "time" happens to be designated as) — Moliere

The idea of representative democracy is what differentiates modern democracies from the ancient Greek model. They were all run on the basis of citizen assemblies. No representatives. You had to turn up in person. But that can't work in a state much larger than a city.

There's a fundamental issue in the concept of representation, which seems to be completely neglected in what I've seen. (But I'm not a serious academic political philosopher. I'm more interested than what is than in what ought to be.) The left wing, on the whole, sees a representative as someone who is delegated to report to the assembly what the people think, not what they themselves think. Such representatives are, in the jargon, described as mandated. (This is usually based on some formal vote after debate in a local assembly.)

The syndicalist view you describe is an extreme version of mandating representatives. It seems to me to be a recipe for chaos, since each representative will have slightly different views and may differ radically from the previous one. On the whole, the left wing seems to prefer mandating representatives and/or making them bring their decisions back for a popular vote before it is finalized. (That's how the trade unions work, on the whole - at least in the UK.) The alternative view is that representatives are there to decide on behalf of the people, exercising their judgement and discretion. Of course, if the people don't like the decisions their representative makes, they can vote them out next time round. Such representatives are more like agents - acting for their people. That is more popular on the right wing.

The story about the UK Parliament 50 years ago was that electing an MP was about electing the right sort of person to make decisions on one's behalf. That seems to have almost completely disappeared in favour of the hopelessly impractical idea that one votes for a set of policies, which the representative is expected to do their best to implement. But implementation is not always possible or wise, and often results in changes of detail. Hence the popular idea that you can't trust a politician.

You can see a similar issue in the Electoral College for the US Presidency. It seems like an empty ceremony because the people elected to the Electoral College are elected on a mandate. But in the late 18th century, with communications being so much slower, it was more practical to send representatives to vote on behalf of their people, rather than a specified candidate. I don't know when that changed.

you can't build representative systems since the apes that get the office are no better than the apes at home, — Moliere

I think you've slipped up there. Isn't the idea of representation that the apes that get the office should as like the apes as home as possible?

But your subtext is correct, of course. It is very hard to find democratic politicians who will vote for an unpopular policy.

All politically powerful people get approached by wealthy people for political privileges, but not necessarily the other way around. — Tarskian

That's true. But I was also thinking of the political influence wealth can have indirectly, not by influencing politicians. Where does that new factory go? Who going to be laid off? Where am I going to put my money? That sort of thing. Money talks. To put it another way, "it's all about economics, stupid"

There is always a hierarchical top to society where all the political power accumulates, and therefore, also pretty much all the wealth. — Tarskian

That's true. It's a consequence of freedom. Competition means winners and losers. Winners are in a stronger position to compete and tend to win more than losers, and vice versa.

It is simply not possible to prevent the concentration of political power and therefore of wealth. — Tarskian

That works the other way round, as well. It is simply not possible to prevent the concentration of wealth and therefore of political power.

However, those at the top of the hierarchy tend to succumb to wishful thinking and to deceive themselves into thinking they are not utterly dependent of the lower ranks for their position. Competition means that they can lose everything. Secretly, however, I think they are well aware of this and have to live in fear, while pretending to be utterly confident. "Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown". This may explain why philosophers, who are by definition rational, are seldom also kings.

Everybody alive today has been corrupted from early childhood by our degenerate society. — Tarskian

People have been saying that forever - almost certainly since societies were formed. But the Golden Age of the past, on closer inspection, always turns out to be a nightmare. Why on earth would one want to become a nomadic shepherd in any earlier age?

The free market is the worst possible way of organizing an economy except for all the others. It is riddled with paradox. It is not in the interest of sellers, and not in the interest of buyers either. Sellers want higher prices and will always do their best to distort the market. Buyers want lower prices and will always do their best to distort the market.
However, it is not a case of one group of people against another. Every participant in the market is both a buyer and a seller. That's why free markets are an extremely fragile institutions and will always require heavy state regulation. But

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes

indeed. Especially as they are also players in the market.

He explicitly threatened non-Brits in their home countries. I am not confused about this, it has been extremely widely reported. — fishfry

You're right. I was confused. But it is quite simple. If you break British law in Britain and go home, Britain can sue in US courts for extradition, take you to back Britain and try you. If you break US law in the US and go home, US can sue in British courts for extradition, take you to back to the US and try you. Seems fair enough to me. Most countries in the West have the same arrangement - by treaty, i.e. international law.

You can be jailed for just reposting info about riots, not inciting them. — fishfry

Info or Incitement?
There's an interesting question about people who are US citizens in the US posting something to Britain that is within US law but banned in Britain. There's a suggestion that they can be extradited, but I find it very hard to believe.
There's a new law in Britain that if you re-post an illegal post by someone else, you are also guilty of incitement. I agree that's pushing it a bit, but if someone is inciting violence and you join in the incitement, I think there's a case for it - if you can prove it. After all, if you help someone committing a theft, you are also breaking the law. No?
There's a big push in the UK and Europe to get the internet under control. You may not be aware of how much the big internet companies are resented over here. They have a very poor reputation. One has to give them credit for taking the issues seriously, but they don't take effective action. They plead free speech, but no-one believes that. It's about the bottom line and that's not acceptable.

Who is prepared to die? Impoverished peasants streaming across the US southern border? — fishfry

I'm not sure who you trust on this. But Reuters have a pretty good reputation.
Reuters on deaths on US-Mexico border
Certainly, people die in the Channel regularly. BBC on migrant deaths in the Channel
I don't know how many, if any, are illiterate. Why does it matter?

The British courts don't have the US First Amendment, which provides legal protection for the most appalling expressions of ideas. I read that Prince Harry has called the First Amendment "bonkers." The US has very strong protections for speech not found in most other democratic nations. — fishfry

Yes, that's true. The UK does have protection for free speech. Just not as much as in the US. People resent they way the the US internet companies impose your law on us.
However, I really don't care at all what Prince Harry's views are; he has no special knowledge or authority that I'm aware of. I can't understand why people in the US get so excited about our royal family. They are an embarrassment in a supposedly democratic country.

And now you've got Starmer. Good luck! I should talk, right? We're about to have Queen Kamala. — fishfry

Starmer is at least less of a joke than the other lot. Rishi Sunak was better his immediate predecessors, but was undermined by his own party. I have the impression that Trump is still likely to win.

Well if Islam seeks to become a universal religion, what happens to your nation when there are enough of them to make a political difference? It's no hypothetical. — fishfry

Hopefully, by that time, there will be more home-grown imams and fewer radicals imported from back home. There are already a good many of them (home-grown imams) - they just don't get the news coverage. Plus, generations born and brought up here are, on the whole, often atheists or moderates. I think they will settle down. If the other immigrant communities are anything to go by, there'll be a lot of inter-marriage with the general population, anyway.

Who is suppressing your views? — fishfry

Sorry, I wasn't clear. No-one is suppressing my views. Fortunately, I'm pretty much mainstream. I've tried to clarify what I was trying to say and failed, so I'll have to let it go.

Ok. China has its own problems though. I hear they're in demographic collapse. — fishfry

So are many other Western countries, including Britain, not to mention Japan and Korea. There's a lot of argument about the reasons. Most plausible explanation is that that a modern capitalist economy makes it too hard to bring up children. Either you live in poverty with children or you work to make the money for a decent life without children. Not to mention the gloomy outlook for the West. That also is one of the reasons why Britain actually needs immigrants and allows many in, legally.

The USA is not doing well but is not in collapse - yet.
US Census Bureau 2023
US Census Bureau 2021

The question we have been circling around is why language should be the way it is instead of any other way? Social practices seem malleable and contingent, so in virtue of what are they the way they are? — Count Timothy von Icarus

OK. I think I've already pointed out my view that every foundation requires another, just because the question why is it so? is always available. So I've essentially asked for this. I hope you won't think I'm ungrateful just because I'm not happy with your answer. After all, it's disagreements that keep philosophy going.

To be intelligible—to not be arbitrary—social practice must have its explanation in something outside itself. On the view that being is intelligible, such an explanation must be possible. My position is that the tools of reason (language, theories, logic, etc.) are what join us to these explanations—to metaphysical truth. — Count Timothy von Icarus

There's that pesky metaphor again. I guess you mean that social practices are not self-explanatory. But then I think that if I can practice a social practice, I understand it (and if I can't, I don't). So I'm wondering what kind of explanation would be appropriate. I can't see that re-importing reason (language, theories, logic, etc.), which was to be what social practices explained, is going to help. Unless you are saying that social practices and reason etc. are mutually supporting, which would conform to the "outside" requirement, I suppose. But then that would form a new structure which would generate a new "why".

In the same way, a view of truth that is limited to the confines of individual language games explains truth in a “small way.” Reason is no longer ecstatic, taking us beyond what we already are. — Count Timothy von Icarus

There are soaring aspirations here and it is hard to resist. But my ambition is to understand where I am. Nor am I sure what "ecstasy" means here. You posit reason etc as what "joins" us to "the world", and if we were not already in the world, that would be a useful function. I suppose it is true to say that reason is what enables us to understand the world, but, given that we are already in it, that doesn't seem much like ecstasy.

For Chesterton, the mark of madness is this combination of “logical completeness and a spiritual contraction.” In the same way, a view of truth that is limited to the confines of individual language games explains truth in a “small way.” Reason is no longer ecstatic, taking us beyond what we already are. Rather it runs in tight, isolated circles. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Yes. Confronting delusions of that kind is indeed a tricky business. Though I've seen people behave like that - running round and round a single argument - and thought that although they are very irritating, they are not clinically unwell. Perhaps Chesterton means "madness" in a more informal sense, and of course, there is very likely to be a spectrum.
I think we would indeed regard someone who endlessly played noughts and crosses (tic-tac-toe) without ever becoming bored even though they realized how limited it is, as in poor mental health. But that's not Wittgenstein's vision.

On such a view, reason represents not a bridge, the ground of the mind’s nuptial union with being, but is instead the walls of a perfect but hermetically sealed cell. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Forgive me, but I don't quite understand. You represent the one view as desirable and the other as undesirable. I get that. But I still find myself asking which one is true? It would seem odd to choose the one view because it has more desirable consequences, but that's what you seem to be expecting me to do.

Our language can be regarded as an ancient city: a maze of little streets and squares, of old and new houses, of houses with extensions from various periods, and all this surrounded by a multitude of new suburbs with straight and regular streets and uniform houses — Wittgenstein, Phil. Inv. 18

I'm more hesitant than I used to be about treating the notion of a language-game as some sort of analytic tool, but it is clear, isn't it, that he is showing us a complex of structures which are interconnected and interactive, and most definitely not a monolith. Surely, even though he doesn't make the point, it is clear these structures are flexible and dynamic. Not, I would have thought, prisons.
I don't, therefore, think that Wittgenstein's ideas lead us to the narrow view of reason, language and truth. It does allow that each "language game" and "practice" does actually define truth in its own appropriate way and therefore does link us to its own relevant category of being. That's enough for me.
So I'm afraid I still don't know how to answer the question.

This is really getting into the weeds but the NZ context is that bus lanes are being created by taking out roadside parking and the margin of the road where cyclists would normally pedal. — apokrisis

Ouch! I didn't think of that. It certainly puts the project in a different perspective. And I suppose the idea of the cyclists pedalling along outside the bus lane in the car/lorry lane is even worse.
When you have a nice broad roadway, you can separate, pedestrians, cyclists, buses, cars. (Where do horses belong?) But in inner cities, it is much harder. (though the lower traffic speeds do help).
In the end, I guess, it will come down to restricting cars; after all, one person one car is hopelessly (luxuriously) inefficient. In ancient Rome, they forbade commercial vehicles during day-light hours; we could do the same. But the price is noise during night hours. But then, there's not many people living in the inner city. No solution, just balances and compromises.

It's utterly insane that cyclists are legally allowed in bus lanes. Utterly bewilderingly dangerous - and it encourages cyclists to blame everyone else. — AmadeusD

Why? Bus drivers are at least professional and trained to be attentive. They are not texting or day-dreaming like the average car commuter. What's the problem? — apokrisis

I think this comes down to the statistics. How many cyclists use the lanes? How many accidents are there?
My prediction is that cyclists in bus lanes will work until there are too many of them. Then there will be accidents and delays to public transport. The latter, in particular, is the primary reason why they are brought into existence, at least in the UK. You can't run a bus system unless journey times are reasonably predictable; unpredictable traffic jams make it impossible to schedule the buses. Plus, it gives public transport an edge over cars in terms of journey times.
Of course, that will only work if there are not too many buses. If they get too many, they will cause their own traffic jams and delays.
It's also the story of Venice, Madeira, Barcelona in recent news. One cruise ship is excellent business. Ten or twenty cruise ships are a public disaster. Some AirBNB flats are not a problem. Too many AirBNB flats means local people go homeless or have to move out.
You may notice a theme here. Things can work perfectly well until too many people want to take them up. Then they don't work any more. That's the story of cars. It's really quite simple. But the political implications are - tricky.

I doubt a guarantee of "no harm" was given — Paine

Oh, I think a guarantee was exactly the point. But the twist is that goodness or virtue was thought of as inherent in the good man and could not be affected by any external disaster. Which is not a stupid idea. But it is at variance with what common sense regards as suffering harm. Plato takes up the issue again in the Gorgias.

A man contrives evil for himself when he contrives evil for someone else, and an evil plan is most evil for the planner. — Hesiod, Works and Days, 260, translated by Glenn W. Most

A man contrives evil for himself when he contrives evil for someone else, and an evil plan is most evil for the planner. Zeus’ eye, which sees all things and knows all things, perceives this too, if he so wishes, and he is well aware just what kind of justice this is which the city has within it. Right now I myself would not want to be a just man among human beings, neither I nor a son of mine, since it is evil for a man to be just if the more unjust one will receive greater justice. But I do not anticipate that the counselor Zeus will let things end up this way. — Hesiod, Works and Days, 260, translated by Glenn W. Most

My knowledge of Hesiod is sadly lacking. The idea of sin as its own punishment is a most interesting idea and sits well alongside the idea that virtue is its own reward. The threat of Zeus' intervention spoils the effect, though the idea that there will be a divine accounting in the long run and evildoers will suffer for their sins.
The penultimate sentence - "Right now I myself would not want to be a just man among human beings, .... since it is evil for a man to be just if the more unjust one will receive greater justice." is fascinating because of the play on different meanings of justice. Or is it just a muddle?
Heraclitus' remarks about Eris are a different view - less about the individual and more about society. But still, there is an approach at work that identifies what is right or just with what wins out in struggle. If one is charitable, it is be a proto-dialectical view. More realistically, it seems like a "might is right" view.
I find it fascinating to see so many different views of virtue and vice, right and wrong, power and weakness playing out together. The modern world thinks it has got beyond all that, but I think it may have lost something in the process.

You see he says that people get heated through talking too much — Phaedo, 63e, Chris Emlyn-Jones and William Preddy

I suppose this could be a reference to some of the actual symptoms, with a false diagnosis of the cause. I wouldn't have minded if he had just drawn a veil over that actual death, but to represent him as calm and coherent throughout is simply incredible.

That was my point. Left and right used to be about social and economic policy settings. A debate over the right national system. Now it has shifted to identity politics. — apokrisis

OK. Sorry I misunderstood.
I suspect that identity has always been a factor in politics. But it is true that debates these days seem to be mostly single issue, as opposed to more comprehensive approaches that try to see each issue in the context of an overall policy setting. And the debates nowadays do suffer from that narrowness. On the other hand, it makes it easier to decide which side you're on. Perhaps that's why.

Should you even be allowed to exist with those views within a shared social system. — apokrisis

Yes, I'm afraid that when human beings find something they don't like in their environment, they prefer to remake the environment by eradicating the offending items to adjusting themselves to it. This is so pervasive that I'm not at all sure that it can be attributed to solely to social structures.

So motonormativity is in fact a generalised modern impatience. A reflection of accelerationism in a society addicted to faster/cheaper/more. — apokrisis

Yes, but again, I think you'll find that addiction is so pervasive that it seems to go deeper than social structures or cultures.

Here in NZ, cycles are legal on footpaths (we have a massive, shit-headed Green Lobby here that are insufferably stupid) and .......................................................... bus lanes. — AmadeusD

I'm sorry, but I'm not sure exactly what you are saying. Too many dots.
I'm afraid that a massive movement of any kind is liable to include some annoying and idiotic followers. There's nothing sufficiently special about Green lobbies to make them an exception.
In the UK, allowing cycles on footpaths was not connected to the green lobby. It seemed to be more related to recognizing that cycles were too vulnerable to be required to mix with cars etc. The unrecognized downside is that pedestrians are too vulnerable to be required to mix with pedal cycles - especially the athletic and impatient riders.

Well Kripke's Crusoe is isolated from birth IIRC. The distinction is important and has led to the differentiation between your Tarzans (always isolated) and your Crusoes (isolated at some later point). — Count Timothy von Icarus

I'm sure you're right. It's a good point even if it isn't Kripke's. I didn't realize there was a hidden code, but I'll know in future. Of course "isolated from birth" nudges us towards the experiences of and with the "wolf children". Not at all like Mowgli!

The error is to assume that language games, theories, models, words, ideas, etc. are what we know instead of that through which we know. It's unsurprising that a deflationary reader of Wittgenstein like Rorty uses the image of words and ideas as "a mirror of nature" as a foil through which to dismiss metaphysical notions of truth, while a phenomenologist relying on the pre-modern tradition like Sokolowski would rather have us speak of "lenses we look through" (not at). — Count Timothy von Icarus

Perfect. Or as near as dammit.

If it isn't "for no reason at all," then we have something sitting posterior to any individual language game or any hinge propositions, namely metaphysical truth. — Count Timothy von Icarus

.... and so we take the next step on the infinite regress. Yet we can't resist, can we? The only way off the merry-go-round is to look for, or perhaps more likely, to create, a different understanding of structures. That's what finally put paid to the idea that if there aren't turtles all the way down, that there must be something else supporting the foundations of the earth. Well, there is, but not another turtle, or Atlas, or whatever. Nor is the earth falling in the sense the Ancient Greek atomists thought. The truth is in an entirely different category - and that's the key.

But if we're willing to allow that we and our language games have causes external to ourselves, then there is no need to question the existence of "facts" that lie outside any specific game. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Or perhaps a functioning brain. — Apustimelogist

That's an interesting suggestion. I'm inclined to accept that there must (!) be an evolutionary explanation for the development of language games, including mathematics and logic. But that seems reductionist. Nonetheless, the brain/evolution idea has the interesting property of setting up a circle of explanation. No beginning and no end, or perhaps a self-sustaining structure.

After all, the absolute view is not reality as set over and against appearances, but rather must itself include all of reality and appearance. — Count Timothy von Icarus

People seldom seem to recognize that appearances are real also (and so are hallucinations and delusions).

When Kripke or Rorty want to appeal to usefulness they have to allow that there is some truth about what is actually useful, and presumably this will be determined by factors outside of any language game. — Count Timothy von Icarus

That seems to be right. But there's that pesky metaphor again. It is almost irresistible. But if we were to describe what we're after in ways like that, they would be part of a language-game, right? So the inside/outside or behind/in front metaphors are seriously unhelpful.

Regardless of which hinge propositions you hold to, if you jump off a building, it seems truth will show up to hit you on the way down. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Yes. There is an alternative model that truth can show up in different ways in apparently incommensurable games. Think of the different conceptions of gravity from Aristotle through Newton to Einstein - and now we have gravitational waves. The same truth is represented in different ways.

The government however doesn't go bankrupt, so they don't care as much. — Lionino

I wouldn't want to comment on the government is Sao Paolo. But, in principle, because they don't go bankrupt (or not often - it does happen, though they don't call it bankruptcy), they can take a long view and persuade/manipulate people into adopting new ways.

even though there is no separate bike lane, cars and buses mostly respect that bikes may ride on the slow rightmost lane. — Lionino

There's nothing like getting the people on your side. Without a doubt, it is the most effective engine for social change.

BTW, I like the new version of your old post. There's one city I can identify as not likely to support cycles - Hong Kong! I have never seen a single one there.

From my experience, bikes are used more in small/concentrated cities than big/spread-out ones. — Lionino

I think you've got a point there. But I always thought that the critical factor was the hills. The Netherlands are flat or nearly so. I'm not sure about Brussels. But the availability of cycle lanes - especially where there is heavy traffic, especially where roads are narrow - is also thought to be persuasive. But it takes time for people to change their ways.

I would suggest the risk of designing your life oblivious to the dangers of lethal moving machines probably influences the over-all attitude toward accommodating cars. — AmadeusD

There's been general acceptance that pedestrians and traffic should be separated as much as possible, and that's common sense now - it has not always been so, and it is still not universal in the UK. There should be even more pressure than there is already to separate pedal cycles from cars and other lethal heavy machinery. That's also just common sense.

But it also doesn't make any sense to mix cycles up with pedestrians (as happens all too often in the UK, now that they have legalized cycles using sidewalks); there are nasty accidents from time to time. (I would do the same for horses.)

At the very least, where mixed traffic is unavoidable, cars, etc. should be limited to walking speed. (I have heard that in Norway, if a car hits a pedestrian anywhere on the public roads, the assumption is that it is the driver's fault. That would help.)

So it's about being in possession of the greatest item or object desirable to society, mostly for superficial reasons, but also supported by the factual beneficial and general status reasons that come with. Isn't it? — Outlander

Yes, but it is also about being able to access opportunities, both work and social, that would not be practicable otherwise. And so you end up with the car being essential to your way of life. `

But also the move to this kind of moralistic framing – motonormativity as the code word for a defective mindset – is a problematic political position. — apokrisis

Well, people do like a moral justification. It is so much nobler than self-interest. But you are right that the politics of this are much more complicated than the pictures show and realism is more helpful.

And the criticism concerning wokeism is that it is a turning of individuals against individuals by harnessing the amplification of social media. — apokrisis

That's odd. I thought it took two to make a fight.
But in this case, the division is even more stupid than usual. People are not divided into two groups - drivers and pedestrians. Sometimes, one drives and sometimes one walks. Other people drive through the place I live in, and I drive through the places they live in. It's not a competition for dominance.
Of course, when I'm driving, I get annoyed at the pedestrians and other cars that are in my way. When I'm walking, I get annoyed at the other pedestrians and cars that get in my way. Somehow, we need to understand ourselves as wanting ideal conditions for both and then we can laugh at ourselves and settle for a tolerable compromise.

Your pictures are powerful arguments. But I do wonder what went into making those changes, in particular, whether the benefits have gone to the people who suffered the costs. There's a tendency for the gentry to move in to areas that are improved in those ways, and for the people who used to live there to be forced to move out.

I now live in rural Kentucky and here things are truly, completely unwalkable. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I'm glad you brought up the issues about rural communities. I've seen quite a lot about re-designing cities, but practically nothing about rural communities. Your description of Kentucky is very reminiscent of many rural areas of the UK, right down to the problems of equine traffic. (No Amish communities, of course, but many riders for leisure and pleasure. Horses and cars, etc. don't mix very well.) You don't mention heavy lorries on your lanes. But I find them more worrying than anything else.

Here in the US, being able to drive is a cultural rite of passage. When I was 16, I got my license on the day after my birthday. The sense of freedom it gives is powerful. Of course, that is partly because getting around without a car is difficult, but still, it's very compelling. — T Clark

I'm sure it is a cultural rite of passage in many other countries as well. It certainly is in the UK.

People are willing to go to extraordinary lengths to maintain personal transport instantly available on demand 24 hours a day and build their lives around it. I don't blame them. True, people do seem to be better able to manage where there is decent public transport. But public transport can't replace the car parked outside your house. So the politics around these schemes, at least in democracies, is much more complicated than people seem to recognize.

I also suspect that population density is indirectly correlated to motonormativity wherever cars are readily available. — Leontiskos

I'm sure there's a tendency for people to choose to live further apart when they have cars. But, if you look at the schemes in the OP, they are all in cities.

This kills public transportation because you need a certain level of density to make light rail, etc. economically viable. — Count Timothy von Icarus

It's a vicious circle. Lower density, less public transport, more cars. Moving away from cars in those areas is going to be very difficult indeed. Fewer people in a given area have less political clout.
Of course, it depends on what criteria you have for viability. If you are looking for economic viability, you will have it only in city centres and many people will have to do without, so will not be able to move away from cars.

I remember seeing the casual use of 'car-centric' or variations often. — Lionino

I thought that "car-centric" was the standard word for this.

I'm not sure it is actually self-refuting. If anything it complements itself in a weird way. It would be self-refuting if there was a determinate meaning to the phrase, since it would be its own counterexample.
Hmm, it does seem like a paradox though; maybe the solution to the paradox is the skeptical solution. — Apustimelogist

Well, what I was most interested in was the point that "and hence no way to get outside of language." has no determinate meaning. If that argument fails, I can argue that that particular phrase has no determinate meaning anyway.
But surely, "there is no determinate scheme or context that can fix the content of utterance" includes itself in its reference. If it is true, it has no determinate meaning. If it is false, it might have determinate meaning, but that would depend on coming up with the scheme or context that fixes its meaning.

But meaning is determined by context of utterance, etc., That determines meaning to an entirely satisfactory extent and enables us to sort out any issues that arise. So I see Kripke's scepticism as a search for the absolute determinacy of meaning, which is an ideal that, so far as I can see, has no meaning.

The question isn’t whether the sky is blue , as though there were such things as neutral facts whose meaning could be isolated from contexts of use, motive and purpose that define their sense, but why it matters to us and in what context it becomes an issue. — Joshs

I agree with most of that.

I don't believe that for Wittgenstein we ever have access to a world outside discursive practices, which is not the same thing as saying that our discursive practices are hermetically sealed within themselves and closed off to an outside. — Joshs

My impression is that he talks about practices, and never about discursive practices. Perhaps you are thinking of language games as practices. Fair enough. But practices and forms of life are wider concepts than that. That's a crucial part of the point. IMO.

There is no determinate scheme or context that can fix the content of utterances, and hence no way to get outside of language. — Joseph Rouse

That's self-refuting. If there is no determinate scheme or context that can fix the content of utterance, then the content of this quotation (utterance) is not fixed.
In particular, the phrase "outside of language" has no determinate meaning.

How a theory or practice interprets the world is itself inescapably open to further interpretation, with no authority beyond what gets said by whom, when — Joseph Rouse

Why do we need some authority beyond what gets said by whom, when?

I think that the most important points are:-
1. Language has developed in the world, out of the world, as part of the world.
2. Language is inescapably adapted to the world and our lives in it.
3. Rouse has adopted the theoretical stance towards the world, forgetting or setting aside the inescapable fact that we live and act in it. That's what creates his problem. But language reflects our capabilities and our needs and interests, as you point out in the first quotation above. There would be no point to it if it did not.

We shall see. My understanding is that over the long term, Islamists seek to take over the west. Maybe that's just right wing propaganda. — fishfry

Islam is a missionary religion. It seeks to become the universal religion. The idea of the theocratic Caliphate is an aim that some fundamentalists are committed to. That's true. It's just that I don't think they will succeed. Sadly, they can do a lot of damage while they are trying.

Christianity has the same ambitions. They are not terrorists, of course. Nonetheless, while I respect their right to campaign for their views, I object strongly to their desire to impose their views on me and suppress mine.

So, how many Islamic terror bombings are ok with you? — fishfry

Oh, come on. I think that Islamic fundamentalism is not an existentialist threat to the West. That doesn't mean that terror bombings are ok with me

He puts them in concentration camps in western China. I don't support him in that. I support the plight of the Uyghurs. These are all complicated issues. — fishfry

I agree with you that they are complicated. The desire to suppress IS and similar groups is perfectly reasonable. But the means employed against Uighurs are grossly disproportionate.

You simply need to have the border guards do their jobs instead of telling them not to. — fishfry

You're missing the problem. People who are willing to die to get in to UK or US are very hard to stop. Public opinion won't support extreme measures (which would probably not work anyway)

The Chinese are not US and British domestic terrorists. — fishfry

Strictly speaking, they are not terrorists. But both of them operate in secret in the UK and elsewhere.

I don't have to be ignoring Xi just because I'm opposed to Islamic terrorism. — fishfry

Fair enough.

He's threatened to arrest and extradite Americans for exercising our free speech rights. He can't do that, we have the First Amendment here. He's gone mad as far as I can tell. His double-standard with respect to violent Muslim rioting is obvious. — fishfry

Sorry, I think you are a bit confused. He can arrest and deport (i.e. send back home) US citizens who misbehave. The UK also has free speech, but bans incitement to riot. That seems perfectly reasonable to me. They are lucky that he doesn't apply UK law and throw them in jail.
I haven't seen anything about violent Muslim rioting recently - not in the UK, anyway. Obviously, if no Muslims are rioting, he can't throw them in jail.

The current hordes coming in, in the US and in England, are a matter of government policy. — fishfry

Well, you know best about what's going in the USA. In the UK, the Government has been trying to prevent immigration across the Channel for decades. You would think it was easy enough. But they've failed.

You simply need to have the border guards do their jobs instead of telling them not to. — fishfry

People are who prepared to die to get here are very difficult to stop.

Cheap labor is always popular. But who gets hurt? The people legally here, the natives, who are perhaps in the trades themselves and who can't compete with the cheap labor. — fishfry

Who employs the cheap labour? When those people are not prepared to employ them, the incentive will disappear. That's what I meant about lack of public support. People are happy to make a fuss, but not willing to pay a bit more for labour. You can't have it both ways.

People who speak out against immigration are being thrown in Starmer's prisons. So clearly we are not hearing people's true feelings. — fishfry

You're begging the question. The courts think that those people are rioting, and that's not free speech, it's violence. As for people's true feelings, you seem to trust the Telegraph.
Daily Telegraph Southport Counter-demonstrations

Didn't the Tories just get swept out because they FAILED to deliver on their promise of controlling immigration? — fishfry

Yes, but that was just one aspect of their failure to deliver any public services at all. Health, Education, Justice, Defence, not to mention the housing crisis - the list is endless. Obsessed by in-fighting and tax reduction, failed to do their job.

I think that's overblown too!! — fishfry

I'm very glad to hear it.

Floyd was a violent career criminal who died of a fentanyl overdose. His police force threw him under the bus. That's supported by the facts. — fishfry

I agree it is supported by some of the facts. But surely the police are not supposed to throw people under buses - arrest and fair trial?

I remember also thinking that the Robinson Caruso argument should also apply to all learning, but the idea that it is impossible for an isolated feral human being to learn anything or to ever be wrong about what they think they've learned seems implausible to me. — Count Timothy von Icarus

The versions of Robinson Crusoe that I've seen have all failed to recognize that he does not have to learn any of the skills of West European society. He arrives with a tool-chest, which he is fully equipped to use. So he knows the rules he needs and what is correct and what is not. Defoe's novel is irrelevant.

Kripke is not even advancing a skeptical position but a nihilist one. He isn't saying facts about meaning are impossible to pin down with certainty, but rather that they don't exist. — Count Timothy von Icarus

It's a while since I've read Kripke's text, but that seems to be right. But it's a bit more complicated than that. If the thesis is that meaning is established by practices, then it does not seem to be wrong to say that there is no fact of the matter that determines it. However, given that the sky is blue, it is true to say that there is a fact of the matter that makes the statement "the sky is blue" true. IMO.

This would seem to offer another way out of the meaning dilemma, since meaning is grounded in the mind's access to the intelligibility of being. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I'm always uncomfortable with those grand philosophical concepts. But I would agree in many cases that our access to - no, better, our practices in - a world "outside" language does ground meaning. I think the game may be differently played in fields like mathematics and logic - though even there, there are facts that kick us in the face; we are not simply in control.

Yes, I think we are basically in agreement, as far as I can tell! — Apustimelogist

Yes. As Wittgenstein points out, an agreement can break down at any moment!

In PI, Wittgenstein treats intuition as an inner picture one consults: — Joshs

Ok. Thanks for coming back to me and providing the quotations.

However, I understand what's going on here as Wittgenstein considering the idea that intuition is an inner picture that one consults - but rejecting it.

So it must have been intuition that removed this doubt?—If intuition is an inner voice—how do 1 know how I am to obey it? And how do I know that it doesn't mislead me? For if it can guide me right, it can also guide me wrong. ((Intuition an unnecessary shuffle.)) — Wittgenstein Phil. Inv. 213

I think "unnecessary shuffle" dismisses intuition as unhelpful.

I think, however, that he may be a bit harsh. Intuition, for me, is a name for whatever it is that enables us to get things right when we have nothing to go on. If we had to think about continuing from 1000 to 1002, we would get as confused as WIttgenstein outlines in 186. But that doesn't happen. Why? Intuition explains nothing. Drill (learning what to do by repetition) is the explanation. That's the basis of practices.

A side-note. Wittgenstein here seems to me very reminiscent of Hume. You'll remember that, having knocked the traditional idea of hidden "powers" as the explanation for causal chains on the head, he explains that we associate ideas as a result of repetition in our experience and infer from cause to effect, not by rationality, but by "custom" or "habit". In other words, this is what we do and we shall go on doing it even if there is no justification for it. Wittgenstein is subtler than that, because, for him, "This is what I do" defines what is right (and wrong).

So, in one sense Socrates was guilty of impiety, but if being pious requires being just then Socrates, by heeding his daimonion, was just. — Fooloso4

Yes, I'm sure that is what Plato wanted us to draw from the Euthyphro. Though Euthyphro's account of his just action in prosecuting his father seems odd to me. I don't understand it, and I think there's a big metaphor going on there.

One might flee, but there is a lesson here for the next generation of law-makers, — Fooloso4

Yes, the Crito is certainly a warning to law-makers, and enforcers. It does seem a bit odd that Socrates doesn't show any sign of concluding that rebellion against unjust laws is justified. It wasn't till much, much later (I'm not sure when, but at least 1,000 years later) that the doctrine that rebellion against an unjust tyrant was justified was developed.

Yet, should the day come when he knows what “speaking ill” means, his anger will cease; at present he does not know. — Plato, Meno, 94e, translated by Lamb

Yes. Anytus' attitude is still quite common, alas. People hate being corrected. Socrates thinks they should be grateful. That's a nice example of Socrates' total faith in his values and his astonishing naivete in the face of the situation he faced.

It's worth adding that the Phaedo concludes Plato's story. It shows him in his death cell, talking to his friends about the immortality of the soul, and finally drinking the hemlock and dying peacefully after remembering to ask one of his friends - I forget which - to pay Ascelpius the cock he owes him. This amplifies and justifies one of the prominent themes of the Apology, that he does not fear death, because no harm can touch a good person. It is a radical and new thesis in Greek times, and completely counter-intuitive in that culture (and pretty astonishing in this one). Aristotle takes a different view, in the Nicomachaean Ethics.
BTW, if you have not already taken on board that Plato is not writing history, look up the symptoms of hemlock poisoning and compare them to the picture he gives us of Socrates' death.

Everything that I say here is from memory. I believe it is true, but it is worth checking in the encyclopedias.

We all know (I guess) that Sokrates was charged with asebia and for corrupting the young.
My question is: why did his accusers (as shown in the title) accuse him. Did he do anything to them? Did he make them lose face? I can't really seem to find a good answer anywhere — NocturnalRuminator

The story of his divine mission in Plato's Apology and the reaction of people whose ignorance he exposed is, presumably, meant to refute the charge of asebeia. Despite much experience, he never worked out that people get very cross when their ignorance is exposed. Poor misunderstood Socrates!

I realize that you haven't much time. But you should try to get a look at Xenophon's version of his defence - also called Apology - and Aristophanes' play The Clouds. See Perseus Digital Library. These views will also be partial, but they at least offer an alternative to Plato's hagiography.

Something I'd like to add: Why was it necessary to sentence a, then 70 year old man, to death just a couple of years before he would've probably died anyway? — NocturnalRuminator

That suggests that it wasn't just about what he did - his mission. It must have been about something that was going on at the time.

1. Aristophanes' Clouds lampoons "the sophists" but takes Socrates as a paradigm sophist (!). Plato, of course, is at great pains to distinguish Socrates from sophists. They do seem to have been very unpopular. No doubt because they trained most of the politicians who led them to defeat in the war with Sparta.

2. In 403 BCE, Athens lost her war against Sparta and was occupied; the Spartans installed a puppet right-wing regime. In 401 BCE, they were killed or driven out. You can imagine that right-wing, mostly aristocratic, anti-democratic people were not in good odour. Plato, Xenophon and many of that circle were aristocrats and anti-democrats. Is it surprising that Socrates was seen in that context?

(Alcibiades was also part of that group, though perhaps in the younger set. You should look him up (Wikipedia again) to see why he was so desperately unpopular at that time. Hence the charge of corrupting the youth. His defence doesn't address the issue and plays games with the definition of "corrupt". )

3. Almost the only feature of Plato's account that I take more or less seriously is his answer to the question why he refused to take advantage of the ways to game the system and escape death. It is helpful to look at the Crito for that.
A. If you look at Socrates' biography, will see, I think, someone who respected the law and the status quo and had no intention of undermining it.
B. His mission kept him in Athens, and there's little doubt that if he tried the same thing in other cities, he would meet the same fate.
C. He argues, very plausibly in my view, that life as an exile would not be worth living.

Xenophon reports that Socrates was afraid of old age. That is a bit odd. 70 years was definitely old age in that time. Perhaps it was more that he was feeling his age.

Quite simply, they are censors. They’ll abuse power to silence views they do not like. — NOS4A2

Is there any group in power who doesn't?

Well he uses the word himself! — Apustimelogist

So he does. I had forgotten. I'll have to take it up with him directly.

That may be a good example; but I was more thinking that with "pointing" at something, it is similarly somewhat underdetermined what is being pointed at, so pointing is also "blind" in that sense. — Apustimelogist

That's also a bit of a problem. I think part of what's confusing me is that there are several issues here. At first sight, you seem to be referring to the point that Wittgenstein concedes and solves when he points out that my audience needs to know the "station" of the word in the language-game - whether I'm pointing at the colour, the shape, etc. I agree that my intention is not a solution, since the definition can only work if there is agreement about that. Then there's the complexity about applying the definition in practice, which is resolved if I have learnt how to play the language game. Ostensive definition can only work if both I and my audience have learnt the skills/practices that are needed. Even then, there can be disagreements. But we know how to detect and how to work with those.

Yes, this is part of the skeptical solution albeit I would say it doesn't actually solve indeterminacy, just is used as a way of explaining how coherent word-use emerges. — Apustimelogist

Well, if your idea of a solution is a magic bullet that abolishes indeterminacy, there can't be one. But being able to use the words (and deal with what they refer to or are true of) is all the solution that matters, isn't it. (Scepticism as bogey-man.)

I'm afraid I couldn't detect how what you said was a deconstruction. There must be something earlier that I missed or have forgotten. Can you explain or refer to your explanation?
— Ludwig V
I discussed it here: — Joshs

I read your discussion. I think I agree with it. It doesn't mention (or use) the word "intuition", so I'm no further forward in understanding how that concept comes to be a part of Wittgenstein's deconstruction. I must have missed something.