Some philosophers concerned themselves with problems actually encountered in living and provided reasonable solutions to them, I think. — Ciceronianus the White

Absolutely; no quibble there. Ehhhh.....maybe one. Perhaps these problems and their solutions are the concern of psychologists.

What he is trying to demonstrate is that we use the options (publicly) available in a concept. — Antony Nickles

Yes, we do that. Isn’t it then a matter of what options are available in a concept? If the thought is that there is only one option available in a concept, that being its relation to something, what other options can there be? All that’s left is that to which a concept does not relate, or, a plethora of somethings to which a concept can relate.

So Witt's point is that the picturing of something is not "meaning" something exact, i.e., when we picture the cube are we "picturing" its squareness? its edges? that it's a prism? — Antony Nickles

I guess our differing notions of picturing are irreconcilable. I agree picturing something is not necessarily meaning something exact, but only indicating something exact. When we wish to communicate meaning, we then use the word belonging to the concept belonging to the picturing. If that is the case, we are never going to use the word prism when we mean cube.

So, yes, when we picture a cube we picture the manifold of its form, which immediately eliminates non-cube forms. Even if for the very first time ever picturing an object of nothing but right angles, even if there is no name for it, nothing without right angles is going to be pictured. It just makes no sense to me that we might bring up prisms when we mean to speak of cubes.

Nevertheless, I understand the finer points rely on less definitive conceptions. We in fact do make a mess of some concepts that have multiple relations, or multiple implications for singular relations....apologies, as you say.
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What Witt is trying to do in this section is grant the interlocutor the framework that they want (meaning as picturing) and still show how it can't account for how language works. — Antony Nickles

To say how language works I take to indicate mutually consistent understandings, language works if you understand what I say, and I understand what you say, and language isn’t working if we just look at each other with empty stares. That about right?

If so, then the framework I want is that in which such understandings are given. But there is no way I can promise you’ll understand me, from which follows that granting my framework is itself not sufficient to grant that language works, but still grants how it can work, if only we eventually agree on the meanings of the words being used. So my framework can account for how language works, even if sometimes it doesn’t, but we cannot say it never does, so the claim we cannot, is false. Or....I’m not right in what Witt is saying.

You tell me.

If you genuinely think all beliefs that are held for any reasons whatsoever are reasonable I don't know what else to to say. — Janus

The answer is in the negation of what you said: there is no belief whatsoever to be held, if there are no reasons whatsoever on which it is constructed, no reasons one thinks as belonging to or describing its object. All that on which reason can direct itself, is reasonable. All reducible to....the only belief unreasonable, is that belief the object of which reason cannot direct itself, which is, of course, to the one thinking, simply empty. Building up on that final reduction, what we......er, commonly....ordinarily.....consider an unreasonable belief, is actually merely an irrational one.

Yeah, well....tell an ordinary somebody something is unreasonable they might argue back. Tell an ordinary somebody something is irrational...they just look at you funny.

(Sigh)

Has any philosophy ever solved any problems? Far as I think about it, philosophy tries to explain something, and leaves it up to others to determine whether that explanation solves anything for them.

I solve my problems; philosophy just sets a proper stage for looking at them.

Common usage. I keep forgetting what constitutes philosophy these days.

You are correct in that regard, yes.

A self-contradictory belief cannot be considered reasonable by any standard. — Janus

How can a belief contradict itself? It isn’t the belief that is self-contradictory, it is the reasons for it, that are, because they conflict with each other or with some established condition, usually knowledge. The belief is still reasonable, if only to its holder whose reasons don’t conflict, just under illogical or irrational conditions from the point of view of someone who doesn’t because his reasons do conflict with the holders’.

You seems to be conflating 'having reasons' with 'reasonable'. — Janus

It’s good it only seems that way.

And here there will be certain things we can imagine and those we can't within the criteria of a cube because we grew up with cubes as we practiced naming and picturing and focusing on aspects of objects and the language that goes with these activities. I investigate above what we imply when we say "I imagine" or "I see an image". — Antony Nickles

You know we can imagine anything we like, any time we like?
(“....Imagination is the faculty of representing an object even without its presence in intuition....” (B151))

It needs explaining why there are certain things we cannot imagine. Why is it we can imagine things about an object without knowing it, but we cannot imagine certain things even if we do know it?

because we grew up with cubes as we practiced naming and picturing and focusing on aspects of objects and the language that goes with these activities. — Antony Nickles

Isn’t naming the source of words? And aren’t words the source of language? If so, practicing naming is not language, but is antecedent to it, and the supplement “language that goes with these activities”, is false. Language doesn't go with it; it comes after it.

We grew up with cubes, which is the same as saying we know them as certain things. This is not in itself enough to satisfy why we cannot imagine things about cubes, but only that such imaginings do not support the knowledge, or, as Witt says, they are not within the criteria of cubes.

We don’t care what a cube isn’t, we don’t usually waste cognitive effort imagining certain things about cubes that do not belong to them as they are known. We want to know how it is that an object becomes named “cube”. So we build a theory around an image we have, rather than imaginings we don’t need. That is what we imply when we say “I imagine” or “I see an image”. Which still isn’t technically correct, in that we don’t “see” the images we use to name objects, but what is implied remains true.
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No: the fact that one speaks of the appropriate word does not shew the existence of a something that etc.. One is inclined, rather, to speak of this picture-like something just because one can find a word appropriate — Wittgenstein, PI

I’m guessing the part left off “Something that etc”, is “comes before the mind”, which transforms the quote into, “the fact that one speaks of the appropriate word does not show the existence of a something that comes before the mind”. Yet, it does exactly that, for otherwise it must be the case there is something named or nameable, that does not exist as coming before the mind, which is absurd.

Speaking of this picture-like something is an inclination, yes, but to speak of this picture-like something, as an act of language use, is never a mere inclination, it is a necessity, otherwise there is no verbal language use at all. And one doesn’t speak because he can find the appropriate word, for he can always be inclined to speak yet speak incoherently, which makes explicit he has not found the appropriate word, perhaps because there isn’t one. Nevertheless, if one is inclined to speak, and wishes to be understood, it is in response to this picture-like something for which there must already be a word representing it.

Finally, to speak of this picture-like something just because an appropriate word can be found, makes no allowance for the advent of new words which by definition can never be found in the manifold of extant words. In that event, without the appropriate word to be found, is it then given that one cannot speak at all? I think not. As such, new words are not found at all, but invented. And even if “one can find a word appropriate” indicates the capacity for word invention, there is still required the existence of the something picture-like with which the newly invented word relates, in order to appropriately speak of it. Recall my mention of quarks?

Was there anything else you edited, that I can make a mess of?

I must say I do not follow his objection - "Kant was right to insist that whether there is something in reality answering to a concept of mine cannot itself be part of my concept" - I gather it's to do with differentiating the actual world amongst possible worlds, but I don't see it. — Banno

Irrespective of the rest of the article, his objection parsed in that piece follows from the explicit Kantian methodology, wherein anything in reality is for us only phenomena, but conceptions arise spontaneously from the understanding, which has nothing to do with phenomena. Things in reality relate to my conceptions, in accordance with Kantian methodology, which could be said to be the same as answering to my conception, but such things are not contained in, nor part of, them, but nonetheless possibly presupposed by them.

It is good you don’t see some differentiating among worlds; no such implication is carried by that objection.
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As regards the article itself......it begins with “Is belief in God reasonable?”.....which of course it must be, for the question must have been thought, which makes explicit there were reasons for thinking it. Kenny didn’t ask whether belief in God was rational, or sustainable, or logical. Even a reason that doesn’t make sense, is refutable, or self-contradictory, is still a reason.

Dialectically familiar your analytical predispositions already, I will still offer that if one wishes to remain with Kant....which could be presumed as a chronological backdrop, insofar as A820/B848 is a section in CPR with the almost the same name as this thread, and covers the same general notions....one will find that belief is nothing but a judgement with subjective sufficiency but no objective sufficiency, which easily translates to....when I arrive at reasons to believe in God, then immediately the criteria for subjective sufficiency is met, hence my judgement for believing is reasonable.

So....what’s all the hoopla about anyway?

I’m working on it. This format makes long posts on different pages, hard to juxtaposition.

I would consider...... — Luke

.....to which you are quite entitled.

Nevertheless, I find nothing you’ve contributed to be sufficient diminution of the components in my adversus dialectica with Antony.

demonstrate that "one" needn't have only the meaning of "a single unit", as you asserted. — Luke

.....except those two, not three for one was repetitive, are precisely examples of a single unit.....one thing to pull, one joke not heard.

There may be demonstrations that successfully counter my assertion; those are not them.

That which is of final value is for all intents and purposes, perfect, or ideal, insofar as no more or other conditions are possible for changing its finality, without self-contradiction. The first consideration would then be, how did this unconditioned....ideality....perfection.....obtain? The second consideration would then be, what would cause such perfection to be necessary, which it must be if that which is unconditioned can never be contingent on anything that conditions it.

If it cannot be said how there is a perfect value, but only that a perfect value is given without regard to the considerations, then it is the case that if there is only one reason for valuing a perfect value, is because it is perfect, which a mere tautology. That is, the only singular reason for valuing a perfect thing, is its perfection.

To negate the tautology, either there is no final value, hence no intrinsic necessity, or there is no single reason to value that to which final value belongs, which immediately invokes the possibility for contingencies.

Rhetorical fun and games.....

The conscious mind can talk but it cant itch. — Ken Edwards

Yikes.

Sorry.....I can’t think of a profitable response to all that.

No.

So.....I get a postcard, and the message is in French, I can either drop it in the circular filing cabinet, or run down to the library and research a translation. Hmmm....lemme think on that a minute.

Ability does not imply interest.

I don’t know what that means.

MWW suggested that I might have it backwards and I think he is correct. — Ken Edwards

I only thought your basic contention, that all verbal thoughts must always be spoken, is backwards. Which I thought should be....all spoken must first be thought.

I now think speech itself is only one aspect of a complex gestalt. — Ken Edwards

Agreed.

Without a conscious mind there could be no speech....

Agreed.

.....Without speech there could be no conscious mind.....

Not agreed. Without the experience to prove it, I still think I should be fully capable of playing a decent game of chess, even after vocal chord removal surgery. Multiplication tables should still reside in consciousness, and Mona Lisa will still be butt-ugly.

........Without vocal chords there could be neither. — Ken Edwards

Double disagreed. Without vocal chords there wouldn’t be coherent speech but there could still be perfectly intelligible communication, which presupposes a conscious mind as the necessary means for it.
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The logical question that arises is: Where did the conscious mind come from? — Ken Edwards

It cannot be said where a thing comes from if it isn’t first known what it is. But knowing what a thing is doesn’t promise knowing where it comes from. It just may be, that asking where the conscious mind comes from, isn’t a logical question at all. Kant would say asking after the ontology of a purely transcendental object, is an exercise in irrationality, because one is then trying to locate something that can never be thought as phenomenon. But what did he know anyway. He’s ancient, right?
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Early man had more brain cells than any other animal on earth — Ken Edwards

Given all the known extinct animals, is there evidence of that claim? What about unknown extinct animals? Can’t just insist if they had more brain cells then humans they wouldn’t be extinct, can we?

Dunno about brain cells in general, but there is evidence that, against the metric of unit body weight, a shrew has more neural connections than a human, with unit body mass as the metric, an elephant has more neural connections than a human, and with unit brain mass as the metric, an orangutan has almost the same number of neural connections as a human, yet none of those species have taken themselves to Disneyland.

Only in humans, aye. Pro and con.

Hadn’t intended to get involved with this again, but you gave such a good presentation I figured I’d better contribute to the other side.

This is not Witt speaking, but his questioner — Antony Nickles

Doesn’t matter; it’s all part of a whole.

We are missing what comes right after this, which is essential: — Antony Nickles

You have a point....

“....A philosophical system cannot come forward armed at all points like a mathematical treatise, and hence it may be quite possible to take objection to particular passages, while the organic structure of the system, considered as a unity, has no danger to apprehend. But few possess the ability, and still fewer the inclination, to take a comprehensive view of a new system. By confining the view to particular passages, taking these out of their connection (...), it is easy to pick out apparent contradictions...” (Bxlvii)

........but is was #139 taken from another comment, thus subjected to rhetorical opinion in mine. Still, any arbitrary section subjected to dismemberment by a continental X-Acto knife, would miss the “comprehensive view”, provided only that there is one.
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We know what cubes are, we can picture one, even without it in front of me. But this does not dictate the use of the word cube; say, that it can only be used as the perception of what is pictured. — Antony Nickles

Without it in front of me and given extant experience of them, the picture in the mind is the a priori intuition of empirical cubes in general, yes;
No, the image.....the picture/that which is drawn before the mind......does not dictate the use of the word; such is the purview of judgement alone, from the philosopher’s point of view as a matter of interest, yet only intention from Everydayman’s point of view, as a matter of mere desire.
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Witt pauses ("Weeeeellllll"--see above) and asks us to imagine ("suppose", above) a use of the word cube like this and what would be implied. — Antony Nickles

I covered that implication, and it reduces to irrationality when done with serious intent, or merely idle fabrications if otherwise, both of which are anathema to knowledge.
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And here is the OLP methodology of imagining examples that would show us the place of picturing to the use of the word "cube" to try to understand if the word cube allows for only one use--the representation or meaning of the picture. — Antony Nickles

I covered that. Again, there is no logical reason to do any of that imagining, for it is known what a cube is, and because it is known as nothing other than a geometric figure, the objective cube can only be represented by one general intuition empirically and only one general conception a priori.
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And here the picture could be of anything. Basically, the picture doesn't matter in the process of using a word like "cube" (a label) to name a thing. — Antony Nickles

I covered that. I can think anything I want, provided only that I do not contradict myself. The word “cube” does name a single thing, and the word represents the conception of a single thing, and the conception immediately relates the perception of that single thing, as phenomenon, to the image of it, “drawn before the mind”. It follows necessarily that the picture does very much matter in the use of the word. Under the condition that the word is used correctly, of course. And if not, we’re right back to irrationality or idle fabrications. It matters very much; it is the apodeictic justification for NOT calling out the object prism with the word “cube”.
(Caveat: and I covered this as well, insofar as this only works for perception of already known objects. For unknown objects, we are not rationally prohibited from using examples of extant pictures in order to determine “a fit”, from which a name for the unknown object may follow.)
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And this is a different use of the word cube than the framework that comes to mind when we imagine understanding an object as picturing it, or see meaning a word as expressing the picture. — Antony Nickles

Perhaps, but the framework that comes to mind when we imagine understanding an object as picturing it, is an absolutely necessary ground for knowledge of the object, and meaning the word as expressing the picture, is how we communicate the validity of the knowledge. Neither of those epistemological necessities reside in OLP.
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He will say this "called our attention to (reminded us of) the fact that there are other processes, besides the one we originally thought of, which we should be prepared to call 'applying the picture of a cube'." #140 — Antony Nickles

There are other processes, or, there is only one process used in other ways. Much the more parsimonious to subscribe to the latter than the former. It just makes sense that it is easier, e.g., to correct a mistake in one process, than to investigate more than one process in order to even determine which is responsible for the mistake.
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this is an investigation (it is an epistimology) to see how our concepts work differently, or similarly, and that there are different ways each can be used. — Antony Nickles

Why not just talk to somebody, see if he understands what you said? If he does, yours and his conceptions are congruent, if not, they’re not. No need for an investigation full of examples already present whenever folks communicate.
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What is essential is to see that the same thing can come before our minds when we hear the word and the application still be different. Has it the same meaning both times? I think we shall say not. — Wittgenstein PI

In ordinary language, application can be different, yes. Hearing the word “orange” can bring up the object “orange” without regard to its color, or, the word can bring up the a priori color “orange” without regard to its object, which are obviously non-congruent meanings of a common word. However, while the common word “orange” represents different conceptions, one of them was cognitively antecedent to the other, and serves as ground for it. I’m guessing the object named “orange” came first, and the color obtained its name merely from similarity.

Some applications cannot be different. Hearing the number one, for example, can never be applied in any other way than to an image of a single unit, hence must have the same meaning to everyone hearing the word.
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as one thing of many we can do--bring up a memory, even of a smell)? — Antony Nickles

Surely you realize it is impossible to intuit smells, which is the same as being impossible to bring up a memory of a smell. We only intuit objects that have a property from which smells arise, but we cannot bring the smell itself to our conscious attention. Same for all sensations except vision. Which is why the notion “image” in cognitive philosophy has so much theoretical power.

All this shows is that of the many things we are said to be able to do.....some of them we actually cannot.
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and because we can create representations of words. — Antony Nickles

I submit that words are the representations, words representation conceptions. We cannot speak in images or intuitions or conceptions, just as we cannot think in terms of the natural forces which govern the physiology of that by which thinking occurs. They all need translating into a method of communication, words being the basic units of that method we use as language. From this perspective, it is clear words are at the tail end of the system, and are not even necessary for the operation of the system, but only the objective manifestations of it.

More rhetorical opinion.....

If we’re wallowing in trivia, and if the whole thing is not at all even slightly reasonable, doesn't seem like fertile ground for important philosophical ramifications.

It would be fun to learn a puzzling fact about thinking, though.

Don’t get me wrong; I’m not saying there is no movement as shown by a detector. I don’t know anything about that, except what you just told me. But even if there is detectable movement, it doesn't change the rest of what I said. And just leaves me to ask......so what? Is this just a matter of interest to certain psychological/anthropological disciplines, or is there some benefit to mankind in knowing about it?

What did you think about my basic contention? That verbal thoughts must always be spoken? — Ken Edwards

I think your basic contention is mistaken. That which seems like internal vocalizing, is still merely thinking, and nothing I think requires speech. It is true, on the other hand, that what is spoken must first be thought. Therefore, I think your contention is mistaken because I think it is backwards.

I predict you don't think anything about it at all. — Ken Edwards

I wouldn’t normally, but you asked what I thought about something, which requires I think something, iff I intend to respond.

Was your mouth wide open? Were you reading at the same time? — Ken Edwards

Yes. No. I followed directions. Not much difference in thinking the words with my eyes closed and thinking them with my mouth open. I don’t think with either one, actually, so why would it matter what they’re doing when I’m thinking?

Do you notice an awkwardness in your thinking? — Ken Edwards

Not even a little.

Me, nine days ago:
Question: are images part and parcel of human mentality?

Witt, awhile ago:
What really comes before our mind when we understand a word? — Isn’t it something like a picture? Can’t it be a picture?

Philosophical jigsaw puzzle.

“...For understanding is, according to what has been said above, a faculty of thought....”
(A69/B94)

“....Isn’t it (what comes before our mind when we understand a word) something like a picture?....”
(P.I., 139)

Mind, understanding, thought, pictures.....all belong to human mentality. So it looks like images are indeed part and parcel of it. So obvious....dunno why it couldn’t just be admitted as given.
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So I hear the word “cube”, and what comes before my mind, say, something like a picture of a cube....
The perception is hearing, so that “picture” which has come before the mind cannot be some external, objective illustration; it is, therefore, because it is before the mind, it must have been drawn by the mind, and is a representation of this kind of perceptual sensation.
((“....extension and shape. These belong to pure intuition, which exists a priori in the mind,...” (A20/B54))

And “before the mind” merely indicates presented to the mind, in this case by means of sensibility, rather than antecedent to the mind, for the consistency of the thesis requires the mind as the ontologically unconditioned, to which nothing having to do with its operation, can be antecedent.

.....but Witt allows the something that comes before the mind to immediately relate to the perception....I hear “cube”, I immediately image “something like a picture of”, a “cube”....
(“...say, the drawing of a cube...”)
(ibid 139)

Witt then asks, “In what way can this picture fit or fail to fit a use of the word “cube”?...”
(ibid 139)

Witt says nothing about the speaker of the word, but only the receiver of it: “...your mind when you hear...”. It follows necessarily, that it is utterly irrelevant what the speaker meant by the word, it is irrelevant what his understandings are relative to the word, and it is irrelevant how his knowledge of the word relates to his use of it.

In addition, there is no indication of what it is to “use” the word “cube”. So far, all that’s been accomplished is to bring it “before the mind”, “your mind when you hear”.....which doesn’t carry the implication of being used for anything. Still, he says, “a use....”, which implies use in general. But we’re not talking about in general; we’re talking about “you mind when you hear”, which seems to indicate no use at all.

From the sensibility of the receiver, then, “the way this picture fits” cannot be otherwise than to immediately relate to the perception, for if it didn’t, there is no explanation for the drawing of THAT picture by my mind. This makes explicit I already knew what a cube is. According to Witt, I hear “cube”, I image “cube”. No in-between, no alternative possibilities. This is the fundamental flaw in this particular example, which is meant to characterize the entire philosophy, hence, by association, the fundamental flaw in the entire philosophy.

On the other hand, to then ask in what way the drawn image does not fit the perception, is an exercise in pure irrationality, insofar as it is necessarily a case of forcing my understanding into a contradiction with extant knowledge. It would seem quite inexplicable how to immediately relate the sound of the word “cube” to its only legitimate representation in “something like a picture, say, the drawing a “cube”, if I didn’t already have that image in my mind.

Which glaringly begs the question.....”if that picture occurs to me and I point to a triangular prism for instance, and say it is a cube, then this use of the word doesn’t fit the picture.”....why in the hell would I ever point to a prism and say it’s a cube? Merely to indicate some disconnected, non-intuitive, use of a word? What legitimate reason is there to do that? It is patently absurd, for I could point to every singe thing available to my perception, and say it doesn’t fit the picture of “cube” that occurred to me upon hearing that particular word, on the one hand, and on the other, I must already know what a prism is in order name it as such and comprehend the use of that word “prism” I merely thought, doesn’t fit the picture of the word “cube” I perceived. From which follows the irrationality, expressed as....
((“....I can think what I please, provided only I do not contradict myself...” (Bxxvii, a))
....and from that, it is clear Witt should never have qualified the example with, “say, the drawing of a cube”, and he should never have volunteered me into something I had no reason to do.

Now the kicker: up to this moment, it is me hearing and me picturing in my mind. At this point, after I have already understood the picture of “cube” that occurs to me before my mind, fitting with the prism to which I point, is a case of which “the use of the word does not fit the picture”, Witt chimes in and has the audacity to ask, “But doesn’t it fit?”, which implies there is a way it does fit and perhaps I should find it.

Witt finishes by saying, “I have purposely so chosen the example that it is quite easy to imagine a method of projection according to which the picture does fit after all.”

Errrrrr.....wha??? Where did he do that? I’ve already established in my mind the parameters by which a perception relates to its image, and given an example of how something else I point to wouldn’t “fit the picture”. Neither he nor I ever suggested how the picture of “cube” before my mind would fit with some different object to which I subsequently point.

All in all, this is a poor example of so-called OLP. Witt defeats himself by mandating that a word brings up an image immediately relating to it (which does happen under certain conditions), but doesn’t stipulate the mechanism for that relation (which is given in the historical literature), and what’s philosophically more disastrous, does not allow for the possibility that the perception and the image do not relate (which does happen under other than those certain conditions), except by means of some post hoc epistemologically invalid imaginings.

Rhetorical opinion.

A statement can be certain and false, and uncertain and true.
— creativesoul

And? Not....or? For a, re: singular, statement?
— Mww

Yes... I left the rest unspoken... — creativesoul

...and I surmise the unspoken part tacitly implies a plurality of subjects expressing the same statement. It remains, nonetheless, that for each subject, his statement can only be judged in accordance with one of the four logical possibilities intrinsic to a matrix with a pair of conceptions and their respective negations.
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Because some belief statements can be both uncertain and true, and certain but false, it only follows that certainty has nothing at all to do with truth. — creativesoul

Agreed, in principle, in that certainty is a quality and truth is merely a logical condition. But logical conditions are themselves predicated on a necessary quality, so it seems as if there exists a relation between them. I think the only way your assertion works, is to say my certainty has nothing to do with your truth, and vice versa.
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The attempt to create a dichotomy between belief and knowledge is asinine. It's akin to creating a dichotomy between an orange and a valencia orange. Knowledge is a kind of belief. — creativesoul

Attempt to create....agreed. But it doesn’t need any attempt, if it is an intrinsic condition of human cognition itself, in which case it isn’t asinine if it is given necessarily. After all, if it is the case that the human cognitive system is logical, relational and complementary.....there must be dichotomies by the very nature of the system. Or at least dualities. Theoretical as they may be.

Creating a dichotomy between an orange and a valencia orange is absurd, sure, such being reducible to mere experience. Doing that, between oranges, however, is not the same as creating a dichotomy between belief and knowledge.

I take issue with “knowledge is a kind of belief”, while not creating a dichotomy between them. I reject outright the logical validity of knowing and believing the same thing under the same conditions, which makes explicit, under those conditions, knowledge and belief do not share a kind between themselves, but do each partake of an antecedent kind common to both of them, and that is judgement. In other words, knowledge is a kind of judgement, belief is a kind of judgement, but that does not equate to knowledge is a kind of belief.

Minor point of contention on my part.....same as it ever was; I’m with you on most of your responses to Antony, regardless.

I might also say: "I eat therefore I am" or "I sneeze therefore I am" or "I walk therefore I am". — Ken Edwards

You can say this if you wish, but Descartes covered it as not in accordance with his thesis, in Principles of Philosophy, Pt 1, Sec 9.

To say “I doubt therefore I am” is valid in itself, but reducible. Probably why ol’ Rene didn’t stop at doubting as the irreducible ground of his argument, but only as the necessary condition for it, given in ibid Sec7.

Best to keep in mind exactly what he’s demonstrating in this particular part of the thesis.

A statement can be certain and false, and uncertain and true. — creativesoul

And? Not....or? For a, re: singular, statement?

My compliments; a fine sample of proper philosophizing, these last few pages. I could continue to argue almost all of it, but to more spoil your effort than gain from mine. Just as it would have been, were our dialectical roles reversed.

Carry on.

Witt spends a lot of time showing how learning a concept is being able to continue a series.. even into new contexts. — Antony Nickles

Isn’t that reducible to experience? If context stands for the the myriad distinguishable opportunities for using a concept, doesn’t that presupposes the time and place of them, which is the same thing as experience? It follows that a possible miscommunication using a common concept can be merely a matter of uncommon experiences.
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People generally aren’t drawn to that picture, your “concepts" being thought (then?) turned into words”. They haven’t a clue that’s what happening, because it’s all theory. Could be no one does that. So why diagnose a reason for something that is no more than speculative theoretic?
— Mww

This is complicated (it took the whole PI to draw it out), but the idea is that humans have a desire for certainty, and a fear of our human frailty (failings), and philosophers slide from there into radical skepticism, which, along with our ability to understand words without context, allows for a theoretical philosophical picture of how (all) language works, which skips over our human frailty and separateness. — Antony Nickles

I grant that humans have the innate desire for certainty, but I reject they fear their failings, at least on the same scale as they desire certainty. But I suppose OLP’s idea of failing has to do with general language use and because humans are always talking, they’re always in fear of failing in their language use. So...even while we are aware OLP has exposed what it considers a problem, has it done anything to fix it? What does a philosophical picture of how all language works, actually do for human frailties, other than seeming to disregard them?

Ironically, you and I are in the same leaky boat here, insofar as the average smuck on the street doesn’t care how my speculative epistemology works, and he doesn’t care about your how all language works. On the other hand, is it the case that for sufficient importance, procedures are in place to prevent failings in language use, so in that sense, there is a fix, albeit hardly philosophical.
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The point being that a "concept" for Witt is not like an "idea" of something, or, say, conceptual--just language. — Antony Nickles

A concept is just language? You know...I think I might know a reason why he comes up with that. It is impossible to have language without concepts, so if I speak, I must already have the ground for speech. Or writing, or communication in general. Combine that with this somewhat less than satisfying metaphysical gem (A50/B74), “....(spontaneity in the production of conceptions)....”, in that nobody likes the idea of stuff just popping up unexplained. So for Witt, the spontaneity is relinquished for the objective manifestations of concepts in language. But he’s just kicked the speculative can down the philosophical road, wouldn’t you say, in that we still need to know what makes language possible.
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By showing how public meaning and language are......what?
— Mww

How much language and our concepts are public (rather than determined by me); that they are meaningful to (all of) us in the ways our lives are attuned "in judgments" Witt will say (not only in definitions of words). #242. — Antony Nickles

OK. The “how much” was missing from your original and my C&P of it.

Kinda tautologous, but ok. Language not public isn’t really language anyway, right? Didn’t somebody say there’s no such thing as private language? Even that ubiquitous “voice in my head” manifests in the same speech as I would use publicly.

Concepts, on the other hand, as I’ve hinted before, always originate privately, by the first instance of it, and which usually, but not necessarily, subsequently become public in the communication of it. For which we must fall back on spontaneity....but, so be it? Not many choices in the matter, actually.
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All I can put out there is that I think OLP's early intent on accounting for the desire for the picture of language as something internal (meaning, thought, intention, "mental activity" Witt will say) attached to or corresponding to a word or object, lessens its interest in anything else "mental". — Antony Nickles

Agreeable, in principle, yes. The lessening interest in anything else mental would be redundant, hence not necessary. This is part of the certainty humans desire, as you said. All certainty is a relative judgement, once a judgement is made, there’s no profit in belaboring that judgement. It remains possible nonetheless, to replace it with a better one, a more certain one, which is merely an interest of its own.

off the top of my head: we don't "follow" Grammar, as we do rules; — Antony Nickles

Also agreed, in principle. The rules I’m concerned with are not something to be followed, as in some sort of objective conformity. Rules in the sense I’ve been using, merely indicate a logical significance in accordance with a complementary system, the empirical knowledge of which we have no privilege. It’s the same as, we don’t know why that happened but there must have been a reason for it....this theory doesn’t tell us how this happens but if it wasn’t in conformity to a rule we can say it wouldn’t have happened.

Probably doesn’t relate to your Grammar....just thought I’d throw it at you, see if it sticks.

I'll let the formulation of Grammar as "rules" go for now, and say I agree that Grammar has been established beforehand (as part of learning and joining society), though "completely" is also a bit far, as seeing that "we are responsible for" "the saying" does play an extra part because, once said/done, we are bound to our expressing, acting, "responsible for" having said it, for answering why, how, among all the possibilities and among what part of the context is important, we said this now, here--we are called out by it, seen in it. — Antony Nickles

“Completely” wouldn’t be a bit too far, if there is a time frame earlier than, or in addition to, learning and joining society. It seems to me, that if the onus is on each of us to take responsibility in the saying, if we are “bound to our expressing”, we’d want something more authoritative than the meager accolades of society. That which merely assuages the ego, as in, “Hey, you expressed that correctly! Good for you!!”, comfortably disguised as “Ok, fine; you’re playing by the rules”....isn’t the taking of responsibility. Yours is the beforehand as part of learning/joining, but with no true account of the extra part of being bound by the responsibility in expression because of agreement with the rules.

Your form of OLP wants to turn what it looks at as learning/joining, into rote instruction. There should still be an account for how learning is done. Your OLP wants to account for responsibility in expression by a subject, but doesn’t account for the authority within the same subject, by which the responsibility is obtained. It follows that the rules are contained in the subject, antecedent to, and hence authority for, any expression whatsoever.

What your OLP doesn’t understand is that rules are a euphemism in the accounting for language. The brain doesn’t use rules; they only appear in the discussion of the brain’s activity. It shouldn’t be a contention that whenever language is in use, something necessary is occurring beforehand. Otherwise, we are nothing but mere playback machines, to which, of course, responsibility in expression cannot pertain.

There is absolutely nothing whatsoever contained in “Finnegan’s Wake” relating to particle physics, but Gell-Mann named the first-ever exposition of a particular member of it, a “quark”. Point being, no matter the word, somebody somewhere at some time, determined its relation, and that determination had nothing to do with learning or joining society, but rather, contributed to a society for its members to learn.

But I get it, honest, I do. There are immeasurably more people these days, so few new experiences, so few new words. Everybody uses the same words, but with uncommon intimations, which facilitates an examination of the expressive ambiguities of the many at the exclusion of the compositional certainty of the one. Just beats the hell outa me how so much emphasis can be attributed to that which takes no account of its fundamental conditions. Incredible waste of time and effort, I must say.
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And to which the question regarding images becomes its most relevant.
— Mww

And here I think I can say that if the idea that I am guessing as the answer to the riddle.... — Antony Nickles

See what I mean? What I posed as just a simple question, you turned into a riddle. There is no reason to do that, there’s no hint in being a mere question that there is a disguised sublimity contained in it. You, of your own accord, before even considering a response, thought my expression as having qualities not justified by the words used in it.

I would say Witt is trying to diagnose the reason people are drawn to that picture by showing how public "meaning" and language are, and how "understanding" is relational (see comments above) at a point where knowledge reaches its limits. — Antony Nickles

People generally aren’t drawn to that picture, your “concepts" being thought (then?) turned into words”. They haven’t a clue that’s what happening, because it’s all theory. Could be no one does that. So why diagnose a reason for something that is no more than speculative theoretic?

By showing how public meaning and language are......what?

To show how understanding is relational....has already been done.

To show how understanding is relational to a point where knowledge reaches its limits.....I can’t unpack that. Knowledge has it limits, but such limits don’t have anything to do with understanding. We can understand a possibility without ever knowing the reality of it.

Witt and Austin's goal is that our lives ([all] our judgements, distinctions, interests, in this language-game) are attuned to these words (concepts**), not that words "arise" from "concepts" (as in "ideas" I would guess) which are thought (casually, or otherwise). — Antony Nickles

I understand that. Even if our lives are attuned to these words, it still would seem relevant to say where these words come from.

Witt's idea of "concepts"** (completely different) is a grouping of regular and complex parts of our lives (language games) like justice, meaning, understanding, but also, forgiving, threatening, sitting in a chair, pointing, learning a series, seeing, seeing an aspect, and that each of these have their own Grammar (roughly, ways they work, as they are part of our lives) — Antony Nickles

I don’t have a problem with calling all those things “concepts”. I would only say the objects of those concepts are what’s part of our lives. Seeing is a concept; what is seen is the object of the concept of seeing; learning is a concept, a series is the object learned about, etc.

What does the double asterisk and the (completely different) attached to “concepts” mean, from the point of view of Witt and OLP?

Have their own Grammar (roughly the way they work).....sounds an awful lot like rules to me. And we’re right back where we started.

So....nothing on images? Familiar with the science of visual thinking? From mention by Einstein, 1942 to books by Pinker, 2007, and originating as a speculative condition for human cognition, in Kant, 1781, the idea has been around quite some time. Being around much longer than OLP isn’t sufficient reason for it being better, but it is sufficient reason for OLP to account for the possible validity of it.

Question: are images part and parcel of human mentality?
— Mww

Well this sounds like a loaded question......

Yeah...no. No more loaded than the title of the article, must we mean what we say. No, it is not necessarily the case that we must mean what we say, and, yes, images are part and parcel of human mentality or no they are not.

......what is "mentality"? Are we saying imagination? Or just the ability to bring up an image?....

Mentality is whatever you think it is, and from which whether images are part and parcel of it, is then determinable. We are not saying imagination, because we already said mentality. If it was the ability to bring up images, then they are presupposed and the question remains as to their part and parcel.

.......but I'd need more I think. — Antony Nickles

Ok. I’ll wait.
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That's all you took from that essay? — Antony Nickles

No. I discovered where you got your writing style.

With respect to content, however, there is this, which I found enlightening, after dropping out all those stupefying cogito interruptus parentheticals:

“....What now needs emphasizing is that (...) justifying a statement or an action is not (...) justifying its justification. The assumption that the appeal to a rule or standard is only justified where that rule or standard is simultaneously established or justified can only serve to make such appeal seem hypocritical (...) and the attempts at such establishment or justification seem tyrannical (....)....”
pg 191

And with this next...

“...And what we mean (...) to say, like what we mean (...) to do, is something we are responsible for....”, pg 197

.... is merely a reiteration of that which has always been the case, long before this article was written, because the rules for what is meant by what is said, are never simultaneously established in the saying, but already completely established beforehand in the relation between the words said and the conceptions thought, from which they arise. And to which the question regarding images becomes its most relevant.

as completely opposed to Mww's proposed definition of "principle" as an absolute truth) — Metaphysician Undercover

I don’t mind disagreements with my words. They should actually be my words, though.

No need to rectify it; just letting the world know I committed no such metaphysical blunder as defining principle with “absolute truth”.

And seeing as how the physical arrangement cannot be changed.....what arrangement is left that can, and still conform to observation of the physical arrangement? — Mww

If the objects stayed the same, that does not mean the structure stayed the same, unless the structure is the object, but the structure is what changed. — Metaphysician Undercover

Yours doesn't consider the implications in mine.
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But to say that the sun goes around the earth every day, is simply wrong. — Metaphysician Undercover

Big deal. That does absolutely nothing to explain the reality that geocentrism was the standard cosmology model of its day.
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What form does a principle have if not a propositional form? — Metaphysician Undercover

Some are relational (Kant, ‘ought implies can”, 1785; “principle of evidence, Hume, 1748; “Sufficient Reason”, Liebnitz, 1714; varieties of Ockham’s Razor), some categorical (Principle of cause and effect, Principle of non-contradiction, ...).

Propositions reduce to principles, principles determine propositions.
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What a 2 represents in a particular instances of use is the symbol's meaning in that instance. — Metaphysician Undercover

I know about the what; I’m talking about the how (did a 2 get into Nature seeing as how it isn’t there naturally). You’re talking about what it’s there for, to relate a use to a meaning. I wish to know how the representation occurs such that it can be used.

Hint: meaning is not contained in the how, the how has no need of meaning.

Common affliction these days; neglecting the chronology relating thought and expression.

Stubborn bunch, aye. They’ve done the heavy lifting, so perhaps have earned the right.

I’m familiar with the essay. What I found quite telling about it, is located in fn2, wherein it is admitted that the explication of the stated purpose of the essay, follows conditions “as I understand them to be”. The implications of that admission are staggering from the point of view of my particular armchair, antique, frayed and butt-crushed as it may be, insofar as “understanding” is precisely the quanta of the heavy lifting to which the especially post-Renaissance continentals directed themselves, and the anti-metatheoretical analyticals have back-burnered.

Question: are images part and parcel of human mentality?

That Copernicus knew the geocentric system, is clearly not the cause of him developing the heliocentric system, because millions of people already knew it as well. — Metaphysician Undercover

Then you may want to ask yourself how it came to be, that it was only one of the millions, that changed the science for the millions.

But clearly the old conceptual structure was rejected, lock stock and barrel, and replaced by the new. — Metaphysician Undercover

Actually, it wasn’t. I anticipated the objection, by stating “commonality of objects”. The general conceptual structure stayed the same; the arrangement of the structure changed, or the orientation of it, if you’d rather. And seeing as how the physical arrangement cannot be changed.....what arrangement is left that can, and still conform to observation of the physical arrangement?
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This is a problem epistemologists have, how can knowledge be wrong. If it's wrong, it can't be knowledge. — Metaphysician Undercover

Easy: it isn’t knowledge that’s wrong, it is the incompleteness of the conditions for it, or misunderstanding of the complete conditions, that are wrong. As I said before, knowledge is at the end of the chain, so it is theoretically inconsistent to claim an end is a fault in itself. Think about it: how is it that you and I know everything there is to know about shoes, but you know your shoe size and I do not. Can you claim, without being irrational about it, that my knowledge of shoes is wrong because I don’t know about two of them?
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And it really doesn’t change or help anything, to call uncertainty a flaw, even if in the strictest possible technical sense, it is.
— Mww

When we're talking about knowledge, clearly uncertainty is a flaw. — Metaphysician Undercover

Yeah, well....the flawless is the perfect, and metaphysics only permits perfection as an ideal, which would make unflawed knowledge a metaphysical ideal. Experience of metaphysical ideals is impossible for humans, so we grant the flaw in knowledge given from experience in order to abstract it from the metaphysical, and call it uncertainty. There is even a principle by that very name.
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If we thought up the so-called a priori principles, and we are sentient beings, then how could these principles be free from the influence of sense experience, to be truly a priori? — Metaphysician Undercover

How can it be, that there are no 2’s in Nature unless we put them there? Because of an active domain specific, if not exclusive, to human sentience over and above their domain of mere reactive experience.
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So scientists focus on their capacity for making predictions rather than trying to find the true nature of things. — Metaphysician Undercover

The true nature of things has been theorized as out of our reach, since 1781. Your statement merely confirms the theory has yet to be falsified.
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how you would differentiate between a principle and a premise. — Metaphysician Undercover

At bottom, a premise is usually a subject/copula/predicate proposition. A principle is a synthesis of conceptions into a necessary truth. From that, a premise can be the propositional form of a principle, but a principle does not have a propositional form. Furthermore, the employment of a principle is in the logical ground of a law, but the employment a premise is only in the ground of a logical argument and never the ground of a law. Building on all that, depending on the construction of the proposition, a premise may be contingent, whereas a principle cannot be.
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The "logical structure of perception" is what I am arguing against. I think it's nonsense to say that perception uses logic. — Metaphysician Undercover

Perception does not have a logical structure and perception does not use logic; it is a passive receptive faculty only, that which makes physical sensation possible. Reason, on the other hand, is the necessary systemic logical function used by humans, by means of which passive perceptions are structured into known objects. You know.....theoretically.

Kant’s aesthetics structures the capacity for what we feel to interact with our faculties of imagination and understanding without interference from judgement. — Possibility

All good and well said. If anything, I might take exception to your statement with this:

“....Whether now the Judgement, which in the order of our cognitive faculties forms a mediating link between Understanding and Reason, has also principles a priori for itself; whether these are constitutive or merely regulative (thus indicating no special realm); and whether they give a rule a priori to the feeling of pleasure and pain, as the mediating link between the cognitive faculty and the faculty of desire (just as the Understanding prescribes laws a priori to the first, Reason to the second); these are the questions with which the present Critique of Judgement is concerned....”

It is clear Kant attributes to judgement different areas of concern, one area definitely given in the cognitive, the other of no special area in the aesthetic. Buried in the text is the exposition that regulative judgment does interfere.....arbitrate?....so to speak, regarding the condition given from the appearance of an object and how the subject feels about it.

“....because the Understanding necessarily proceeds according to its nature without any design; yet, on the other hand, the discovery that two or more empirical heterogeneous laws of nature may be combined under one principle comprehending them both, is the ground of a very marked pleasure, often even of an admiration, which does not cease, though we may be already quite familiar with the objects of it. (....) There is then something in our judgements upon nature which makes us attentive to its purposiveness for our Understanding — an endeavour to bring, where possible, its dissimilar laws under higher ones, though still always empirical — and thus, if successful, makes us feel pleasure in that harmony of these with our cognitive faculty...”

And because we already know imagination is responsible for the synthesis upon which judgement acts, and feelings of pleasure is a synthesis, it follows that judgement acts on feelings. It’s all in the text, if one can dig it out, and then accept what’s dug out.

And here’s why. I guess. Seems to me anyway. The account for any term of art whatsoever, are all necessarily derivable a priori from phenomena, yet objects themselves merely from the properties by which they are known, cannot render to us our feelings, our subjective condition, illicited because of those properties alone. We are hardly amazed that a basketball is spherical, but we may be stupefied to cause a spheroid to drop through a circle 50 feet away.

CofJ is long and dense to the point of impenetrability, so I might have it all wrong, or at least arguable. I don’t claim to be certain, so forgive me for appearing that way.

Of course we cannot examine the coming into being of knowledge without knowledge having already come into being, but how is that point relevant to anything? — Metaphysician Undercover

It is the entire raison d’etre of speculative epistemological theory, that which satisfies the standard human interest for justifying the condition of his certainty.
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the reality that, e.g., heliocentrism could never have come to be known, if the standing knowledge represented by geocentrism wasn’t being first examined by Aristarchus. Just because Ptolemy turned out to be wrong doesn’t take away from his knowledge.
— Mww

You have no logical association here. — Metaphysician Undercover

Not sure what logical association is needed here, insofar as I qualified my assertion with “the reality that....”, which is an ontological condition.

so we cannot logically say that the existence of heliocentrism is dependent on the prior existence of geocentricism. — Metaphysician Undercover

Oh, that logical association. Two things: the commonality of their respective objects, and the historical record. The first needs no exposition, the second defines the condition. The logical possibility that heliocentrism could have come to be without the antecedent geocentrism is irrelevant in the face of fact that the record shows Copernicus developed the former because he knew something about the later, sufficient to justify changing it. I grant you would have been correct iff Copernicus had absolutely no experience whatsoever with Ptolemy, but the record immediately falsifies that condition.

So we can logically say the existence of one is entirely dependent on the other, given the historical facts. Just as the reality of quantum physics was dependent on the existence of the so-called ultraviolet catastrophe. Can’t use logic to change history.
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in many cases principles are built on existing principles. — Metaphysician Undercover

Minor point, but no: laws are built on principles, rules are built on laws, suppositions are built on rules, but principles are not built on each other. If they were, each principle would be contingent, hence any law built on a contingent principle, is not properly a law.

Since we cannot account for those fundamental principles, then all of our knowledge of knowledge is fundamentally flawed. — Metaphysician Undercover

Agreed, almost. We can account for principles simply from the thought of them, but they are not thereby empirically proven. It follows that our empirical knowledge, when based on them, is not so much flawed, as always uncertain. And it really doesn’t change or help anything, to call uncertainty a flaw, even if in the strictest possible technical sense, it is.

If we cannot account for the fundamental principles, that's no problem, we just posit a priori principles and there you have it, problem solved. — Metaphysician Undercover

Facetiousness accepted, because in fact a priori principles do not solve the problem (of the uncertainty of empirical knowledge when based on principles). Nonetheless, the intent of assigning the nomenclature “a priori” is to indicate the impossibility of denying the inception. It must be absolutely true a priori principles are real, because we cannot deny having thought them, and given the human proclivity in seeking the unconditioned, that which is thought is as close to perfect undeniability as we can get, and anything perfectly undeniable is also just as perfectly unconditioned.

What a priori principles do solve, is the fundamental starting point for whatever follows from them. It is the termination of cognitive infinite regress, and serves no other purpose. Metaphysical reductionism writ large.

But now you are rejecting that assumption, saying that there might not even be such a thing as knowledge. I don't think you can have it both ways. That would just lead to ambiguous meaninglessness. — Metaphysician Undercover

Careful now. I didn’t say knowledge wasn’t a thing, but only that it may not have a character, as you implied with “we cannot characterize it as the type of thing which continually builds upon an existing foundation“. I meant by it to indicate knowledge isn’t the thing that builds, but is instead the thing that is built, such that that characterization is false.

The argument sustaining the assertion knowledge may not even be a thing, on the other hand, derives from the concession that even though no epistemological theory is provable, calling knowledge anything at all is still solely dependent on the theory used to explain it. However and always, if the theory is wrong, and the theory describes knowledge as a certain kind of thing having a certain character, than knowledge is not that kind of thing and doesn’t have that character.

So in effect, you are correct, in that we cannot have it both ways, if we expect to gain any profit from our knowledge theories. We do so expect, hence we do so grant the conclusions of our respective favorite theories, and run with them.
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This is what I think is fundamental to knowledge. We start with premises which prove very useful, and since they are so useful they seem solid to support structures of knowledge......

Yes, agreed.

.....An important thing to remember here, is that the principles at the base of the structure have been around for the longest.

Ditto.

.....they are actually the weakest ones, having been put into use the longest time ago when the state of knowledge was most primitive. — Metaphysician Undercover

Ok, premises support the structure, principles base the structure. Premises currently useful can certainly supervene on the formerly useful, yes. It could, however, also be said the principles at the base of the structure, being around the longest, are the most powerful, because they have been used to evolve knowledge from the primitive. Cause/effect come to mind, along with the Three Laws, on which nothing has yet supervened. So it is actually the premises that are the weakest because they can be supervened.

If I were to analyze the idea to a finer point, I might say premises support what knowledge is about, while principles base the structure of knowledge itself. In this way, it is explained why some fundamental principles have lasted so long and some supporting premises fall by the epistemological wayside.

Good talk. Socrates would have to give us the Athenian equivalent of a gold star, methinks.

Not your fault, for....

if I am a Cartesian philosopher, I can (....) still not recognize ‘language game’ or ‘picture theory ‘ any differently than Mmw (...) after many exchanges with you. That is, such notions will be forced into what my Cartesian pre-conceptions impose on them. — Joshs

.....it is just like that.

So be it. To strike out is to show one should stick to his own game.

I bow to your esteemed Admiral-ness. I have not the range nor caliber for such registry.

I might request you trounce that pretentious Kantian wannabe over yonder, for I, but for being entrenched in this rotten Manila harbor, fain would myself sally forth to partake of particularly destructive broadsides.

HA!!! That was fun. Silly....but fun.

in the philosophical examination of how knowledge is acquired, something must already known.
— Mww

I disagree with all of this, at a most fundamental level. (W)e cannot philosophically examine the acquisition of knowledge with the presupposition that something must already be known, for the acquisition of knowledge, because this is contrary to the observed evidence of empirical science. — Metaphysician Undercover

Except you aren’t at the fundamental level, obviously, because my assertion presupposes knowledge already acquired.

Your rejoinder is even more absurd empirically, considering the reality that, e.g., heliocentrism could never have come to be known, if the standing knowledge represented by geocentrism wasn’t being first examined by Aristarchus. Just because Ptolemy turned out to be wrong doesn’t take away from his knowledge.

Works in reverse just as well: how could knowledge acquisition ever be examined, if there was never anything known?

Empirical knowledge isn’t destroyed, it’s replaced. A priori knowledge, if one grants the validity of it, is neither destroyed nor replaced. Even if not accepted as a general knowledge condition due to the impossibility of its empirical proof, it can still be granted logical necessity.

Since we cannot characterize knowledge as relying on something already known, we cannot characterize it as the type of thing which continually builds upon an existing foundation. — Metaphysician Undercover

Yet, that is exactly how science is done, and science is both the means and the ends of human empirical knowledge, so.....the asymptotic relation is glaringly obvious.

Nevertheless, it’s irrelevant, because that’s not what I’m doing. I’m not characterizing knowledge, but theorizing on its acquisition, which presupposes its character is already determined, as it must have been, in order to grant it is something possible to acquire by the means supposed for it. The state of knowledge builds on its existential antecedents, yes, but that doesn't in the least give any indication of what knowledge is. It might just be that knowledge doesn’t even have a character, but it is a characterization of something else. Knowledge may be characterized as merely the condition of the intellect. But that still doesn’t indicate what knowledge is, but only what it does.

Metaphysical reductionism....don’t hate it because it’s beautiful.

There is an age-old argument that each rational being has his own philosophy, that by which his intelligence, inclinations and personality in general becomes susceptible to their respective manifestations. So saying, it follows that each rational being, upon being linguistically engaged, is, in effect, philosophizing in accordance with it, objectively.

Ordinary language can be taken as the content of any linguistic engagement, thus OLP can then be taken as each rational being’s internal ground for his philosophizing by means of that content, and such philosophizing suffices as that by which such internal ground is represented. From here, it makes sense that he intends differing meanings for articles of his linguistic engagement depending on the differing contexts of its expression, all in accordance with an overarching personal philosophy with respect to all of them. As such, each engagement is itself a measure, or an example, of a philosophy.

How’m I doing? Close? Ballpark?