I'll leave discussing Aristotle to Fooloso4. — wonderer1

"Faith based" is misdirection. Aristotle certainly did use theological premises. But as I interpret him these are not premises he holds to be true.

From the thread I started on Aristotle's Metaphysics:

So why does Aristotle make so many theological claims? I think the answer has something to do with the difference between opinion and knowledge, what can be taught and learned, and the competition between theology and philosophy. Aristotle was able to give his listeners and readers opinions that they could hold as true, but he could not give them knowledge of such things. As if to be told is to know.

...

There is then an important political dimension to the Metaphysics. The battle between the philosopher and the theologian is a continuation of the ancient quarrel between poetry and philosophy. Aristotle’s strategy in this quarrel is the same as Plato’s. Just as Plato presents a philosophical poetry, Aristotle presents a philosophical theology. It is better for these opinions to be generally assumed rather than some others. It is better to hold these opinions then succumb to misologic and nihilism. Better to give the appearance of knowledge than reveal our absence of knowledge.

If the mental image is of Y instead of X, then the picture before one's mind must be of Y. — Luke

If I mistake X for Y my mental image of X is a picture of Y.

If a mental picture changes, then it's a different picture compared to the original picture. — Luke

Yes, but even though it changes, my mental picture of Zeus is still my mental picture of Zeus.

The sketch or description is not the mental picture. It is a representation of it.
— Fooloso4

It is neither a picture of a mental picture nor a description of a mental description. — Luke

Have you changed your mind? In the prior post you asked:

Can these mental pictures not be made public (e.g. via a sketch or description)? — Luke

Was your answer no they cannot be made public?

Doesn't this imply that the meaning of "picture" is the same in both cases? — Luke

No. The word is used in various ways. If you ask me to show you the picture in one case I can but in other I can't. If I remember correctly this was why you were reluctant to call the mental picture a picture.

If a mental picture and physical picture have the same content, then what is the point of PI 389 on your view? — Luke

They are the same only is so far as they are pictures of the same thing. My mental picture of you may be very different than a photo or portrait of you. If I see that picture I might say: "You are much more handsome than I pictured".

Do you think people often make the false assumption that an intrinsic feature of a mental image is that it's more like its object than a picture is? — Luke

I don't think so.

Do you consider this false assumption to be unrelated to the private language argument and of no philosophical interest? — Luke

Mental images exist. Private languages do not.

I think Wittgenstein was very much interested in mental images.

But the likely response to such sentiments will be that because this sounds like natural theology or religious apologetics, then it ought to be rejected on those grounds. — Wayfarer

There is a difference between God as a denied premise that claims to be a conclusion and a rejection of that premise.

following formally in Aristotle’s footsteps ... asserts that real knowledge is the knowledge of causes. — Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, Introduction to Christianity

For Aristotle not all causes fall under the four causes. There are accidental causes and chance (tyche), which means that in addition to teleology there is indeterminacy. Not all acorns become oak trees. In addition, there can be no knowledge of the whole or cosmos without knowledge of the arche or source. We can speculate and make arguments about it, but we have no knowledge of it.

Hence the transformation (or devolution) of man from h. sapiens, 'wise man' — Wayfarer

The wise man according to Socrates is the man who knows when he does not know. Aristotle is a Socratic skeptic and dialectician, an inquirer who knows he does not mistake argument for truth.

Mincing words. God is a premise that underlies your claim, which is not an argument, that:
— Fooloso4
This warrant no further response — Dfpolis

It is not that it does not warrant response but that you choose not to respond. You begin where you hope to convince others to end, that is, with your belief in God. The pretense is that the belief is derived from the argument, as if it is a conclusion and not the reason for making the argument.

So how long before he defies it? — Michael

According to the time stamp, I read this 4 minutes after you posted it. It should not come as a surprise that he has not already done so.

That is not a theological premise. A premise is a starting point, not a conclusion. I am happy to say that the most uncontroversial starting points can be used to deduce God's existence, but that does not make them theological in the sense of being faith-based. — Dfpolis

Mincing words. God is a premise that underlies your claim, which is not an argument, that:

if we understand that [how we know there is an apple on the counter], we can understand how we might know that there is a God. — Fooloso4

You can develop an argument which leads to the conclusion that there is a God, but without the prior belief that there is a God there would be no reason to develop such an argument. Without the belief that there is a God, you would not make the claim that:

God has a creative intent. — Dfpolis

Any argument you make that leads to the conclusion that there is a God, follows from your belief that there is a God.

I said the Laws of Physics are approximate descriptions of the actual Laws of Nature that guide the evolution of physical systems. — Dfpolis

What is the distinction you are making? Is the distinction is between what is actually going on (laws of nature) and what we think is going on (laws of science)? In that case, when talking about what is going on we are talking about what we think is going on. This would hold as much for your claims about God's intent as it does for scientific laws.

A conclusion, not a premise. — Dfpolis

Again, God's intent is a hidden and unstated premise that underlies the arguments you make that are designed to lead to your intended conclusion. If you object to the term premise here call it a belief.

Can these mental pictures not be made public (e.g. via a sketch or description)? — Luke

The sketch or description is not the mental picture. It is a representation of it.

Do they change immediately upon hearing the word/name? — Luke

The mental picture may or may not stay relatively stable, but there is nothing to compare it to in order to determine that. One's memory of it may be more or less reliable.

I note that Wittgenstein is using these examples to undermine the (then) common view that such mental images are necessary to the meaning of a word. — Luke

Was that in dispute in our discussion?

Wittgenstein makes a clear distinction between pictures (or descriptions) and mental images in the later passages we have been discussing, especially at PI 389, PI 280, etc. — Luke

The distinction made is between an image in the mind and a physical image. But a mental image and a physical image are are both pictures.

Perhaps we can agree that their content is the same while maintaining this distinction between them, as I believe he does at PPF 10? — Luke

The distinction at PPF 10 is between a meaning and a mental image, not a mental image and a physical image. The content of the experience of imagining can be a picture or a description, but he does not know how to answer the question of the experience of a meaning.

Only in behavioralist terms. It is not evidence that your dog is subjectively aware of what it is doing. — Dfpolis

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-82309-x
https://phys.org/news/2021-02-dogs-body-awareness-consequences-actions.html

My account of consciousness has no theological premises. — Dfpolis

You said:

The question is how do we know that there is an apple on the counter, because if we understand that, we can understand how we might know that there is a God. — Dfpolis

Yes, and we call those aspect "the Laws of Nature." — Dfpolis

We do. The question is whether the laws of nature are descriptive or prescriptive. "Approximate descriptions" do not tell us how things must be, only approximately how they are. This is quite different from your claim that:

In the same way, the laws of nature, which are intentional realities, act on prior states produce final states. — Dfpolis

and:

God has a creative intent. It is manifest in the laws of nature which guide the transformation of the acorn's potential into an oak. — Dfpolis

I said the work on "self"-organization apples the laws, not nature. — Dfpolis

Again, this means one thing if the laws of nature are prescriptive and another if they are descriptive.

A clear definition of self-organization:

Self-organization is a process in which pattern at the global level of a system emerges solely from numerous interactions among the lower-level components of the system. Moreover, the rules specifying interactions among the system’s components are executed using only local information, without reference to the global pattern. In short, the pattern is an emergent property of the system, rather than a property imposed on the system by an external ordering influence.

How does my dog know that there is an apple on the counter?
— Fooloso4
It doesn't. It behaves in response to it. — Dfpolis

If the dog attempts to reach the apple and attempts to reach it where it is and not elsewhere then its behavior indicates that she knows it is there.

There is no need for you to participate in philosophical discussion. — Dfpolis

A dismissive and condescending comment. The dog knows where the apple is because she can see it and smell it. It is as simple as that. Theological mystification is the kind of thing philosophy attempts to clear up.

No. I dismiss it because I am a physicist, and descriptions that do not describe reality are fictions. — Dfpolis

Descriptive laws of nature are descriptions. Those who think that the laws of nature are prescriptive do not deny the truth of the uniformities or regularities of the descriptions of the Regulatory Theory. You say as much:

we need to accept that the Laws of Physics are approximate descriptions of aspects of nature — Dfpolis

The work being done on "self"-organization does not falsify the existence of actual laws of nature. — Dfpolis

Non sequitur.

it applies them. — Dfpolis

Nature does not "apply" its laws.

We agree, but when you start with a Cartesian conceptual space, answering (1) and (2) seems impossible. — Dfpolis

It seems as though you want to hang on Cartesian categories in order to refute them.

Material works pretty well.
— Fooloso4
No it does not, because "matter" does not mean potential, not actual, which hyle does. When we hear "matter" we think actual stuff. — Dfpolis

Material does not work because "matter" ... ?

The question is how do we know that there is an apple on the counter, because if we understand that, we can understand how we might know that there is a God. — Dfpolis

How does my dog know that there is an apple on the counter? She sees it. She smells it. She attempts to grab it and eat it. The question does not arise for my dog and does not ordinarily arise for human beings either who are not confused by philosophical conundrums.

Little Women is a story. Showing that electric charge is quantized requires reason applied to experience. They are not the same. — Dfpolis

Yes, there are different kinds of stories, including different stories about the laws of nature. @wonderer1 notes two different stories of the laws of nature. You and I discussed this in a previous thread. You dismiss the idea that the laws of nature are descriptive rather than prescriptive because it is problematic for the larger story of God you want to tell.

@Luke:

PI 6. a picture of the object comes before the child’s mind when it hears the word.

PI 37. hearing a name calls before our mind the picture of what is named

PI 73. I get an idea of the shape of a leaf, a picture of it in my mind

Putting aside that matter does not organize itself (the laws of nature do), — Dfpolis

That is your supposition not a fact. It ignores the work being done on self-organization. It is understandable that you want to put it aside.

this does nothing to explain human intentional acts, such as awareness of contents. — Dfpolis

Human beings have the capacity to act intentionally. Just as we have the capacity to see and speak and think. And desire and want and move toward those things to obtain them.

When that is considered, it is still done so using Cartesian categories. That is where dualism comes in. — Dfpolis

It may be that when you consider it you do so using Cartesian categories, but the capacity to act intentionally does not entail dualism.

It is a technical term with no good English equivalent. — Dfpolis

Material works pretty well.

We experience everything through its action on us.When we see a red apple it is because it has acted to scatter red light into our eyes, and sufficient light triggers a neuron and so on until the action has changed our brain state. — Dfpolis

Whatever your theory is of how we experience apples, there is little or no disagreement that there is an apple on the counter. We can see it. We can pick it up. We can eat it.

The same thing (hypothetically) happens if God acts to keep us in existence — Dfpolis

Unlike the apple your theological claims, as you said: are

... based on reason applied to experience. — Dfpolis

A story about God is not sufficient evidence of God.

That is the framework for Aristotle's and Aquinas's arguments. — Dfpolis

Some scholars, both ancient and modern understand the importance of how to read Aristotle. The contemporary scholar David Bolotin quotes Alfarabi.

Whoever inquires into Aristotle’s sciences, peruses his books, and takes pains with them will not miss the many modes of concealment, blinding and complicating in his approach, despite his apparent intention to explain and clarify.
(Alfarabi, Harmonization (unpublished translation by Miriam Galston,
quoted by Bolotin in Approach to Aristotle’s Physics, 6)

Reprinted in the appendix to Arthur M. Melzer's "Philosophy Between the Lines"https://press.uchicago.edu/sites/melzer/melzer_appendix.pdf

Thinking of matter in a different in terms of self-organization and systems (rather than extension) neither rejects nor replaces the dualist conceptual space. — Dfpolis

The development of self-organizing matter gives rise to the development of organisms. No dualism.

No one said it was. Aristotle took an existing word, hyle, an gave it a new meaning, namely that "out of which" something comes to be. — Dfpolis

This is still misleading. What you said was:

(hyle = timber, poorly as translated "matter") — Dfpolis

That out of which an acorn comes to be is not timber. Timber comes to be out of a tree. An oak comes to be out of an acorn. Translating hyle as 'timber' is at least if not more problematic than matter.

It is based on reason applied to experience. — Dfpolis

It is at best a likely story. Plato's Timaeus has a great deal to say about likely stories (ton eikota mython). They are stories about things we do not know. A likely story is without sufficient evidence to determine whether it is true:

So then, Socrates, if, in saying many things on many topics concerning gods and the birth of the all, we prove to be incapable of rendering speeches that are always and in all respects in agreement with themselves and drawn with precision, don’t be surprised.

(Timaeus 29c)

Aristotle says:

We consider first, then, that the wise man knows all things, so far as it is possible, without having knowledge of every one of them individually …

(982a)

How far is it possible to know all things? Aristotle says that:

... it is through experience that men acquire science and art ...

(981a)

Without the possibility of knowledge of beginnings and ends the wise man’s knowledge falls short of knowledge of all things. Our knowledge and experience is limited. We are somewhere between the beginning and the end. We have not experience of the arche or source or beginning, only conjecture, only likely stories.

So, you are an ontological and epistemological dualist.
— Fooloso4

You have provided no arguments to support this strange claim. — Dfpolis

What you said is:

Every creature has a prior creative intention in the mind of God. But, that is a metaphysical, not a physical, explanation. — Dfpolis

This is a dualism of God and world.

Most contemporary philosophers of mind employ a Cartesian conceptual space in which reality is (at least potentially) divided into res extensa and res cogitans. — Dfpolis

Contemporary philosophers of science, or at least the ones I think are worth reading, are much more likely to talk about self-organizing matter and systems than extended stuff.

... Its potential (hyle = timber, poorly as translated "matter") is to be an oak tree. — Dfpolis

The material of an acorn or an oak is not timber or wood. If it were our buildings would have some very odd features.

If timber or wood is the hyle of the oak and acorn what is the hyle of the timber or wood?

Every creature has a prior creative intention in the mind of God. — Dfpolis

A great deal hinges on this for you, but it is an assertion without sufficient evidence.

But, that is a metaphysical, not a physical, explanation — Dfpolis

So, you are an ontological and epistemological dualist.

Thanks for clarifying. — Luke

I have said this more than once.

Is this also how he is using “picture” at PI 389? — Luke

The interlocutor uses it as a physical picture.

If not, how can you tell? — Luke

Because he contrasts the mental picture to the picture.

And how can you tell he means a mental picture or description at PPF 10? — Luke

We still have an interpretive disagreement here. This is how I read it:

Wittgenstein poses the question: What is the content of the experience of imagining? And answer it:
The answer is a picture, or a description.

He is not asking about how that picture can be represented or communicated.

So it is possible for the content of the physical picture/description to match the content of the mental picture/description? — Luke

it’s a question of whether the content of your physical picture/description matches your mental picture/description. — Luke

How can I tell? I can't compare them unless two conditions are met: 1) I could call up the mental picture and 2) that it will remain unchanged each time I call it to mind. I do not think those conditions can be met.

I do, however, think the physical picture/description can to a greater of lesser degree, in one way or another resemble the mental picture/description.

But we're not talking analogue here.

This:

it informs others, as pictures or words do — Luke

and this:

has a double function: it informs others, as pictures or words do — PI 280

are not the same. He does not reject the former but does reject the latter. It informs those who build the set.

You are claiming that his private impression of the picture does tell him what he imagined in a sense in which the picture can’t do this for others, because you claim that there is a private mental picture that he can compare his painting to in order to see whether their content matches. — Luke

I claim neither of those things. I have said many times that the mental image may not be stable or unchanging. When he paints it he is satisfied enough not to do it again. Suppose the painting goes missing. Eventually they start building the set based on what they remember. He sees what they have been doing and tells them that it does not match his mental image. He paints another picture. The first picture is then found. Do the two paintings match?

My point here is that it’s incorrect to call the mental image a “picture”, because a mental image does not inform others “as pictures or words do” (PI 280). — Luke

You take one use of the term and demand that it be the only one. Look at what people say.

He wants to know whether the premises for a logically valid deduction can also be rationally justified in a way that would compel agreement. — J

Having recently read Aristotle's Rhetoric I have been persuaded of the importance of rhetoric in service of the truth.

You said you did not want to pursue the use of rhetoric and emotion but unless you want to draw the limits of reason and its inability to lead us to agreement some attention should be given to rhetoric.

Do you believe that this picture or description (at PPF 10) is relatively unstable and subject to the same change as your imagination? — Luke

The picture or description is what is imagined.

Do you think he is referring to "the picture or description that occurs in the mind" or to your drawn (physical) picture or description of that content? — Luke

The former, but to answer the question I could draw a picture or describe that content.

If you were to draw a picture of that content or describe that content, like you say in the quote above, then is the content of the physical picture/description the same as the content of the imagined picture/description at the time that you draw/describe it? — Luke

Suppose I draw a picture of or describe a picture I saw at an art show. Is that picture or description of what I saw the same as what I saw, that is, the picture? My picture might embellish or omit certain things. It is still a picture of this, that is, the picture I saw at an art show, but the pictures will not be the same.

I see no reason to think that Wittgenstein is using two different meanings of "picture" here, where one is used for an internal "picture" that may contain different information from the external picture. This is just what PI 280 rejects. — Luke

What PI 280 rejects is that:

His private impression of the picture tells him what he imagined ...

If I paint a picture of the stage set I imagine, that painting does not tell me what I imagined. It is not as if I was unaware of what I imagined until I painted it. As you go on to say:

It is not the point of PI 280 that you don't need the picture to tell you what you imagined. — Luke

I don't need the picture to tell me what I pictured in my mind. Although the painting might be a way of working out the details.

The point is that there is no information missing between the physical picture and what you imagined. — Luke

In addition to the possibility that the painting includes details missing from what was imagined, there may be, on the other hand, a great deal missing from the painting of the stage set. As I imagined it there may be actors on the set and action taking place but I did not include them because they are not part of the set, but they are part of what I imagined when I imagined the set.

However, this is the opposite of your reading with its relatively static external pictures and relatively changing internal pictures. — Luke

It is not. If we are to build the stage set we consult the painting not my mental image.

Added: I think it is time to move on. There are different uses of the term 'picture', but you seem to want to restrict that usage.

I agree. There is a reason The Allegory of the Cave comes early in the study of philosophy. — Arne

Some interpret it to mean that we can transcend the cave, but others that we remain in it. Some despise Plato because no matter how deep they go they find only questions and not answers, others love him for the same reason.

Isn't this object the same regardless of whether and how you and I perceive it? — Alkis Piskas

A vase remains the same.

Is that the end of the story? — J

No. It is the condition under which the story unfolds.

Are we left with the dreaded "incommensurability" of viewpoints? — J

No, we are left with an acknowledgement of the irreconcilability of viewpoints. The question then is, how best to live together given that there are differences that cannot be reconciled.

Presumably, the Socratic tradition would be seen as a chimera, something that promises Truth and doesn't deliver, because capital-T Truth just isn't on offer. — J

I don't want to derail the topic but the Socratic tradition does not promise Truth. It is based on the recognition that we do not know. The description of dialectic in the Republic seems to be making that promise, but, as I have argued elsewhere on the forum, we cannot use hypotheses to free ourselves from hypotheses. If we could Socrates would possess the knowledge he denies having.

...you didn't explain --or I couldn't see-- why you doubted about Luke's statement that "the content of the picture/description is the same regardless of whether it is a public object or whether it is privately imagined — Alkis Piskas

If, as you say:

That image has certainly changed, not over time in general, but --strictly speaking-- from one second to another. — Alkis Piskas

how can that image be the same a physical picture which remains relatively unchanged?

The gap, then, lies between the possibility of reasonable assent provided by logical and dialectical standards, and actual rational motivation. — J

As I understand it, there is a gap between competing rational arguments, neither of which can resolve the issue, and what motivates an individual to chose one over the other. In other words, what is it that persuades someone to chose as they do.

The problem is framed in terms of:

actual rational motivation.

Since both sides present rational arguments, I question the framing of the problem in terms of rational motivation. The participants each come to the argument with their own education, experiences, prejudices, interests, temperament, and so on. These inform and shape their rational thinking.

In other words, is it possible that the often frustrating morass of competing “reasonable” claims might be a revealing wake-up call about rationality itself, and its role in philosophy? — J

What assumptions about rationality are we to awaken from? Mathematics is the model of rationality for Modern philosophy, but this is not how rationality is regarded in the Socratic tradition. What do those today within the Socratic tradition have to wake-up from, if anything?

I am reminded of the following:

When you are philosophizing you have to descend into primeval chaos and feel at home there. — Wittgenstein, Culture and Value

I agree that in general if wish to be understood we we should strive for transparency, but things are not always as clear as we might want them to be. Where there is a lack clarity we should be
transparent about that too.

(our desire to make “everything” clear beforehand drives us to an abstracted answer — Antony Nickles

Good point.

This appears inconsistent with what you quoted and said earlier — Luke

I don't see any inconsistency.

If you are saying that the mental image or imagined picture might change, then in what sense is it a "picture"? — Luke

This shows how a picture hanging on the wall differs from a mental picture.

We could think of it instead as a series of different (inner) pictures. — Luke

How do you reconcile this with PI 389?

Instead of thinking of it in terms of a single picture that changes between t1 and t2, we could think of it as two different pictures; one at t1 and another at t2. — Luke

They are at t1 and t2 my inner picture of X. My inner picture of X has changed. It should be noted
that I may not even be aware that it has changed.

These are examples of the use of the word "imagine", not examples of the use of the word "picture". — Luke

PPI 10. What is the content of the experience of imagining? The answer is a picture, or a description.

What he rejects is that:

His private impression of the picture tells him what he imagined
— Fooloso4

Isn't this precisely what you are claiming when you say that your private picture can change? — Luke

No. Why would I need a private impression of the picture I imagined to tell me what I imagined?

W's rejection here is consistent with the assertion that the content of a public picture and the content of a private picture are, or can be, the same. — Luke

They might be but they need not be the same.

But you reject this assertion because you "imagine something can change"? — Luke

No. I reject it because things are not always as we imagine them to be.

You mean, project images from my mind on a screen? You don't know how many times I've thought how amazing that would be! — Alkis Piskas

Be careful what you wish for!

But this doesn't change anything. Everyone has different mental pictures of a same object in the environment. — Alkis Piskas

In response to your comment:

you are talking about a different thing: the difference between an object that exists in the physical universe and that object as you yourself peceived it — Alkis Piskas

I gave an example where an object that exists the environment need not play a role.

It does not matter whether the mental picture is of some object that exists in the world or not. — Fooloso4

The image I have in my mind since I was a child need not be a mental picture of some object. It could be my own creation that no one else has a mental picture of.

I can't see why you call it "public"? — Alkis Piskas

In order to distinguish a mental picture, which is not public or accessible to anyone else, and a picture we can all see.

the images that we see in our mind are changing on constant basis. — Alkis Piskas

Then aren't you agreeing with me and rejecting the claim that?

Do you agree that the content of the picture/description is the same regardless of whether it is a public object or whether it is privately imagined?
— Luke — Alkis Piskas

If the content of the images in our mind are changing on a constant basis how could that content be the same as that of a public object that is not constantly changing?

It seemed wrong that what is first and primary should be some proposition or rule. What is first is being and beings not something someone, even someone regarded as wise, says about being.

Something has always bothered me ever since I first read Metaphysics. The term translated as principle.

In his recent translation of Metaphysics, Joe Sachs says the Greek term arche, is

A ruling beginning ...

and that it most often refers to a being rather than a proposition or rule.

He translates it as 'source'.

In more contemporary terms Aristotle's inquiry into the arche or source of things is ontological rather than epistemological.

Suppose neuroscientists were able to give you access to my mental picture and render a public physical picture so that everyone can see what the content of my mental picture is. It does not matter whether the mental picture is of some object that exists in the world or not. My mental picture X rendered public at T1 may differ from my mental picture X rendered public at T2. My mental image is not immutable. There are lots of things that can influence and change it. The physical image, however, does not change.

I might say that ever since I was a child I have had this image in my mind. If you asked me whether that image has changed over time I cannot give a definitive answer. I have no way of comparing that image as it was then to how it is now.

Do you agree that the content of the picture/description is the same regardless of whether it is a public object or whether it is privately imagined? — Luke

Not necessarily. As I imagine something can change.

Could you please explain the two different uses of the term 'picture'? — Luke

One is physical and can be made public, the other cannot. One remains relatively stable and unchanging the other may not. We can use one an item of comparison, the other only by the one whose mental image it is.

And I don't see Wittgenstein using the word as a verb here, either, such as "picture this...". — Luke

The first few examples of many:

2. Let us imagine a language
4. Imagine a script in which letters were used for sounds,
6. We could imagine that the language of §2 was the whole language of A and B

As I noted earlier, this begets a picture of a picture or a description of a description. This is the view that W appears to reject at PI 280. — Luke

What he rejects is that:

His private impression of the picture tells him what he imagined

it is not:

... in addition a representation (or piece of information?)

I believe that Wittgenstein makes a case for sentence 2 of PI 389 - "For however similar I make the picture to what it is supposed to represent, it may still be the picture of something else" - in sections PI 139-141. — Luke

I don't see where Wittgenstein makes the case for 2.

Paine. Thanks for quoting this:

663. If I say "I meant him" very likely a picture comes to my mind — Philosophical Investigations

What says you @Luke?

The complexity of 'philosophical' questions, that perhaps could be "shooed out of the bottle" is not the same as recognizing the complexity of the 'ordinary.' — Paine

An important point! Despite what Wittgenstein says about the ordinary it is often an overlooked aspect of his philosophy. All the focus remains on the same few linguistic tangles.

On my view, as stated in my previous post, what Wittgenstein means by this "content" is a public picture or public description of what is privately imagined. — Luke

PPF 10. What is the content of the experience of imagining? The answer is a picture, or a description.

The content of the experience of imagining is what is imagined. The experience itself is a picture or description that occurs in the mind. In order to answer the question of what that is I can draw a picture or describe the content.

The implication is that the inner picture is the outer picture. — Luke

PPF 133 should be read together with:

PPF

132. And above all do not say “Surely, my visual impression isn’t the drawing; it is this —– which I can’t show to anyone.” Of course it is not the drawing; but neither is it something of the same category, which I carry within myself.

The mental image is not a picture hanging on the wall of my mind. The two uses of the term 'picture' belong to different categories.

I take PI 280 to be denying that the picture has a double function. The picture he paints to show how he imagines the stage set does not also inform him. It does not tell him what he imagined.

... how I read sentence 3, is that the content of the mental image can only be this (i.e. whatever one imagines at a particular time) and nothing else. — Luke

Rather than repeat myself, and you repeating yourself, I am going to leave this as unresolved between us.

Your line of approach reminds me of the Meno: — Leontiskos

There are several things at issue here. The opinions we hold about the wise man (982a) refers, on the one hand, to those who desire to be wise and on the other, more generally to common opinion. Those who seek wisdom should know the opinions of the many about the wise man in order to avoid the fate of Socrates.

At the end of this paragraph he says:

... the wise man should give orders, not receive them; nor should he obey others, but the less wise should obey him.

((982a)

There is a political dimension that the philosopher must deal with. This for his own sake, for the sake of philosophy, and for the sake of the polis.

Another aspect of the problem can be stated as follows: what is our opinion about the extent to which Aristotle or anyone else is wise and can teach us to be wise.

In this extremely compact section Aristotle also says:

We consider first, then, that the wise man knows all things, so far as it is possible, without having knowledge of every one of them individually … (982a)

What does “so far as it is possible” mean? What are the limits of human knowledge?

[Added: More to follow]

I just explained to you why he doesn't do that. You seem to wish he had. — Leontiskos

I wish to inquire what he may be up to. I take it that if he doesn't he has good reason why he doesn't. I don't think that not wanting to artificially stipulate a definition of wisdom gets at what is at issue. In my opinion the reader must play an active role. The reader does so by asking questions and looking to see how the text might address these questions.

If he is inquiring into wisdom does that mean he does not know what it is to be wise? If he is not wise can he determine whether others are? If others are not wise what it the value in discussing the opinions we hold about the wise man?

If Aristotle is wise then why doesn't he impart his wisdom to others? He does say that:

In general the sign of knowledge or ignorance is the ability to teach

(981b)

What role might examining the opinions of others play in teaching others? Does he teach them to be wise?

Perhaps he does have something to teach us about being wise. Perhaps what that is is not simply a matter of what is generally assumed, that is, that what is called Wisdom is concerned with the primary causes and principles … (981b)

Why the detour into our opinions of the wise man?
— Fooloso4

Because he is inquiring into wisdom, and rather than artificially stipulate a definition of wisdom, he looks at what we already mean by it, and who we call 'wise'. In the subsequent section he assesses these widespread opinions about the wise man. — Leontiskos

If Aristotle is wise then why artificially stipulate a definition of wisdom?

If knowledge differs from opinion then why not start by telling us what the wise man knows rather than with our opinions of the wise man?

I should have noted earlier that '10' is from part 2 of PI, or in the 4th edition "Philosophy of Psychology
A Fragment".

What is the content of the experience of imagining? The answer is a picture, or a description. — Fooloso4

How else could the question be answered? More below.

Note that he distinguishes between a mental image and its description at PI 367. — Luke

Right, a description and what it describes are not the same.

Otherwise, why would he include "or a description" at PI 10? — Luke

The question is whether a description can be the content of the experience of imagining. Imagining how someone might come to regard a mental image as a superlikeness is to give a description of the steps taken. Isn't that what we are doing when we are figuring out how to respond to each other, imagining how this or that description might be persuasive? Imagining how this or that description might get the other person to see it differently?

If I say: "This is just as I pictured it would be" I am saying that my mental image is consistent with the thing pictured in that image.

You claimed that the person on the telephone and the summer house were both unlike your mental images of them. — Luke

Yes.

One wonders how you and your siblings were able to show your mental images to each other in order to compare them. — Luke

We didn't show them we described them. But I can compare my mental picture to the thing pictured.

I don't agree that he is using "picture" as a verb at PI 10. — Luke

In response to the question of the mental content I might say: "I had a picture in my mind of a man on a horse". This description can be put in the form of a public or physical picture, but a mental picture and a physical picture of that mental picture are two different things.

perhaps another way of saying this could be that it is an image of this. — Luke

The same question: an image of what? What is "this"?

Similarly, if someone were to ask what the Mona Lisa is a picture of, one could respond by pointing at it and saying "it's a picture of this". — Luke

What are you pointing to? The painting? Surely it is not a picture of the painting.

The painting is named Mona Lisa. It is believed to be a picture of Madam Lisa Giocondo. If you are pointing to the woman with that famous enigmatic smile then yes it is a picture of her. But given the smile it might be there is more to the story of what it is a picture of.

For one thing, it follows that a mental image is not a picture. — Luke

At PI 10 he says:

What is the content of the experience of imagining? The answer is a picture, or a description.

He is trying to steer us away from "an inner ostensive explanation" (PI 380). — Luke

Right, we cannot appeal to a mental image of red. This is discussed at PI 50 and the use of samples and paradigms. At PI 388 he asks:

How do I know from my mental image, what the colour really looks like?

If we cannot appeal to a mental image of a color then, with regard to color, we cannot determine that the mental image of a red object is more like the object than a physical picture of the red object.

Wittgenstein maintains a distinction between mental images and pictures at PI 389. On what grounds do you collapse this distinction? — Luke

The term picture is used in different ways. At PI 389 he is referring to a physical picture, something that others can see. But we can also picture things to ourselves as in PI 10. These pictures are mental images.

It is the interlocutor's claim that the mental image is not representative of anything and that it is simply what it is: the image of this. — Luke

He says that 1) a mental image must be more like its object than any picture. This is because 2) a picture may be of something other than what it is supposed to represent. But 3) a mental image can only be an image of this. "This" does not mean an image of itself, an image of an image. It is an image of the object that he claims a picture may fail to represent.

what is a Jackson Pollock painting the image of ... ; — Luke

I don't know. Perhaps it is not of any thing and does not represent any thing.

... but what does the mental image of a Jackson Pollock painting represent? — Luke

A Jackson Pollock painting.

You can say that the mental image of a horse is of a horse — Luke

The mental image of a horse is not a horse, it is an image of a horse.

... a mental image need not represent anything or be of anything other than what it is: this. — Luke

A mental image need not represent anything or be of anything, but this does not mean it represents itself or is of itself. It presents itself, it does not re-present itself.

I would agree with you that a picture is no different to a mental image. — Luke

I would say that a mental picture is a mental image, but a physical picture is different. My claim that this animal is a horse cannot be settled by appeal to my mental picture of a horse. But a clear physical picture (contrary to 2) can settle the issue. The picture serves as a sample or paradigm.

It is more the ordinary user — RussellA

Does the ordinary user make this claim about aliens and Trump? There is nothing ordinary about that claim.

Right, but earlier you said:

The point of PI 389 is to reject claims 1 -3
— Fooloso4

Now you are saying that claim 2 is not rejected. — Luke

When the interlocutor says at the start of 2: "For ..." the claim is that because a picture may be a picture of something else, the mental image is more like its object than any picture. This is not the same as simply saying a picture may be a picture of something else. Something specific is supposed to follow from the interlocutors claim that need not follow from the observation that a picture may be a picture of something other than what it is supposed to represent.

The point is that one's mental image is not part of the language game; only a description of one's mental image is. — Luke

And what follows from this?

A picture of X is an image of X.
— Fooloso4

I assume you mean mental image — Luke

No, I mean a picture, a painting or photograph.

3. A mental image cannot be of anything else (but itself). — Luke

The interlocutor's claim is not a mental image is a mental image of a mental image. It is an image of the object it is an image of.

The interlocutor would just be repeating himself. — Luke

1 makes no claims about an intrinsic feature of a mental images.

3. A mental image cannot be of anything else (but itself). — Luke

A mental image is not a mental image of a mental image.

I take it you don't wish (sentence 3) to say that it is an intrinsic feature of a mental image that it is the image of object X and of nothing else, because then all mental images would be of object X. — Luke

???

But I don't believe it is an intrinsic feature of a mental image that it must be the image of a particular object. — Luke

Good. Then we are in agreement on that point, but then we are back to your questionable interpretation of 3.

It is right to point out when someone misuses a word, whether a philosopher or an ordinary man, because that is when problems arise. — RussellA

It is not a matter of a misuse of a word but of a misguided demand being made on the concept "know" which leads to a denial that we know the things we know.