There are some problems with negation, consider the proposition
" there is a shape which is both circle and square" , its negation is true ( correspondance to reality shows) but can you say the shape which we are talking about exists in reality.Is its picture possible.It isn't.However the negation is true.I hope l have shown that a proposition can have sense and be true yet have no corresponding picture in reality. — Wittgenstein

2.202 A picture represents a possible situation in logical space.
2.203 A picture contains the possibility of the situation that it represents.
2.21 A picture agrees with reality or fails to agree; it is correct or incorrect, true or false.
2.221 What a picture represents is its sense.
2.222 The agreement or disagreement of its sense with reality constitutes its truth or falsity.
2.223 In order to tell whether a picture is true or false we must compare it with reality.
2.224 It is impossible to tell from the picture alone whether it is true or false.
2.225 There are no pictures that are true a priori.

You are not negating a proposition. It is not a proposition. A shape which is both circle and square does not represent a possible situation in logical space. It is not a picture that can be true or false, hence it is not a picture that can be negated. We do not have to compare it to reality to determine whether it is true of false. We can determine that it is false a priori.

An aside: spin a square from its center and the shape you see is a circle.

Is "cat" a picture of reality- a fact.However wittgenstein claims states of affairs ( facts) are the combination of objects.So would the proposition " the cat is sitting on a table " be a complex proposition? — Wittgenstein

All propositions are complex. They are combinations of names. It does seem odd to say that "cat" is a proposition. But objects are unalterable (2.0271) and cats are not. Cats are complexes and can be divided into parts that can be named. Wittgenstein at that time thought that the division could not go on ad infinitum. There must be a terminus, some indivisible simple objects.

It will be a different fact but the proposition will have a sense.Since you disagree with that reason for cats,table being accidental feature.How do you determine an accidental feature and how do you determine an essential feature ? — Wittgenstein

The proposition will have a sense but not the same sense. "It's raining" has a sense but the sense has nothing to do with cats and dogs, unless it is raining cats and dogs.

I answered the question about accidental and essential features in an earlier post.

What l was trying to say was if L is a contradiction, then in classical logic ,~L would be a tautology. — Wittgenstein

4.464 A tautology’s truth is certain, a proposition’s possible, a contradiction’s impossible.

4.466 What corresponds to a determinate logical combination of signs is a determinate logical
combination of their meanings. It is only to the uncombined signs that absolutely any combination corresponds.
In other words, propositions that are true for every situation cannot be combinations of signs at all, since, if they were, only determinate combinations of objects could correspond to them.
(And what is not a logical combination has
no combination of objects corresponding to it.)
Tautology and contradiction are the limiting cases—indeed the disintegration—of the combination of signs.

I can see them being accidental in the sense that we could easily replace cat and table with dog and chair respectively. — Wittgenstein

But that would not be a picture of the facts. Dogs are not cats and chairs are not tables. It is not the case that a dog is on the chair.

l actually wanted to ask you if we can can call a proposition which negates all of the proposition in the system except itself to be a picture of the reality. — Wittgenstein

Do you mean: all propositions except this one are false? Sure, why not. First, that proposition might be false despite the claim that it is true, and in that case the truth or falsity of other propositions remains unchanged. Second, within a specified domain I see no problem with saying that every proposition in that domain except this one is false - all p's are not-p and all not-p are p.

total negation also leaves nothing to picture reality, — Wittgenstein

No, it simply changes the truth value of the propositions.

I disagree that a contradiction cannot be negated, suppose L is a contradiction then ~L would be a tautology. — Wittgenstein

L and ~L would be a contradiction. L and L would be a tautology.

How will that sit with incompleteness theorem ... — Wittgenstein

I don't know enough about the incompleteness theorem to comment.

... since we have something that Is not provable in a system — Wittgenstein

It is not a matter of proof within a system. An illogical proposition is nonsense.

I agree that we can not think illogically but sometimes illogical proposition can appear even in a rigorous system. — Wittgenstein

Is the problem with logic or with a formal system of logic? Wittgenstein says that logic is transcendental (6.13) - it is the condition for the possibility of the facts of the world and language. I think Wittgenstein regards set theory, along with mathematics, to be an invention, a construct. Any problems that arise within it are inherent in construct not in the logical scaffolding.

Well, I will look up to that, does it mean that naming simple object causes a lose of generality. — Wittgenstein

I am not sure what you mean. On one hand you have simple objects and on the other names of those objects. The configuration of objects form the things of this world, the facts - cats and dogs and tables. The configuration of simple names form the words that name such things as cats and dogs and tables.

Isn’t it clear? The ‘poetry’ was performed. Sometimes accompanied by music (that is about as explicit as it can be) and the ‘chorus’ is also a very blatant element of a performance - there is more in common with modern theatre than not. — I like sushi

The term theater comes from the Greek meaning to see or watch. (A musician on a discussion board I read occasionally used to complain when someone would say that they went to see a musician perform. He said in response that he did not go to see but to hear music. He was an old-timer before a music performance became a spectacle.) While it is possible to act or reenact parts of the Iliad or Odyssey, it was story-telling, even when accompanied by music. Visualization was left to the imagination. There were no sets or costumes or masks. Although performances sometimes took place in a theater, as an oral tradition, it is likely the stories were originally told rather than performed.

There is also no chorus in Homer.

In general though, I agree, the Greek plays, which as an important part of Greek poetry, has much in common with modern theater.

You might find this interesting:

http://www.openculture.com/2016/10/what-homers-odyssey-sounded-like-when-sung-in-the-original-ancient-greek.html

I’d like to hear more of your personal take on this though informed by the text and translations of the text. — I like sushi

It is typical of Aristotle's organizational structure, his way of dividing things in order to analyse and discuss them. I do not know the Poetics well enough to discuss it. I know of Benardete's work on it because of his interest in the relationship between Greek poetry and philosophy. His take on it is that the two are not as opposed as is often assumed today.

I think it is as obvious as it can be that Aristotle is referring to what we call “theatre” rather than any other item of activity. — I like sushi

I am not sure what you are referring to. Homer's epic poems are not "theatre".

I was simply trying to distinguish his use of “poetic” and distance it from the modern conception of “poetry”. — I like sushi

As was I. As the note on poiêsis indicates, however, Aristotle's use of the term is broader and embedded in its common usage at that time. So, one problem he must deal with is to distinguish this kind of "making or doing" from others.

Your interest may be the narrower sense of making poetry but as they point out:

Articulating the full meaning of poiêtikê is the task that Aristotle sets himself in the book

I’m still looking for guidance/opinion (informed) regarding the terms I’ve highlighted - mode, medium and object. These seem to be quite open to different interpretations; the “object” caught my attention especially. — I like sushi

The first quote from Benardete and Davis above, who unlike me, are certainly well informed, says: "the objects 'mimetised' (subject)" that is, the "what" or "on what". The object is the subject of the work. This is not so clear cut. The subject of Aristophanes' "The Clouds" can be said to be Socrates, but can also be philosophy, or, perhaps, the latter by way of the former.

I suspect that I am not really addressing your concerns so will step aside.

Consider this proposition, "The cat is sitting on the table", can you point out the accidental and the essential feature. — Wittgenstein

Cat and table do not name simple objects. The names are accidental. The signs are accidental. We might say: Die Katze sitzt auf dem Tisch.

3.1431. The essential nature of the propositional sign becomes very clear when we imagine it made up of spatial objects (such as tables, chairs, books) instead of written signs.
The mutual spatial position of these things then expresses the sense of the proposition.

Putting a cat on a table would express the sense of the proposition.

I have a made a distinction between two different types of contradiction.If we consider a world(system), where we have 100 possible propositions, how does negating one of them lead to no possible situation.Is still allows us to 99 other possible situations. — Wittgenstein

I am sorry but I do not understand what you are saying. What are the two different types of contradiction? Negation is not a contradiction. A contradiction cannot be negated.

What are the rules of logical syntax ? — Wittgenstein

We cannot have an illogical thought (3.03). Any thought already complies with logical syntax. It is not as if there is a set of rules that we can either comply or not comply with. We either say something that has sense or is nonsense. Logic takes care of itself.

He never names the simple object but since he was influenced by Russell who treats objects as names, we can say that his silence was for allowing different Interpretations.Names are used in propositions but names must refer to something in the world, otherwise they would be meaningless, hence names are the meaning of objects. — Wittgenstein

He never names simple objects simply because he can't. This was at the basis of his criticism of the Tractatus in PI.

From the Benardete and Davis translation:

Mimêsis is differentiated according to "in which" ("in what", heterois mimeisthai), "what" ("on what", hetera), and "how" (heterós), being translated variously as the means employed (matter, medium), the objects 'mimetised' (subject) and the manner in which the mimêsis is effected (mode, method).

What I ask you to take into consideration here is that by "poetry" we can take this to generally mean "literature" at large (art that makes use of language is how I would put it myself.) The kind of things Aristotle talks about are generally more similar to theatrical performances taken on by certain means; through music, dance, and use of props. He is essentially examining how to create a popular and engaging narrative and the structure of these narratives (you can even look at this as a handbook for the literary critic.) — I like sushi

As to the question of the meaning of the term translated as poetry, this is a footnote from the Benardete and Davis translation:

"Poetics" translates poiêtikê; it is the art of poiein, which means first to make or do and secondarily to make poetry. Poiêsis, the product of poiein, frequently takes on the narrower meaning of poetry. Articulating the full meaning of poiêtikê is the task that Aristotle sets himself in the book that comes down to us in the English tradition as On Poetics. Because of the weight of this tradition and the obvious concern of the book with poetry and especially tragedy, we have retained this translation. However it should be kept in mind that poiein is a very common verb in Greek, and that in principle the art dealing with it could have as much to do with making or action as with poetry in the narrower sense. Where an ambiguity of meaning seems possibly intentional, the Greek verb will be placed in brackets after the translation. Virtually every occurrence in the translation of any form of the verb "to make" is a rendering of the Greek poiein, and all appearances of English words cognate with "poet" are translations of words cognate with poiein. It is perhaps significant that the only time poiêtikê is coupled with technê (art or craft) is at the end (1460b14), for it is precisely there that Aristotle distinguishes poiêtikê from any other art. At 1447a19-20 Aristotle indicates that imitation comes to be not only by art but also by habit.

I think our interests here might be quite different.

[quote=
I have to disagree, he does mention what objects are in the tractatus.[/quote]

He does not identify anything as a simple. He never names a simple object. He never analyzes a word to determine what the simples are that it is composed of.

How can we know a pictorial form since it is outside the representational form, are there rules in which object combine to form a proposition ? — Wittgenstein

Objects do not combine to form propositions, words do. Words are a combination of simple names but again Wittgenstein never names them.

3.334 The rules of logical syntax must go without saying, once we know how each individual sign signifies.

Can two proposition be different yet be logically equivalent.Consides this below ~p implies q and ~p implies q" , does that make q and q" logically equivalent, although they maybe different proposition. — Wittgenstein

Does this answer your question?:

3.34 A proposition possesses essential and accidental features.
Accidental are the features which are due to a particular way of producing the propositional
sign. Essential are those which alone enable the proposition to express its sense.

3.341 The essential in a proposition is therefore that which is common to all propositions which
can express the same sense.
And in the same way in general the essential in a symbol is that which all symbols which
can fulfill the same purpose have in common.

Final question, How would you describe the picture of a contradiction, consider a proposition p having a pictorial form.Can we picture or imagine a singular ~p ?
What if we have a system of 100 propositions and we negate all of them, what does that leave for us to picture ? — Wittgenstein

4.462 Tautologies and contradictions are not pictures of reality. They do not represent any possible situations. For the former admit all possible situations, and latter none.

[reply="EricH;296021"

Interesting. I recall some heated arguments between followers of Chomsky and followers of Wittgenstein.

On the last point, the tractatus talks of states of affairs which are essentially all the possible combinations of objects, and the possibility is written in the objects themselves.We get the picture theory from it and in my opinion, the picture theory favours taking objects as tangible things for lack of better word. — Wittgenstein

The substance of the world can only determine a form, and not any material properties. For it is only by means of propositions that material properties are represented - only by the configuration of objects that they are produced. — T 2.0231

That there are simple objects he takes to be evident, a priori. Just what those objects are, however, he never says. It is the configuration of objects that determine material properties, that is to say, tangible properties. The the ability to picture facts is based on the transcendental logical scaffolding that underlies both the facts and our ability to picture them. It is not necessary to know the objects only their configuration.

One that some who are most adamant that they are not in a cage are trapped in is the result of what psychologist call the Dunning-Kruger effect. Tell tales signs include saying things like:

"Socrates was put to death for that kind of nonsense."

And:

"...I'll attempt to lower my game to the level you folk want."

I cannot comment without knowing whether the translation and even the Greek use of the terms is problematic, and, the context.

The chorus is an interesting device - whose voice do they represent? The fact that they speak in unison is important given that both humans and god rarely agree.

From 2019's discussion of Oskari Kuusela:

He sees Wittgenstein as trying to extend logic beyond calculus-based methods, by introducing alternative logical methods such as grammatical rules ... philosophical problems are primarily logical and are solved by logical investigations, while, at the same time, extending logic beyond calculus-based methods and into "ordinary" language-games, grammar etc. — 2019

And:

Wittgenstein takes into account the way we talk in order to show the logic behind it, its grammar, by comparing language with calculi or games according to fixed and exact rules. — 2019

If you read closely PI 81 and 98, you'll see that Wittgenstein believes that there is an order of perfection, which underlies all language use, but we cannot say that this order is a logical order because logic is based in an ideal, and this order is based in a perfection which is other than an ideal. — Metaphysician Undercover

PI 81. ... But if someone says that our languages only approximate to such calculi, he is standing on the very brink of a misunderstanding. For then it may look as if what we were talking about in logic were an ideal language. As if our logic were, so to speak, a logic for a vacuum.

One is on the very brink of a misunderstand if he thinks that what we were talking about in logic were an ideal language. Our logic, that is, the logic of language, is not logic in a vacuum. It does not exist on its own. It is not independent of the language-game and thus not some one, universal, invariant thing.

The perfect order Wittgenstein refers to in §98 cannot be an illogical order.

There is no one universal order that underlies all language.

Any discussion of Aristotle Poetics should keep in mind the "old quarrel between philosophy and poetry (Republic 607).

Plato frames the issue:

"Then, Glaucon," I said, "when you meet praisers of Homer who say that this poet educated Greece, and that in the management and education of human affairs it is worthwhile to take him up for study and for living, by arranging one's whole life according to this poet, you must love and embrace them as being men who are the best they can be, and agree that Homer is the most poetic and first of the tragic poets; but you must know that only so much of poetry as is hymns to gods or celebration of good men should be admitted into a city. And if you admit the sweetened muse in lyrics or epics, pleasure and pain will jointly be kings in your city instead of law and that argument which in each instance is best in the opinion of the community." (607a)

Aristotle, the philosopher, is writing about the work of the poets. What is at stake is the education in the management of human affairs. With the poets pleasure and pain rather than law and argument will rule. That is, opinion will be moved and persuaded by thumos (spiritedness) and sentiment rather than reason.

I find the manner in which “Poetry” is discussed by Aristotle to be aligned with religious practices. — I like sushi

This makes sense since the poet is the source of religious belief and practice. The poet is in this sense similar to the prophet. What is at issue in the old quarrel between philosophy and poetry is the politics of the soul. Aristotle is not simply describing, analyzing, and criticizing the work of the poets, he like Plato, is providing a philosophical poetry, one that restores what they take to be the proper or natural order governed by reason.

Then I suggest you read it again, carefully , without your assumptions about what logic must be.
— Fooloso4

My assumptions of what logic is, are derived from Wittgenstein's descriptions. — Metaphysician Undercover

Okay, then don't read it again. I would suggest that you look more carefully at what Wittgenstein actually says about logic, subliming logic, logic and grammar, and so on, but I suspect you would prefer to stick with your assumptions. So there is nothing left to say.

Some have perhaps made too much of this and others too little:

I think I summed up my position on philosophy when I said: philosophy ought really to be written only as a form of poetry (CV 24).

Wittgenstein — Wittgenstein

Wittgenstein glad you could join us! I thought you were dead. Now you can settle all our disputes.

Yes, perhaps you are lying about your age. You do us a service but yourself a disservice by calling your own veracity into question.

Keep digging Frank!

You are evidently still fighting your own demons (or perhaps you were lying when you said that at one time you were "zealous religious"). Now you are zealous about bearing witness to the good news that you do not do believing. Your struggles are your own, but as with many who have been reformed you have a compulsive need to reform others. When you insist that what others believe is a blind guess then it is no longer just about you and whatever your beliefs may or may not be.

No...at 82 (83 in August)...I am far from a child. — Frank Apisa

Yes Frank. I am aware of your chronological age.

Frank you really are a child! Repeating the same thing over and over again, putting it in ALL CAPS, throwing tantrums and stomping your feet, none of it changes the vacuousness of your claim.

Frank, it is because I actually have an interest in philosophical discussion that I am not going to sink to your level. You have dug yourself into a hole and with every effort to extricate yourself you sink lower and lower. It is not just your failure to understand what the term 'believe' means but your philosophical and emotional immaturity. Happy to do my part to make that evident to anyone here who is not already aware of it.

You are pathetic...and are unsuited for a philosophical discussion. — Frank Apisa

I assume you fail to see the irony! Believing (or guessing) that repeating the same thing and petulantly crying "You are pathetic" is a suitable example of philosophical discussion.

Did you read 2019's post, which is what I was replying to? Logic is an idealized use of language, it is a type of use, the use of language for a particular purpose ... — Metaphysician Undercover

Then I suggest you read it again, carefully , without your assumptions about what logic must be.

I think we already went through this in the other thread and I demonstrated that this is a mistaken view. — Metaphysician Undercover

No, you argued that it is a mistaken view. I don't know if anyone but you found it persuasive.

Your basic misunderstanding in this post is based on your conflating the logic of language with formal logic and reason. If you can get that straightened out then you should be able to see how misguided your post is.

If, as usual, you are convinced you are right, that Wittgenstein is mistaken rather than you being mistaken about what Wittgenstein is saying, then so be it. I am not going to try to convince you otherwise.

The most insidious cage in the one that we do not even suspect we are in.

One might respond by eschewing all arguments for the existence of God. If God is beyond the limits of our understanding then we cannot even know what it would mean for God to exist.

Unfortunately, christine has not been back since the day she posted this, so it is not possible to discuss what is at issue for her.

Instead we find once again Frank Apisa demonstrating his belief in the importance of his informing us that he "does not do believing". He fails to understand either the etiology or function of belief. He is steadfast in his belief that the alternatives are we either know or blindly guess. This is his cage, one he cannot see that he is in. One he blindly guesses he is not in.

Clearly, logic is derived from, or comes from language. — Metaphysician Undercover

Grammar is a logical order. It is not derived from language, it is integral to it. There can be no language that is not a logical language.

...

... nor was there logic when the first language-games started to exist — Metaphysician Undercover

How can there be a language-game that is not logical? How would anyone know what anything means? All language-games are logical. It is not a question of which came first. Even the builder's language is logical.

Furthermore, the structure or order which underlies natural language games, just like the structure and order which underlies the entire universe, cannot be attributed the property of "logical", — Metaphysician Undercover

The structure or order is logical. What would an illogical order be if not disorder?

There are two things that should be kept in the forefront of one's mind: Nietzsche's irony and his esoteric writing style. By esoteric I do not mean some kind of occultism or hermeticism, but the practice of writing on different levels to address different readers. If you are to understand Nietzsche you must learn to read between the lines.

Of all that is written, I love only what a person hath written with his blood. Write with blood, and thou wilt find that blood is spirit. It is no easy task to understand unfamiliar blood; I hate the reading idlers. He who knoweth the reader, doeth nothing more for the reader. Another century of readers—and spirit itself will stink. Every one being allowed to learn to read, ruineth in the long run not only writing but also thinking. Once spirit was God, then it became man, and now it even becometh populace. He that writeth in blood and proverbs doth not want to be read, but learnt by heart. (Thus Spoke Zarathustra, "Reading and Writing")[emphasis added

Since you asked about Beyond Good and Evil let me give you are example. From the Preface:

SUPPOSING that Truth is a woman - what then?

When Nietzsche talks about women we should not assume he is talking always talking about women, that is, the female of the human species. When he goes on to say:

all philosophers, in so far as they have been dogmatists, have failed to understand women -

he is talking about truth:

that the terrible seriousness and clumsy importunity with which they have usually paid their addresses to Truth, have been unskilled and unseemly methods for winning a woman? Certainly she has never allowed herself to be won ...

We must pay attention to Nietzsche's women, they include in addition to truth, wisdom, and life. We must also pay attention to what he says about women and how the are to be treated.

... giving another theory. I don't like only viewing these problems with one strategum. — schopenhauer1

Okay. It is sometimes difficult to tell whether someone thinks that what is being said is roughly the same thing in two different ways.

Witty doesn't have to be contrary to any other theories, but they can accord but apply to different areas or levels of investigation of the large phenomenon of language. — schopenhauer1

Maybe. One issue I have with this is that it compounds interpretative problems. instead of dealing with the interpretation of one thinker we are now dealing with the interpretation of two or more.

As I understand it, Wittgenstein is not claiming that there is a universal grammar, but that any grammar must make sense.

498. When I say that the orders “Bring me sugar!” and “Bring me milk!” have a sense, but not the combination “Milk me sugar”, this does not mean that the utterance of this combination of words has no effect. And if its effect is that the other person stares at me and gapes, I don’t on that account call it an order to stare at me and gape, even if that was precisely the effect that I wanted to produce.

499. To say “This combination of words has no sense” excludes it from the sphere of language, and thereby bounds the domain of language. But when one draws a boundary, it may be for various kinds of reason. If I surround an area with a fence or a line or otherwise, the purpose may be to prevent someone from getting in or out; but it may also be part of a game and the players are supposed, say, to jump over the boundary; or it may show where the property of one person ends and that of another begins; and so on. So if I draw a boundary-line, that is not yet to say what I am drawing it for.

500. When a sentence is called senseless, it is not, as it were, its sense that is senseless. Rather, a combination of words is being excluded from the language, withdrawn from circulation.

One might imagine a language game in which "Milk me sugar" makes sense, but the grammar of the invented game would have to make clear what this means, how the phrase is being used in that game, what one is supposed to do with it.

How do we reconcile logical necessity with his remark that the rules of grammar are arbitrary?

PI 497. The rules of grammar may be called “arbitrary”, if that is to mean that the purpose of grammar is nothing but that of language.

Language has no single purpose, but it could not serve many of its purposes if it did not have a logical structure, that is, if what is said does not make sense. There is something arbitrary about language and something non-arbitrary about the grammar or logic of language. This does not mean that there is a fixed logical structure underlying language, but that all language-games have a structure. This is not an empirical claim but a logical one.

I guess we cannot. — Frank Apisa

No Frank, it is not that we cannot but that we do not artificially designate certain words as "bad" and others as "good. We do not each get to decide what words means, just as we do not each get to decide how one should behave in public. That is not to say that one cannot decide to be boorish or have difficultly not being so or clueless as to their own boorishness, but neither what we say nor what we do is limited to private or solitary activity.

You have a misguided concept of how language actually works. It is intimately tied to norms, practices, and customs.

We should not be artificially designating certain words as "bad" and others as "good." — Frank Apisa

We do not artificially or arbitrarily designating certain words as "bad" and others as "good" any more than we artificially designating certain actions or behaviors as "bad" and others as "good." You may believe that painting a swastika on a synagogue is not bad. After all the symbol was used prior to the Nazis and did not carry that connotation. The fact is though, that now it does.

Words, like other symbols, carry connotations. Their meaning is not neutral until someone arbitrarily designates them good or bad. Words, like customs and norms have a history and change over time. It is not a matter of it being arbitrary as opposed to necessary, but a matter of convention.

I take my shoes off when I enter the home of people who take their shoes off in the house. It's a sign of respect. If I enter a church and I am wearing a hat I will take it off, but if I enter a synagogue and I am not I will put one on. Such practices may seem arbitrary but out of respect that does not prevent me from conforming. In the same way, if I am talking to someone who finds certain words objectionable, out of respect I will not use those words in front of them even though I might use the same words under different circumstances. The use of certain words in certain situations is just ill-mannered. But I suspect you have no regard for good manners either since they go hand in hand.

Just as there are people who are tone deaf there are those who are meaning deaf. It can be insidious, especially when one is unaware of it. One may not believe it, or believe he does not believe it, or believe he does not believe ... and there you have it.
— Fooloso4

Ummm...there you have...what? — Frank Apisa

Exactly! A fine demonstrate of meaning deafness.

Just as there are people who are tone deaf there are those who are meaning deaf. It can be insidious, especially when one is unaware of it. One may not believe it, or believe he does not believe it, or believe he does not believe ... and there you have it.

It sounds like it is some emerging that arises from humans interacting in a world of objects. It just happens that way. — schopenhauer1

'It'?

However, my take on it is that there is something that humans can glean (hence speculation) that is going on behind the scenes. — schopenhauer1

It is just this tendency to posit a hidden world behind the world that Wittgenstein rejects. How does one peak behind the curtain? By imagining that there must be something going on and speculating that it must be this or that?

Yes we will always provide the humanistic ways of seeing the world (unless one is to concede to naive realism, which most aren't), but the speculation is hinting at what kind of things we may speculate is happening outside the anthropomorphic. — schopenhauer1

How does speculation avoid being something other than some way we see the world? It seems to be self-deluding - picturing some hidden way things must be and ignoring the fact that the picture one conjures or deduces is a human artifact.

So Harman (the guy in the video) has ideas of objects other than humans interacting with each other. — schopenhauer1

Isn't this the way those who are not "doing philosophy" think of the world? Cats have kittens without ever interacting with humans. The universe seems to have gotten along on its own without interacting with humans for most of its history. The problem is not with recognizing this but with what we make of it, how we comprehend it. This is not an unmediated activity.

He thinks objects have been deflated into the subjective experience of objects, and thus aren't given the attention they deserve as interacting entities that they are. — schopenhauer1

This may be the case for those who hold certain theories of subjective experience, but replacing one theory with another is still to see things according to the picture one paints. Hence, Wittgenstein's rejection of philosophical theory.

In each case we encounter the claim that being cannot be thought apart from a subject, language or power.

What does this mean? How can being be thought without a being that thinks, i.e., a subject? How can being be thought without language?

He seeks to determine whether it is possible to think the absolute or being as it is in-itself apart from mind, and what characteristics the absolute might possess.

The absolute? The absolute is a conceptual construct. Whatever characteristics one might speculate it might possess is something one does within language, within a historically determined world-view.

Clearly Wittgenstein, for example, does not adopt Kant’s account of transcendental categories, pure a priori intuitions, or the transcendental ego when he speaks of language games. Rather, the correlationist gesture consists solely in the claim that we can only think the relation between being and thinking and that therefore our knowledge is restricted to appearances.

This is a misunderstanding of Wittgenstein. Once again: In On Certainty Wittgenstein quotes Goethe: “In the Beginning was the Deed”(402). The relation of other animals to the world is not via thinking and at its most fundamental level it is not for us either.

Meillasoux for example, has the view that everything is in fact radically contingent, because the way something is, can always be something else. — schopenhauer1

This is similar to Wittgenstein's view, although it may be misleading to call it an ontology. It is, rather, the rejection of the claim that there is a necessary order. I do not know what the qualification "radically" means. Wittgenstein makes no ontological claim about "some sort of hype-chaos of radical contingency".

Can the objective world outside of the social/mental sphere be understood outside of the criss-crossing web of a humans in their form of life? — schopenhauer1

If you think it can then how?

Again, why do things seem to "work out" when math is applied to empirical investigations. — schopenhauer1

That is a good question. One might speculate on the existence of a mathematical Platonic realm. One might claim that this realm is real, but this "realism" would be "imaginary realism". (If one wants to understand Plato the careful attention should be paid to the importance of the role of the imagination. The ever present objects of poiesis and the absence of objects of noesis - despite all the talk of Forms. Here we see the fundamental difference between Plato and Platonism.)

Cavell finds Witty attentive to the threat of scepticism, as something that always looms and that sometimes comes to the fore — StreetlightX

Wittgenstein clearly rejects modern or radical skepticism, but his attitude and practice is in line with Socratic zetetic skepticism, that is to say, skepticism as inquiry and an acknowledgement of the limits of human knowledge. In addition, Wittgenstein was consistent in his view of the contingency of existence. There is no logical necessity or metaphysical order that determines that things be as they are.

Skepticism in this sense is not the claim that we cannot know, but that there are limits to what we do know. Our knowledge is not grounded on absolute certainty or indubitability, it is not that we cannot doubt but that we do not doubt. In this sense skepticism is not a threat. It is philosophical practice - philosophical inquiry, philosophical investigations.

"Listen to this (hour long) lecture" is not a satisfactory response. The title of the thread you started is: "Wittgenstein's Relation to Science and Ontology". What does the lecture say about this? What does speculative realism say about this? I am asking you. A lecture or article or book might be cited in support of what you say but if we are going to discuss it then you need to state things in your own words.

You said:

Perhaps it was the necessary qualities of human epistemology that lead to and are connected with understanding the necessary qualities of ontology that shaped it. — schopenhauer1

I do not know if this is speculative realism or not, but it is something that I can work with. Wittgenstein rejects the idea that there are necessary qualities of human epistemology that lead to and are connected with understanding the necessary qualities of ontology. He rejects the claim that epistemology and ontology have necessary qualities. That things are as they are does not mean they must necessarily be as they are or will be.

One thing that Wittgenstein wants to show with his examples of imagined tribes is that what we know is part of our form of life. Different circumstances, different practices, and different concerns yield different concepts, different ways of seeing things. This is not, however, a causal relationship. There can be other ways of looking at something and different ways of seeing things.

I find Wittgenstein's examples of such irregularities interesting because he does not claim that such improbable things are impossible. From On Certainty:

505. It is always by favour of Nature that one knows something.

508. What can I rely on?

509. I really want to say that a language-game is only possible if one trusts something (I did not say "can trust something").

And from Philosophical Investigations:

84. But that is not to say that we are in doubt because it is possible for us to imagine a doubt. I can easily imagine someone always doubting before he opened his front door whether an abyss did not yawn behind it, and making sure about it before he went through the door (and he might on some occasion prove to be right) a but for all that, I do not doubt in such a case.