This was a direct quote from the lecture. Are you saying that Wittgenstein was deceived in believing that certain experiences have supernatural value? Or are you still accusing me of not understanding him? — Fooloso4

Accuse is a bit harsh for a choice of words, but yes, I am saying that you don't understand him. "should seem to have" is not the same as "has", I wonder how and why you don't see that.

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We have been over this. Experiential. A proposition does not tell me if I am happy or in pain. — Fooloso4

Ah so experiential truths, like the truth of what vanilla ice cream tastes like (mundane), the truth of me having a toothache, the truth of feeling safe and in accordance with the world, the truth of seeing/feeling the world as mystical or a miracle, the truth of being happy. And you are saying that these experiential truths cannot be expressed in language and propositions, thus we cannot communicate them, at least not in the ordinary sense, but only show them (this be the only - if any at all - way of communication), they make themselves manifest. Right?

I am talking about the etymology and meaning of the terms. The term biology does not mean that logic is mixed with life. The term psychology does not mean that logic is mixed with psyche. More to the point,
Wittgenstein marks the limits of logic and world and the "I" is not within those limits. They are separate and distinct, not mixed. — Fooloso4

But what is logic, according to Wittgenstein? Or the logical form? When I say that logic mixes with X, I mean to say that the logical form is inherent in that X, that X has a logical structure. So biological forms have a logical structure. And I say that this is also the case for the psyche, giving birth to psychology.

Again, are you asking me to put into words what Wittgenstein says cannot be put into words? The problem can be seen, as I pointed out, with mundane experiences such as the taste of vanilla ice cream. This is an experience that most of us can relate to. In the Investigations he talks a great deal about the experience of pain. When someone says that they are in pain we know what they mean. But the experience of the mystical is not one we can so easily understand since it is not a common experience. — Fooloso4

I was asking so that I could understand what you mean. But if you think that what I am asking cannot be put into words, but only shown, then I guess that your efforts should have been better focused on the latter, the showing. For example, in one of my previous comments to you, I used the word privilege ironically, this was evident to you, and to anyone following the discussion I think, pretty obvious. And it was evident to me that you realized it, putting it in quotes and all. Because "privilege", as used in that context, is not identical to the "privilege" that is commonly ascribed to, let's say, a king, but nevertheless has some relation to it. What happened there? A combination or mixture of forms, logical forms I mean: the logical form of privilege proper was mixed with irony, irony's logical form, and this was made manifest, it showed itself, irony showed herself. And then you decided, on your own merit, not to further fuel the so-called quarrel, but somehow quiesce it. This also was made manifest, this silencing. But had you acted differently, then we might have seen what it is for something to wax, only to wane at a later time, as it was done before. So all these forms, logical forms, of waxing, waning, quiescing were made manifest, here, as is the case, apparently, in every discussion. But one cannot talk about these forms in hope that he will represent them in his speech or language, but only show them.

... It is the paradox that an experience, a fact, should seem to have supernatural value.' — Fooloso4

Yes, it would seem or appear so, but you know what they say, appearances can be deceiving.

No propositional truths. — Fooloso4

What sort of truths then? Truths that cannot be expressed in language? Is this what you say? Personal truths? What exactly?

He provides no such explanation, and if he did wouldn't he have to discuss it, that is, talk about value judgments? You miss the point. It is not about value judgments but the experience of value. — Fooloso4

Basically my questions and let's say assertions have to do with the fact that I don't understand what you mean by these experiences, the experience of value. But I think that you are using the word 'experience' in a different context as the one that is conventionally used, I mean, how to say, the every day experience, or like a physicist would use it when he conducts his experiments. Do you think that this experience of value is of the same form of everyday experience? Somewhat related, or entirely different?

First of all, I am not ahead of myself. I have followed the Tractatus. In a few places I cited his other writings. There is nothing else in addition to these points that I have said that cannot be found in the Tractatus. Second, your claim about mixing logic and soul is contrary to the Tractatus. If you like you can assert the "privilege" of saying things that are contrary to the text but you should be aware and make note of the fact that they are. — Fooloso4

I did it to myself in my first comment, and then in the second I publicly acknowledged it. I am just following on Wittgenstein's footsteps here that he carved for us but without us, I think, when he said:

Don't for heaven's sake, be afraid of talking nonsense! But you must pay attention to your nonsense.

Some trial and error, so to speak. As long as thoughts are expressed. But if one gets it at the end, it wouldn't matter what happened in the past, would it now?

'ologies' are the talk about or examination of or study of the subject matter. Biology is not the logic of life, it is the study of life. Psychology is not the logic of the psyche, it is the study of the psyche. — Fooloso4

So you are saying that logic plays no role at all in biology or psychology? Cause this is what I am getting at, the logical forms found in those.

Ethics and aesthetics are the same (6.421) 6.44 and 6.45 refer to aesthetic experience, meaning and value. — Fooloso4

Again, per my question as to these experiences.

Yes, so you have comic writers warn:

Is Dennis the Menace a superhero? Or some spoiled brat? At least Captain America is well nurtured!

I am not an expert in comics, but I think that we should have a look at how the concept of superheroes has been developed since the beginning. At first I think it was for political reasons, american propaganda, communist danger and the cold war, well maybe even before that to give hope to people during a dark age - the world wars, so their image was impeccable and perfect. But nowadays I think that the current has changed, in that superheroes are beginning to be portrayed as mentally unstable people. What do you think?

Ethics has nothing to do with truth-functions, for propositions can express nothing higher. — Fooloso4

So if ethics has nothing to do with truth-functions, does this mean that no truth comes out of ethics?

He has done no such thing. There is no talk of value judgment in the Tractatus. It is a matter of seeing of what makes itself manifest (6.522). — Fooloso4

I didn't say that there was talk of value judgement in the Tractatus, but only an explanation how these are possible. How is it that people value one thing over another, for example a piece of music, some ideology, some human characteristic, different beliefs etc.

Where does he say that logic mixes with the soul? Once again you have missed an essential element of the Tractatus, the "I" or self or soul is not in the world, it stands outside it. — Fooloso4

Well yes, he doesn't, but seeing that you get ahead of yourself, I took the liberty to improvise as well, I mean why should there be only you that has that privilege?

The term psychological does not mean that there is a logical part of the psyche. Logic is derivative of the Greek "logos", which meant originally to gather together, and thus to give an account, to speak or say. Psychology is the logos of the psyche. — Fooloso4

So psychology is the logos of the psyche, not the logic of the psyche?

The reason it is not "6.424" is because it is not a continuation of 6.423, which says that it is impossible to speak about the will in so far as it is the subject of ethical attributes. The subject is still ethics. Ethics is not about attributes of the will. It is about the exercise of the will. How we choose to act and the rewards or punishment that follow. — Fooloso4

By what you are reasoning here, you say why it is not a continuation of 6.423, but you don't actually say why or how it is a continuation of 6.42, where ethical propositions are discussed. But let us take propositions 6.4x from 6.43 and below. We have:

6.43 If good or bad willing ... (let us not repeat ourselves)

6.44 Not how the world is, is the mystical, but that it is.

6.45 The contemplation of the world sub specie aeterni is its contemplation as a limited whole. The feeling of the world as a limited whole is the mystical feeling.

Do you think that in 6.44 and 6.45, the subject is still ethics? And if so, how is ethics connected with these propositions?

It's because you crazy yankees like to play heroes, being a superpower. Saving the world, rescuing the girl and all. Take for example Captain America, I mean, what sort of name is that for a super hero, huh?? Could it be more obvious? But you are all a bunch of fools, if you don't mind me saying so! :razz:

The numbering system in the Tractatus is not ornamental. The remark about the world of the happy man is not some offhand remark unrelated to the statement in which it occurs. It follows from the prior related statements. — Fooloso4

Yes of course, the numbering is not ornamental in the Tractatus. But if we want to take things from the beginning, chapter 6 begins with :"The general form of truth-function is: [...]. This is the general form of proposition". And then 6.4 states: "All propositions are of equal value". What relation do you think the general form of truth-function has with 6.4?

According to 6.41 value is not found in the world. This is followed by 6.42 which states that there can be no ethical propositions because propositions cannot express anything higher. Ethics is transcendental (6.421). This is followed by 6.422 which states there must be ethical rewards and punishments, and that they reside in the action itself. 6.423 states that it is impossible to speak about the will in so far as it is the subject of ethical attributes. This is because the will is not a thing in the world. Rather than attributes of the will it is the actions or exercise of the will that is at issue, but it cannot change what happens in the world, it changes the world as a whole (6.43). — Fooloso4

But in 6.422 he says that the consequences of an action are irrelevant. And that the reward and punishment must lie in the action itself, they must thus be intrinsic to the action, in and of itself, with no recourse to experience, to what happens in the world outside of us I mean, as a result of this action. Thus, willing anything, IF it changes anything (the if here is not to be taken lightly), it won't change the external world, the macrocosm, but only our world, the microcosm, how we see and value things. But value does not exist in the external world, the world of logic that can be expressed in language, therefore, IF it exists anywhere, it must lie on the outside, or inside our microcosm. All this however, is purely psychological, since believing, willing, judging etc something does not necessarily make it so, which is the foundation for all psychology. And thus the Tractatus has explained how value judgements are possible. Finally, it is evident from the above that the will resides in our microcosm, being part of our psychology, so anyone, like Kant, that speaks about the will is doing psychology and not philosophy or logic. However, because "logic fills the world", it mixes with our soul and psyche somehow - the microcosm, and it is not a happy coincidence that the word itself "psycho-logical", bears a logical part, but language has managed to preserve and show this mixture, as well as distinction. And it is for this reason that philosophers have more than often confused logic and rationality with their own psychology.

And I think that 6.43 was purposely numbered so by Wittgenstein, being in equal section under 6.4 (All propositions are of equal value) and not under 6.42 (as in 6.424 for example) where he discusses ethics, in order to show that what is contained there (the will and feelings of happiness and unhappiness) pertains to psychology, mostly, and not ethics.

At least this is what I believe about the Tractatus.

Yes ok. So? Why do you see good willing to be a characteristic of the happy man, and bad willing that of an unhappy man? Because they are placed in the same order afterwards? If he wrote:

"The world of the unhappy man is a different one from that of the happy man",

would you have said that the good exercise of the will is that of the unhappy man, and bad willing that of the happy man?

I don't see the connection, in fact, I don't think they are related at all, in that happiness does not have anything to do with the will, as it is stated above, I am saying that the two statements are unconnected.

You really should check the text before saying such things: — Fooloso4

Lets just say that the Notebook was never written or that it was unavailable to us, and we only had the Tractatus. Do you think that from the statement above only, we can infer that W linked the world of the happy man to the good exercise of the will, whereas the world of the unhappy man to its bad exercise, and all this to ethics?

Ethics is not a theory of ethics, just as music is not a theory of music. The failure to make that distinction results in a failure to understand what Wittgenstein means by ethics. The comparison with music was deliberate because in the Tractatus he links ethics/aesthetics. Someone who has never heard music will not come to understand it via a theory of music. — Fooloso4

Yes, which I translated to "is the will fundamental in all ethical theories?". Your disagreement is with theory? Or with fundamental? I guess with the first. But I lost you there, what do you mean by ethics is not a theory of ethics? We have something, say X, and to be able to understand it and say a few things about it, we build a theory of X around it. How does this lead to misunderstanding? And when W says something about the musical score in the Tractatus, he does so to link the musical form to the pictorial form, and go from there to the logical form that governs everything in the world. I don't think that this has anything to do with ethics or aesthetics per se.

The will is fundamental for all ethics in so far as we intend to do what is right or good. When we ask how that is to be accomplished Kant and Wittgenstein part ways. Kant thinks there is a moral science, Wittgenstein rejects this. That does not make it "100% percent Kant". — Fooloso4

Well yes, I exaggerated a *bit*, it's true.

So, which is it? Is the will fundamental or not? The basis of your confusion seems to be, once again, the failure to distinguish between ethics and a theory of ethics. — Fooloso4

It's whatever one chooses I guess. I just copied here what W says in the lecture:

Now instead of saying "Ethics is the enquiry into what is good" I could have said Ethics is the enquiry into what is valuable, or, into what is really important, or I could have said Ethics is the enquiry into the meaning of life, or into what makes life worth living, or into the right way of living. I believe if you look at all these phrases you will get a rough idea as to what it is that Ethics is concerned with. — W

This should be seen in light of the saying/showing distinction. What answers the inquiry is not something that can be said but something that becomes manifest, something experienced. It is not a matter of defining one in terms of the other. It is not a matter of defining it at all. — Fooloso4

There it is again this talk of "experience"... I think that the main reason you misunderstand the Tractatus is because you are primarily concerned with ethics. The saying/showing distinction in the Tractatus has to do with the logical form: this form is the one that cannot be talked about, but only shown. For example, according to W, we cannot say what time is, but only show it.

Are you claiming that when he says: — Fooloso4

"Transcendental" is so Kant, isn't it?

But I was referring to the part you so cleverly omitted:

6.422 The first thought in setting up an ethical law of the form “thou
shalt . . . ” is: And what if I do not do it. But it is clear that
ethics has nothing to do with punishment and reward in the
ordinary sense. This question as to the consequences of an action
must therefore be irrelevant. At least these consequences will not
be events. For there must be something right in that formulation
of the question. There must be some sort of ethical reward and
ethical punishment, but this must lie in the action itself.

(And this is clear also that the reward must be something
acceptable, and the punishment something unacceptable.)

This I say is the traditional view of ethics, that reward coincides with something acceptable and happiness, which also coincides with good willing, in contrast to punishment and something unacceptable and bad willing.

The conclusion for Wittgenstein, as I see it, is this: if ethics is something that can be expressed in language, then it will not do for us what we always tried to make it do, but will become quite another. On the other hand, if ethics cannot be expressed in language, then we should remain silent about ethical matters. Thus, you can't have it both ways, one must choose between these two ifs. You can't have your cake, and eat it too.

The moral law for Kant was not grounded in psychology and did not appeal to psychology. It is determined a priori by reason. — Fooloso4

I am certain that for Kant it appeared so, but according to Wittgenstein, the categorical imperative is purely psychological.

Philosophy, according to Wittgenstein, sets the boundaries of what can be thought and said. Ethics is on the side of that boundary that cannot be said or thought. Ethics is transcendental. It is not about theories or propositions or formulations, but rather the life of the "happy man"; life as he knows it via his own experience of the good exercise of his will. — Fooloso4

Surely for Wittgenstein, ethics cannot be expressed in language, in this we agree. However I don't see anywhere in the Tractatus him saying that ethics is about "the life of the "happy man"; life as he knows it via his own experience of the good exercise of his will". This is just you, speculating.

As late as "On Certainty" skepticism remained central to his investigations. We need to distinguish between two forms of skepticism: 1) knowledge of ignorance and human limits, 2) radical doubt. Wittgenstein accepts the first and rejects the second. — Fooloso4

Yes right, this form of scepticism that doubts where a question cannot be asked.

The topic is the Tractatus but you jump from W. to Kant because both discuss the will and then to a misrepresentation of Russell in order to show that for him the will plays no part in ethics. Based on that misrepresentation you make a dubious claim about a science of ethics, try to tie it back to the Tractatus, and conclude that there are ethical facts and an ethical science. — Fooloso4

Yes, the topic is the Tractatus, but we got sidetracked discussing this question: "is the will fundamental in all ethical theories?". All my previous comments had to do with that. Wallows, first, mentioned utilitarianism, but he didn't expand further, so I decided to say a few things. And then I remembered the debate that Russell had with Copleston, and since Russell had a close relationship with Wittgenstein, I thought it would be pertinent to throw Russell into the discussion. As for Kant, some of the things that Wittgenstein said in the Tractatus, I think that they are directed towards him, so Kant is important here as well. Now, as it seems, I might have misrepresented Russell, however I did not say that for him the will plays no part in ethics, nor did I try to tie anything back to the Tractatus - my comments had nothing to do with the Tractatus but with the question above standalone - or make any conclusions. I just took his two possible ethical theories to help me with whether the will is fundamental in ethics.

What you fail to see is that for W. the will does not make ethical determinations. The will does not make ethical determinations for Kant either. In addition, however ethical determinations are made, to choose and act ethically does require the will. Simply determining that one should choose or do ‘x’ does not mean one will choose or do it. I might decide that I would benefit more by not doing ‘x’ even if it harms others. The will alone is not sufficient but is necessary if one is to choose and act ethically. Simply following the rules is not enough because one might not follow them when he can go undetected and it is to his advantage to not follow them. — Fooloso4

Well, this is what I've been saying all along, that the will is not making ethical determinations, at least in the ethical theories above, and this I see as "the will not being fundamental in ethics", as in those theories we could have - in principle - a computer program determine what is ethical. Because the question was not whether the will plays some role in ethics, but whether it is fundamental. And I see the ethical determinations as being fundamental. You, on the other hand, see the will fundamental no matter what. So I guess we are both right and wrong, depending on how one looks at it. But I think for Kant, the will is inseparable from ethical determinations and actions both, they are somehow intertwined, I mean if you separate them, then you end up with something that is not Kant.

As to a science of ethics: Russell is not claiming the possibility of a science of ethics but a science of perception - just as the physicist can give an answer to why an object looks yellow or blue, he suggests that there is "probably an answer of the same sort" as to why I think one sort of thing good and another evil. That does not mean that there is a science that determines whether it is good or evil but rather a possible science of moral perception. Moral perception, however, is not moral truth: — Fooloso4

Yes, you are right.

Your question which for some reason you were not able to previously articulate: — Fooloso4

I didn't articulate it because I thought we were on the same page, apparently not.

What evidence do you have that such a thing is possible? Where in the world are the facts of meaning and value located? How are they known? — Fooloso4

This depends on how one defines/formulates ethics. For example, if ethics is defined to be "the will to do good", then the question above whether "the will is fundamental in ethics" is obviously ridiculous and absurd. It's like someone would come with a good disposition and ask: "come here fellas and let us ponder upon this question, no bias, no strings attached, to find out whether blue is truly a colour". And the others would say, of course: "what the heck are you talking about? how can blue not be a colour? the colour blue is obviously a colour! what sort of question is this? are you stupid or something??!". But if ethics, as Wittgenstein says in the lecture, is defined to be the general enquiry into what is good (taken from Moore), or the enquiry into what is valuable, or what is really important, or the enquiry into the meaning of life, or into what makes life worth living, or into the right way of living, then the will may in fact not be fundamental, or be trivial or even redundant.

Now I am going to use the term Ethics in a slightly wider sense, in a sense in fact which includes what I believe to be the most essential part of what is generally called Aesthetics. — W

If Aesthetics is the inquiry into what is beautiful, then we can define Ethics similarly as the inquiry into what is a beautiful life, making thus Ethics part of Aesthetics, defining it in terms of beauty that is, and then there would only be beauty to investigate to get a glimpse of them both.

You seem to have moved without making a clear distinction from challenging my interpretation of the Tractatus to what appears to be an ambiguous challenge to the Tractatus itself. From challenging what I said about the role of the will in the Tractatus to challenging the role of the will in ethics to an assertion of ethical facts to speculation about a science of ethics.
..
There is nothing here that indicates that you have distinguished Wittgenstein’s position from your own claim of a science of ethics. Nothing that indicates that they are not seen by you as one and the same. — Fooloso4

Well maybe I wasn't clear, it doesn't matter anyway. But I think that just as you misunderstood me here, you also misunderstood what W was trying to say in the Tractatus, in propositions 6.42 to 6.43: it is not his own opinions on ethics that he is presenting there, but those of conventional ethics, as they have been traditionally discussed. Basically I see that he is trying to put everything where it belongs: traditional ethics as the "will to do good" does not belong to philosophy but to psychology, this is an insinuation to Kant who discusses the will quite a bit. Also proposition 4.1121:

4.1121 Psychology is no nearer related to philosophy, than is any other natural science.
The theory of knowledge is the philosophy of psychology.
Does not my study of sign-language correspond to the study of thought processes which philosophers held to be so essential to the philosophy of logic? Only they got entangled for the most part in unessential psychological investigations, and there is an analogous danger for my method. — W

These unessential psychological investigations point to Kant and his categorical imperative, Kant is not doing philosophy there but psychology.

6.423 Of the will as the bearer of the ethical we cannot speak. And the will as a phenomenon is only of interest to psychology. — W

Philosophy cannot speak of ethics where the will is present, but psychology can. And if we formulate ethics such as we could philosophically speak of it, then it will not do for us what we always tried to make it do, just like the soul (This shows that there is no such thing as the soul—the subject, etc.—as it is conceived in contemporary superficial psychology. A composite soul would not be a soul any longer):

6.4312 The temporal immortality of the soul of man, that is to say, its
eternal survival also after death, is not only in no way guaranteed,
but this assumption in the first place will not do for us
what we always tried to make it do. Is a riddle solved by the
fact that I survive for ever? Is this eternal life not as enigmatic
as our present one? The solution of the riddle of life in space
and time lies outside space and time. — W

On the other hand, he finds that solipsism does actually belong to philosophy, because it has sense: "The I in solipsism shrinks to an extensionless point and there remains the reality co-ordinated with it. There is therefore really a sense in which in philosophy we can talk of a non-psychological I". Which is why solipsism occupied him for the rest of his life.

Scepticism, however, does not have any sense at all, and is therefore excluded from philosophical investigations:

6.51 Scepticism is not irrefutable, but palpably senseless, if it would
doubt where a question cannot be asked.
For doubt can only exist where there is a question; a question
only where there is an answer, and this only where something
can be said. — W

--------

This is more or less it, what goes where. I wish I were in a better mood and state to express myself clearer, but I am pretty much tired, surely there is a lot I forgot and neglected to mention to tie things up. But life, if it could be expressed into a proposition, it would most probably be a funny one.

:) this is not what I meant by what does it say, but ok, I will have a look.

no i haven't, what does it say?

Once again, you have misunderstood Wittgenstein. For W. ethics has nothing to do with what happens in the world. He is quite clear that ethics is not a science. He is also clear that it does have to do with the will. I provided ample evidence of this based on the Tractatus, the Notebooks, and the Lecture on Ethics.You jump from a remark made by Russell to the conclusion that W. held that ethics is a science and has nothing to do with the will, the opposite of what he says. — Fooloso4

No, once again, it is you that have misunderstood me. I quoted W to make an argument for this particular theory that we were discussing, I didn't say nor do I believe what you say next. The question here is: "what would happen to ethics if it was found that ethics is one of the natural sciences?". Of course W in the TLP does not see ethics this way. So you see that it is you that is jumping to conclusions, probably because you are so blinded by your beliefs that you are not even able to hypothesise anything else, but then again your condition does not have anything to do with philosophy, rather as W would say, it is only of interest to psychology.

Since we desire pleasure and avoid pain, and move toward the one and avoid the other, it is a matter of will, of what one wishes to pursue or shun.

So if for example our will is to do action A, but it is judged that its consequences will be most unpleasant, then, in order to be ethical, we would refrain from doing it, and do some other action B instead, that causes less discontent and/or more pleasure, so it is not a matter of/for the will, the will succumbs.
— Pussycat

No, the will to do what causes less discontent and/or more pleasure wins out. — Fooloso4

No matter who wins, what is ethical, according to this theory, does not reside in the will itself (good willing does not make it ethical), but is judged by other factors that got nothing to do with the will, any will : via a rigorous analysis of all the actions, consequences and circumstances, the theory says that we can arrive at the most pleasant-giving action of all, which is then defined as the ethical, the most beautiful way to live life. This analysis does not need will, neither its approval, for it to be carried through, to be concluded. Now whether one chooses, desires or wills to act upon the conclusion, is a different matter, there sure the will is queen, but steps behind the king, playing second fiddle.

By analogy with color blindness, the ethical person will still will or want what is perceived to be good and avoid what is perceived to be bad. Since they are not able to make the distinction correctly, however, their actions may not be ethical.

The ability to make the distinction correctly, however, does not assure that one will act ethically. Being able to see that 'x' is bad 'y' is good does not mean that one will avoid 'x' and do 'y'. — Fooloso4

Basically their actions would be as if we showed a color-blind person colors and told him to identify them. The color-blind person maybe would very much desire to be correct in his color identification, but we already know that it would be a shot in the dark, the result is to be decided only by chance, some lucky coincidence - so to speak. So again here, what is ethical has nothing to do with willing it or not, but is based on a fact, a scientific fact, which as W - to get him back in the game - says:

6.43 If good or bad willing changes the world, it can only change the
limits of the world, not the facts; not the things that can be
expressed in language.

So science was able to express in language the ethical, just as it was done with color-blindness, and this ethical fact found is unchangeable by will. Moreover, it doesn't matter at all what we will, since it is just statistics, say x% of our actions are going to be ethical, unknowingly.

Why would we do this if we did not will to do or choose what is good or best or just or most fair or most beneficial or least harmful? — Fooloso4

For this theory I said that the will plays a non significant role, since ethical matters are judged according to pleasure. So if for example our will is to do action A, but it is judged that its consequences will be most unpleasant, then, in order to be ethical, we would refrain from doing it, and do some other action B instead, that causes less discontent and/or more pleasure, so it is not a matter of/for the will, the will succumbs.

The will is not absent. All such theories have at their basis the will - the wish or desire or want or motivation to do what is right or good. They differ in how they attempt to determine what that is. — Fooloso4

I said that the will is absent from the first theory, not from both of them. It is absent from the scientific version of ethics since there a person is supposed to be impaired or have an affliction that causes him to act most unethically, or be gifted with something that makes him most ethical. So the will is completely unimportant, just like a color-blind person won't start seeing colors because he wills it so.

Yes, I was gonna say Utilitarianism. Something like Russell seems to be advocating in the famouse radio debate with father Copleston.

http://www.scandalon.co.uk/philosophy/cosmological_radio.htm

R: Well, why does one type of object look yellow and another look blue? I can more or less give an answer to that thanks to the physicists, and as to why I think one sort of thing good and another evil, probably there is an answer of the same sort, but it hasn't been gone into in the same way and I couldn't give it [to] you.

Here Russell seems to be open to the possibility that ethical matters could be judged just like scientific questions regarding color perception!

R: The feeling is a little too simplified. You've got to take account of the effects of actions and your feelings toward those effects. You see, you can have an argument about it if you can say that certain sorts of occurrences are the sort you like and certain others the sort you don't like. Then you have to take account of the effects of actions. You can very well say that the effects of the actions of the Commandant of Belsen were painful and unpleasant.

While here ethical matters are decided according to the effects of our actions: we take into account all possible actions together with all their possible consequences, subtract the unpleasant consequences (NP) from the pleasant (P), sort them by their outcome (P - NP), and pick the action-consequences pairs from the top of the list.

So in both of these ethical theories, the will is either absent (as in the first), or plays a rather non significant role (as in the second).

But for Kant the will is the foundation of ethics, all ethics are based on the will. Just like you say it is for W, putting aside questions of where the will is to be found. Do you understand what I am saying?

But for Kant, the foundation of ethics is the will. Just like you say it is for Wittgenstein. So they might be different, but not fundamentally different, is all i'm saying.

Thanks, I will watch it when I have some time.

No, they are fundamentally different. There is for Wittgenstein no categorical imperative. — Fooloso4

How are they fundamentally different, since the foundation in the both of them is the will, no?

Ah yes, the will, forgot about that one, this be the last refuge of the ethical man, well until he finds another one that is, but he is running short on options, I'll tell you that, where is he gonna run to when all options are exhausted? But what you are saying sounds very Kantian like, in fact, a prima vista, I would say it's 100% percent Kant, what do you think?

it's good fun, ain't it?

This has already been addressed. It is not a matter of what he says or thinks, but of what he does, how he lives. — Fooloso4

Ok, and what he does and how he lives can be described by a very certain state of affairs, like we are watching him from afar how he goes about his own business and life, and record all his actions in our little book. But, according to W, there is no ethical state of affairs, "no absolutely right road", as he puts it. Therefore in fact, the way the ethical man lives is also nonsensical and idiotic, just like his saying or thinking, as far as he believes this to be so that is.

I don't think we are anywhere in particular, we are just discussing bits and pieces, here and there.

You have completely missed the point. The “ethical man” has nothing to do with either what is said or thought to be ethical. — Fooloso4

Right, so how does this "ethical man" differ from someone that is not? If it doesn't have anything to do with whatever he says or thinks, then what else is there?

Now perhaps some of you will agree to that and be reminded of Hamlet's words: "Nothing is either good or bad, but thinking makes it so." But this again could lead to a misunderstanding. What
Hamlet says seems to imply that good and bad, though not qualities of the world outside us, are
attributes to our states of mind. But what I mean is that a state of mind, so far as we mean by that a
fact which we can describe, is in no ethical sense good or bad.

Here he is starting to attack also the "thinking" mode of being ethical, besides the "saying". For the "saying", it is clear as rain what he contends, he said it so many times over, and we discussed it as well, agreeing that what he means is that language and logic cannot capture ethics, that all ethical propositions are nonsensical, and so all ethical ideologies that have been written are in fact ethical idiotologies, with the most prominent moralists and ethicists being the most idiots of all. But this left people with believing that it's ok if we cannot speak of the ethical, because we can think of it, and also act upon this thinking, so that we can know what the right/good/ethical way to live is, and also follow it. Well here he is trying to also bring down this castle, the last fort, the last resort of the ethical man.

And now I must say that if I contemplate what Ethics really would have to be if there were such a science, this result seems to me quite obvious. It seems to me obvious that nothing we could ever think or say should be the thing.

So Ethics is no science for W as there is nothing to be learnt by studying it. This applies to thinking as well, not just saying: "nothing we could ever think or say should be the thing".

And similarly the absolute good, if it is a describable state of affairs, would be one which
everybody, independent of his tastes and inclinations, would necessarily bring about or feel guilty
for not bringing about. And I want to say that such a state of affairs is a chimera. No state of affairs
has, in itself, what I would like to call the coercive power of an absolute judge.

So here comes the part about the chimera, hell, I thought he wrote it "chimaera", I like it better this way, just like I prefer daemon to demon. Anyway, he sees the "absolute right way to live life", as that being thought of or expressed by the ethical man, as a chimera. What he means by that? Let us first take what the wikipedia article is saying about the chimera: "The term "chimera" has come to describe any mythical or fictional animal with parts taken from various animals, or to describe anything composed of very disparate parts, or perceived as wildly imaginative, implausible, or dazzling. The sight of a Chimera was an omen for disaster". So by chimera he means that we, more than often, get carried away or are overwhelmed by thoughts and feelings that point us to an "absolute right road", but that this is wildly imaginative, not having anything to do reality, but rather with psychology as he contends later:

Then what have all of us who, like myself, are still tempted to use such expressions as 'absolute good,' 'absolute value,' etc., what have we in mind and what do we try to express? Now whenever I try to make this clear to myself it is natural that I should recall cases in which I would certainly use these expressions and I am then in the situation in which you would be if, for instance, I were to give you a lecture on the psychology of pleasure.

It is therefore when and because we feel good with ourselves, pleasurable, that ethical thinking and saying springs. But it's all purely imaginative and overwhelming. So I see here W argue in favour of amorality, just like Nietzsche, the opinion that ethics is non-existent, in thinking or in saying, in this world or beyond. And it is a contradiction in thought, or rather a paradox, if the only possibility for an ethical man would be for him to deny ethics alltogether.

What do you think is this chimaera he is referring to?

I overslept and missed the lecture. — Wallows

Watch out! you will get a bad grade. :razz:

And the part where he says that it is a chimaera?

God's will, yeah right!

Anyway, you brought me W's lecture on ethics to corroborate your analysis of the Tractatus that whatever is beyond logic, language and the world is only knowable experientially and not by rational discourse, however W clearly does not attribute any knowledge and in any sense to all these experiences, as he notes at the end of his lecture. And neither is there a similar statement in the Tractatus, relating - how to call them, transcedental experiences, or even better metaphysical experiences, as you would have them - to knowledge.

Yes, but there is no experiential knowledge either. In fact, there is no knowledge at all about stuff like that.

"A Lecture on Ethics", yes, I remember I linked that to Wallows a while back, I don't know what he has done with it.

So there W closes the lecture with:

This running against the walls of our cage is perfectly, absolutely hopeless. Ethics so far as it
springs from the desire to say something about the ultimate meaning of life, the absolute good, the absolute valuable, can be no science. What it says does not add to our knowledge in any sense. But it is a document of a tendency in the human mind which I personally cannot help respecting deeply and I would not for my life ridicule it.

So "does not add to our knowledge in any sense". Then why do you say that these sort of things, God etc, can be known experientially? Wittgenstein above strictly ousts knowledge away from them, why don't you?

So where is it that W says that we cannot know God using reason, but that we can know God experientially?

I do not extract that from the quote. He explicitly states that this is what philosophy does. I quote it and reference it in a post on the section of the Tractatus where he says it. — Fooloso4

I see no problem with this one, I was referring to your last sentence.

If they are not within the bounds of language then by definition they cannot be known discursively. — Fooloso4

But what does "discursively" mean? Rational thinking? So that pure reason or rationalism cannot reveal the truth about what is outside the bounds of language? Most likely this is what W meant, but by saying that "these cannot be known discursively", it endangers that we leave and throw reason completely out of the game. In a similar tune in stanford's article on Kant that you shared, it says somewhere:

If, for example, propositions about the supersensible were incoherent according to Kant, then he would not need his Antinomies or Paralogisms. Rather, he could sweep them all away quite simply through the charge that they fall short of the conditions for meaning.

Why would Kant deal with reason with what is outside the bounds of language, if the latter - the unreasonable - were unknowable? (but neither with this I have a problem)

As to the experiential, I discussed this in my post on part six, specifically with regard to the will and the world of the happy man. What do you think he means by the world of the happy man? — Fooloso4

Now with this, I have a problem. I don't see anywhere in the Tractatus Wittegenstein:

a) say explicitly that what is outside the bounds of language can be known experientially.

b) even imply or hint that such is the case.

I read your comments on part 6, where you repeat this claim, but again I cannot see how you came to this conclusion. So if you could, for my sake, answer whether there are excerpts in the Tractatus containing a) and b) above, and which are those.

As to the world of the happy man, we can take the usual example of the half-full/half-empty glass: how can we use language and science to describe the situation? one way is this: we say that this glass can hold a maximum of 100 ml of water, and it now holds 50, this is a scientific proposition, a proposition of natural sciences, expressing a definitive fact, which cannot be changed no matter how hard we try. Now, the happy man says: "oh what joy, this glass is half-full, and I will get to drink some water! :smile: ", whereas the unhappy man says: "oh what a bummer, this glass is half-empty, couldn't it have been full! :sad: ".

(If good or bad willing changes the world, it can only change the limits of the world, not the facts; not the things that can be expressed in language).

So the worlds of the happy and unhappy man are quite different. For the first his world waxed, as optimism shined in, for the second it waned, as pessimism caved in.

(In brief, the world must thereby become quite another. It must so to speak wax or wane as a whole.
The world of the happy is quite another than that of the unhappy).

What do you think about Wittgenstein's answer to Hume's problem of induction in the Tractatus? — Wallows

Mind you that Wittgenstein's friend David (Hume) Pinsent was a descendant of David Hume. A coincidence? But there are no coincidences in logic.

Amity, amity
why show you such enmity?
after all
there's no calamity

But I am just trying to be honest here, you understand honesty, right? Honesty's form I mean, its logical form, irrespective of its content.

I have already asked you to point out where I have made a mistake or questionable move. Where specifically do my own views differ from his? What textual evidence points to that difference? I do not make my views pass as his. I set his statements in quotes and then comment on them. The two are easily distinguished.

Lots, like the last comment, "not discursively, but experentially", what the heck is this, where on earth did W say that, or even hinted??
— Pussycat

The following are direct quotes from the text. I cited them in my post.

It is clear that ethics cannot be put into words.
Ethics is transcendental.
(Ethics and aesthetics are one and the same.)

— T 6.421
If the good or bad exercise of the will does alter the world, it can alter only the limits of the world, not the facts—not what can be expressed by means of language.
In short the effect must be that it becomes an altogether different world. It must, so to speak, wax and wane as a whole.
The world of the happy man is a different one from that of the unhappy man.
— T 6.43 — Fooloso4

From which you extract:

Philosophy sets boundaries. The boundaries of language exclude the metaphysical, but this is not a rejection of the metaphysical but rather means that the metaphysical is misunderstood and only leads to nonsense if one attempts to treat it as if it were within the bounds of language. Thus the right method of philosophy leads to silence about such things. There are not known discursively but experientially. — Fooloso4

Now where exactly does W. say explicitly in the Tractatus that the things that are not within the bounds of language "are not known discursively but experentially"? Particularly the second.