The proposition does not get hungry or need its diaper changed.

You posited an ultimate ground in the other thread before moving your response to me here. In defense of it you raised science and monism.

Since this area is for quotations rather than discuss I will leave off, but I have discussed Plato's zeteticism elsewhere.

Facts and states of affairs are propositional. Hence the world is propositional It can be put into propositions, despite not having all been put into propositions. — Banno

What can be put into the form of a proposition is not a proposition.

The fact: the baby is crying
The proposition: the baby is crying

The latter is about the former but is not the same as the former. There is an immediacy and urgency in the baby's crying that is hard to ignore, it demands our attention. The proposition may be false, the baby crying is not.

All I'm doing is trying to show that logic is not only part of W's thinking in his early philosophy, but it's also part of his later philosophy as well. ↪Fooloso4 seems to want to deny this, or dimmish it. — Sam26

Of course it is part of his later philosophy. The question is, where does it fit as part of his later philosophy? You say:

there is an underlying logic to language — Sam26

What does it mean for logic to underlie language? This sounds like what he is rejecting when he says:

For it sees the essence of things not as something that already lies open to view, and that becomes surveyable through a process of ordering, but as something that lies beneath the surface.

(PI 92)

Logic does not underlie language. It is not a structure that is already there. The logic of language is built. It develops according to its practice. The idea of a surveyable representation
an 'übersichtlichen Darstellung' is, as he says, of fundamental importance. He is looking at the lay of the land of language, not something underlying it.

His concern with grammar is simply to untangle the philosophical knots.

PI 125.

This entanglement in our rules is what we want to understand: that is, to survey.

What the baby and the dog want can be put into a statement.

Seems propositional to me. — Banno

So can the baby wants to eat the dog.

You can't separate what is said (propositions) from what is done, which is why language-games are connected with our forms of life (activities). — Sam26

What he being said when the baby cries? It it communicating but is it trying to communicate and what is it saying? My dog will knock over her metal water bowl when it is empty. It is loud enough to be heard even if you are not in the room. It has become an effective means of communication but is it a proposition? I agree with those who question the usefulness of the term.

In many cases they can't, but spatial thinking does not always require anything being said.

402. In the beginning was the deed.

— On Certainty

The deed was not a word.

Plato, following Socrates, is a zetetic skeptic. This is redundant since both terms originally mean to inquire. He knows he does not know. He desires to be wise, but is not. And so he inquires.

In the Antichrist Nietzsche says:

What I here mean by philology is, in a general sense, the art of reading with profit—the capacity for absorbing facts without interpreting them falsely, and without losing caution, patience and subtlety in the effort to understand them. Philology as ephexis in interpretation ...

(52)

The term ephexis (Greek ephektikos) means suspension of belief.

He goes on:

Do not let yourself be deceived: great intellects are sceptical. Zarathustra is a sceptic. The strength, the freedom which proceed from intellectual power, from a superabundance of intellectual power, manifest themselves as scepticism.

(54)

I prefer philosophers ... — schopenhauer1

Yes, we all have our preferences.

So, in the PI and beyond, logic is seen in the various uses of the proposition in our forms of life. Logic, then, is still about the proposition, but it's internal to the various uses we give to the proposition. Logic, is intrinsic to how we use propositions in various settings, and it's what gives propositions their sense. — Sam26

This is where we disagree. I think there is a distinction between a propositional logic and a logic "good enough for "a primitive means of communication". When a baby cries I do not think this means of communication is propositional.

I would argue that the logic of our most primitive forms of life lies foremost in the activity, what is done, rather than what is said. Someone could, for example, learn to fish in the same way non-linguistic animals do, by imitation. There were builders before there was a builder's language.

Ah, as expected, he's just railing against his own previous work and basically Russell. — schopenhauer1

Not just his own and Russell's work, but the more common assumption that is found in much of philosophy and religion.

His obvious is not obvious though. — schopenhauer1

As I understand it, what is at issue is the distinction between description and explanation:

Here we come up against a remarkable and characteristic phenomenon in philosophical investigation: the difficulty–I might say–is not that of finding the solution but rather that of recognizing as the solution something that looks as if it were only a preliminary to it. “We have already said everything.–Not anything that follows from this, no, this itself is the solution!”

This is connected, I believe, with our wrongly expecting an explanation, whereas the solution of the difficulty is a description, if we give it the right place in our considerations. If we dwell upon it, and do not try to get beyond it.

The difficulty here is: to stop.

(Zettel 314)

To look for an explanation is to look away from what an apt description calls our attention to. Consider, for example, 'forms of life'.

God grant the philosopher insight into what lies in front of everyone’s eyes.

(CV 63)

One way to approach Wittgenstein's philosophical therapy is to ask what one hopes to bring to light from its hiddenness. More generally, what lies behind the assumption that something is hidden?

Wittgenstein is critical of two attempts to get at something hidden. The first is analysis. That if we break things down to what is most simple and fundamental we will discover an underlying reality. See these quotes cited earlier.

The second is to construct what lies hidden beneath what is obvious. Such conceptual constructs do the opposite of what they intend. They direct us to look elsewhere - arche, ground, Mind, God, Being, the hyperuranion, language ...

The ultimate ground and what is grounded are two different things.

Science tends towards monism. — Art48

Science does not posit an ultimate ground or one supreme reality. The terms 'ultimate' and 'supreme' are question begging.

The two parties today are the Democrats and the Trumpists. With or without Trump they are on their way to becoming the Autocratic Party by some other name, perhaps Republican but perhaps a third party. In that case, there would be significant differences between the parties.

This at least puts the philosopher in better stead to understanding the nature of reality itself … — invicta

Proof that they are living in a simulation is not enough. Unless the philosopher escapes, the "real world" remains a hypothetical world. Only someone who has lived in both worlds can decide which world is preferable. The philosopher may think the truth is always preferable, but the truth may be that depending on the actual differences she may prefer the simulated world.

I am complete skeptic when it comes to Plato.
Nietzsche — Twilight of the Idols

Said by one skeptic about another. It takes a skeptic to know how to read a skeptic.

What do logics basically consist in, if not intelligible regularities? — Janus

It might be more productive to see what he excludes. From On Certainty:

475. I want to regard man here as an animal; as a primitive being to which one grants instinct but not ratiocination. As a creature in a primitive state. Any logic good enough for a primitive means of
communication needs no apology from us.

287. The squirrel does not infer by induction that it is going to need stores next winter as well. And
no more do we need a law of induction to justify our actions or our predictions.

I just finished watching "The Good Place" while on the stationary bike. The Buddhist story of the wave was told.

Fortunately it is only the imagined self that dies. — unenlightened

Or, perhaps it is the imagining self that dies. And with this prospect some look to charm away their fears and anxiety with stories of not dying.

Why posit an ultimate ground? Is not what is sufficient? Is the world too imperfect for it to exist without it depending on something else? Does being ungrounded cause vertigo? A yawning abyss one is too fearful to approach?

...there seems to be a kind of logic built into the world around us and how we interact with that world. — Sam26

Rather than a logic I would say an intelligible regularity. Even in the Tractatus he says:

For all that happens and is the case is accidental.

(T 6.41)

Peirce is not misled by the dualistic idea that thought language is unreal. — plaque flag

And we should not be misled in thinking that the opinion is true or the object is thereby real. What is true and real may remain beyond our grasp. As he says:

Our perversity and that of others may indefinitely postpone the settlement of opinion; it might even conceivably cause an arbitrary proposition to be universally accepted as long as the human race should last.

Wittgenstein's claim that nothing is hidden refers to his rejection of the transcendental logic of the Tractatus. A rejection of the idea that there is a logical structure underlying language and the facts of the world that must be brought to light.

But now it may come to look as if there were something like a final analysis of our linguistic expressions, and so a single completely analysed form of every expression. That is, as if our usual forms of expression were, essentially, still unanalysed; as if there were something hidden in them that had to be brought to light.

(PI 91)

It may also be put like this: we eliminate misunderstandings by making our expressions more exact; but now it may look as if we were aiming at a particular state, a state of complete exactness, and as if this were the real goal of our investigation.

This finds expression in the question of the essence of language, of propositions, of thought. For although we, in our investigations, are trying to understand the nature of language its function, its structure yet this is not what that question has in view. For it sees the essence of things not as something that already lies open to view, and that becomes surveyable through a process of ordering, but as something that lies beneath the surface. Something that lies within, which we perceive when we see right into the thing, and which an analysis is supposed to unearth.

‘The essence is hidden from us’: this is the form our problem now assumes. We ask: “What is language?”, “What is a proposition?” And the answer to these questions is to be given once for all, and independently of any future experience.

(91-92)

Philosophy just puts everything before us, and neither explains nor deduces anything. Since everything lies open to view, there is nothing to explain. For whatever may be hidden is of no interest to us.

The name “philosophy” might also be given to what is possible before all new discoveries and inventions.

(PI 126)

With this last statement about what is possible there is a shift.

The aspects of things that are most important for us are hidden because of their simplicity and familiarity. (One is unable to notice something because it is always before one’s eyes.) The real foundations of their inquiry do not strike people at all. Unless that fact has at some time struck them. And this means: we fail to be struck by what, once seen, is most striking and most powerful.

(PI 129)

What are the "real foundations" of his inquiry? Given the topic of this thread I will say only that the real foundations of his inquiry are not linguistic or discursive or inferential or an "embrace of rationalism".

More generally, when talking about what is the case, it helps to look at the case. My example was me eating cake.

How does this compare to your claim that?:

What is the case rests on rules, criteria, norms, but none of these have existence independent and outside of the actual pragmatic contexts in which we enact the sense of what is the case. — Joshs

What is the case is that I ate the cake. We can make up rules and criteria for what is and is not a cake, we can appeal to norms for what a cake is and what it means to eat, but even if someone does not know what a cake is or what it means to eat, the fact remains: I ate the cake.

What is the case rests on rules, criteria, norms — Joshs

If you are talking about the Tractatus, and the quote is from the Tractatus, that is simply wrong. Quoting what Rouse says of the later Wittgenstein, who had rejected the ontology of the Tractatus, has no bearing on what Wittgenstein meant. But if a "creative misreading" means using a few words out of context and contrary to what was said, then anything and everything can stand as a "creative misreading".

... the creative misreading of two Wittgenstein quotes. — plaque flag

What is the point of a creative misreading blind misunderstanding of Wittgenstein? What are you hiding?

the world is that minimal something that a self can be wrong about. ...What is the case is endlessly revisable. — plaque flag

Someone can be wrong if they claim that I ate the cake. If, however, it is the case that I ate the cake that is not endlessly revisable. I cannot eat my cake and have it too. Claims about what is the case are revisable, although not endlessly so without being pointless. What is the case is not. Something either is the case or it is not. Although there are cases that may be undecidable.

Such norms are appealed to in order to instigate their modification. That's what philosophers do. — plaque flag

Since you are deliberately misrepresenting Wittgenstein, you can ignore what he does, but he does not instigate modification of norms. He points to them and claims that philosophers create confusion for themselves by attempting to modify them.

What is the intention of the philosopher ? To impose a claim, establish as a premise for further use, stack one more brick on the tower. — plaque flag

A bit more from Wittgenstein. For him at least philosophy is the opposite of what you describe:

It came into my head today as I was thinking about my philosophical work and saying to myself: “I destroy, I destroy, I destroy– (CV, page 21)

Where does our investigation get its importance from, since it seems only to destroy everything interesting, that is, all that is great and important? (All the buildings, as it were,leaving behind only bits of stone and rubble.) (Big Typescript #88)

Fundamental to Wittgenstein's philosophy, starting with the Tractatus, is the primacy of seeing over saying.

Working in philosophy–like work in architecture in many respects–is really more a working on oneself. On one’s own interpretation. On one’s way of seeing things. (And what one expects of them.) (CV 16)

But the primacy of seeing is not a peculiarity of Wittgenstein. It is a way of doing philosophy that goes beyond the fixation on language.

And yet that's 'what's right' with it! — 180 Proof

Yes. There is a wrong way and a right way to go wrong.

So were you suggesting that perhaps his thinking is a bit insular and self-referential? — Joshs

What I said is that philosophy has become self-referential.

You left me with a quote but it would require a new thread to even begin to do it justice. — Joshs

So you choose to say nothing? This actually points to the problem. If you cannot even begin to articulate what he means then there is something amiss.

Perhaps this explains why you are unable to recognize that there is a problem.

It will be interesting to see what happens in Bragg's lawsuit against Jim Jordan for interference.

Once again Republicans are doing what they accuse others of, turning a legal matter into politics. They are going to do whatever they can to make it go away.

So, I believe that we have to give philosophy a new opportunity for its "evolution". — Alkis Piskas

I am not among those who have declared the death of philosophy. I think interdisciplinary work in both a path forward and a path back in the sense that disciplinary boundaries are crossed and not regarded as a divide.

I read The Nature of Alexander. I think I read some of her historical fiction but can't recall.

You have moved away from and intentionally created distance from the thread topic.

That we think and have ideas is a truism. That our thinking and ideas develops within history and culture is nothing new, not something discovered by academic philosophers in the last hundred years.

What is at issue is not thinking but a thinking that is insular and self-referential. A thinking that calls itself philosophy.

I don't think of it as butting in.

Is pursuing ideas for their own sake pursuing life for its own sake? I don't think so. If the ideas pursued are about ideas themselves then unless those ideas relate to life they become increasingly removed from the concerns of one's life and the life of others.

The claim that learning how to think is a prerequisite for learning how to live needs to be looked at in context. The context is certain trends contemporary philosophy. Is reading Heidegger a prerequisite of pursing life?

Unless of course the dualism you are presupposing — Joshs

Have your already forgotten what you said? It was only an hour ago. Let me remind you:

Here’s a little secret (don’t let it get around). Learning how to think is a prerequisite for learning how to live. Pursuing ideas for their own sake is pursuing life for its own sake. — Joshs

To complain about the specialization of philosophy is to insist it be a less serious kind of investigation than it is --- the kind that doesn't get anywhere, doesn't get more complex with time. — plaque flag

Specialization and seriousness are not the same. Getting more complex is not in itself getting anywhere.

To me this resentful anti-intellectualism is what takes philosophy to be a mere hobby ... — plaque flag

It is neither resentful nor anti-intellectual. If by hobby you mean something done in one's leisure time, then one is in the good company of Plato and Aristotle.

But trying to impose one's personal lazy limits on professionals is childish. — plaque flag

Creating a target in order to have something to hit is good for one thing, target practice. There are more than a few "professionals" who are critical of professional philosophy for the reasons given in the OP. My hunch is that it is a growing trend.

And speaking of professionalism, what are your credentials?

Here, too, we should then have to abandon any claim to immediate intelligibility.

This has always been the case.

However, we should still have to· listen, because we must think what is inevitable, but preliminary

For Heidegger the philosopher wears the robe of the prophet. The sacred and holy voice of Being.

Here’s a little secret. Don’t let it get around. Learning how to think is a prerequisite for learning how to live. Pursuing ideas for their own sake is pursuing life for its own sake. — Joshs

Here's a little secret. Learning how to think as a prerequisite for learning how to live is nihilism. Pursuing ideas for their own sake is pursuing ideas for their own sake, and often at the expense of living rather than "pursuing life" for its own sake.

There are several approaches, "problems of philosophy" which deals with issues in philosophy, history of philosophy, which is a summary of what the philosophers said, and reading the works of the philosophers. Textbooks sometimes combine them, identifying topics, giving an overview, and giving excerpts.

Different approaches appeal to different people, but wherever you start you can follow your interests. Often having a good teacher is the most important thing. But here again, different people have different opinions about what a good teacher is. If you find a teacher who inspires you to continue that is good enough to start.

Good luck.

Mostly primary texts. No textbooks. After the introduction course we followed a chronological sequence over four years.

Whatever was he doing in Syracuse, then? — Ciceronianus

Here is a good article on what he was doing there.

It is not that he did not succeed in making it useful, he did not succeed in persuading Dionysius I and Dionysius II to become philosophers.

It is because philosophy is not useful that they were not persuaded to practice philosophy, that is, to live a just life. Of what use is it to a king to be just? This is what is at issue in Thrasymachus' challenge to Socrates in the Republic. "How", he asks, "is justice to my advantage".

Although not useful in an instrumentalist sense, Socrates in the Republic attempts to persuade them that it is to one's advantage to be just. The just soul is a healthy soul, one in which there if a proper balance of appetites, spiritedness, and reason. We do not desire bodily health because it is useful, so too, we should not desire the health of the soul because it is useful.

Whether or not one is persuaded to live a just life depends on the person and not the argument.

Even in the quote from the PI there is still a kind of logic built into the actions, it's harder to define, granted, but it's still there. — Sam26

Why do you think there is a logic built into this kind of free play?

When I speak of logic, I'm not referring to formal logic, but the logic that is seen in our actions. — Sam26

That is the problem. I don't see the logic in the example given. You say it is there but harder to define, but on what basis or evidence can it be shown to be there?

Are you claiming that there is a logic to the actions of other animals?

when I leave my house I don't try to walk through walls, — Sam26

If you or some other animal were to try doing this it would not be because you or they are acting illogically but that there is something neurologically wrong.